Introduction, BPD Mother

[Our abuse recovery guide]

Hello! I am so thankful to have found this board. I have identified strongly with much of the information here pertaining to BPD mothers. My wonderful therapist was the one who suggested my mom might be BPD from the issues I described. I hope that through reading and interacting here I can find the place in my life where my relationship with my mother can reside that is safe for me.

My story-My parents divorced when I was 10 and I became the favored child, the youngest and the only daughter (I have two Brothers.) My mom poured herself into me and my life at the expense of my brothers. My mom is very uncomfortable around men and I sense that she didn't know what to do with my brothers. My mom bitterly hates my dad and after she left him, she spent years trying to convince me that he molested me. She still tries to this day. She shared her hatred of him in any way that she could and I was around her so often when she spoke to her friends about intimate details of her emotional life. She shared many of her emotions with me. I was her confidant, and she mine. We were very close throughout my teen years. I left home for college and after a couple of years, I moved half way across the country for school and rarely came home. I still spoke to her often the first few years, but as I made friends I needed her friendship less. Then I started dating and moved in with my boyfriend, our relationship was strained from that point. After I married it became more strained. When I was pregnant with my first child, she grasped at me more. She came for a visit and I felt suffocated by her. I am sure that I tried to relay healthy boundaries with her at this point, and the response was an email claiming I was a nasty and rude hostess and a horrible daughter. I severely limited contact with her and reinforced my boundaries. For years it was limited, she lived halfway across the country and so it was easy to limit phone calls to 5 minutes less than once per month on how the kids were doing. I limited her visits to 3-4 days only and tried to keep topics of conversation respectful and safe. Fast forward to me leaving my BPD husband, she swoops down to the rescue to help me and bond with me over divorce and man hatred. I accepted her help with my kids (it was still on a limited basis as she has to fly to get here). I got through my divorce and learned a lot about myself, healing, forgiving, and moving on. I also learned a lot about how to build healthy boundaries and deal with a BPD ex, I obtained many new communication skills through therapy and self evaluation. I used these skills in all of my relationships, including with my mother. I recognized that our relationship was unhealthy and that I had been trying all of my adult life to build good boundaries with her and that I have been very successful for the most part.

Recently, she stayed with me for a visit and I was able to ask her many questions about my childhood and her divorce. I was respectful and polite and empathetic to her feelings, I was completely present and in the moment, mindful.  I was able to bring up all of the latent issues I had been mulling over for years. It was cathartic for me. She answered all of my questions as best as she could. I feel like I am well on my way to forgiving her.

Another big piece of my recovery is letting go of my desire to have a "mother." I am still sad about this and a little stuck.

I am not sure how much communication I want with my mom. She sent an email blaming me for hurting her during her visit and ruining our relationship. I want to be in a place where I am emotionally safe. I wrote this draft of a letter to her, I would love to hear feedback:


Dear Mom,

I have been thinking carefully about what to write in response to your email and your text. I have been here all along willing to have open and honest conversations. I made a lot of changes in my life in recent years and these aren’t just physical, they are deeply emotional. Through deep self assessment I have been better able to understand my emotions, my reactions, and relate them to my behavior. I see and feel that my love and friendships are more rewarding than they ever have been. I am not reacting to life-I am living it thoughtfully and with mindfulness.

My relationship with you has been a challenge for me. I have been struggling to understand and be able to communicate why. When I am with you, I set an intention of being kind, respectful, and with an openness to hear what you have to share. Even as I do these things I feel unsafe with you. I do not trust that I have a sense of privacy around you as you have asked me inappropriate questions.  (As an example, you asked if I had a yeast infection in front of ____.) I do not trust that you aren’t going to tell all of your friends intimate details of my life, because you tell me intimate details of others’ lives. When we are together, I get discouraged that the conversation often focuses on negative things such as what is wrong with my children, what is wrong with my ex husband, what is wrong with my brother. During your visit, you grabbed my arm forcefully and pulled me to the kitchen to tell me about mold in a jar of food. I was confused by this behavior. In general, I perceive there is a dramatization that goes on with situations. I am not interested in drama.

