Hi Ela2011
I haven't been to this forum for years, but I am so thankful that you all are here, and I appreciate the diligence that the moderators put into this safe space.
Welcome back then!
For almost 20 years I have been estranged from my mother, having spent 30 years on and off in therapy and working
really diligently to undo/heal/get on with my own life. And I have done very, very well, until the day before yesterday,
when my 86 yr. old mother (undiagnosed BPD traits with an LCSW license) sent me a letter begging forgiveness for having
not been a good parent, putting too much responsibility on me, and on and on.
... .
I can't believe that I'm 63 years old, and that she can still reach out across the world and wreck my day, my week, my life with a poison apple. I can't understand how, after all this time, all this personal growth, I can immediately succumb to this, and be so susceptible once again
to her conniving, narcissistic blather.
I am sorry that your mother's letter has affected you so. Considering that you have been estranged from her for so long, I do think it's understandable though that something like this could have such an impact on you. Placing distance between you and your mom has allowed you to do a lot of healing and growing. However, this same distance also meant that you didn't have to deal with her on a daily basis which means you were probably spared from dealing with her constant negativity and chaos. As a result some of your defense and coping mechanisms are perhaps somewhat 'rusty' now.
And now I'm sitting here in a puddle of tears because I want to believe it's real, but I know it's not; that she's only seeking
exoneration, that she doesn't believe she had any problem or inadequacy whatsoever. That she only wants a toe-hold into communication
with me.
Has your mother ever before in any way acknowledged that there might be something wrong with the way she treated you? Or is this the first time?
I am the oldest of three, and my younger sister is stuck with my mother as a neighbor. Apparently, a couple weeks ago, my mother asked her if she had really been such an awful mother after all, and my sister reiterated some of the more choice incidents and evidence. This was probably the trigger.
Have you talked to your sister about this letter you got? How would you describe the relationship you have with your siblings?
Of course, I forgave her, in order to heal myself, and have accepted that she is mentally ill as the basis for that. Because no mother in their right mind would have done/would do the things she has. But I also believe that she has some control, some responsibility, and that many, many times she chose to be hurtful and downright evil. And so I'm not going to respond.
If you don't want to respond to her letter, you certainly don't have to. Just because you got a letter indeed doesn't mean that you're obliged to respond to it. BPD is quite a challenging disorder but I do believe you are right that people with this disorder still have a certain level of control. Could you tell us some more about the things your mother has done to you that you found the most difficult to deal with (if your comfortable sharing these things)?
Why doesn't this grief abate? Why am I still just as raw sometimes as a new orphan? Will it go away when she dies?
No matter how much healing and growing you do, the reality of having a parent wit BPD can still hurt. Perhaps it will help you to take a look at the survivors' guide for adults who suffered childhood abuse. You can find it to the right of this message board. The guide takes you from survivor to thriver through three major stages: Remembering --> Mourning --> Healing. Each stage contains 7 sub-stages. This process isn't necessarily linear though. In fact in many cases people will find themselves going back to certain steps as they try to deal with everything they've been through. When you look at the survivors' guide, where do you feel you are at this moment? And where did you feel you were before you received this letter from your mother?
Also, the universe has seen fit to saddle me with an orphan lamb this week, and this is kind of a comical, satirical, BPDesque synchronicity, if you're in to such things. He's a little black lamb (I'm the black sheep) with a white wispy halo, and his mom won't have anything to do with him, she acts as though he's dangerous, she doesn't recognize him as a sheep, and so he's a bottle baby (no, thankfully, I am not on the bottle... .).
Well at least the two of you can keep each other company now!
Shared sorrow is half a sorrow.
So, when I go out to the barn at all hours, I cry, for him, for me, for all of us here, and I pray that someday I will be free from this torture, that we all will be.
I am sorry you are going through a difficult time right now. You use the word 'torture' to express how you feel. In what ways do you feel you are still being tortured? Are it the memories of what your mother did to you that are causing you to feel this way? How would you describe the thoughts and emotions you are having in these moments you describe as torture?
