My mom has BPD and I am the whipping post child...the scapegoat

[TelHill]

I managed to carve out a good life for myself regardless of this. I am over 50 and had a good career and was able to retire early due to the nature of my job and good investments.  The issue is my mom is elderly and getting worse. No med helps. English is not her first language and talk therapy would not work for her since everyone has a problem except for her.

I have seen the No Contact/Low Contact advice but I do not want that. I need help in how to set boundaries with her. I have done this with former work colleagues and people without a personality disorder. I feel like I am 5 years old and helpless when near her. It is a visceral reaction from my childhood I cannot seem to shake. I do not hate her, but it is exhausting to be near her. She can be very, very verbally abusive. Of course, when I confront her, she is not. I am the one with the problem.

Does anyone have some good suggestions? Run and stay away is not one I want. Thank you.

[Kwamina]

Hi TelHill and welcome back

When you last posted you were temporarily living with your mother again to take care of her. Have you since moved out or are you still ling with her?

I feel like I am 5 years old and helpless when near her. It is a visceral reaction from my childhood I cannot seem to shake. I do not hate her, but it is exhausting to be near her. She can be very, very verbally abusive.

Being verbally abused isn't pleasant at all and after a lifetime of dealing with this, I can understand why being near her could trigger you so. Perhaps it might help to consider these words from Pete Walker wo has written extensively about dealing with trauma:

1.   Say to yourself: "I am having a flashback". Flashbacks take us into a timeless part of the psyche that feels as helpless, hopeless and surrounded by danger as we were in childhood. The feelings and sensations you are experiencing are past memories that cannot hurt you now.

2.   Remind yourself: "I feel afraid but I am not in danger! I am safe now, here in the present." Remember you are now in the safety of the present, far from the danger of the past.

3.   Own your right/need to have boundaries. Remind yourself that you do not have to allow anyone to mistreat you; you are free to leave dangerous situations and protest unfair behavior.

4.   Speak reassuringly to the Inner Child. The child needs to know that you love her unconditionally- that she can come to you for comfort and protection when she feels lost and scared.

5.   Deconstruct eternity thinking: in childhood, fear and abandonment felt endless - a safer future was unimaginable. Remember the flashback will pass as it has many times before.

6.   Remind yourself that you are in an adult body with allies, skills and resources to protect you that you never had as a child. (Feeling small and little is a sure sign of a flashback)

7.   Ease back into your body. Fear launches us into 'heady' worrying, or numbing and spacing out.

  a. Gently ask your body to Relax: feel each of your major muscle groups and softly encourage them to relax. (Tightened musculature sends unnecessary danger signals to the brain)

  b. Breathe deeply and slowly. (Holding the breath also signals danger).

  c. Slow down: rushing presses the psyche's panic button.

  d. Find a safe place to unwind and soothe yourself: wrap yourself in a blanket, hold a stuffed animal, lie down in a closet or a bath, take a nap.

  e. Feel the fear in your body without reacting to it. Fear is just an energy in your body that cannot hurt you if you do not run from it or react self-destructively to it.

... .

[Notwendy]

I feel like I am 5 years old and helpless when near her. It is a visceral reaction from my childhood I cannot seem to shake. I do not hate her, but it is exhausting to be near her. She can be very, very verbally abusive. Of course, when I confront her, she is not. I am the one with the problem.

I have a sibling who describes this. Although an independent adult, he becomes a child in the presence of our mother. She also verbally abuses him.

I have had my share of verbal abuse from her, but I also don't regress and take it. I do find it to be emotionally exhausting around her. She seems to be trying to "push my buttons" and get me to react to her.

I also like you didn't choose NC but I do have a form of LC. LC can also include not having personal discussions with her, She tries to elicit personal information. I used to not have boundaries with her, and she could "push my buttons". Now, I don't share anything with her that is personal, just general things. I sometimes feel like she is looking for some way to get through this boundary.

With my sibling, it's as if she gets right in. I am sometimes shocked at the things he tells her. The are still emotionally enmeshed. I will say his response to her- to turn into a child- can be helped with boundaries.

However, there is a cost to this. My mother hates boundaries and can get very angry and verbally abusive to them. One has to be able to manage their own feelings in the face of this. It isn't easy. The response to this from a child's view is that one is in danger when this happens. We may be adults, but this childhood response is what we learned.

Counseling, ACA 12 step groups ( one does not have to be a child of an alcoholic- it works with BPD too) are ways to help this "inner child" mature. The inner child needs nurturing to do this- self care, doing things for yourself, working with a counselor. I have worked on this and found this is something many adult children feel- since our childhoods involved hurt feelings. It may even take doing something like going to an amusement park and riding on the roller coasters, or watching cartoons or anything to indulge the inner child a bit. Kids will take verbal abuse from a parent as it is better to be yelled at than being ignored. Your inner child responds to your mother like this. So -- give yourself some love- and maybe seek out some counseling to help you with boundaries.

[busybee1116]

I went LC--my parents lived an hour away when I first figured out she has uBPD. That didn't stop her from showing up randomly at work or my home uninvited/unannounced, and creating all sorts of chaos and drama. It took me awhile to set boundaries--therapy helped. What I learned is that she's seeking attention. Bad attention is equal to  good attention, but NO attention his death. So as much as I didn't want to do this, I figured out that more contact with her on my terms was actually helpful.  That meant emailing her frequently, every couple of days. Nothing important, just something brief, informative, factual and friendly (BIFF).  Often, that would be a picture from my garden or a joke, a note that I had used something she had given me like a recipe: "I tried the pork loin recipe--it was tasty! Thanks." Nothing particularly personal and literally each email took me less than 2 minutes. I also called more frequently--once a week. I kept those calls short, too, and always had a prepared excuse to get off the phone (someone at the door, something on the stove, cat threw up, left the hose on and neighbor mad--usually a fake disaster. She prob thinks I'm the most accident prone person on the planet, but the reason cannot be I'm done talking/being talked at with you or I need to end or you're talking about topics I want to avoid. This strategy ended the surprise visits, the hours long phone calls at inconvenient times, and even helped change what we talked about. I usually set a time on phone calls, but if she veered into off limits topics (like my husband, or triangulating with bro or dad, or some morbid topic about someone I do not know), I would end the conversation. Like Pavlov's dogs--operative conditioning. She learned that calls were shorter if she went certain places. I also made sure to visit her about every other month (which was LESS often) and made plans in advance so she had something to look forward to. Let's meet for lunch, I really want to see you (on my terms!