Surviving the Witch uBPDm

[Our abuse recovery guide]

When I first entered my breakthrough crisis, I bought Christine Lawson's book, "Understanding the Borderline Mother," but could not read it because it was WAY too triggering.  Lately, I've pulled it off my shelf and have found it immensely interesting and helpful (and still immensely triggering). 

Right now I am no contact with my Hermit/Witch uBPDm, and as I've noted in other posts, she is ramping up the Witch because my no contact is totally freaking her out.  I am changing the family script by not engaging, and she is threatening "consequences," etc etc. Previously, I would have been totally hooked in by her attempts to shame me, and bring me back into line.  Lawson's chapter on "Surviving the Witch," is what is saving me right now by keeping me focused on the task at hand.  Namely, my own healing.

I've summarized her key survival strategies, in the hopes that it help other victims of the Witch uBPDm:

• Keep a safe distance.   "The single greatest power adult children posess is their ability to get away." As kids we had no choice but to absorb her rages and cruelty, but as adults we have the power to decide how much contact we want with our mothers. Lawson says that "the Witch's children must allow one another to make their own deicsions regarding the amount of distance needed to feel safe." For some that might mean going totally No Contact.  For others, LC might be acceptable. She recommends not being alone with the Witch, and not sharing confidences with her.  Good point.



• Disengage from conflict as soon as it erupts.  This one is key.  Lawson says that "adult children have one option: not reacting to [the Witch's] attempts at provocation and then leaving." When we reclaim our power in this way, we threaten the Witch, so she will likely retaliate (as my uBPDm is doing) in an attempt to force us back into our role as victim. She "will throw every emotional stone she can find in the attempt to provoke others," however, "she is powerless over adults who use their power to disappear".



• Never try to control her. The Witch has threatened us all our lives with abandonment, rejection, and so on. This is an attempt to dominate and control. We need to respond to her attempts to dominate with firm resistance. Firmness is different from domination, because domination is about trying to get someone to submit (and arises out of fear), whereas "firmness demonstrates strength of character."



• Cleanse the body and soul with love and goodness. It is no surprise that many of us raised by a uBPDm feel "soiled, damaged, dirty and defective." According to Lawson, "the antidote for exposure to malignant denigration is to surround oneself with goodness, light and love."



• Do no harm. This one really resonated with me. The idea is that we not play her game by throwing stones back at her.  We disengage in a way that is loving and maintains our own integrity. "The conviction to do no harm allows one to maintain a sense of basic goodness." We are good people who were damaged by someone who was themselves damaged. Attacking them is not healing, for us or them.

I know I will be reporting back and relying on this board as uBPDm continues to raise the stakes: threatening to disown me, cutting off her grandson, forcing my enDad to cut off contact, etc etc.    So far I am anxious and filled with grief and rage, but otherwise holding firm. Meditating, posting here, T, hugging my DH, more T, these are the things that are keeping me together right now.  Thanks for all your support, and good luck to all of us as we try to escape and heal. 

[One Day at a Time]

When I first entered my breakthrough crisis, I bought Christine Lawson's book, "Understanding the Borderline Mother," but could not read it because it was WAY too triggering.  Lately, I've pulled it off my shelf and have found it immensely interesting and helpful (and still immensely triggering). 

Right now I am no contact with my Hermit/Witch uBPDm, and as I've noted in other posts, she is ramping up the Witch because my no contact is totally freaking her out.  I am changing the family script by not engaging, and she is threatening "consequences," etc etc. Previously, I would have been totally hooked in by her attempts to shame me, and bring me back into line.  Lawson's chapter on "Surviving the Witch," is what is saving me right now by keeping me focused on the task at hand.  Namely, my own healing.

