How to cope with BPD mother's constant phone calls.

[Our abuse recovery guide]

Hello everybody, this is my first post.
I will give a brief summary of my situation. I am a 31 year old married woman who recently discovered that my mom suffers from BPD. I started therapy with a BPD specialist about 7 months ago and I'm trying to learn how to cope with everything.
My biggest issue is the FOG (fear, obligation, guilt) mainly because I left my home country and settled to live far away from her. This gives her a lot of tools to manipulate me.
We don't talk very often, sometimes we go from 10 to 15 days without talking to each other. Because every phone conversation turns into a 3hour rollercoaster of feelings and I end up so emotionally exhausted it takes me days to recover. Sometimes I tell myself that I try to follow a schedule, like try to call her once a week so maybe the calls will get shorter, but I can never muster the courage to stick to it because I get so emotionally affected by her calls.
She doesn't call very often either because she needs internet to call me and internet is a little scarce where she lives. But when she gets access to the internet she would call me about 10times in a day. This triggers me so much, because one single missed call can affect my whole day and send me into feeling so guilty. But there are some days that I cannot make myself answer the phone, but the calls don't stop and I know that the longer I take to answer the worst treatment I will get once I finally talk to her.
What is a good way to cope with this situation?, I'm in graduate school and work 2 jobs, I'm quite busy most of the time and don't have time for quiet time and meditation in order to feel good enough to call her. But I'm tired of this cicle of - Talking to her, having a difficult phone call, feeling exhausted but I at least I did it and feel a little bit of relief that I won't have to talk to her for the next 5 days. Around day 7 anxiety that she might call any time creeps in and I start feeling guilty every time she calls and I don't answer.
I am very glad that I found this community and thanks in advance for your help.

[Carolcharlotte]

Hello everybody, this is my first post.
I will give a brief summary of my situation. I am a 31 year old married woman who recently discovered that my mom suffers from BPD. I started therapy with a BPD specialist about 7 months ago and I'm trying to learn how to cope with everything.
My biggest issue is the FOG (fear, obligation, guilt) mainly because I left my home country and settled to live far away from her. This gives her a lot of tools to manipulate me.
We don't talk very often, sometimes we go from 10 to 15 days without talking to each other. Because every phone conversation turns into a 3hour rollercoaster of feelings and I end up so emotionally exhausted it takes me days to recover. Sometimes I tell myself that I try to follow a schedule, like try to call her once a week so maybe the calls will get shorter, but I can never muster the courage to stick to it because I get so emotionally affected by her calls.
She doesn't call very often either because she needs internet to call me and internet is a little scarce where she lives. But when she gets access to the internet she would call me about 10times in a day. This triggers me so much, because one single missed call can affect my whole day and send me into feeling so guilty. But there are some days that I cannot make myself answer the phone, but the calls don't stop and I know that the longer I take to answer the worst treatment I will get once I finally talk to her.
What is a good way to cope with this situation?, I'm in graduate school and work 2 jobs, I'm quite busy most of the time and don't have time for quiet time and meditation in order to feel good enough to call her. But I'm tired of this cicle of - Talking to her, having a difficult phone call, feeling exhausted but I at least I did it and feel a little bit of relief that I won't have to talk to her for the next 5 days. Around day 7 anxiety that she might call any time creeps in and I start feeling guilty every time she calls and I don't answer.
I am very glad that I found this community and thanks in advance for your help.

[Harri]

Hi and welcome to the board!  I am glad you found us but sorry for what brings you here.  You have found a safe place where people get it and understand the difficulties of having a parent with BPD. 

Finding a way to handle the phone calls and dealing with your guilt about reducing the frequency of answering need to be looked at separately as well as a joined issue.

Emotionally, you will struggle.  Of course you will.   Those of us who have a parent with BPD were, usually, raised to consider and care take the parent to the point of excluding our self.  Doing otherwise is hard and will raise a lot of internal tensions and our emotional resistance will be quite strong.   Riding through those emotions will be difficult but doable.  Over time, you will feel more comfortable with the change as you learn that you have a right to govern your time and limit how long a conversation goes or the tone and topics discussed.

To help you emotionally it might be best to gradually introduce boundaries surrounding the calls.  You could start with limiting the 3 hour calls to 1 hour.  Set a timer (yes, really!).  Have a list of excuses prepared (have to go to the store, someone is at the door, etc)  Decide the 10 calls a day will only be 5 or 2 (pick a number).  If your mom is ranting or saying abusive stuff, try to re-direct the call by saying "I'd rather spend time talking with you about ________"  "Gee mom, this is really depressing stuff, lets talk about ____".  Okay, so I am not so good at coming up with these things to say but maybe someone can chime in.

A gradual introduction of boundaries might help you deal with your emotional response and help your mother adjust to the change as well.  My priority here is to consider you but your mom is a factor as well.

To help you deal with the emotions and guilt, I think quiet time and meditation, if you can squeak some in your busy day, is better directed toward helping yourself with feelings of guilt than in trying to make yourself deal with intrusive, guilt inducing, and abusive phone calls.  Self talk can help.  Reminding yourself that you have the right to be independent, that you are not supposed to be a pacifier for your mother, that you are free to set boundaries for yourself etc all help.

[zachira]

My heart goes out to you, feeling so overwhelmed by the interactions with your mother. Harri has given you some good suggestions on how to deal with the phone calls. After years of personal therapy and having a several month break from my mother with BPD, I found her daily calls so intrusive and upsetting that I only speak with her about every one to two weeks, and I hang up after a couple of minutes because the calls are abusive and all about her. I do not listen to mom's voice mails. You are in the early stages of dealing with how your mother's behaviors upset you, and are going to therapy. With time and experimentation, you will figure out how many calls you can tolerate from your mom, if any, what length of time to allow for the calls, and whether or not you want to listen to her messages. Right now it sounds like you are overwhelmed by how badly you feel about having to deal with your mother. You have taken probably the most important step by starting therapy with a therapist with experience with BPD. Good therapy over time, though you may feel worse in the beginning, can help you to feel less overwhelmed by how your mother treats you. Those of us who have mothers with BPD have been trained since early childhood to put our mother first and ignore our own feelings and best interests. You are now in the process of negotiating your relationship with your mother and creating a healthier relationship with yourself. Things will get better. There are many people on this site with similar experiences to yours and will support you in any way they can. Keep us posted on how you are doing.