How to deal with detaching from my BDP mother (and how to help my children)

[Our abuse recovery guide]

Hi all, so enlightening to have found this supportive forum.

Brief history (brief as possible!): my mother has undiagnosed BPD. She's now 79, I'm 46. My brother and I had a hellish childhood with her uncontrollable temper and being blamed for everything in her life. In between flashes of her being 'normal' and proclaiming to love us, which I think / hope were genuine, but of course made everything all the more confusing and twisted.

Most nights we'd go to bed and after a while she'd come screaming up to our rooms, bursting in and smashing up everything in them, stopping only to shout and scream and spit in our faces. I can't tell you how hideous it is to remember us as children going through that and having to put our rooms back together each morning, piecing together broken toys and having to throw away things that were beyond repair. (Such a metaphor, huh?) She would tell us almost daily that we were punishment for something evil she must have done in a past life, she'd find and mark my diary in red pen with awful denigrating comments, she'd spend hours on the phone sobbing and telling everyone how awful we were and how we'd caused her to have a breakdown (it's only recently that family have told us they knew what was going on, of course at the time I thought they believed everything she said. It was the early 80s, I hope there'd be more support for families stepping in now). When she wasn't shouting she was sniping, criticising, sighing loudly and scowling. We went to school not having bathed or cleaned our teeth for weeks. She'd regularly tell us she was leaving us and had bought a flat of her own but that she wouldn't ever tell us the address as she didn't want us to visit or to see us ever again. Every time she stormed out I'd be at the window for hours terrified that she might not come back.

When we became teenagers it continued with the addition that she'd try to control and sabotage our friendships and quite often I'd come home and find all my belongings in bin bags on the front lawn with the dog tied to them by his lead, with her standing nonchalantly at the door with the money for a taxi for me to go with all my stuff and never come back. God knows what the neighbours thought. I'd have to take what I could and go, and then of course with nowhere else to go always had to come back later that day, beg to be let in again, and then have to take all the bin bags of my smashed up things back upstairs and try to put my room back together again.

And all of this is only a flavour / fraction of what we went through.

After leaving home and getting into a very painful relationship for several years that emulated the dynamic with my mother, I entered into years of psychotherapy in my mid 20s which helped so much. In my mid 30s I was lucky enough to meet and marry a wonderful man and we have two wonderful boys aged 6 and 8.

While getting a better hold of my own life, being better able to understand the horror of what we grew up with, and being able to develop a much healthier way of being, I have also spent most of my adult life 'excusing' my mother's behaviour, saying she didn't want to be 'that' mother, she was mentally ill, etc. Therapy has enlightened me that my brother and I were projection 'patsy's' for her in our childhood. My brother barely sees her now, maybe 2 or 3 times a year. I see her maybe once or twice a week as she lives nearby so I am the closest and sole projection board onto which she projects anything and everything and then attacks it. The longer we spend with her, the more vicious the attacks, so we've kept visits to little and often for our sakes and the children's.

She claims to adore the boys, and they certainly do her, and they see her once or twice a week on the little and often basis, but things are starting to change for us now. Recently she has decided to move 200 miles and 6 hours drive away from us. I've resisted it as I don't think I could bear the FOG and the fact that visits would no longer be able to be little and often. We've told her we'd hardly see her as the kids are at school, it's too far for weekends, and we can't be coming every holiday (my husband's parents live the same distance away and we see them two or three times a year). In her rose coloured fantasy world (she always has a fantasy panacea that she believes is going to make her life perfect and when of course it doesn't it's always my fault - this move is her latest panacea) we will go and stay with her in holidays and she'll come and stay with us and we'll all live happily ever after and see each other often. My husband and I can't think of anything worse, and of course the practicalities at her age make no sense - most people her age move closer to family, not away, and how would she even get to us when she can no longer do the 6-hour drive, or lug a suitcase on the four-train, six-hour train journey.

I think, too, I just didn't want her to be 'that' mother who actually WANTS to move that far away from her child and only grandchildren. And it's that that's caused a shift in me. I've finally, after 46 years, realised that actually she IS the mother that she was, she is 'that' mother, the one who doesn't care enough, the one who will hurt her children in any way possible to make herself feel better. She always has been and always will be. This wanting to move away has meant I've finally begin to emotionally detach a little and see things for what they are.

