Regarding money, lawyers, and your BPD parent . . .

[PleaseValidate]

I get the feeling a lot of BPD parents try to manipulate their children via gifts, money and other material objects. Although mine has certainly done this in the past, i learned in middle school to accept as little as possible because i would inevitably end up hearing about it for the next 1-5 years depending on the cost of the need/want.

For Example . . . .

- For at least the first 10 birthdays i had, she would claim any bday money given to me as her own.

- She contributed one-half of one-semester to my college education although she was in a position to contribute more.

- She forged my name on my dad's SSDI checks as soon as i turned 18 and was still in HS (I still think of pressing charges on this sometimes . . . .)

- When i was 21, she took my very sick schizophrenic dad to court for back child support and he is still paying her $300 a month!

- When i started work at age 15, she would often "borrow" money. When i didn't get it back, she would itemize how much food i ate that week.

- I let her "borrow" a few thousand dollars down payment for her house which she did not return. She rationalized this as "you live here too." It was only when i went NC that she sent me a few installments.

- She charged me rent to live w her when i graduated HS and was in college.

- Finally, and the most egregious, she promised me compensation to care for my dying grandmother AND to be put in her estate (whether my Grams wrote this down in her trust OR not.) Not only have i not even received minimum wage compensation for a job i did 1.5 years ago, when i confronted her about her promise (she is the trustee) she told me i "misunderstood" even though i have her on my voicemail stating her promise! (Or "verbal contract" as the lawyers call it.) The worst thing is that the time i spent in this house, RETRAUMATIZED ME so severely that i was having flashbacks, nightmares, and lost over a year of work.

I started adding everything up one day recently and i became too PO'ed to finish. I know stats say it costs like 100K to raise a kid. Yet when i add up all she's ever spent on me, considering that my Grams fed and sheltered us, and that welfare paid for her to get a college degree and gave her money for the first 5 years of my life, I SWEAR I THINK SHE HAS *MADE* MONEY OFF OF RAISING ME!



I've been thinking a lot about that child who recently sued her parents for college tuition. . . . . I always promised her i would take legal actions if she (and her siblings) do not adhere to their contract as i REFUSE to let my Grams house/legacy victimize me one final time. I have NO relationship w these people so its not like i could ruin it by litigation.

My question to the board is twofold. 1. Do any of you feel your BPD parent has "profited off you" in such a way? 2. Have any of you been involved with direct litigation with your family and what was the outcome?



Thank you in advance for sharing!

[Levi78]

My uBPD mom is notorious for theft. As long as I can remember, she has lied and stolen from my grandparents. Throughout my childhood, she used money from my child support to buy gifts for her scumbag boyfriends. (I would go to school in dirty clothes and was generally neglected.) She stole small amounts of money from my brother. Ironically years later, she accused him of stealing her inheritance. (Absolutely crazy!) My mom has stolen from EVERY job she has ever had. (Medical supplies from the nursing homes, cookies from the bakery, office supplies, etc.) She delusionally believes it's not stealing, it's all OWED to her.

My brother and I know mom is mental. We're pissed about the crappy situation we were born into, however it is what it is. Litigation would not be worth our time since neither of us want further interaction with her. (And she's not wealthy, so there is nothing at stake anyway.)

I feel for you. If you honestly believe litigation will somehow compensate for your personal losses, then it might be worth it! Good luck to you.

On a side note, I don't think charging rent to grown children is necessarily a bad thing. In a sane household, I think it helps prepare a young adult for the real world. (Transition periods between housing, colleges or jobs is quite different though.) I hate seeing all these millennial young adults happy to live with mom and dad through their 20s and beyond. Just my opinion of course-- I'm sure your situation was entirely different.

[AsianSon]

My uBPD mother has few boundaries when it comes to material things, including money.  With money, she will claim that things like the car payment are too much (and so the children should help with them), but then she will have money for a cruise. 

With things, she will give something (like a coffee table) to one of us kids whether we want it or not.  One famous instance was the coffee table that was being used by my sister.  Then one day, she comes home and the table is gone, with everything on it placed on the floor.  My mother decided that the table was right for her after all, and so "took it back!"

[DesertChild]

It's typical behavior. My mom does the same sort of thing.

