Momster died over a week ago.

[schwing]

My uBPD mother just recently passed away.  And I really don't understand my reaction.  I've felt grief before, but not from a close family member dying.  And not from a parent dying.  I lost a grandparent once but I was never close to her; all my other grandparents were dead before I was born.

The biggest grief I've ever felt in my life came from a BPD relationship ending with a betrayal... and with respect to that experience, I fully expected to be completely leveled by my mother's passing.  And yet, I feel very little.  Not nothing.  Some days I've had waves of fatigue, wanting to sleep all day.  I've felt some feelings of sadness, especially when talking to family members who are being hit hard by her passing.

To some degree I feel shame.  I feel ashamed that my mother has died and I feel some degree of relief, partly relief that she is no longer suffering, but also relief that I no longer have to play the role of a dutiful son for her.

I remember when I first started reading/writing here, one of the goals I had was to want to just feel apathetic about the people with BPD in my life.  My mother was the first person with BPD I ever connected to.  And it took me a while to even acknowledge that she was disordered.  My interaction with her, primed me to seek out the other folks who have BPD who subsequently became entangled in my life.  It took many years to de-tangle myself from those unfruitful "friendships." Over time, I stopped caring for those people who cost me so much more than I gained from their rapport.

Right now, the only pwBPD who remain in my life are some estranged relatives who I will probably see at my mother's funeral, and perhaps my sister-in-law, and my father-in-law.  That's it.  No more close friends with BPD.  

Mom was the closest pwBPD remaining with whom I still spent a consistent (and frequent) amount of time with, but that time was spent with a distance, a distance that protected me emotionally, a distance that my gained knowledge about this disorder afforded me.

For the last fifteen years, I really felt like I could remain indefinitely in this kind of orbit around my mother, without it damaging my rapport with the rest of the family, and without it damaging my own personal sensibilities.  And now she's dead, and I don't feel anything right now.

I just don't know what to make of it.  Did I spend all this time grieving over the mother that I never had?  Such that I have little to no grief left for the mother I just lost?  Hurray for apathy?

Does that make me a monster?

[Sappho11]

I'm sorry for your loss.

No, you're not a monster. Deaths tend to hit us out of the blue, most people don't really realise what's what until a couple of weeks after the fact. No need to feel guilty for not feeling immediate grief – it's normal for it to take a while to kick in. Sometimes it ends up being triggered by completely ridiculous things. It might be worth anticipating it and making sure you've got a strong support network around you for when this happens.

Losing a disordered parent is twice difficult. You've got to deal with the (eventual) grief (or confusion of the lack of it), but also with a torrent of conflicting emotions. You describe eventually having found a modus vivendi that worked for you for fifteen years. Now everything has changed, and the security of that routine has gone. That must be unsettling, too.

There is nothing I can say to make it better, only the usual and overused "it'll get better with time". Be patient with yourself. Accept that you feel shame and guilt, but don't forget to ask yourself with kindness whether these feelings are reasonable. Self-compassion will go a long way at this time.

Take care.

[Notwendy]

First, please know that you are not a monster.

And, I am sorry for your loss- and while that is something people say when someone loses a person who is important to them- what I also mean is that- this is a different kind of loss and so there can be different feelings about that.

I think grief is an individual experience- not a right or wrong thing- as if there's certain feelings one must have. I think what you are experiencing is that- you have seen other people grieve and don't feel what they do so you wonder if that is wrong.

To sum it up- a relationship is two ways- we wanted a mother who could love us in an emotionally healthy way and- we wanted to be able to love them that way too. I think we tried to achieve that but it wasn't in our power to do so, so there's a sense of shame and failure too- because it was an expectation of sorts. But we didn't fail at something that was not possible for us to do. These are cultural expectations too- but there's no validation from our culture for keeping a distance from an emotionally abusive parent.

I have felt the kind of grief that you are not feeling- and that you wonder about why you don't but I think that grief is related to the relationship in a way. My father acted as a parent to me, and when he passed, I grieved that loss. I also felt like an orphan, because he was the only parent who acted like a parent to me.

In the mix of the sadness- there was an odd sense of relief. This seemed strange to me. I was attached to my father- so what's this feeling? It was the dynamics in my family. My father was connected to my mother and he was her enabler- we were expected to comply with her and also tolerate her behavior. But this included tolerating her emotional and verbal abuse. I wanted my father's approval which was contingent on my BPD mother's feelings. In a way, my father was the "connection" between us. The strange sense of relief was that I could have boundaries with her without the risk to a relationship with him while at the same time grieving.