Sorry, going on for a long time! Coming to my point now... we've just been on a 2 week holiday in France with her. Some lifelong friends of hers who have no idea of her 'other' side invited us to stay in flats on their complex where we would both have our own flats, however with her lack of boundaries she turned up at our door from 8am every morning to have breakfast with us and the children and simply never left us, hanging around like a dark cloud with us all day every day, criticising, sniping, exploding at the most innocent and innocuous things. She has no filter in front of the children and they would often end up in tears, one evening our oldest (8) being left sobbing into his arms on the table in distress at the conflict. As soon as her friends appeared or were in earshot the smile would ping on and butter wouldn't melt. (Which leads to another realisation that she DOES have control over her behaviour as she manages to control it with other people or when she thinks others might 'rumble' her. Realising that there is an element of control and choice in how she treats me is another gut-punching revelation).

I saw behaviour in my oldest son over the last couple of weeks that I recognised from when I was a child. Constantly scanning for conflict when she's around, constantly trying to make things 'super nice' when she's around to try to divert her from conflict ('isn't this fun Nanny, isn't this nice Nanny!' etc), asking where she was whenever he can't see her as he was anxious she'd stormed off again. That has brought out the tiger mother in me which combined with the shift that's been going on anyway means things are now going to change.

My husband and I agree that we absolutely have to protect our children. Previously we've put up with her behaviour to an extent as fighting it is like throwing petrol on a bonfire so we've taken the path we think each time that causes less shouting for the children. But we simply can't have them exposed to her behaviour anymore or developing unhealthy patterns of behaviour in response like we've just seen in our son this holiday. The boys have to see us calling out her behaviour, we have to give them a better model for how to deal with that kind of behaviour in life (which is standing up to it and calling it out, not pussy footing around it).

Given the behaviour is part and parcel of any kind of relationship with her, we have to start limiting the contact for our sakes and theirs. Which leaves me with a dilemma. They love her, she's been a big and quite constant part of their lives. For the most part she's good with them and we've managed the 'kaboom' risk by not spending too long with her at a time. This holiday has shown what happens when she's around me for longer than a day or so at a time. We've decided that when she moves away (which she will) we will stay for no longer than one or two nights and within that time we'll leave as soon as she misbehaves, and if she comes to us she either behaves or she stays in a b&b or goes home.

But how do I protect my children? It's all very well saying we'll start calling her out and limit contact, and that we'll leave if she kicks off or we'll tell her to leave if she's at ours, but that's still conflict for the children to have to see and deal with (as trust me she won't go quietly on top of the kaboom that will have instigated it in the first place). It's heartbreaking that they have to deal with any of this.

So this has been my long winded way of saying how do you deal with children and their BPD grandparents, particularly when there's a close relationship between them?

Thanks for listening and I'm so sorry for making this so long. As a first post I guess I felt the need to offload!

[Alex207]

Hi all, so enlightening to have found this supportive forum.

Brief history (brief as possible!): my mother has undiagnosed BPD. She's now 79, I'm 46. My brother and I had a hellish childhood with her uncontrollable temper and being blamed for everything in her life. In between flashes of her being 'normal' and proclaiming to love us, which I think / hope were genuine, but of course made everything all the more confusing and twisted.

Most nights we'd go to bed and after a while she'd come screaming up to our rooms, bursting in and smashing up everything in them, stopping only to shout and scream and spit in our faces. I can't tell you how hideous it is to remember us as children going through that and having to put our rooms back together each morning, piecing together broken toys and having to throw away things that were beyond repair. (Such a metaphor, huh?) She would tell us almost daily that we were punishment for something evil she must have done in a past life, she'd find and mark my diary in red pen with awful denigrating comments, she'd spend hours on the phone sobbing and telling everyone how awful we were and how we'd caused her to have a breakdown (it's only recently that family have told us they knew what was going on, of course at the time I thought they believed everything she said. It was the early 80s, I hope there'd be more support for families stepping in now). When she wasn't shouting she was sniping, criticising, sighing loudly and scowling. We went to school not having bathed or cleaned our teeth for weeks. She'd regularly tell us she was leaving us and had bought a flat of her own but that she wouldn't ever tell us the address as she didn't want us to visit or to see us ever again. Every time she stormed out I'd be at the window for hours terrified that she might not come back.

When we became teenagers it continued with the addition that she'd try to control and sabotage our friendships and quite often I'd come home and find all my belongings in bin bags on the front lawn with the dog tied to them by his lead, with her standing nonchalantly at the door with the money for a taxi for me to go with all my stuff and never come back. God knows what the neighbours thought. I'd have to take what I could and go, and then of course with nowhere else to go always had to come back later that day, beg to be let in again, and then have to take all the bin bags of my smashed up things back upstairs and try to put my room back together again.

And all of this is only a flavour / fraction of what we went through.