I wanted a camera for my birthday. (Which she didn't select) and then she insisted that everyone had a right to use it without telling me. And then when I refused, she argued that I had to pay for the film development out of my allowance in a petty move when I hadn't had to do it before that point and time.

My brother wanted another degree, and she wouldn't stop talking about the money he owed. 3,000 dollars, which isn't much for her. When he paid it back she tried to hook him again.

Money==love in her eyes.

She tried to hold my money for ransom on the inheritance... . and then said that a trip that we'd been planning for a long time... . she threatened to say that the money we were owed was going towards the trip.

It's not worth it getting reinvolved with people like that. They only come at you to hurt you, if they intend it or not. I don't care. My personal boundary is more important than taking on hurt or saying that money is that important compared to a life without her further emotional grief. Once I think that money is more important than emotional boundaries, I, personally, think that makes me not a lot better than her. And then I'm just asking for it... .

[PleaseValidate]

Thanks guys... . Sometimes I feel like there is something wrong w me because I always want and expect JUSTICE in this sucky world! No matter what the "cost." (Im guessing not many politicians were raised by borderlines!)

There is no was any litigation would be worse than what I endured the past 2 years. I am only writing less than 1/3 of the story for simplicity sake. BPDmo, estranged aunt, and uncle I don't care for also manipulated me into staying in this house ALL KNEW I was formerly traumatized/abused at. THEN, they told my Grams that i stole things from her house (as if I had the time or want.) Their LIES ABOUT ME left my Grams not talking to me for the entire last year of her life and we had NOT ONE other fight in my entire life.

So they basically kept me away from the woman who raised me in the last dying year of her life. I at least got to see her in the hospital before she died, especially since THESE PEOPLE DIDNT EVEN SHOW up until mid day when she was already out of it!

I guess I just gotta put on my big girl hat and do this thing. ... .

(any legal resources would be appreciated!)

[DesertChild]

I can understand wanting a kind of revenge... . I mean after all the damage, the amount of therapists, and having to remember back to a childhood that no one else believes was actually that bad... . the amount of people who simply want to forget-- for me, at least it's kinda wanting proof. But I don't think it's worth the personal anguish and costs. If anything people like this thrive on the attention, playing the victim, and the lawsuit will be proof for them that YOU were the lousy child.

(Or at least it would be for my Mom.)

I rather:

1. Not feed her sick disease for the need to be a constant victim.

2. Give her justification that she was the best mother ever by giving her a chorus of sympathizers.

It's like my therapists and dog trainers say. You reward good behavior and then ignore the bad. Ignoring her will hurt her in the long run a lot more than trying to take money. Because what she really wants (at least in my case) is the attention and everyone telling her how fantastic she was, while she lies.

My mom also spilled lies about me that I had to undo. She hurt my reputation with my relatives calling me lazy, and "doing nothing" and "irresponsible" that they believed. I have to hear people defend her. And it hurts.

But I know in the long run what hurts her more and what hurts me less is no contact with her. It drives her nuts. She wrote on my blog on Mother's Day in the most self righteous voice after I called or no contact. it drives her insane in a lot of ways. She can't call me, I block her from my e-mail addresses and I tell her nothing about my life because I won't let her have the leverage. And that, above the money makes her irrate--in her mind I'm making her look bad, but she can suck it.

If I did chase after her for the money and mental anguish she caused, she gets to have what she really wants from me. Jusitification and that i think of her every single day at every single moment. I'm not giving that to her. I got more important things in my life.

Granted, this took me a while to see--it's easier when you are just getting out of it to only seek anger and revenge, but I think the best revenge you can have on her is to succeed for yourself, no matter what the crap she pulls, no matter what she says and to stay steady with no contact. I promise you, it does get better.

[Finding Courage]

I don't have any great advice, but this thread really reminded me of some of my experiences.  My mom is obsession about money- at all costs she tries to save and hoard money.  As a child this meant depriving me of things I needed, like medical care.  As an adult she demands I pay for things (I do make more than she does, but not excessively more).  She never buys me things or doing anything that normal mothers would do.  When she wanted to come for a visit she was like, "are you going to help me pay for it?"  Um, no.  Not anymore. 

