Need Advice - have you gone full NC with a BP Parent?

[momisborderline]

Have you gone completely no contact with a borderline parent? How did you do it? How did it go? What tips do you have more managing guilt?

What I seek today is advice or first-hand accounts from people who have gone full no contact with a borderline parent. 2 days ago I blocked my mom from phone/email. Somehow a voicemail from her got through last night that I listened to and it further validated my decision to go no contact. On the message she was drunk, and told me to go f$*! myself, and how I've changed, etc. I posted for the first time about my un-diagnosed BPD 75 year old Mom 2 days ago if you want more background.

Mind you I haven't told her I'm going no contact, but I think she's figuring it out. I've never not replied to her texts/emails/calls so she is in crisis trying to get me to answer her. She is flailing.  One of the questions I had was "should I tell her I'm going no contact, or just go no contact?"

But I'm still struggling with guilt as I am the last family member speaking to her and the only family member she has been able to get help from for the last several decades. (I'm now 49) We live several thousand miles apart, and she is financially and medically not well off.  She was supposed to move to my town and I told her not to and that is what has triggered this tsunami.

So I have told myself I can't stop this airplane from falling out of the sky. Or actually, I could, but as my therapist said "to save her will be to destroy yourself." So I guess I choose not to stop this airplane from crashing, because that is what it will be. She will crash, and she will destroy her life. I don't want her to destroy mine as well.

[Pilpel]

I'm posting because I'm curious what others say. I'm in a situation with a n/BPD inlaw.  I'd like our relationship to be LC, but at the same time stay on good terms. 

[Highlander]

Hi Mumisborderline,

My MIL is undBPD/NPD.  For years my husband tried LC but this didn't work, the lies and manipulation continued.  We are like yourself, we are in our 40's and we also live many miles away but even then she was able to affect him and eventually DH decided to go NC. 

It is not easy for him at all but he has kept all the nasty communication between him and his mother so when he gets sad or starts questioning himself, he pours over these documents, recordings etc and remembers how manipulative she is and how much she hurt him. 

For him, going NC was easier, in a way.  Like many BPD mothers on this site, my BPD MIL often disowned him, in the past for many years for nothing but a perceived perception that he did wrong by her.  She did this last year and DH hasn't tried to contact her since. 

DH has no doubt that, like in the past when she has done the same, there will be a time in the future she will try to contact him again and expect to walk back in our lives - like nothing happened.  Next time she is going to get a very huge shock - that it's over... .he's gone.

From experience, all I can suggest is keep any nasty emails, texts, message bank abuse etc (we have many stored on a number of devices so they can never be lost) because for my DH, keeping these helps  reassures him he has done the right thing. 

From what I can see, the pain will always be there but it does soften with time.  It was his birthday the other day and he was glad she didn't try and contact him.  He said it would have ruined his day.  Best of luck.  I feel for my DH's pain and can't imagine what it would be like to make such a huge decision but he is healing... .albeit slowly.

[Struggles]

Hi, I actually read your other post and it stood out to me so much I read it to my husband as well.  I didn't really have a lot of advice on the matter since we are also dealing with his mother who is undiagnosed BPD. 

In the past 2 months my husband has only had contact with her twice, so it was little contact until her recent rage.  He has now blocked her as well.  We live fairly close, and our other family are neighbors to her so we know we will see her when we visit them or at family events. 

I agree with you 1000% that saving her would destroy you.  If remembering correctly from your previous post, you have done everything to give her great options for housing and help, but she isn't budging on the idea of moving close to you. 

In the past few months my BPD MIL has told my husband and his siblings that they are good for nothing, they aren't getting anything when she dies, they don't make her happy anymore, they have changed.  She has spread rumors that I am having an affair, that I am on drugs.  She has threatened my sister in law, and told my husband she was going to stalk me.  She has followed me into a bathroom, grabbed my arm, blocked me in the bathroom so I couldn't get away from her.  Put holes in her walls, torn her walls down, seeing snakes that aren't there.  It's been an absolute roller coaster of fear, hurt, and anger for all of us involved in her life. 

So for us we have gone NC, we were like you, we did not tell her.  after 100s and I do mean 100s of text messages my husband did finally reply once to say "the only way you can heal the wedge you have created between us is to get help". Then he blocked her.   Expect the behavior to get worse before it gets better with the NC. We haven't hit the better stage yet, but not having to read the texts or listen to the voicemails has helped our anxiety tons!  My husband did explain to his father that he would no longer see her and that he has blocked her.  As to whether the information was relayed to her we aren't sure. 

My thoughts are with you in this situation, and I hope it gets better for all of us. 

[livednlearned]

Hi momisborderline,

I can see why you might want to go NC. Having anyone say Go F@*k yourself is hard enough, much less your own mother

I admire you for taking your own pain seriously.

My father is misogynistic and a chauvinist. I didn't decide to take a break, it just happened. We have been NC for 5 years. In the past, when he has become angry at me, I was always the child who appeased him, who apologized, even if it was clearly his fault.

