I'm not sure if she has BPD, but

[Nettleton]

About 2 years ago, I moved in with my elderly parents. I am in my 40s. At the time my father was at home being taken care of 24/7 by my mother. He is in his 100s and she is in her 80s. I am an adopted, only child.

My father is now in a facility getting proper care. I witnessed my mother's first rage meltdown shortly after I moved in: directed at my father, mind you. I tried to intervene and that was a mistake. I left the house and immediately went to the hardware store and purchased one of those security bars you put under a doorknob because I realized there was no lock on my bedroom door. When I came back, she was desperate, where did you go, how could you leave me.

I was unemployed at the time. My mother was diagnosed with cancer. I took care of her and my father until he became totally non-compliant with me. She finally decided to put him in a facility before her second round of chemo. I was doing all the cooking and shopping and cleaning.

She finished her treatments. We joined the Y. I found a job. Everything was looking up.

Then, around Thanksgiving, she had her first rage meltdown at me. I had to cut back my responsibilities around the house when I started working. I tried to talk to her about this and she just told me to keep doing everything I was doing. I said I couldn't. She said if I loved her I would. On New Years Day, I was in my room, with the bar under the knob, with her trying to break the door down. The next day, she ambushes me in tears and begs me to forgive her. Then if I mention it, she says it never happened or that she said she was sorry and it's mean of me to bring it up.

By February, after multiple meltdowns, I was hiding in my room all the time. Jumping at every sound I heard. I realized I could afford either to move out or to get therapy. I'm trying to work on myself and save up money to move out, looking for a second job. It's going to take some time.

She's cancer-free for a year now. She's very angry at me. She says I owe her. She agrees to things I ask and then turns around and says if I loved her, I never would have asked her. She calls me all kinds of terrible names. She says I'm a monster and that I'm crazy and need to be locked up.

My therapist suggested that it sounds like she might be borderline. The really weird thing is that since all of this, I've been remembering all this stuff from when I was young. Similar meltdowns. I'd allowed myself to be convinced I was the source of all the drama when I was growing up. I'm sure I was part of it, but, I feel so betrayed, like I've been misrepresented to so many people based on what I've experienced this last year.

For a while, she was pretty much just letting me keep to myself, but she's been coming at me recently. Always in a state of emotional agitation. This week she was crying and talking about wanting to go visit a niece and I said she should go. She started wailing, "but I need a plane ticket!" I told her to give me the dates and times and number of bags and a way to pay and I would get her one. Somehow this translates to: now I can't go visit niece because ungrateful daughter won't buy me a plane ticket. So I'm really worried about possible cognitive decline, but I think the borderline is there too. I have read "Stop Walking on Eggshells."

So that's me and I guess that was pretty long. I accept that she's not going to change. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what to do next. Coming up on a year at my job, I think I can get a raise, but that won't be enough to move out on. I am still looking for more work.

I am in therapy, meditating, doing yoga, swimming. I spend a lot of time at the library and at work. I've been trying to get out and meet new people, get involved in new things.

So I guess I'm trying this, too. Thanks for reading.

[Rock Chick]

I'd agree with your therapist sounds very much like your mother suffers from BPD. A lot of the things you have mentioned reminds me of my bfs 54 yr old malignant BPD etc mother. She flips on a dime, gets angry easily, the projecting onto one, the shes the victim ones your the bully, cant stand it when you leave the house, entitlement, etc etc.

[Nettleton]

cant stand it when you leave the house,

She can't stand when I remove myself from any situation when she is agitated, whether leaving the room or the house. She never has been. The only time anyone outside of my father or me sees her behavior is when she chases after me.

And as much as I was focusing on the aggressive side of her behaviors, the other face that she shows has become just as difficult for me to tolerate. Because when she's not angry, she insists that I can do no wrong. That every meal I make is the most delicious ever. I feel like she takes everything neutral about me, about the world and flings it into this best/worst extremity. Like I can't even say, hmmm next time that needs a little more cumin without her fawning all over me. It feels just as isolating as the outbursts.

And it's frustrating because in the last two years, I have regressed. To old patterns of coping that didn't work when I was living with her as a teen. They don't work now, but they're all I know to do.

I'm trying to find a way to be glad, in a way. The problems I have had over the course of my adulthood with career and relationships--moving back with her has blown up all my rationalizations and forced me into this place where I wasn't going to survive unless I acted. Things weren't ok earlier, but I felt like I was managing. But really I wasn't. I was getting by, but not living, not thriving. I'm trying to get to a point where it's ok to want more out of life.

But it's still hard. And I still crumble every time we have a bad encounter. We managed a neutral encounter today. She needed her tablet "fixed" again. Somehow she never does the *wibblefear* please just do this thing begging, please for me, please I love you SO MUCH, when it's her tablet. And I took a nap before I tackled it. And it turned out to be easy. And she let me know a former co-worker passed away and I'm grateful because I don't read the obits and I'd like to go to his funeral tomorrow.

But I'm always afraid to let neutral lull me back in. It has many times. Today doesn't change anything.