After leaving home and getting into a very painful relationship for several years that emulated the dynamic with my mother, I entered into years of psychotherapy in my mid 20s which helped so much. In my mid 30s I was lucky enough to meet and marry a wonderful man and we have two wonderful boys aged 6 and 8.

While getting a better hold of my own life, being better able to understand the horror of what we grew up with, and being able to develop a much healthier way of being, I have also spent most of my adult life 'excusing' my mother's behaviour, saying she didn't want to be 'that' mother, she was mentally ill, etc. Therapy has enlightened me that my brother and I were projection 'patsy's' for her in our childhood. My brother barely sees her now, maybe 2 or 3 times a year. I see her maybe once or twice a week as she lives nearby so I am the closest and sole projection board onto which she projects anything and everything and then attacks it. The longer we spend with her, the more vicious the attacks, so we've kept visits to little and often for our sakes and the children's.

She claims to adore the boys, and they certainly do her, and they see her once or twice a week on the little and often basis, but things are starting to change for us now. Recently she has decided to move 200 miles and 6 hours drive away from us. I've resisted it as I don't think I could bear the FOG and the fact that visits would no longer be able to be little and often. We've told her we'd hardly see her as the kids are at school, it's too far for weekends, and we can't be coming every holiday (my husband's parents live the same distance away and we see them two or three times a year). In her rose coloured fantasy world (she always has a fantasy panacea that she believes is going to make her life perfect and when of course it doesn't it's always my fault - this move is her latest panacea) we will go and stay with her in holidays and she'll come and stay with us and we'll all live happily ever after and see each other often. My husband and I can't think of anything worse, and of course the practicalities at her age make no sense - most people her age move closer to family, not away, and how would she even get to us when she can no longer do the 6-hour drive, or lug a suitcase on the four-train, six-hour train journey.

I think, too, I just didn't want her to be 'that' mother who actually WANTS to move that far away from her child and only grandchildren. And it's that that's caused a shift in me. I've finally, after 46 years, realised that actually she IS the mother that she was, she is 'that' mother, the one who doesn't care enough, the one who will hurt her children in any way possible to make herself feel better. She always has been and always will be. This wanting to move away has meant I've finally begin to emotionally detach a little and see things for what they are.

Sorry, going on for a long time! Coming to my point now... we've just been on a 2 week holiday in France with her. Some lifelong friends of hers who have no idea of her 'other' side invited us to stay in flats on their complex where we would both have our own flats, however with her lack of boundaries she turned up at our door from 8am every morning to have breakfast with us and the children and simply never left us, hanging around like a dark cloud with us all day every day, criticising, sniping, exploding at the most innocent and innocuous things. She has no filter in front of the children and they would often end up in tears, one evening our oldest (8) being left sobbing into his arms on the table in distress at the conflict. As soon as her friends appeared or were in earshot the smile would ping on and butter wouldn't melt. (Which leads to another realisation that she DOES have control over her behaviour as she manages to control it with other people or when she thinks others might 'rumble' her. Realising that there is an element of control and choice in how she treats me is another gut-punching revelation).

I saw behaviour in my oldest son over the last couple of weeks that I recognised from when I was a child. Constantly scanning for conflict when she's around, constantly trying to make things 'super nice' when she's around to try to divert her from conflict ('isn't this fun Nanny, isn't this nice Nanny!' etc), asking where she was whenever he can't see her as he was anxious she'd stormed off again. That has brought out the tiger mother in me which combined with the shift that's been going on anyway means things are now going to change.

My husband and I agree that we absolutely have to protect our children. Previously we've put up with her behaviour to an extent as fighting it is like throwing petrol on a bonfire so we've taken the path we think each time that causes less shouting for the children. But we simply can't have them exposed to her behaviour anymore or developing unhealthy patterns of behaviour in response like we've just seen in our son this holiday. The boys have to see us calling out her behaviour, we have to give them a better model for how to deal with that kind of behaviour in life (which is standing up to it and calling it out, not pussy footing around it).

Given the behaviour is part and parcel of any kind of relationship with her, we have to start limiting the contact for our sakes and theirs. Which leaves me with a dilemma. They love her, she's been a big and quite constant part of their lives. For the most part she's good with them and we've managed the 'kaboom' risk by not spending too long with her at a time. This holiday has shown what happens when she's around me for longer than a day or so at a time. We've decided that when she moves away (which she will) we will stay for no longer than one or two nights and within that time we'll leave as soon as she misbehaves, and if she comes to us she either behaves or she stays in a b&b or goes home.

But how do I protect my children? It's all very well saying we'll start calling her out and limit contact, and that we'll leave if she kicks off or we'll tell her to leave if she's at ours, but that's still conflict for the children to have to see and deal with (as trust me she won't go quietly on top of the kaboom that will have instigated it in the first place). It's heartbreaking that they have to deal with any of this.