I simply stopped doing that and the relationship ended. When I look back at the break, I think it needed to happen in order for me to finish my graduate degree. The voice in my head that undermines me comes from him, so it helped to get some distance and quiet that voice. I also met and moved in with a wonderful man, who is unlike the other men in my life (including a BPD/NPD ex husband), and I believe it was NC that gave me room to grow into a more trusting, loving relationship with a man.

In remaining NC, I made the choice to take care of myself, and that meant avoiding the emotional contagion from a parent who cannot see me as a person. The thing that was so hard was giving up the fantasy that I would get my emotional needs met from him, harder than any guilt I felt.

There is a book called Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents that my T recommended to me that you might find useful. I remember the author writing something about how, if you find yourself getting emotional, your distress is a sign that your healing fantasy is activated. Meaning, if you go NC in the hopes that your mom will change and become the person you always wished she would be, then NC may end up hurting you.

If, tho (and this is my interpretation of what the author says) you go NC because doing so will allow you to grow in healthy ways, reparenting yourself so to speak, then that process of self-discovery and emotional development can give you a second life.

What I noticed is that my dad doesn't take up as much real estate in my head anymore, and emotionally, just the thought of him is more tolerable. Neither of my parents sent a card or called to wish me a happy birthday this year, and other than making a mental note of it, it didn't hurt like it would've in years past. I am able to look around and see that, in spite of their emotional immaturity, I have managed to create the life and family I always wanted.

One comment about guilt -- if you think that going NC abruptly will trigger intense guilt, would you find it more tolerable to work with smaller goals or outcomes? This may help you build up to NC so your own emotional system isn't swamped.

This might mean that you decide to hang up the phone when she curses you out. Or that you only talk to her when she is not drunk.

The goal is to not let your mom rent space in your head, and if you are swamped with guilt, then it can feel like she never left. So maybe you start moving out her belongings one item at a time until she gets up you can more calmly walk her out the door, to catch up with the rest of her things  

[kiramagica]

My heart goes out to you... .I can completely relate to your situation, as I find myself in a similar one.  My mom, though, is only 65, and hasn't reached the point where she needs any assistance in relation to being elderly.  I know that day will come, though, and that is where you find yourself.  It's a terrible place to be put in. 

I went NC a month ago, and had the overload of guilt swamp my emotional system, pretty much paralyzing me.  The guilt never became stronger, though, than the fear of getting into contact with her again, and suffering another horrible emotional blow.  In the end, it becomes about choosing the lesser of two evils, because you've been backed into a corner, and there is no way out that isn't incredibly painful. 

I have found a lot of comfort in Bethany Webster's articles, so I thought I'd share a link with you, and hope that her words bring you a sense of validation and support in what you're going through:

www.womboflight.com/you-dont-owe-your-mother-for-your-life/

In the end, you have to save yourself.  You are not responsible for the choices of others, and you deserve to live a life that you love.  Sending you love & light. 

[momisborderline]

My heart goes out to you... .I can completely relate to your situation, as I find myself in a similar one.  My mom, though, is only 65, and hasn't reached the point where she needs any assistance in relation to being elderly.  I know that day will come, though, and that is where you find yourself.  It's a terrible place to be put in. 

I went NC a month ago, and had the overload of guilt swamp my emotional system, pretty much paralyzing me.  The guilt never became stronger, though, than the fear of getting into contact with her again, and suffering another horrible emotional blow.  In the end, it becomes about choosing the lesser of two evils, because you've been backed into a corner, and there is no way out that isn't incredibly painful. 

I have found a lot of comfort in Bethany Webster's articles, so I thought I'd share a link with you, and hope that her words bring you a sense of validation and support in what you're going through:

www.womboflight.com/you-dont-owe-your-mother-for-your-life/

In the end, you have to save yourself.  You are not responsible for the choices of others, and you deserve to live a life that you love.  Sending you love & light. 

thanks so much for this post, it was really helpful. And the Bethany Webster article was very validating. Thanks again!

[Pilpel]

I went NC a month ago, and had the overload of guilt swamp my emotional system, pretty much paralyzing me.

I had to confront the NPD in my life and set boundaries recently. (An inlaw, not a parent.)  The week running up to the meeting, I started to have anxiety attacks.  I thought, if I were lost in a forrest and facing death, I don't think I would feel that degree of emotional turmoil.  I think part of that anxiety comes from that feeling that while I set boundaries, going NC is always there on the table for me.  But it's a big life-changing step.  It's not guilt, it's more like the feeling I had when I left a confining childhood and stepped out on my own.  It's like stepping out over a foggy unknown ledge and not knowing if what is out there is going to be better or worse.  There's a part of me that wonders if God wants her in our lives, and if we reject this challenge maybe something worse is out there.  But then I wonder if stepping out and going NC is the challenge that God intended all along.