One example:  I went home from college when I was younger for a visit.  I wanted a hair cut from my stylist at home. I needed to temporarily borrow the money for the hair cut, like $20, until I could go to the bank later.  Instead of treating me to a haircut or even being reasonable about the timeframe for repayment- she immediately pestered me and almost constantly demanded the money from me until I had to make a special trip to the bank to take care of it. The kicker is she would have done this for any amount of money, even a dollar! 

I no longer engage about money with her at all.  I don't give her money or pay for things and I never borrow from her now.  But the pain of these past experiences is still fresh.  I feel for you.

[Daliah]

You have no idea how much this topic resonates with me. I started writing a reply, but it became too long and detailed.

The short version: yes, I think my parents have financially profitted off of (having) me. Between child benefits, very generous tax exemptions and refunds for having children (non-US) and well-paying jobs my parents should not have been hard put to provide for my sister and me. However, they spent very little on both of us for most of our childhoods. For my sister, this changed over time as she morphed into an ever closer copy of my mother (i.e. her assimilation loosened the purse strings). But for me, and during our childhood for both of us, the only reason we had anything more than the bare necessities was my grandmother. Our parents even monitored our food intake very closely. My father openly complained that we were costing him too much in food expenses. Please note that this was not someone who was just scraping by. My parents weren't and aren't rich, but they're very well-off, and they already had very good jobs before they had us.

They also exploited my grandmother - the one who was providing anything in excess of bare necessities during our childhood - as... . not so much a babysitter, more as a surrogate parent: half the time it was her raising us - and as a housekeeper, cook and cleaner. I'm quite sure she wasn't paid or otherwise compensated for it. My parents were the type to let the world hear just generous they were if that had been the case.

When my grandmother became too old and sick, those duties fell to me, as did quite a bit of her care later on. Of course I wasn't compensated either - on the contrary, I could never do enough.

Back to the short version: my grandmother died and I cut loose. Sometime after I had broken off contact, I heard from a cousin that they had hired a housekeeper and a secretary.

Even if I were to assume they actually spent money on me during my childhood that came from their core income (if I define 'core income' as the income they would have had without child benefits and tax exemptions and refunds), then all the expenses I saved them during adolescence and young adulthood must have offset all their earlier expenses. But the way things were, I'm not even sure I burnt through child benefits and the money saved through tax exemptions and so on on a regular basis.

Where I am, parents are also legally obligated to pay for or help pay for initial post-secondary training or education (within reason). It's not really much of a hardship because this obligation is strictly means-based, and the minimum a person has to make in order to be thus obligated is relatively high. Otherwise, a part-loan/part-subsidy system kicks in for the now-adult child in post-secondary education. As things were, my parents were over the threshold, i.e. they technically would have had to subsidise me through uni. Of course they did not. I wouldn't be quite as bitter about them not paying for me - I was an adult and not averse to working my way through school - if I hadn't simultaneously been going to their and my grandmother's house every night to cook for them, clean for them and be my grandmother's night-time carer and my parents' emotional trash can, all the while trying to complete a demanding course of study and holding down a job to pay for it and for the broom cabinet in town I rented to have somewhere to escape to.

One short excursion to illustrate how tightly they held on to money and what strings were attached when they spent it: when I was 15 years old, I became interested in journalism. My teachers liked my writing and I had become involved with the school paper. I accompanied my mother to a book store that specialised in books for various professionals. While she was collecting the books she had ordered I was looking around and found a book on the various ways to train for and get into professional journalism. My mother was in an exceptionally generous mood (by her standards) and bought it for me. It cost $20. Because it was so sizable an expense, I had to promise her on our way out the door that I would now indeed train as a journalist when I finished school. Knowing from experience there was no reasoning with her, I only said 'yes' and thought to myself that it was so outrageous and unreasonable a condition that I couldn't be expected to be bound by it. Even my sister, who had established herself as the golden child by then, thought my mother's demand was ridiculous. I had no firm intention not to go into journalism, but I was 15 and knew nothing was set in stone yet and that I was exploring options, of which this was one I was intensely interested in at the time. Until I cut them out in my mid-20s, by mother reproached me with the fact that I had let her buy me such an expensive book without honouring my end of the deal and becoming a journalist. According to her, I had to dedicate my life to a specific profession because of a $20 book she had bought me out of genuine interest on my part when I was 15 years old. Or, in other words, my entire working life has the same value as $20 she once spent on me on a whim... . ?