My mother has BPD, I'm suicidal, and I need help please

[TinyHobbit]

  I'm sorry if this is not directly where to go for help as my mom is not "officially" diagnosed as having BPD but I don't give a damn anymore. All the symptoms and traits and characteristics of a person with BPD fit her perfectly to the point where she has even admitted it in one of her rare good moments where she is not venomously denying that anything is wrong with her. The short of this is that I am stuck living with her because of financial burdens for another two years or so and I desperately need advice on how to handle things with her without drastically hurting myself or allowing myself to be triggered into my own illnesses. I'l do a breakdown of the major things she's done and below will be my whole story. For reference, I'm 18 as of April.

-Daily insulting of my self and body including name calling, mean remarks, and downplaying of my emotions (calling me a b___, calling me stupid, telling me I have no friends and no one will love me)

-Daily grand threats for minor inconveniences coupled with screaming and insults (threats to kick me out, turn off my cell phone service, threats to hospitalize me for not doing basic chores/eating food she disapproves of)

-Uses my therapy, medications, help with schooling as bargaining chips or means of guilt (I can't fight her or say no to her or disagree with her or ask for help in any way unless I want a full list of every single positive thing she ever did for me ever)

-Allying my younger brother against me, causing a harsh divide between us ("Mommy is only mad because your sister made me this way." "Your sister is the reason mommy yells."

-Refusal to acknowledge the things I do, whether it be in means of recovery, chores, grades, or anything

-Seemingly lose grip on reality sometimes (will repeat arguments as though they never happened, will deny actions/things she said minutes after doing/saying them, will have full blown tantrums over being wrong about minor or minuscule things)

-Hair trigger temper, mood swings with no discernible cause, house rules changed at will, constant changing morals, unstable environment, never know what she will do next

-Constant refusal of therapy/quitting family therapy numerous times because she "felt bad" and didn't want to take blame, forced me to switch therapists she didn't like, would play a role for therapists only to go home and become the person she truly is

-Constant refusal to acknowledge my bulimia beyond the fact that "sometimes I eat too much", continues rhetoric and shaming that triggers my eating disorder

-Refusal to aid in my mental disorders and eating disorder because she "comes first" and she's "already tried to help already"

 My whole life, my mother has been angry half the time and the most peaceful woman the next. It was always sporadic and hard to tell what she felt and when and why. She'd been diagnosed for depression and was being treated for it. She was also a major drug addict and alcoholic along with my father until the birth of my little blind brother when I was 7. I always had the need to care for my mom when she fell into depressions and was taught to since I was a child. It never registered with me that the things she did were controlling or "bad". It seemed normal for her to go through all my things, for her yelling to make me feel like dying at such a young age. She especially targeted my weight. I have early onset PCOS which causes massive weight gain as a child that eventually evens out. However, my mom saw it as me being "obese and bad". I was put on diets, forced to exercise, forced to not wear the clothes I wanted, called "pregnant looking", all the since second grade. I begun to have suicidal tendencies when I was in fifth grade brought on by her constant emotional abuse and my pain but they were mostly brushed away as a result of the bullying I experienced in school. She simply tossed me into therapy, a pattern to soon follow for her.

 Things started to worsen when I was about 11-12 and my friend was murdered. I begun displaying symptoms of PTSD and depression and anxiety. This is a tough time between all kids and parents but it was the worst between me and my mom. Everything was painted to look like it would cause me to fail in life or pass. A bad grade in math in sixth grade was going to be what kept me from university in her eyes. We fought daily as she constantly broke my trust to read my journals, my texts, my internet history, throwing tantrums if she saw me looking at anything she didn't like. When she saw a pamphlet my friend gave me on depression, she made it very clear I was to stop "acting so sad" around the other kids. She refused to believe I had anything wrong with me and I was simply a manipulative monster using her pity against her. When the school called her to pick me up because I was expressing suicidal urges in seventh grade, she was ASHAMED of me. She screamed for hours at me in the car that I was a horrible person, a horrible daughter, selfish, stupid, and a coward. To this day, thoughts of suicide are met with the exact same responses of her bitterness and insulting nature and desperate need to make it about her.

 My mother and father last year begun a divorce and I think that was the trigger for her illness to come out strongest. I've seen symptoms of it forever but recently is when it's gotten the worst. She's become paranoid that my father is going to take us, that my father is going to have her arrested, that my father is doing crack, that his new girlfriend plays on "stealing" me and my brother. The yelling and mood swings is daily. The more I try to make her see what she does, the more she refuses it, the more she hides behind the walls and lies she made for herself. All critique is backed up with "BUT I'VE DONE GOOD THINGS IN THE PAST". She can't handle the idea that maybe the "good" things she's done are things that should be expected for parents. If your daughter is suffering from illnesses, you get her medical help. If your daughter is severely bullied or having bad school troubles, you put her in a nearby school. She truly thinks the fact she feeds and clothes and doesn't beat me means she's a perfect parent that can't be touched.

 I will give a common example of her behavior. This morning, she woke me up at 6 this morning, screaming. She did not like that I had two cans of soda instead of one last night. She was deaf to anything I said. She proceeded to tell me I "had some serious problems", that this was proof I was not "recovering", this was proof that I'm lazy/stupid/incompetent/a freeloader/a liar/everything she knew about me. That I betrayed her by drinking the soda she "was so nice to get". That I was banned from all soda henceforth. That I had lost all trust with her about everything. She finished it up by screaming "GET A JOB", that I was a mess, and slamming the door. About thirty minutes, she came in and smiled and told me she was going to work and to have a good day and that she would ask her boss about the job opening he had. This is pretty much a daily thing- I am awoken every morning by her screaming about something she decided I was wrong about, insulting me, and using the singular incident as a piece of the great puzzle as to why I'm the worst daughter ever.