Now I move on to our conversation about my youth. Now that I am in a healthy emotional place, I have been re-examining my younger years and processing what went on so that I can move on from it. I feel you had inappropriate boundaries with me. Some of these are still in place today, even though I try to set clear and healthy emotional boundaries with you. I feel so appreciative that you answered so many of my questions when you were with me. I can also understand why these may have been difficult for you to hear, and I can imagine how you may have felt uncomfortable and hurt by the conversation. I wish that you would have been able to share more of what you were feeling in real time rather than going home to stew on it and sending me an email blaming me for hurting you.

I am done with drama, guilt, blame, and other negative forms of communication and if we are going to remain in contact, I would like it to be on positive terms. I can see that from your text yesterday that you want to communicate with me, however the text left me feeling mistrustful. I have found this book helpful that I want to share with you, perhaps they can help us learn to communicate more effectively and in a safe and loving manner.

This book was extremely helpful in shifting not only my inner voice, but in figuring out what I am feeling and giving it a name: https://www.cnvc.org/catalog/nvc_language_for_life

I keep this “feelings inventory” on my phone all the time and refer to it frequently: https://www.cnvc.org/sites/default/files/feelings_inventory_0.pdf

With love,

[healthyB]

Hello! I am so thankful to have found this board. I have identified strongly with much of the information here pertaining to BPD mothers. My wonderful therapist was the one who suggested my mom might be BPD from the issues I described. I hope that through reading and interacting here I can find the place in my life where my relationship with my mother can reside that is safe for me.

My story-My parents divorced when I was 10 and I became the favored child, the youngest and the only daughter (I have two Brothers.) My mom poured herself into me and my life at the expense of my brothers. My mom is very uncomfortable around men and I sense that she didn't know what to do with my brothers. My mom bitterly hates my dad and after she left him, she spent years trying to convince me that he molested me. She still tries to this day. She shared her hatred of him in any way that she could and I was around her so often when she spoke to her friends about intimate details of her emotional life. She shared many of her emotions with me. I was her confidant, and she mine. We were very close throughout my teen years. I left home for college and after a couple of years, I moved half way across the country for school and rarely came home. I still spoke to her often the first few years, but as I made friends I needed her friendship less. Then I started dating and moved in with my boyfriend, our relationship was strained from that point. After I married it became more strained. When I was pregnant with my first child, she grasped at me more. She came for a visit and I felt suffocated by her. I am sure that I tried to relay healthy boundaries with her at this point, and the response was an email claiming I was a nasty and rude hostess and a horrible daughter. I severely limited contact with her and reinforced my boundaries. For years it was limited, she lived halfway across the country and so it was easy to limit phone calls to 5 minutes less than once per month on how the kids were doing. I limited her visits to 3-4 days only and tried to keep topics of conversation respectful and safe. Fast forward to me leaving my BPD husband, she swoops down to the rescue to help me and bond with me over divorce and man hatred. I accepted her help with my kids (it was still on a limited basis as she has to fly to get here). I got through my divorce and learned a lot about myself, healing, forgiving, and moving on. I also learned a lot about how to build healthy boundaries and deal with a BPD ex, I obtained many new communication skills through therapy and self evaluation. I used these skills in all of my relationships, including with my mother. I recognized that our relationship was unhealthy and that I had been trying all of my adult life to build good boundaries with her and that I have been very successful for the most part.

Recently, she stayed with me for a visit and I was able to ask her many questions about my childhood and her divorce. I was respectful and polite and empathetic to her feelings, I was completely present and in the moment, mindful.  I was able to bring up all of the latent issues I had been mulling over for years. It was cathartic for me. She answered all of my questions as best as she could. I feel like I am well on my way to forgiving her.

Another big piece of my recovery is letting go of my desire to have a "mother." I am still sad about this and a little stuck.

I am not sure how much communication I want with my mom. She sent an email blaming me for hurting her during her visit and ruining our relationship. I want to be in a place where I am emotionally safe. I wrote this draft of a letter to her, I would love to hear feedback:


Dear Mom,

I have been thinking carefully about what to write in response to your email and your text. I have been here all along willing to have open and honest conversations. I made a lot of changes in my life in recent years and these aren’t just physical, they are deeply emotional. Through deep self assessment I have been better able to understand my emotions, my reactions, and relate them to my behavior. I see and feel that my love and friendships are more rewarding than they ever have been. I am not reacting to life-I am living it thoughtfully and with mindfulness.