I've summarized her key survival strategies, in the hopes that it help other victims of the Witch uBPDm:

• Keep a safe distance.   "The single greatest power adult children posess is their ability to get away." As kids we had no choice but to absorb her rages and cruelty, but as adults we have the power to decide how much contact we want with our mothers. Lawson says that "the Witch's children must allow one another to make their own deicsions regarding the amount of distance needed to feel safe." For some that might mean going totally No Contact.  For others, LC might be acceptable. She recommends not being alone with the Witch, and not sharing confidences with her.  Good point.



• Disengage from conflict as soon as it erupts.  This one is key.  Lawson says that "adult children have one option: not reacting to [the Witch's] attempts at provocation and then leaving." When we reclaim our power in this way, we threaten the Witch, so she will likely retaliate (as my uBPDm is doing) in an attempt to force us back into our role as victim. She "will throw every emotional stone she can find in the attempt to provoke others," however, "she is powerless over adults who use their power to disappear".



• Never try to control her. The Witch has threatened us all our lives with abandonment, rejection, and so on. This is an attempt to dominate and control. We need to respond to her attempts to dominate with firm resistance. Firmness is different from domination, because domination is about trying to get someone to submit (and arises out of fear), whereas "firmness demonstrates strength of character."



• Cleanse the body and soul with love and goodness. It is no surprise that many of us raised by a uBPDm feel "soiled, damaged, dirty and defective." According to Lawson, "the antidote for exposure to malignant denigration is to surround oneself with goodness, light and love."



• Do no harm. This one really resonated with me. The idea is that we not play her game by throwing stones back at her.  We disengage in a way that is loving and maintains our own integrity. "The conviction to do no harm allows one to maintain a sense of basic goodness." We are good people who were damaged by someone who was themselves damaged. Attacking them is not healing, for us or them.

I know I will be reporting back and relying on this board as uBPDm continues to raise the stakes: threatening to disown me, cutting off her grandson, forcing my enDad to cut off contact, etc etc.    So far I am anxious and filled with grief and rage, but otherwise holding firm. Meditating, posting here, T, hugging my DH, more T, these are the things that are keeping me together right now.  Thanks for all your support, and good luck to all of us as we try to escape and heal. 

[BlueCat]

We are good people who were damaged by someone who was themselves damaged. Attacking them is not healing, for us or them.

Oh, I love that, thanks. It took me quite some time to get there though. That's not how I was raised   But now I get a hateful email (from sis) and I just walk away from it. It's so much better for me. Flinging hate back is not the person I want to be anymore 

If you have a moment, can you tell me what she says about the waif? I am finding the waif harder to deal with than the witch nowadays. Probably the lingering FOG.

[SaintJudeFan]

One Day at a Time Wonderful advice and many thanks for posting this one!  

[UKannie]

Yes, thank you for posting it. I read the book a couple of years ago but didn't really process all that advice at the time

One Day at a Time, sending you hugs    as I have lots of 'witch' experience. I am LC and only realised recently that I am actually afraid of my own mother. I am fearful around her about what she might say or do.

When I stay at the FOO house she will talk/b*tch/gossip about me behind closed doors to my dad, loud enough for me to hear. (She is nice to my face). It often goes on when I am in bed, trying to sleep. I find it totally traumatic but I know from experience what kind of scene any confrontation would result in. I am scared to say 'I would prefer you don't talk about me when I'm not present. I feel uncomfortable when you do that.'

- I don't even know what the right thing is to do in those circumstances  ? Maybe that's what you get when, like me, you rule out total no contact as an option  ?

  Annie

[One Day at a Time]

Thanks for your responses, everyone.

I have found that describing uBPDm's behaviour as "Witch" or "Hermit" is immensely helpful because it creates some emotional distance between what she is saying/doing, and how it makes me feel. It does not help 100%, I mean, I still struggle with profound anxiety, doubt, fear and sadness, but it helps me enough that I am able to resist engaging.

