My mom

[Lovemyjess]

I am an only child and for the last few decades I have been trying to fix my mom. My mom has had several psychiatric hospitalizations in my lifetime. One when I was a child, one in my early adulthood and one most recently. My situation is a little unique (I think) in that my mom was a very good mom until I hit my 20s. I had a happy childhood with the exception of some trauma.

My mom has had a series of bad relationships. Two divorces, multiple boyfriends, estrangement from siblings, her best friend and many neighbors over the years. She also makes poor relationship decisions.

When she became depressed, my husband and I took her into our home and tried to care for her. That didn’t go well. She alternated between despair, agoraphobia and rage. We took our small savings and hospitalized her at the request of her psychiatrist. My mom was very successful in her career up to this point. She had no mental health insurance coverage though. We could only afford two weeks. The reality was that her boyfriend at that time broke up with her because my mom didn’t get along with his teenage daughter. She took that breakup very hard and became very depressed and stopped eating. After we had her live with us she blamed my husband and me for not taking good care of her. It was hard to hear her accuse us of that after the hell we went through to try to save her.

The years that followed were never really happy for her. She blames everyone in her life for failing her, abusing her or being mean to her. She went through several relationships which failed, fought with neighbors, blamed her sister for being mean to her when she was sick, blamed her brother for the death of their mom, fought with neighbors and anyone else she could think of including doctors.

I spent years advocating for her, helping her fight her battles, taking care of her home while she travelled, paying bills for her, taking her side even though I thought she was wrong, listening to her complain for hours on the phone. I did everything I could to keep the peace because when she lost her temper, it was nothing but screaming and accusing. I am very easy to manipulate and feel guilt about everything. She used that against me. We’d argue, she’d stop talking to me and I’d call her back and apologize. I’ve apologized for things that I have never done just to keep peace. After every relationship ended I would prepare myself for the fallout. Knowing that I would have to fix her and then ultimately face her rage and anger.

She met a man a few years ago and they travelled in their RVs together. They had a fairly good relationship but he true to breakup 3 or 4 times so I waited for that inevitability. She didn’t want his friends around, didn’t want him to have a beer at night (“he gets mean”) and controlled him. He often got sick and she cared for him very well in that regard. Tragically, he died when they were traveling. The death was very hard on her and I could see her beginning to fall. I tried to get her to get help, bring her motor home back home to find a place to park it (she had sold her home to travel) or rent an apartment near me so I could help her. Instead, she camped in her RV until it was too late. She became an anxious, depressed wreck. Then one day she drove here and showed up unannounced. I frantically found a place for her to camp nearby and then started to find a doctor. I ran into issues due to her advanced age and ultimately found her two doctors. My mom refuses therapy, she thinks it’s worthless and the psychologists are messed up. She would only agree to medication management. She reads every side affect and determine the meds won’t work.

Ultimately, she came to live with us again. I knew it would be a disaster and tried to get her to rent something nearby (she had lots of money in the bank). She made every excuse why she couldn’t. I knew If she came that I wouldn’t be able to give her the level of care she needed for her Illness and I would ultimately take the blame for being mean to her and failing. I tried to get her hospitalized but because she did not have dementia, it was impossible to find help at her age. She lived with us for a few weeks and it was awful. My husband developed high blood pressure and he has a family history of heart disease. He wanted her out of our home. I took her to doctors, pharmacies, fed her, washed her clothes, everything I could to keep her alive. She alternated between anger and despair while she was with us. She’d rock back and forth, then cry and then rage.

During those weeks I took her to look at homes to buy. She found a home that she liked in a senior community and put an offer down. I handled the purchase for her because she was too anxious. After the escrow period and a few weeks with us, I took her to her new home. She was under the care of a psychiatrist but not doing well on her medications. I offered to pay for a live-in aid but she refused. I told her I’d come back the next day and check on her and I left her with food in the fridge and everything she needed to be comfortable. The next morning she didn’t answer so I waited (she’d often not answer my calls when mad). Finally, we drove over and I found her unconscious due to an overdose. She was put on a hold and sent to a psychiatric hospital. She received help there but accused everyone of being mean and abusive. While she was there I advocated for her with their social services team.