 Another common example is a few nights ago, she asked me for help dying her roots. I said I would and she forgot about it until about nine that night. I am pulled from a phone call with friends by her screaming to get in her room NOW. I rush in and she is slamming around, looking for her dye, demanding I stop everything I'm doing and help her right now. I calmly tell her I would but I would like if in the future, she did not just want me to drop everything and help her. This was the wrong answer. She begun screaming "FORGET IT" and shoving me from her room. I quickly tried to tell her I would do it but I was shoved outside her room. She continued yelling, reminding me about how she bought me clothes, how I was selfish and disgusting, that I haded up priorities, that she wanted me "out of the house" by the morning before randomly insulting my hygiene, saying I smelled and looked like a pig. Later that night, she texted me everything she said. That morning, she cheerfully told me how silly she was because she didn't have the squirt bottle for her dye anyways.

I will extrapolate on anything if asked. Writing this much has drained me as is. Please help me. Am I crazy? What do I do?

[Harri]

Hi TinyHobbit and welcome.  No official BPD diagnosis is required for you to post here.  Many of us here have family members who are not and most likely never will be diagnosed since they do not admit to having problems   and 'It' is always someone else's problem.  So know you are not alone.  You have a difficult history with your mother and your own illnesses and I am so very glad you decided to post here.  So many of us understand and can relate.

There are many tools offered on this site that aid in communication with a pwBPD, and there are certain concepts that once understood can help you to depersonalize and therefore protect your self from her manipulations and hurtful and abusive comments.  Concepts like projection, where a person with BPD is unable to recognize their own unpleasant/hurtful traits or emotions and project or attribute them to another person (in this case, you).  Understanding this process will help you when she starts spewing verbal garbage and mean comments towards you to recognize and remember that when she is like that, she is not even seeing *you* and her comments really have nothing to do with you or who you are as a person.  Here is a thread that discusses projection in more detail:  https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=70931.0  What helped me when dealing with my mother was constantly repeating in my head "she is showing me how she feels about herself and these comments have nothing to do with me personally" over and over when she was in one of her rages or when she was in her relentless hurtful, poisonous nagging mode.  Visualizations can also help; things like visualizing a plastic bubble around you so that her words bounce off you and return to her where they belong.  Her comments can still hurt but not nearly as much and overtime, you will recognize her hurtful words for what they are:  projections of a severely disturbed and hurting individual who can not tolerate her own emotions and internal world and therefore gets rid of them by projecting them onto you. 

I went into more detail describing projection here because when I read how your mother talks to you and the effect is has on you, it seemed to me a very important and useful concept for you to understand.  I could be wrong (shocking I know   ) so please explore the site.  At the top of the first page of posts in this section there is a thread titled Lessons which has a huge list of resources that can explain a lot of different things including things you can do to keep yourself safe.  Here is a link:  https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=108307.0  (Sorry, I don't know how to 'rename a link and make things look all nice!)  There are communication tools that, when learned and practiced, can help reduce conflict and strife.  Things like S.E.T., DEARMAN and JADE.

So many things in your posts hurt to read.  You are in a tough position but you can take action to help and protect yourself.  I know you mentioned you will not be able to move out for at least two years but I am wondering if moving in with your father would be an option?  If not, your situation can still be improved at least at your end of things.  By that I mean while you most likely will not be able to change your mother and how she deals with her issues, you can change the way you respond to her.  You can take steps to protect yourself.  You may also do things to get yourself out of the house as much as possible.  Is school an option for you?  Just wondering out loud.

I hope you keep posting here.  So many of us understand and can help you as you navigate your way through. 

[Turkish]

Hello TinyHobbit,

I'd like to join Harri in welcoming you to our family. 

From the link on Projection that Harri provided:

In general, emotionally healthy people base their perceptions on facts.  Projection is basing your perception of reality on feelings.

Projection is a defense mechanism, operating unconsciously, in which what is emotionally unacceptable in the self is unconsciously rejected and attributed (projected) to others.  Projection is denying one's own unpleasant traits, behaviors, or feelings by attributing them, often in an accusing way,  to someone else.

Commonly the projection is an exaggeration of something that has a basis in reality. For example, the borderline may accuse you of "hating" them when you just feel irritated. Sometimes the projection may come entirely from their imagination: for example, they accuse you of flirting with when you were just asking for directions to the shoe department. ~ Randi Kreger

pwBPD (people with BPD) suffer from a core sense of shame. Projecting the ways in which they feel about themselves onto others is a dysfunctinal coping mechansism to avoid this pain. In your mother's case, it is outright emotional abuse of you, so hurtful. Its neither normal, nor healthy, and I don't think you're crazy at all; you're trapped.

It sounds like you may have been Parentified (a role reversal where a child is forced to take care of a parent), but it sounds more like she has enmeshed you to take care of her emotionally, telling you that you are responsible for her feelings. No matter how she acts or what she says, you are not. See here for more on this.

Things feel hopeless right now. I felt that way throughout my teens living with my mother. I didn't care about anything past the current day. I didn't have a plan... .until I did. I often felt like being "gone" would be better than being present.  Outside emotional support helped. Do you have anyone in your life whom you can turn to?

Turkish