Lately, I have been so sad about just how much power I gave over to her.  Obviously as a kid I had no choice, we had to absorb their cruelty in order to survive.  But for the next 27 years I let her belittle me, shun me, call me "too sensitive," and accuse me of having "psychiatric problems," and so on.  She dragged both enSis and enDad into her dark movie, even me - as I also believed that what she said about me was the truth.

I felt powerless, helpless and hopeless.  I picked ambivalent boyfriends, my first husband was probably NPD, I let myself be bullied at work, I developed chronic fatigue and now C-PTSD.  All the while, shoving down my anger and my pain, as so many of us do.

To escape the Witch, I realized that the only thing I can do is disengage when I feel unsafe and set boundaries with my actions.  As Christine Lawson points out, words are not helpful because the Witch will always distort and retaliate. I am working hard on simply letting her have her movie.  I have always been the "all-bad" daughter, there is no way at this stage in the game that I will be able to convince her otherwise.  All I can do is work hard on creating a strong, safe life away from her where I can feel strong, whole and loved.  And this, as we all know, is not easy.

PS. BlueCat: I hate to confess, but I skipped over the two chapters on surviving the Queen and the Waif.  But, when I have a moment, I will try to summarize the Waif chapter for you 

[BlueCat]

Thanks!

And yeah, I totally get how hard it is to break free. Most of us here do     It took me until my early 40's to finally stand up to my mother's behavior. I am envious but also proud of the people who stand up much earlier in life, and I wish that could have been me, but hey, even if it took us awhile, we still did it   

[sandpiper]

Thanks for posting this - my sister is a Witch BPD, my T said she had psychopath traits, much like Dad, so this was a timely reminder for me to stay clear of FOO, who enable her.

Bluecat - I have the Lawson book, if I have time later today I will fish it out and see if I can summarize it for you. I do know that basically you have to create emotional distance from them and remind them that their actions are their own choices and that attempts at suicide/self-harm are not effective to control you.

i.e. when they get like that, tell them that you are calling the ambulance and disengage.

I'll try to get back to you at the end of the day, (its sunrise, here in Oz), unless someone else beats me to it.

[whitemouse]

I like the tip on not being alone with the uBPD person. My uBPD mom is one of htose whose very keen to keep up appearances, so she's totally sane when there's company, especially non-family (it drives me INSANE, but I now using it to my advantage).

[whitemouse]

When I stay at the FOO house she will talk/b*tch/gossip about me behind closed doors to my dad, loud enough for me to hear. (She is nice to my face). It often goes on when I am in bed, trying to sleep. I find it totally traumatic but I know from experience what kind of scene any confrontation would result in. I am scared to say 'I would prefer you don't talk about me when I'm not present. I feel uncomfortable when you do that.'

- I don't even know what the right thing is to do in those circumstances  ? Maybe that's what you get when, like me, you rule out total no contact as an option  ?

  Annie

Hey UKannie, god, you could have been writing about my mom. She does exactly the same thing. Mine seems to think that there are rules about what is okay to say to your face and what is not, and when its not okay ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IT FIND A MORE SUBTLE WAY TO ATTACK THE PERSON! I am NEVER staying in her house again. Next time I visit her town, I stay with friends.

[Zitronenbaum]

These things are right in the immediate situation. I took some shock and damage when she escalated, but I was genuinely surprised and not prepared, anymore. Not having had such a psychosomatic experience in years.

However. I had a witch attack this summer and an arrogant overcommand play situation (can do what I want, you have to attend my wishes) afterwards. I reacted on both with a massive response like 3-5 days after (for having to drag my shattered pieces together after the shock, mostly). With success, and I will go one with it. Might be not appropriate to every and most everyday's situation. But I had a talk with a friend, a work psychologist, afterwards, just a coincidence. He said it works fine, but only if both sides want to avoid a conflict: React 3-5 lvls above the next step on the escalation scale.

I did this:

After she had witchattacked me I told her 3 days after (actually not being able to speak to her anymore during that time) everything she had done in my life to me in short and what I thought of her, and the mechanism of the witchattack, in the doorway, not holding back, one morning, within 3 minutes, not accepting any response - very aggressively shouting at her, and kept holding that position for the days to follow.