When she was getting ready to be released, I told her that I was going to hire a live in aid to keep her company. My mom has zero dementia and is physically years younger than her age. She’s incredibly healthy. She called me from the hospital and told me not to hire an aid because she was bringing another patient home with her. I was horrified and told her that was a bad idea. She kept it from the hospital and secretly arranged with this woman who is my age to care for her in exchange for free rent. She was furious with me for not supporting her plan and stopped talking to me. The woman moved in and I didn’t hear from my mom for a week. Then I finally got her to answer me and things weren’t going well. The woman was abusive to my mom and smoking pot hourly. So I told my mom I would call the police but the woman ultimately left on her own. Ironically, my mom said the woman told my mom that she was too manipulative and needed more than what she wanted to give.

Finally a medication worked and the severe depression lifted but not the anger and grief. She has blamed me and my husband for not caring for her with enough love and for not being there for her. I feel like I’ve lived my life for her. Recently, She went to her storage unit during the pandemic and didn’t tell me. She saw that her unit had a leaked and had damaged some stuff in there. She paid a guy some money to take the boxes out and put them in the hall. So she called me at 6:30 at night and told me the guy left and she was stuck. I had no idea she was even there. I frantically called around and by some miracle found a moving company to move her stuff to her new home at 7:00 at night during a pandemic.

I have been calling her every other day but I could tell she was angry. She wouldn’t address me or tell me she loved me and she answered very abruptly. Last Tuesday she lost it with me and told me I wasn’t there for her at the storage (even though I didn’t know she was there), and then accused me of being mean to her while she lived with us. She raged and screamed at me and accused blamed me for everything. Then told me that she didn’t have feelings for me. So I after all of these years I still couldn’t prevent what I tried so hard to prevent...our estrangement. I was the only one left.

I finally reached out to a therapist and she stopped me and told me she thought my mom has BPD. After our session I looked it up. After years of trying to research what was happening and why I felt such anxiety with my mom, I finally had an answer! I was so relieved. I knew something was desperately wrong. Is see her name pop up on my phone and get physically sick with anxiety, I dreaded her living with us because I knew the outcome, I dreaded every relationship of her ending because I knew I’d have to fix it (unsuccessfully). I have been reading books on BPD nonstop for two days. It has helped tremendously to understand. I have not talked to my mom for a week because my therapist told me I am feeding her illness by continually calling her back and apologizing. I’ve decided that I won’t go no contact but I also won’t chase her anymore. If she needs me, she can call and I’ll be here. I have such guilt though. I’ve obviously failed in some ways but I’ve always had her best interest and tried to keep her alive and advocate for her. Thank you for reading this long post. I feel like I am betraying her by writing this but I know I have to heal. I have severe anxiety as a result of everything and my poor husband had endured years of this toxic relationship. My mom can be very kind and generous but it gets very muddied with other controlling and manipulative behaviors.

[Methuen]

Hello Lovemyjess,

Welcome to the bpdfamily!

You have shared a compelling story.  I think it's great you reached out to a therapist, and I completely understand the insatiable need to read and learn about BPD.  For me it's been 8 months since I finally realized what BPD was, and I'm still reading and learning about it, albeit at a slower pace.  It's such a relief to understand that there is a complexity to the pwBPD that we were always clueless to, right?  That the person who always made us feel like everything we did, no matter how much we did or how great the deeds, was always giving us the message that we weren't doing enough, or doing it right, and that we didn't love them enough, or we should do more to prove it!  To understand that all that "stuff" was distorted thinking on their part, and NOT our fault (despite what our mother was telling us), what a relief!  Suddenly we could accept that maybe we didn't have to feel FOG all the time, because it wasn't all our fault.  The tricky part is to unlearn the feelings of FOG after a lifetime of feeling them.

For me, when I was at the beginning of this journey of understanding of my uBPD mom's disease, I still tried to rationalize her behavior after everything I had done for her.  I was so hurt.  I didn't understand any of it.  Her behaviors were so irrational, and mean, and not at all in keeping with how hard I tried to support her.  I just kept replaying in my mind everything I had done, and what my sacrifices were to do those things.  I was filled with resentment.  I'm not sure if you might be experiencing some of these things too.  It's hard to look back and pinpoint what turned the corner for me.  I think I finally hit the wall with her, because it felt too insane and impossible.  Then it finally hit me:  she was going to do and say what she was going to do and say.  I couldn't change that.  The only thing I could change was how I was going to react to it.  That was the ONLY thing I had any control over.  Then my real journey began, because I realized it was me I had to change, which also meant I had to figure out what my role in the insanity was, and stop contributing to it.  Eight months later, I still have a relationship with my mom, she's still difficult to impossible (but I've accepted that's never going to change), but I've learned how to manage myself and my interactions with her.  It's made a big difference.

