What to do? Need advise

[Depression = 72% of members]

My parent is BPD and my uncle passes away. I no longer speak to the family after cutting communications with BPD parent. I didn't go to the funeral as the site of my BPD parent is devestating and also I know she will try to make a fool out of me at the funeral so that the extended family looks at me like I'm a bad soon who abandoned his mother. The extended family by now suspects that I bailed out but I don't think they know exactly why.

Here is my dilemma. If my BPD mother passes in the future, I would be a bit nervous to go to the funeral. I don't want to feel like the elephant in the room nor do I want to take attacks from my immediate family in an attempt to make me look like a fool. The whole immediate family is pretty cold so they might find a situation like this to hurt me. At the same time I don't want to be the son who didn't attend his own mothers funeral. Also, I haven't seen these people in years nor do I communicate with them. I have other family on the other side who is very supportive but they do not communicate with my mothers side either.

This is something that will occur in the far future but I am confused on how to approach a situation like this. I would rather just go to the grave site by myself and pay my respect to the dead. I don't hate her but I find her to be extremely dangerous to my well being. I also recognize that some of the other relatives can be cold hearted and humiliate me in a situation like this.

[Halo]

My parent is BPD and my uncle passes away. I no longer speak to the family after cutting communications with BPD parent. I didn't go to the funeral as the site of my BPD parent is devestating and also I know she will try to make a fool out of me at the funeral so that the extended family looks at me like I'm a bad soon who abandoned his mother. The extended family by now suspects that I bailed out but I don't think they know exactly why.

Here is my dilemma. If my BPD mother passes in the future, I would be a bit nervous to go to the funeral. I don't want to feel like the elephant in the room nor do I want to take attacks from my immediate family in an attempt to make me look like a fool. The whole immediate family is pretty cold so they might find a situation like this to hurt me. At the same time I don't want to be the son who didn't attend his own mothers funeral. Also, I haven't seen these people in years nor do I communicate with them. I have other family on the other side who is very supportive but they do not communicate with my mothers side either.

This is something that will occur in the far future but I am confused on how to approach a situation like this. I would rather just go to the grave site by myself and pay my respect to the dead. I don't hate her but I find her to be extremely dangerous to my well being. I also recognize that some of the other relatives can be cold hearted and humiliate me in a situation like this.

[Kwamina]

Hi Halo

My advice to you would be to try and stay in the present as much as you can with your thoughts. Thinking about what might happen seems to be causing you a lot of anxiety but the truth is that you don't know for certain how things will play out. There are different scenarios possible then just this negative scenario that you are envisioning in your mind. Dealing with what's going on in the present is often already hard enough as it is, without also having to worry about what might happen in the (distant) future. My advice would be to try and take it one day at a time, fully acknowledging reality as it is while focusing on the present.

I don't hate her but I find her to be extremely dangerous to my well being. I also recognize that some of the other relatives can be cold hearted and humiliate me in a situation like this.

Since you express serious concern for your well-being, I encourage you to take a look at some material we have on here about boundaries. Do you feel like setting and enforcing boundaries is something you are comfortable with doing when it comes to your mother and those other difficult relatives?

Boundaries are how we define our values to others.   A boundary is nothing more than the outer perimeters of our independent core values -  it's like a fence  - anything inside the boundary is consistent with our core values and anything outside the boundary is not.  For example, if your independent core value is "always to be respectful of others" a boundary question might be "would abruptly walking out of the room when someone says something offensive be inside or outside of your definition of this value?"  It's not always obvious as we all see things differently.  As you can quickly see, with values, we have a significant responsibility to lead, educate and inform others - we must walk the walk, have effective communication and be consistent.

Here are links to more information about this subject:

Getting Our Values and Boundaries in Order

Examples of boundaries

[P.F.Change]

Wise words from Kwamina.

It is understandable to be thinking about this so soon after your uncle's funeral. I agree this may be something you don't have to solve right away. Perhaps let yourself keep learning and growing in the present moment and when the time comes you will find you already have the answer. There is not necessarily a "right" or "wrong" way.

How long has it been since you ended contact with your parent? How do you feel about that?

Wishing you peace,

PF