Drowning in FOG, denial and life-sapping emotions. Is it just me?

[Depression = 72% of members]

Hi everyone

I introduced myself on the new members page but I wanted to talk specifically with others who have a mother wBP

I grew up as a parentified child after my parents divorced - when I was 9

My brother (only sibling) moved to stay with my dad so since the age of 9 my brother was low/no contact. My mother was irreversibly hurt by all this as she so often told me.

I was and still am the golden child. I have been so busy reaching all the goals and aspirations and looking after other people, that I had that I never stopped to look at my relationships until now, nearly 20 yrs after it all started. In the last year it all started to become clear, why was my anxiety through the roof, why did I block out my childhood, why was I such a problem solver, why did I feel so catestrophically unstable around my mum? I started to realise it all stemmed from my childhood with my mother. After numberous psychs and books I realised she is uBPD.

I find myself in so much denial, shock and disbelief. I seriously feel like I am not even in my own life at times, how could this be happening to me? I am such a normal, healthy person to the onlooker but I feel like this huge hole has opened up under me. The hole was always there but of course I didn't see it til now. I am so frustrated and angry, but overwhelmingly I feel guilt. Constant guilt, it saps the life out of me, it kills my desire to eat, sleep, talk.

My mum has all the traits of a waif. There have been times when I spent more time with her that the 'witch' would start to come out. But since I moved further away she is almost always as a 'waif'.

Almost anytime I talk to anyone about my mum they remind me that 'she just cares about you, she is just lonely, she is your mum'. Anytime i try to get space my mum goes into meltdown about how LONELY she is and how I left her all alone, i am the only one she has now, all she did was love me, i am so horrible to her. I swing from feeling utterly resentful of being parentified to feeling overwhelmed with guilt.

As i now have therapy support I have started setting boundaries with her, reducing phone calls etc. she is responding in a way I can only describe as 'false happiness' and rather than saying how unhappy she is, instead tells me every phone call how she just LOVES talking with me, I am like therapy for her, she is addicted to talking with me, she just misses me SO much, she has withdrawals if we don't talk etc. Maybe those things are true, but I feel like I am dying on the inside knowing that I am the sole person responsible for her happiness. I feel like she wants to drain every ounce of life out of me to make her happy. In the end I don't know what is worse, trying to set boundaries or just letting her take right over, I feel like either way I end up completely drained and hopelessly guilty. If she manages to give me a few days or a week with no contact I just know that I have made her unhappy and I know I will pay the price in time to come. I feel like my life just doesn't exist in the midst of all this.

All I can think of now is that moving overseas will make low contact possible and it won't be my fault so I won't have to feel guilty anymore.

And I can't believe it has come to that. I am so utterly tired of trying to meet her needs in spite of my own. I am just completely defeated.

[Smile41869]

Hi everyone

I introduced myself on the new members page but I wanted to talk specifically with others who have a mother wBP

I grew up as a parentified child after my parents divorced - when I was 9

My brother (only sibling) moved to stay with my dad so since the age of 9 my brother was low/no contact. My mother was irreversibly hurt by all this as she so often told me.

I was and still am the golden child. I have been so busy reaching all the goals and aspirations and looking after other people, that I had that I never stopped to look at my relationships until now, nearly 20 yrs after it all started. In the last year it all started to become clear, why was my anxiety through the roof, why did I block out my childhood, why was I such a problem solver, why did I feel so catestrophically unstable around my mum? I started to realise it all stemmed from my childhood with my mother. After numberous psychs and books I realised she is uBPD.

I find myself in so much denial, shock and disbelief. I seriously feel like I am not even in my own life at times, how could this be happening to me? I am such a normal, healthy person to the onlooker but I feel like this huge hole has opened up under me. The hole was always there but of course I didn't see it til now. I am so frustrated and angry, but overwhelmingly I feel guilt. Constant guilt, it saps the life out of me, it kills my desire to eat, sleep, talk.

My mum has all the traits of a waif. There have been times when I spent more time with her that the 'witch' would start to come out. But since I moved further away she is almost always as a 'waif'.

Almost anytime I talk to anyone about my mum they remind me that 'she just cares about you, she is just lonely, she is your mum'. Anytime i try to get space my mum goes into meltdown about how LONELY she is and how I left her all alone, i am the only one she has now, all she did was love me, i am so horrible to her. I swing from feeling utterly resentful of being parentified to feeling overwhelmed with guilt.

As i now have therapy support I have started setting boundaries with her, reducing phone calls etc. she is responding in a way I can only describe as 'false happiness' and rather than saying how unhappy she is, instead tells me every phone call how she just LOVES talking with me, I am like therapy for her, she is addicted to talking with me, she just misses me SO much, she has withdrawals if we don't talk etc. Maybe those things are true, but I feel like I am dying on the inside knowing that I am the sole person responsible for her happiness. I feel like she wants to drain every ounce of life out of me to make her happy. In the end I don't know what is worse, trying to set boundaries or just letting her take right over, I feel like either way I end up completely drained and hopelessly guilty. If she manages to give me a few days or a week with no contact I just know that I have made her unhappy and I know I will pay the price in time to come. I feel like my life just doesn't exist in the midst of all this.

All I can think of now is that moving overseas will make low contact possible and it won't be my fault so I won't have to feel guilty anymore.

And I can't believe it has come to that. I am so utterly tired of trying to meet her needs in spite of my own. I am just completely defeated.

[AsianSon]

I feel like she wants to drain every ounce of life out of me to make her happy. In the end I don't know what is worse, trying to set boundaries or just letting her take right over, I feel like either way I end up completely drained and hopelessly guilty. If she manages to give me a few days or a week with no contact I just know that I have made her unhappy and I know I will pay the price in time to come. I feel like my life just doesn't exist in the midst of all this.