My relationship with you has been a challenge for me. I have been struggling to understand and be able to communicate why. When I am with you, I set an intention of being kind, respectful, and with an openness to hear what you have to share. Even as I do these things I feel unsafe with you. I do not trust that I have a sense of privacy around you as you have asked me inappropriate questions.  (As an example, you asked if I had a yeast infection in front of ____.) I do not trust that you aren’t going to tell all of your friends intimate details of my life, because you tell me intimate details of others’ lives. When we are together, I get discouraged that the conversation often focuses on negative things such as what is wrong with my children, what is wrong with my ex husband, what is wrong with my brother. During your visit, you grabbed my arm forcefully and pulled me to the kitchen to tell me about mold in a jar of food. I was confused by this behavior. In general, I perceive there is a dramatization that goes on with situations. I am not interested in drama.

Now I move on to our conversation about my youth. Now that I am in a healthy emotional place, I have been re-examining my younger years and processing what went on so that I can move on from it. I feel you had inappropriate boundaries with me. Some of these are still in place today, even though I try to set clear and healthy emotional boundaries with you. I feel so appreciative that you answered so many of my questions when you were with me. I can also understand why these may have been difficult for you to hear, and I can imagine how you may have felt uncomfortable and hurt by the conversation. I wish that you would have been able to share more of what you were feeling in real time rather than going home to stew on it and sending me an email blaming me for hurting you.

I am done with drama, guilt, blame, and other negative forms of communication and if we are going to remain in contact, I would like it to be on positive terms. I can see that from your text yesterday that you want to communicate with me, however the text left me feeling mistrustful. I have found this book helpful that I want to share with you, perhaps they can help us learn to communicate more effectively and in a safe and loving manner.

This book was extremely helpful in shifting not only my inner voice, but in figuring out what I am feeling and giving it a name: https://www.cnvc.org/catalog/nvc_language_for_life

I keep this “feelings inventory” on my phone all the time and refer to it frequently: https://www.cnvc.org/sites/default/files/feelings_inventory_0.pdf

With love,

[Kwamina]

Hi healthyB and welcome to bpdfamily

Dealing with a BPD mother can be quite difficult indeed. Based on your post it does become clear that you have already done a lot of healing and growing

You still find yourself struggling with the desire to have a mother. I think that is something many children of BPD parents find themselves struggling with. Accepting the reality of our BPD parent means letting go of the loving 'fantasy' parent we never had yet might still long for. Something that might help you with this is our article about reality acceptance skills:

Practicing reality acceptance

Boundaries are very important when dealing with a disordered individual to help protect your own well-being. That's why I'm glad that you've been able to set and enforce boundaries with your mother and have also been able to apply certain communication techniques and stay mindful

Sounds like you were able to have a good conversation with your mother. It's unfortunate that she later sent you that email blaming you for hurting her. Given that she might be BPD, I understand why she might get triggered after discussing those sensitive topics. Her blaming you is most likely a form of projection:

In general, emotionally healthy people base their perceptions on facts.  Projection is basing your perception of reality on feelings.

Projection is a defense mechanism, operating unconsciously, in which what is emotionally unacceptable in the self is unconsciously rejected and attributed (projected) to others.  Projection is denying one's own unpleasant traits, behaviors, or feelings by attributing them, often in an accusing way,  to someone else.

Commonly the projection is an exaggeration of something that has a basis in reality. For example, the borderline may accuse you of "hating" them when you just feel irritated. Sometimes the projection may come entirely from their imagination ~ Randi Kreger

To help you determine how you want to move forward, it might help to ask yourself some questions. Do you feel like this e-mail from your mother needs a response? What is your main reason for wanting to reply to her? Do you think or hope you might get through to her this way?

We have a resource here about dealing with hostile e-mails, you might also find it helpful:

COMMUNICATION: Responding to hostile email

Take care