So this has been my long winded way of saying how do you deal with children and their BPD grandparents, particularly when there's a close relationship between them?

Thanks for listening and I'm so sorry for making this so long. As a first post I guess I felt the need to offload!

[madeline7]

Welcome! How wonderful that you found a great partner and are such a caring Mom to your 2 boys. I often marvel at how so many of us are able to take a different path and not perpetuate the dysfunction we grew up with. My story is a bit different, but the few times my uBPDm raged and my enabler Dad defended my Mom, I got up and walked out with my kids in tow. It didn't happen often, they saved that toxic behavior for me and my siblings and put on an act with others and even the grandkids. When my Mom had her suicide attempt, my kids were 13 and 17. I was not sure how to talk to them about it. My youngest was concerned, my oldest said her grandma was attention seeking. What? How did a 17 year old come up with that? A few years later, the youngest wrote in his senior project/family history that his grandma was the craziest person in the family. Today they are wonderful young adults, they love their grandma, but 1. See the dysfunction clearly and 2. Are protective of me and will not put up with any behavior that upsets me. I think you understand what you may have to do in order to keep protecting your children, and to model healthy behavior for them in order to help them grow and develop. I was lucky to find a T who understands DBT, and took a 12 week free workshop for family members of people with BPD. That workshop helped me to understand BPD and my role in the family. I am working hard to set limits, detach and mostly, to take care of myself. It is hard work, and we are all here together, and we can support you as you do the work.

[GaGrl]

Welcome! We're glad you found your way to us, even though the reason behind it is unfortunate. Many of the members here have, or have had in the past, situations like yours and can offer help and support.

My mother's stepmother was uBPD/NPD at a time the disorder and DBT was not known or an option - a long time ago. My father was very supportive in protecting our family from her "nonsense" as he called it. He moved us 200 miles away when I was born -- due to drama around "bringing baby home from hospital"; she couldn't even deal with a baby getting attention of her inability to control the homecoming. We visited infrequently -- only 2-3 times a year -- and my grandparents rarely drive the 200 miles to visit us. Her primary focus during a visit was showing off her grandaughters to friends, not actually interacting with us. We had a better and closer relationship with their housekeeper.

I see the boundaries and consequences you are putting in place with your husband as appropriate and necessary. Holding to the consequences will be absolutely critical. You will not only be holding her to consequences -- you will be teaching your children how people may and may not great them.

[Alex207]

Thank you both so much for your support and for sharing your thoughts and experiences. Madeline7, your kids sound amazing, what a great mum you clearly are. It's such a balance isn't it, I'm just starting this journey of detaching and protecting the kids. I had a chat with my oldest son (8, and very sensitive) while we were away and said it's like the kids program's he sees on tv about mental health - Nanny doesn't look after her mental health and that's why she behaves like she does, her behaviour's wrong and we don't have to put up with it, but we also try to be understanding that it's because she doesn't look after her mental health. About the most I can say to him at the moment at his age. Really interesting to read your post and how you were as open as you could be with your kids, removed yourself and them when your mum kicked off, and how they still manage to have a good relationship with your mum while knowing what she's like and protecting you. Thank you for sharing.

Gagrl, I had to smile at your post, as awful as the events you describe were! My mum was exactly the same - we lost a baby before our eldest son and his pregnancy was high risk, my mother decided she was going to move in with us for a month when he was born and when we said no she kicked off and refused to have anything to do with me for the last three months of the pregnancy. I had a planned c-section and she booked herself a load of hair, dental etc appointments for the days after we knew he was going to be born. All because she couldn't control how we dealt with having our own baby and it not being what she wanted. And now, my husband and I have often commented about how fake she is around other people and it's all about showing the grandchildren off in the vein of 'look at me, aren't I a wonderful grandmother!'. Things said to them loudly in a sing song voice with everything said for the benefit of the people listening, not for the kids themselves. Thanks for sharing, and for your support and advice.

Man it's tough isn't it. Such a dichotomy as she's my mum, of course reducing contact with her goes against many instincts, but I'm slowly beginning to realise that what I want her to be is never really going to happen. Sometimes I think we're getting on well and then boom, she goes off again. My husband tried to talk to her yesterday about her terrible behaviour while we were away (obviously to no avail), and he said to me afterwards that basically all he got from it was how much she dislikes me. I know it's projection, I know it's because she doesn't like herself but projects that onto me, but it's still hurtful.

Anyway, the boys are my priority so if I find myself wavering I know I have to do it for them. Thanks again.