When she did a journey to Hamburg, just vanishing some morning, leaving me instructive notes and smst me like not for 20 years and would with an arrogant fling whipe away the heating issue while I stood before her with a dripping nose and red eyes when she returned at night playing great dame and complaining how I just was bothering her with my existence:

What I thought about her character and her conduct.

And:

Next SMS not on the death of a relative or you in hospital: Number barred, your mobile in bathtub, drowned.

Next instruction-note: I'll burn it and place the ashes on your carpet, or bed, or some other intricating place: You'll have a lot of cleaning to do for sure.

(She kept on placing food for me on a plate writing a note it has to be eaten for it turns bad elsewise, I (and everyone) said 1000 times stop, and I eat out of home since ever when I'm on my own, working, living in this flat. When I lived elsewhere than this house and had time I was cooking for myself at home. I sometimes took also hers recently when my father was still alive and did also cook as well as me back then and we'd share rests or what we wanted the other to try out, but I don't want to continue it with her style, being an issue also back than, like for 20 years.)

So: next of your dogplates you'll find on your carpet.

Next time you touch my laundry or clothes in the washing cellar: Your wardrope to be found in front of the house.

Heating service not called on Monday: I'll call them, your bill, I don't care if it's a big one!

And that worked, for the first time in my life and after 25 years of decency: No plates, no notes, no vanished things, heating was turned on on Monday. So far so good.

[sandpiper]

OK, I'm back, Bluecat.

I'd advise getting the book and reading that chapter. I didn't find all of it useful - DH's mother shifted from Queen to Waif mode about 15 years ago and it was much harder to deal with than The Queen's decrees and commands. The waif is needy and demanding and phones at unreasonable hours.

DH dealt with that by telling his parents to text his mobile if they wanted him & he arranged a set time to speak to them each week.

which fits into

* Create Structure

* Draw a line to create structure  i.e. Don't call me after 10pm because I will not pick up the phone. If you call me when you are drunk I will hang up. (It is vital to follow through with consequences)

* Clarify Consequences

i.e. point out the reltionship between her victimhood and the need to plan and make better decisions

eg. Wail, moan, I ran out of gas and had to walk five miles in the snow wearing only my flip-flops to:

Instead of 'that's awful, poor you, what bad luck' = 'That's too bad. I'm sure you'll check your gas gauge from now on before you drive anywhere.'

* Clarify consequences for suicidal behaviour

i.e. don't rescue, offer pity, try to prevent her, or engage

Do: Call the police, an ambulance or her therapist to report threats of self-harm as appropriate

Tell her that this is how you will respond if she makes these threats to you "This scares and upsets me and it makes me angry. There is nothing I can do to help other than to call someone who is qualified to help you. When you threaten self harm I will put the phone down and call someone who can help you.'

(Follow through)

Lawson ends that chapter with 'the waif's children must relinquish trying to save their mother's life and the anger that can destroy their own lives. The waif's children cannot save her, they must swim to shore alone.'

DH dealt with a lot of waif crap from his mother and we found that being firm and refusing to give it attention, and instead giving her attention for positive things - was a useful strategy.

Not sure if his mother is on the mild end of the BPD spectrum or just has a really bad flea infestation - her sister certainly is Big Scale PD so I tend to refer to them as Big BPD and Little BPD. MIL responds to boundaries from DH because he is Golden Boy, and unluckily for her, Golden Boy has Big Bad Piper whispering in his ear how to manage her.

He went interstate for a school reunion one weekend last year and when he got back he had to go away all week for work. he missed his usual week-day call to her and so on the Sunday she rang us at 7.05am (knowing we'd be sleeping in after an even that was on the night before) and said 'When you didn't call me I thought you were dead, and I didn't think that Piper would tell us if you were dead.'