All I can think of now is that moving overseas will make low contact possible and it won't be my fault so I won't have to feel guilty anymore.

And I can't believe it has come to that. I am so utterly tired of trying to meet her needs in spite of my own. I am just completely defeated.

Hi Smile41869,

You are not alone!  Your description rings very true to me and my situation with a uBPDm.  I too feel drained, and I sometimes describe her needs as a black hole that can never be filled to her satisfaction. 

And I also have to manage "guilt" if I haven't fed the black hole enough with phone calls or whatever.  But the fact is the guilt is something I let in and take root.  And knowing that the BPD condition is the drain means that I don't have to feel guilty if I cannot met its expectations.  No one can. 

But I urge you to not give in.  There is life beyond our mothers, and no current situation lasts forever.  We are each stronger than we know (or think). 

If moving is right for you, then it is right for you, and a loving parent would know that.  I know that our BPDmothers probably do not, but that simply means that we act in their stead to take care of ourselves. 

There are many others like us, so do not despair.  Peace to you... .

[G.J.]

I find myself in so much denial, shock and disbelief. I seriously feel like I am not even in my own life at times, how could this be happening to me? I am such a normal, healthy person to the onlooker but I feel like this huge hole has opened up under me. The hole was always there but of course I didn't see it til now. I am so frustrated and angry, but overwhelmingly I feel guilt. Constant guilt, it saps the life out of me, it kills my desire to eat, sleep, talk.

I literally could have written this myself, and have recently been saying these VERY words to close friends of mine.

My sister was recently diagnosed with BPD.  The T, who has also worked with both my father and I, has surmised that my mother is also BPD.  I'm now coming to realize that my father is most likely NPD (or at least has strong NPD traits).  And I'm now starting to understand the repercussions in my own life that all of this has caused... .   And yes, I wake up every morning in shock, not recognizing myself or my life anymore, after all of these new revelations.  It is beyond depressing.  Shocking and bewildering.  Anxiety provoking and downright scary at times.  It's hard to look at myself in the same way as I used to, and I'm having a very difficult time figuring out how to look at my family members now.  I love them -- and hate them -- all at the same time.

I had suspected for many years that my mother was BPD, but without any real confirmation, and having been NC with her for over 10 years, it didn't strongly affect my sense of self or view of my life, until my sister was diagnosed and I started really exploring my Family of Origin relationships in therapy.

I'm not sure that I have any great advice, other than just to say, "You're not alone" and to keep going to therapy and working through it.  My T has assured me that it does get better in time, and any "fleas" you picked up yourself can be identified and worked out.

All I can think of now is that moving overseas will make low contact possible and it won't be my fault so I won't have to feel guilty anymore.

My father often enmeshes with me, similar to how your mother is enmeshing with you.  I have an almost impossible time reducing our contact and setting appropriate boundaries with him (due to crippling guilt).  Hardly a day goes by that he doesn't call and/or email me.  I've been NC with my mother for 10+ years, but prior to that, she was very enmeshing with me as well.  She was more of the "Witch" and painted me black -- but nonetheless, she refused to allow any separation between her and I.  I have been LC with my sister for 3 years, who historically has vacillated between enmeshing with me and ostracizing me.

That being said, 20 years ago, I told my parents I wanted to go to college on the other side of the world.  They wouldn't let me, so I settled for one 1000 miles away.  I recently told my T that I was considering moving to the other side of the country, just to get away from my dysfunctional family.  My hope was to be able to go LC with my dad, go NC with my sister, and stay NC with my mother.  But my T told me that moving won't help one iota.  Even with me being NC from my mother for 10+ years, I have still carried her with me psychologically and emotionally, and physical distance won't help or cure that with her (or my father and sister).  My T said that individuating emotionally from my parents, learning to be assertive, setting solid boundaries, and releasing my feelings of FOG (fear, obligation & guilt) is the only way to fix how I'm feeling.  Once I learn that I can take care of myself and not be affected by others' guilt trips, pressure, expectations, etc -- it won't matter how close or how far they're living from me.  Apparently, I'll even be able to tolerate having a relationship with them!

[Smile41869]

Hi GJ and Asianson

THanks so much for your feedback and support. It is quite a relief to realise that you are not the only one, and that you aren't just going crazy for being in the situation. GJ Im sorry to hear you have the added pressure of sister and dad. I am lucky in that my dad has been a steady consistent anchor and given me a sense of normality to work off. It is his stability that has always given me a sense that something wasnt right with my mother.

I am wondering how you both make sense of what are normal, healthy boundaries? For example I wonder if I am setting healthy boundaries or just taking out resentment by wanting space. I feel like Im hitting a brick wall. Like GJs dad I know my mum would love to keep up daily contact emails, calls etc as we used to, but her contact just sends me into a spin of guilt, anxiety, dread, even panic! I know as soon as she contacts me that I am not going to meet all her needs. And the times that she does go away happy I know I am just reinforcing the enmeshment. Its a catch 22! Then I also start to think - she seems happy - maybe I am the crazy one!

Now I am thinking about the future and how I'd like it to be and I know that I am going to get stuck on big occassions like christmas, which have always been a big deal for her. For me they are not a big deal and I'd actually really like to see my dad or just relax with my partner. But the idea of not putting my mum in the centre of my holidays really worries me. How do I find a happy medium, and how do you know when you have found the happy medium? I want to put myself first and not feel like ___ about it and not have to pay for it later, but I just cant fathom that its possible right now!

Thanks again for your messages!