All immediate family members with uBPD’s plus a lack of a bond with my mother

[Person2]

Anxiety and being overwhelmed in my relationship with my uBPD aging mother is what brought me to this site. I’ve not included this in any of my previous posts, but I feel confident that both my brother and my deceased father have/had BPD, as well (meaning my entire immediate family).

As my father has passed, and I’ve been completely NC with my brother for the last 5ish years, these relationships are much less of a focus for me, but they are, to a lesser degree, part of what I’m working through.

Both my father and my brother had/have huge issues with rage. I feel strongly that my brother’s rage led to my father’s death. In my father’s advanced age, he had many health issues and became less strong/more physically frail, and towards the end of his life, he was afraid of my brother’s rage (like I and my brother used to be afraid of my father’s rage). During this time, my father decided that he urgently needed to get away from my brother by moving (they lived near each other). He was busily cleaning his house, to prepare to sell it, and dropped dead of a heart attack in his kitchen.

I’ve also witnessed my brother rage at my mother, as well at myself, though he tended to do so a bit less with me.

I have no desire to ever interact with my brother again (and it’s just something else to be anxious about as my mother ages - whether her passing will involve my avoiding an interaction with my brother).

My mother’s uBPD, on the other hand, primarily manifests as waifish in these later years (with the occasional “scary side” if circumstances force her to deal with some consequence of her making).

Something I’ve been thinking about recently is that as an infant/young child, even though I feel my father was uBPD, I actually bonded with him. I don’t feel like I bonded with my mother at all.

Not having this type of bond with my mother makes me operate purely on a sense of obligation, and I have to say that the older I get, I’m really struggling with having only this as a motivator, especially when the relationship is so difficult.

In the posts I’ve been reading these last weeks, I sense that underneath it all, those that have BPD mother’s genuinely have some loving feelings towards their mother’s. Are there any here that have had a similar experience to mine - that they lack that bond?

[AskingWhy]

I had a uBPD M who died in her 80s.  She had mild dementia but was forced to live with a sibling and then with me and my H.  (H is uBPD, but that is another story.)

I was physically and mentally abused by my M from the time I was a very young child.  She also abused my sibling.  In my M's frail old age, however, I came to understand she was very mentally unwell. In my young adult years, I knew something was certainly "not right."  Her F was an alcoholic who beat his W, my GM, and his children.  I can only imagine the horror my M experienced as a young child.  I also came to understand that in her own way, she tried to raise me well, but not really knowing how to handle her emotions and having no guidance in parenting.  My F was a bystander and enabler.  He was the bread winner and worked all day to support the family.  I am sure he'd see the children with eyes red from crying, but he never got involved with what his W did in the way of discipline.  He was very loving and I was bonded to him, but he never protected me from my M's rage that I suffered while he was at work.  After I came home from school, I lived in terror, not knowing if my M would validate me or compliment me for something, or rage at me and beat me for something.  It was like living in a war zone.  I am emotionally scarred from this and have C-PTSD.  I suffer from chronic anxiety, and also ended up marrying two uBPD Hs.

My recommendation, even if your care for your M is out of obligation, do your best to care for her.  (If she is violent or cruel, you need to put in boundaries, of course.)  As my mother died, cared for in a spare bedroom, she became tearful, recalling how she physically and emotionally abused my F, her H.  She regretted her cruelty at the end of her life as she knew she was dying.  Would he meet the man she so abused in the afterlife?  She would rage at him, throw pots and pans in the kitchen (dents in the tile and cabinetry), break porcelain plates and cups, and say all sorts of cruel things.  He was as much a target of her rage as the children.

Try to see the good in your M, if you can.  Try to be compassionate.  As I was caring for my M, she dropped some food on the floor.  She was distressed.  For a split second, I wanted to lash out at her as she had done with me as a child countless times.  As a child, had I spilled food, I would have been slapped and called the most horrid names: clumsy, worthless, useless, etc.  I got angry, and my M immediately apologised in great distress. Within seconds, I regretted that anger and want of "payback."  I felt horrible.  Here was my M, a very disturbed old woman with mild dementia, and I was not showing compassion.