You reference your "poor husband".  I feel bad for my H too.  He attends T with me because I invited him along.  I felt he would grasp things better if he heard T with his own ears.  And because he's learned about BPD too, he is a great sounding board when I'm trying to figure out how a "normal" person would respond to some of my mom's attention seeking behavior, and negative "daggers" at me.  She hasn't stopped trying to draw me in to drama, I've just stopped getting sucked into it.  I have worked hard to not play into that any more, and I feel I'm making progress with it.

Your story is pretty heavy hitting, and you've clearly put amazing effort into helping your mother, at your own expense.  Know that it isn't your fault.  Nothing you could have done differently with your mom, would have led to a different ending.  All paths lead to the same finish line with BPD, unless we "nons" can figure out how to "work with it".  Even then, some cases are so toxic, that NC is the only route for some people. I've kind of developed the theory that the BPD disease leads us "nons" to the point where we have to come to our own reckoning, and figure out what to do to save ourselves.

I dreaded every relationship of her ending because I knew I’d have to fix it

Fix the relationship or fix her?  Why you?  Why not her?  Our mothers have unknowingly groomed us to care for their emotions and feel their feelings for them.  When I realized this (thanks to someone on this site pointing it out to me), I started working on separating my emotions from my mothers, and allowing myself to feel my own emotions, and let her feel hers, and soothe herself.  You probably won't believe this, but if you give the BPD enough time and space, they really can soothe themselves.  But they don't do it willingly.  They're going to push back by pushing every button of yours to FOG you.  We have to hold our boundaries.  It's kind of like training kids and dogs (said with a lot of humour)  After the "extinction burst", it gets better.  I've also learned I can't solve her problems, despite desperately wanting to help her, and prevent her from crashing.  Sometimes they have to figure it out via the old fashioned "school of hard knocks".  

my therapist told me I am feeding her illness by continually calling her back and apologizing.

Your therapist is right.  When you apologise, you are "validating the invalid".  Not helpful.

After years of trying to research what was happening and why I felt such anxiety with my mom, I finally had an answer! I was so relieved.

yes!

I feel like I am betraying her by writing this

You are not.  Those might be your mother's feelings if she knew you were posting here, but what she doesn't know doesn't hurt her, right?  Instead, posting here helps you.  That's the other side of the coin, right? Maybe this is the right time to start separating your mother's feelings from your own.  Maybe by writing this, you are investing in some much needed self-care for yourself.  That is important, and definitely the right thing to do, and the right side of the coin for you.

Let us know how we can help.

[once removed]

I feel like I am betraying her by writing this but I know I have to heal.

i know what you mean.

i dont have a bpd parent, but any time ive ever talked some   about either of my parents to a friend. or especially, any time a friend has ever talked some   about either of my parents to me. i feel pretty badly, or i feel pretty defensive.

im a loyal guy. i value my family. i sense you feel similarly. its natural. theres nothing wrong with it.

at the same time, weve all got our issues with our folks! and sometimes, we all need the room to speak in an unvarnished way, and get some support and feedback.

the hard part for me, when talking about my parents, is that my folks meant well, even when what they said or did may have negatively impacted a kid like me, and i want people to know that. people here get that.

[hamletophelia]

Just from an outsider's point of view, it sounds like you have always been incredibly patient and caring with your mother. I know it can feel like a failure but it sounds like you've always done everything in your power to help her and take care of her. If nothing else, let that knowledge comfort you.

My mom can be very kind and generous but it gets very muddied with other controlling and manipulative behaviors.

This is what makes the situation so hard. I've been estranged from my own mother for about a decade now and every once in a while it really hurts because she's not always been sick/ bad/ etc. Sometimes remembering the good times with her can be soothing and comforting, but sometimes it can make everything hurt worse. Just know you're not alone in that and it's confusing but you're not alone.

[Lovemyjess]

Thank you all for the lovely and thoughtful response to my post. Posting this was very uncomfortable for me so I really appreciate your kind and encouraging words. It’s so wonderful to read such positive thoughts and is much needed during this time. I appreciate it so much.