DH responded through gritted teeth with 'Well, I'm not dead, and nor do I feel like having this conversation when I'd like to be sleeping in after a very busy two weeks of travelling . I will call you at the usual time on such and such a day. Goodbye.' Click & he put the phone down. He then called her on the set day/time and made no reference to the waifing.

If she starts to waif he changes the topic or tunes out.

Seriously, though, the man has the patience of a saint so how he puts up with her I have no idea.

When it was really bad, in the early days when her health began to fail, she'd sit there and say to him 'I want you to take me to X and push me off the cliff, I want to die.'

DH would get really upset by this until I said 'Next time she says that tell her she's asking the wrong person as if she asked me or your brother we'd be only too happy to oblige.'

I don't know if he followed through but whatever he did, it stopped. 

Oneday - I hope you are feeling a bit better. Its awful to deal with a Witch parent so you have my heartfelt sympathy. I think the strategies in Lawson are very useful and FWIW, being excommunicated from the Witch's Kingdom can be a huge gift.

Evilsis has tried to reel me back in, I've resisted and I'm enjoying the freedom that being Evil Beyond the Pale brings to my life.

[UKannie]

Hey UKannie, god, you could have been writing about my mom. She does exactly the same thing. Mine seems to think that there are rules about what is okay to say to your face and what is not, and when its not okay ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IT FIND A MORE SUBTLE WAY TO ATTACK THE PERSON! I am NEVER staying in her house again. Next time I visit her town, I stay with friends.

Hey whitemouse  

Yeah she's a lot like a girl bully from school who's been in trouble for verbally/bullying attacking someone, so instead she resorts to loudly b!tching about that person with her friends. I've often thought the biggest problem with my mother is that all her intellectual/emotional development stopped at about 12. Doesn't make her behaviour any less toxic though   

I've actually heard her b!tching that I don't visit enough/stay long enough/bring my boyfriend. Like I'm supposed to overhear that, feel guilty, and want to come and stay more! She has absolutely no self-awareness.

Yes I'm avoiding overnight stays where I can.

  Annie

[BlueCat]

Thanks SaNPDiper! And sorry you're dealing with one too. I think my biggest problem with the waif is my own FOG, you know? I find myself wondering if *I'm* the problem because she's being so calm and rational and she's just hurt by my unwarranted cruelty (can you hear the violins playing?  ). But reading things like that helps me to see more clearly.

[whitemouse]

Hey UKAnnie,

Hey whitemouse  

Yeah she's a lot like a girl bully from school who's been in trouble for verbally/bullying attacking someone, so instead she resorts to loudly b!tching about that person with her friends. I've often thought the biggest problem with my mother is that all her intellectual/emotional development stopped at about 12. Doesn't make her behaviour any less toxic though   

I've actually heard her b!tching that I don't visit enough/stay long enough/bring my boyfriend. Like I'm supposed to overhear that, feel guilty, and want to come and stay more! She has absolutely no self-awareness.

Yes I'm avoiding overnight stays where I can.

  Annie

Yea, the idea of our uBPDms having the emotional maturity of a child seems to capture a lot of what they do. I thought you were kind of generous assessing the age of yours as 12. With mine, I kinda think more of 5.

I wonder if this weird kind of "I know and you know I'm attacking you, but it doesn't count because its indirect", is kind of a way of avoiding having to face any real consequences for their actions. You can't confront them on it, or they'll just deny it. Sort of like what you said about a school bully avoiding punishment by going indirect.

I find that thinking of my mom as an emotional kid helps a lot in deciding how to deal with her. I don't try to argue my point - hell, she's a 5 year-old, she's never gonna get it. But I do try and make sure she learns whats ok and not ok through the consequences of her actions. Like not visiting for a while after there's been some bad behaviour. But I never point out why, she'll only get defensive, then the inevitable counterattack, etc... .I just let the action speak for itself.