I hope this helps.  

[Person2]

Thanks for sharing your experiences and thoughts AskingWhy; I really appreciate it. 

[Harri]

Hi Person2.   

I did have a bond with my mom and I did/do love her.  With my father, who for lack of a label, I will call a non, I had no bond and still do not feel much for him other than anger and contempt tho those feelings are starting to tone down as I work on seeing him and I work more on acceptance.

So I don't is similar enough to your situation?  My father was not healthy at all, definitely disordered i some way, just don't know how and may never really know.

I did move back in and take care of him when I was sick though.  It was only after my mom died and I was very sick and needed help other wise it never would have happened.  He needed help too, though I did not know how much until I moved in.

Dealing with the fog (not fear obligation and guilt but an actual hazy fog) I felt around my fathers existence and the repressed and suppressed anger and rage I felt towards him, it made being his caretaker very interesting to say the least.  It was a great way for me to find things I needed to work on but at the same time incredibly triggering.  Not the best way to get better with trigger management. 

He died in 2009 and I still struggle to see the good in him and to access my feelings about him... though I am starting to think there aren't any other than anger.  Obligation played a role in why I stayed living with him even after I was better and back to work full time.  More though, I felt trapped and helpless after losing almost everything.  I still had my career and friends at that time.   Fortunately, it was only a couple of years that I lived with him.  I don't say that because he died though.  I mean because in retrospect, my taking care of him and his advancing Alzheimer's would have made things very very complicated.  My brother did little to help and more often than not accused me of taking advantage of my dad in addition to other things.

So things were messy and would only have gotten worse.

Does any of that help?  I know it is not quite the same.   

[BeARiver]

Hi Person2,

I feel for you. I don't feel bonded to my mother at all. I grew up with my mother and grandmother. My grandmother really raised me. SHE was my mother and nurturer, as well as my protector from my mother's BPD rages. She took the hit from them instead of me. I was fearful of my mother, and a shy and nervous child because of her, but my grandmother was always there and I credit her for keeping me relatively mentally safe in my developmental years. I was deeply bonded with my grandmother but never my mother. She'd run off with random boyfriends (even if I was sick with an asthma attack) and leave me in my grandmother's care. My grandmother died when I was 14 and I was thrown to the wolf. My stepfather who was an enabler took the hit for a lot of her rages until he left when I was 17. Then it was alllll on me. Anyway, I have NEVER felt bonded to her or close, even though she told everyone how close we were. There was a lot of emotional incest. Now, she is old - 78. I feel nothing for her. I'm going NC for the second time. First time was for 12 years. I didn't know about BPD then. I came back hoping she'd be different. Nope. Now I know they can never change because they never see it as their doing or their fault. I felt obligation too since she's old. And then I wondered why? Why do I feel obligated to help this witch who was never a mother to me? Who emotionally abused me for years and years? She didn't put the work in to create that bond and she destroyed any natural love I had for her. Why am I trying to fake it? I can't stand being around her. A phone call from her makes my stomach drop and a rage email makes me shake uncontrollably for an hour. To me, obligation isn't enough for a relationship. Personally, i'm exhausted of being the only one trying to maintain something that isn't right and isn't natural. But only you can decide what you're comfortable with. Everyone is different. For me, that feeling of obligation isn't enough to tolerate the abuse.

[TelHill]

I have a bond with my parents. I love them. Their behavior has been kind and been abusive. I forgive and move on. I repeat this quite a bit since I began posting on this board. Am LC with them.

I don’t have a bond with my sibling or cousins. I’ve tried many times to get close. I end up going NC for long periods of time. They must have a lot of psychological damage. They tend to retreat to a pecking order mentality with me and each other. I’m the youngest and a female.  Am on the lowest rung.  I hold onto hope. You never know if things will change.