I have seen my friends post things on social media about how their mothers are their best friends. They post pictures of their mother on mother's day. I think it's nice that they do but I don't feel a connection to what they are doing. It's like someone might post about a trip to a place I have not ever been and it looks like a really nice place but I don't feel a connection to it. But if they post about a place I have visited and have memories about- it feels different.

Your feelings, or lack of them, are connected to your experience. They aren't "wrong"- just different. One idea is- to do something positive in honor of your mother- donate to a charity in her name or something like that. You have acknowledged her life in a positive way, even if there aren't feelings connected with this. Your loss is still significant- even if the experience is different. I wish you peace and comfort.

[Methuen]

No, you are not a monster.  Reading between the lines, it sounds like you might have expectations of yourself to feel a certain way.  But would you judge someone else who had a difficult and/or traumatic relationship with a parent who wasn't experiencing the feelings that children of healthy parents have when their parents pass?  I doubt it.  And yet here you are questioning yourself.

I just don't know what to make of it.  Did I spend all this time grieving over the mother that I never had?  Such that I have little to no grief left for the mother I just lost?

Maybe.  I think many of us go through a lengthy process of grieving our living parent.  Parent? Who actually did the parenting?  Us! Even as children...

For me, I recognize I have been grieving, and accepting her and the situation, for years.  

What you are experiencing now is something I've been thinking about for a long time already.  What will I be feeling when she finally passes?  

I anticipate relief.  I also anticipate some shame because social fabric expects us to feel loss and grief, and we experience this vicariously through people we know, and then when our time comes, it's different.  The rest of society won't be able to understand that because they have had "typical" relationships - more balanced and nurturing and reciprocal. They don't have our lived experience so they can't empathize with it.  My relationship with my mom (which is driven by her disorder) is conditional, transactional, and one sided - based on her needs.  I have had to respond with boundaries, radical acceptance, and self-care.  I am not expecting to feel what others feel (about their loss) when my mother passes. They are grieving the loss of a relationship which on balance had love and nurturing, mutual respect, and strong healthy attachment.  I couldn't have this when she was living, so how can I experience loss similar to others when she dies?  

You are not a monster.  Like NotWendy says, your grief is significant. It's just different than others because of your experience.  Others grieve a loss because there is a lifetime of memories and healthy bonding, but we did not have the positive memories or the healthy attachment, so our grief is going to be different.  

It's ok to be different.  It is what it is.  Somethings are outside our control, and our BPD parent is one of them.  

This is a time for you to honour and show self-compassion to little schwing.  I wish you peace.

[TelHill]

The biggest grief I've ever felt in my life came from a BPD relationship ending with a betrayal... and with respect to that experience, I fully expected to be completely leveled by my mother's passing.  And yet, I feel very little.  Not nothing.  Some days I've had waves of fatigue, wanting to sleep all day.  I've felt some feelings of sadness, especially when talking to family members who are being hit hard by her passing.

To some degree I feel shame.  I feel ashamed that my mother has died and I feel some degree of relief, partly relief that she is no longer suffering, but also relief that I no longer have to play the role of a dutiful son for her.

My deepest sympathies to you on the loss of your mother.

Please be kind to yourself.  You may have been grieving the loss of the kind of nurturing and loving parent we deserved throughout your life.

It took me a long time to accept that I couldn't fix her.  I had that yearning thinking being nice or doing things for her would help her get better. I thought someone must have done something really bad to her. Maybe the shame might be over this? I don't know but it's something that's not as strong inside me like it used to be.

I remember when I first started reading/writing here, one of the goals I had was to want to just feel apathetic about the people with BPD in my life.  My mother was the first person with BPD I ever connected to.  And it took me a while to even acknowledge that she was disordered.  My interaction with her, primed me to seek out the other folks who have BPD who subsequently became entangled in my life.  It took many years to de-tangle myself from those unfruitful "friendships." Over time, I stopped caring for those people who cost me so much more than I gained from their rapport.

I had a long term marriage to a guy who turned out to have a PD but like my mom was a 9 on the 1 to 10 scale of unhinged PD behavior directed at me.

