Feeling clueless. Can I help her or am I hurting for nothing?

[yesimhere]

Hi all,

My undiagnosed BPD mum (diagnosed with PTSD) is becoming less and less manageable. I am her only child. For years she has been the most shocking kind of unmanageable so I just don't know what I am going to do.

After years setting clear boundaries (and her sort-of-kind-of respecting them while all the while acting dejected and unloved), she is now starting to rebel against them and treat me once again, with disrespect. She frequently cites me as her life's one purpose, her love for me as profound, her need for me absolute. Honestly, I love her in a compassionate way but she is not and can never be a mother figure to me again because I do not trust her. I feel so guilty but I feel nothing more than this. I feel the urge to run. I don't know how I can help her if I am afraid to be in the same room as her, if my entire body rejects the idea as a possibility.

Aside from her complete lack of empathy for and disrespect of me, she is becoming more and more self-destructive, and this hurts to watch. She has hepatitis but has started drinking again. She mixes with violent people, or has violent fallings-out. She recently shaved her head and is at her most anorexic. She is constantly citing illnesses, some real, some imagined. She tells far-fetched and often vicious lies. She is not functional. It is a miracle she is not homeless.

Is the anguish and anger I feel from putting myself in an unsafe place with her worth the possibility of helping her? I want her to go to therapy and feel that if I could get her to do this it would be worth it. But each time in the past this has been attempted she has decided the therapist has a vendetta against her.

I just want to be the closest to free that is possible. My resentment has bubbled up because I feel entrapped again. I don't know what the next step is.

[Kwamina]

Hi yesimhere,

I also read your introductory post and it sounds like your mother's behavior is really taking it's toll on you. It seems that your mother is in great distress and tries to cling to you to regulate her own emotions.

Is the anguish and anger I feel from putting myself in an unsafe place with her worth the possibility of helping her?

I think this is a question only you can answer but what I can say is that you should also take very good care of yourself and not let your mother drag you down with her. Easier said than done of course I realize that. I can relate to your desire for wanting to help your mother, but unfortunately you can't save her if she doesn't want to be saved. The way you describe your mother leads me to believe that she doesn't acknowledge she has serious problems at all. This is a very difficult aspect of BPD for us children of BPD parents to deal with. For almost 30 years I believed that my mother would change only to realize that her behavior had actually gotten worse. Therapy can improve the behavior of BPD parents but only if they themselves are truly committed to it an acknowledge their problems. Maybe this day will still come for your mother, who knows. But for now I think it's very important to really take good care of your own emotional needs before she drags you down with her.

[yesimhere]

Thanks for your reply Kwamina,

It's funny, much of the time I am too protective of myself to be interested in saving her. Because over recent years she has shown me slightly less of the extent of her dysfunction so I feel like I am grieving for the loss of her presence in my life all over again. It's good to know I'm not the only one who has fallen into the trap of believing that she is getting better. I suppose I wanted to believe it.

Her helplessness inspires guilt and sympathy in me, but it has a very direct counterpoint in anger and self-protectiveness and this is ultimately what wins. You are quite right that you can't help somebody who doesn't want to be helped, and you are correct in assuming that she thinks there is nothing wrong with her. I know in my head that the guilt apportioned to me is wrong and should not belong with me, but I still feel it.

I don't even know how to/if I should tell her she has upset me and that's why I need some space. If there is ever any SLIGHT suggestion of a misstep she responds with hysterical crying/anger/crying/apologies/accusations, but no explanation at all for breaking off contact seems unkind too.

[P.F.Change]

Hi, yesimhere.

Thank you for sharing your post with us. Our relationships with our parents with BPD can be exhausting and confusing. It is understandable that you would feel compassion and pity for your mother while at the same time not wanting to be around her. We have a number of tools here that can help you communicate with your mother and work on healing from the abuse of your childhood.

But for now I think it's very important to really take good care of your own emotional needs before she drags you down with her.

^^^This is really important, yesimhere. Caring for others becomes more and more difficult if we are not caring for ourselves. It sounds like you are having some physical fight-or-flight reactions in addition to the emotional ones. I can relate to that. Working with a therapist really helped me. Do you have one you can talk to about what you are feeling?

What are some of your boundaries? How have you been taking care of them?

Wishing you peace,

PF