This has been hugely helpful in managing my mom, she's actually been pretty decent to me lately. Still, I find there's gotta be a carrot too for it to work. Something positive that she can look forward to if she behaves well (again, I never put it like this, just make a promise to visit soon "if all goes well" or something vague like that).

It sucks to have to "parent' my mom like this. Why am I the one who has to do all the managing? Why can't I react badly sometimes too? Act like a normal flawed human, not a parenting textbook? But I just gotta accept I can't

whitemouse x

[whitemouse]

Hey Bluecat,

I found your description of how you and your DH manage DH's mom very helpful. It sounds a lot like what I've been trying to do... .but I need all the help I can get!

Her shift from Queen to Waif sounds familiar to me, very much like my own uBPDm, now in her seventies. Is this a pattern other people have noticed?

thanks for posting,

Whitemouse

[sandpiper]

Hey Whitemouse - I think you meant me rather than Bluecat re: DH's mother.

anyway - yes. This experience seems to be quite common.

My father did the shift from Queen to Waif/Hermit once his health failed and he began to suffer from the ill effects of age, PTSD from his years of service in the air-force, and his alcoholism. Evilsis changed from being manageable Waif to being Entitled Witch/Queen once she married her NPD husband - it's like she just took on his personality once she was inside that relationship.

FWIW I think that the personas that Lawson describes are simply different phases that the pwBPD can go through, depending on whether the predominant emotion is rage, entitlement, paranoia, pessimism or depression/self-harm. In much the same way as children pull out whatever behaviour they think is going to work for them, so will the BPD.

I think you have to be really careful not to reinforce a particular behaviour by rewarding it.

Initially when MIL's health deteriorated he made the mistake of giving her a lot of rewards for bad behaviour and what that did was to generate more of it.

I'm not sure what the rewards are for the Queen/witch behaviour - I think they just like the sense of power that they get from bullying and one-upmanship.

[whitemouse]

Hey Whitemouse - I think you meant me rather than Bluecat re: DH's mother.

Sorry, SaNPDiper, Indeed I did (I'm kinda new at this). Thanks!

I like your thinking about how the behaviours shift according to "what works". This really helps to explain a lot about my own uBPDm.

thanks again SaNPDiper!  

whitemouse

[Shadowcat]

One Day at a Time,

You are doing great! I too have a mother who is a Witch, although my mother's cover self is a Waif. For many years I thought the Witch was a thing of the past, but since the birth of my son she has slowly started to come back, to a point where I am also completely No Contact. And it's hard!

You are doing great by refusing to play your mother's games. Lashing out at their hateful comments only brings you down to your level.

Once, when my husband was young, he was taunted by a boy at school for 2 years. He never said a word, just like his mother told him to. Then, one day, my FIL told him to punch the taunter square in the face, which he did. My husband laughs about it to this day, like it's a triumph. But as I try to tell him, all he did was play the bully's game, and go down to the same level of immaturity and disrespect.

When my BPDm taunts me, like my husband's bully did, I instead choose to refuse to react. By doing so, I make everything she says unimportant. Of course, it still stings, but as long as she doesn't know that, I give her no ammunition whatsoever to hurt me with.

In some ways, going no contact is easier, because she isn't around to taunt me like that. In other ways though, no contact is very hard because I have the constant FOG hanging over my head. I think we all just have to find what works well for us as individuals.

[poodlemom]

My mother definitely went queen to waif when she hit her 70's

Poodle

[samantha!]

That is very interesting.

Too bad I did not know that earlier when my uBPDmom was still alive.

[makingachange]

My uBPD Mom, who was raised Catholic, but has been a hardcore atheist since she was 25 (now 50), told me months ago that she was becoming a Buddhist. Okay, cool. Sounds good. I appreciate that she's looking for whatever helps her.

Next month after that, she breaks up with her fiancé and calls me to tell me that she's now a witch. And she and her new witch friends just cast a spell on her ex to make him impotent.

Oh em gee.