Update on how counseling went

[mommasa]

I posted several months back about how I was going to try out counseling with BPD mom who I had been NC with for 1 1/2 years and then VLC for another 9 months.  Our first counseling session went okay.  She tried to start explaining how nothing was actually her fault and telling various fantasies that she calls the "truth" b/c revising history is an Olympic sport for her! But then the counselor stopped her and explained we are only going to work on how to communicate moving forward. He made us practice saying what we wanted, validating/repeating back what we heard, then responding.  It worked well and stopped us from just arguing back and forth about what did/did not happen and who ruined whose life, etc.  After our first session, she asked if we could go back to being best friends.  UMMMMMM, NO!  You don't undo punching me in the face and calling CPS against me by going to one counseling session. I tried to gently explain that we have a LOT of trust rebuilding that we still need to do.  So then we email back and forth for a few months and she won't commit to another session until like 4 months later. We go back, and it goes fine again.  Lots of work on her reigning herself in and not trying so hard to convince everyone how royally right she is!  But it seems like marginal progress, it really does!  Then we have another month of pleasant enough email exchanges. We have one lunch together.  I use Medium Chill and it seems to be going well.  Then 2 weeks ago, she fully flips her lid because it took me 3 days to respond to an email.  She starts emailing all my aunts and uncles again saying that she is going to put me and my DH in jail for abusing our children and that I am threatening to sue them and all this totally crazy stuff. Starts sending the abusive emails again calling me names and threatening me. So verdict:  counseling did not work, AT ALL!  The counselor was great and had some really good techniques that we could have benefited from; but BPDmom just 100% could not do incremental progress; I think that when she realized i wasn't going to be her BFF after 2 sessions; she couldn't handle it and went into extinction burst mode :-(  Oh well; I feel good that I tried, I guess. 

[Sitara]

Sorry to hear that your mom wasn't willing to put in the effort.  I tried suggesting my mom see a therapist to work through her unresolved issues (this was before I learned about BPD), and that did not go well at all.  She insists she's fine!  I thought about forcing her to go to therapy if she wanted a relationship with me, but decided against it after learning about BPD.  I imagine if I had, it would have been about the same as what you experienced.  You did all you could.

[Kwamina]

Hi mommasa,

Sorry you had to experience your mother's crazy BPD behavior again. I commend your efforts in trying to have some sort of relationship with your mother after such a long period of NC. It's difficult to accept but many people with BPD probably are never gonna change. I still have contact with my own uBPD mom, but I've completely given up on the idea that she'll ever change her behavior, yet I still struggle with it. I experience the same problem you have with your own mother, she doesn't acknowledge her wrongdoings and always blames other people. Rewriting history really does seem to be an Olympic sport for BPD parents  They probably don't realize it themselves but it's like they're living in some alternate reality while we are living in the real world.

[hopesprings]

My uBPD mom and I had an awful conversation last night.  She baited me and I took it.  I had the false hope that maybe this time we'd make some progress, she'd hear me, etc.  I've got to get over that.  I offered to go to counseling with her so that we could maybe get to a better place.  She refused to go without her two "golden children" in attendance.  I said that was not acceptable to me.  If we go to counseling it will just be the two of us to start.  I have been to years and years of therapy and she has been about two times with my father.  She left the second session and never went back.  It is exhausting.  I hate conversations with her that go like that because it makes me recognize (again) how ill she is.  She can be fine for months at a time and then suddenly she just flips out. 

[cleotokos]

I asked my mom to go to therapy, as I was at a total loss on how to communicate with her. I just couldn't get through to her, and I thought maybe if she repeated verbatim to a therapist what I had said to her, they might be able to translate it to something she'd understand. How naive I was! She quickly forgot why she was going, and it became a huge effort in convincing her therapist, and thus me, that there was absolutely nothing wrong with her. She would report back "my therapist says x" or "my therapist says y". Sometimes I would doubt that her therapist actually HAD said these things; she seems to sometimes attribute her own opinions and things she's said to other people. Like I asked her for a little more space in our relationship, and she continued to email me, claiming her therapist had advised her that she should do this so I would know she hadn't abandoned me. I can't imagine a therapist in the world that would say this, which makes me think she didn't accurately relay what I had said to the T. I had mentioned BPD to her (wrong I know, but I was trying to express to her there was a SERIOUS PROBLEM that needed to be addressed), which she mentioned in her first therapy session and claimed that the T scoffed at this idea and said she could't possibly be BPD. In the first session! Eventually, she stopped going, claiming the T had told her she doesn't need therapy. It was all just a "who's right, who's wrong" game to her, nothing more. I can't help but wonder if the T doesn't deal with BPD people and told her she doesn't need therapy in part because she's clearly not interested in addressing her issues, but also to get rid of her? Anyway long story short - they have to WANT therapy, have a DESIRE to change. Lesson learned.

[mommasa]

Thanks everyone for sharing your stories, sympathy and insight!  It's hard for me; b/c part of me feels sorry for her that she is burdened with such a terrible mental illness.  But then another part of me gets angry and frustrated that she seems to prefer blaming everyone else over seeking help. At this point, I am MOSTLY over the guilt of going back to NC if need be.  She sent a baiting email with the title "let's clear this up once and for all" and then proceeded to call me a liar and tell me this was my LAST chance to tell the truth; and she cc'ed all my aunts and uncles too!  If at ALL possible, I would prefer VLC and Medium Chill over NC, so I tried to de-escalate and sent this in return: "You seem very upset right now and us re-hashing these same old arguments is not going to make you feel less upset and can only further damage the relationship we were just starting to rebuild.  But in the spirit of looking forward, I just wanted to write to say I love you; keep working hard on finding your peace, I wish you luck and send my love during this difficult journey."  If she can calm herself down; then I will keep trying to work with her.  But if not, then I will reluctantly go back to NC b/c as much as I love her and feel bad for her; she has already caused so much damage and stress within my family and I have to protect my kids.