I divorced him due to safety concerns. He died a year after the final decree.  He was arrogant about chronic health problems,  acting like he his intelligence and specialness would spare his life from poor lifestyle choices.

I felt relief and nothing else.  I eventually started to mourn the years I wasted with him. It's been a few years and I don't think about him much.

Does that make me a monster?

Not at all.  The fact of someone having BPD is out of our control.  

[schwing]

Thank you Sappho11,

Deaths tend to hit us out of the blue, most people don't really realise what's what until a couple of weeks after the fact.

I sort of wonder if somehow I started grieving for my mother early this year almost in anticipation of her death.  Around the time of our last thanksgiving, it was the first thanksgiving when we were all able to be in the same house since the start of the COVID restrictions. I had a dread feeling it might be our last.

Then I started having trouble sleeping, lost weight, experienced heart issues.  Checked things out with my doctor and was told, physically, I seemed to be fine.  Sought out therapy, meditated, looked for meta-physical guidance... eventually my distress seemed to resolve by March/April but I never really got a sense of what that whole experience was about.  Then mom dies.  If I took all the experiences I had at the beginning of the year, and re-experienced it now... *that* would make sense to me.

Sometimes it ends up being triggered by completely ridiculous things. It might be worth anticipating it and making sure you've got a strong support network around you for when this happens.

That might be the case.  I imagine I'll have a better idea once the funeral service has happened.

There is nothing I can say to make it better, only the usual and overused "it'll get better with time".

What you (and others) have wrote does make it better, for me.  Thank you.

Best wishes,

Schwing

[schwing]

Thank you Notwendy,

I have seen my friends post things on social media about how their mothers are their best friends. They post pictures of their mother on mother's day. I think it's nice that they do but I don't feel a connection to what they are doing. It's like someone might post about a trip to a place I have not ever been and it looks like a really nice place but I don't feel a connection to it. But if they post about a place I have visited and have memories about- it feels different.

I think I've actually avoided hearing about other people's positive experiences with their mothers (or parent), well except for superficial examples.  Nearly all my close friends (and even my spouse) have had some kind of pained relationship with their mothers or fathers.  For example, all the best men in my wedding party when I got married, all have a BPD parent. My wife's father is uBPD.  Birds of a feather?

Your feelings, or lack of them, are connected to your experience. They aren't "wrong"- just different. One idea is- to do something positive in honor of your mother- donate to a charity in her name or something like that. You have acknowledged her life in a positive way, even if there aren't feelings connected with this. Your loss is still significant- even if the experience is different. I wish you peace and comfort.

In spite of not having had the kind of relationship with my mother that I would have liked, I will express gratitude towards how her influence has shaped my life in ways that I appreciate.  If I really think hard on it, many of the qualities that I like best about myself, I can connect it in some way or another back to her influence, direct or indirect.

Best wishes,

Schwing

[Notwendy]

Our family of origin influences our relationships- it's an emotional and subconscious thing I think - a sense of "familiarity" with someone else who also feels that with us. This could possibly be good, or dysfunctional depending on the dynamics.

It could also be that it's spoken about more often. I learned recently that some of my friends in high school had abusive parents- I had no clue and my BPD mother's behavior was also a secret that I didn't want my friends to know about. I somehow felt a sense of shame about it although it wasn't my fault.

I found it interesting when speaking to the wife of a guy I dated in high school that her mother has BPD. I don't know how we got on that subject. With the boy- we were too young for any dating drama then and I don't know of any issues in his family then. I found it interesting that he had been attracted to two people who have BPD mothers. Coincidence or not? I don't know.

Maybe it's different for girls but a mother is a role model and I could see that there was something different about my mother than my friends' mothers. I noticed other mothers and they didn't seem to have BPD.

Sometimes the "match" is different but possibly related. My mother in law is a loving kind mother and also co-dependent. My father was co-dependent.

I am glad you can attribute some of your positive qualities to your experience with your mother. This is a lovely way to remember her.

[zachira]

My heart hurts knowing how confusing and painful it can be to have a mother pass away who was not the loving mother every child deserves  My mother with BPD has been dead for several years now. I feel that if I had had an honest relationship with my mother, my feelings about her death would be clear. I keep uncovering new family secrets while developing a better understanding of my relationship with my mother. Practice self compassion as you feel a range of feelings, some perhaps surprising and confusing. Feeling apathy may be part of being worn out from the volatile relationship with your mother.