A mother doesn't have to be a monster to give up and accept that it's over

[Leaf56]

Yesterday I was traveling in a car all day and couldn't really say all that I was thinking about:

"A mother doesn't have to be a monster to give up and accept that it's over."

That right there, the fact that anyone even has to say what you said in that quote, sums up on so many levels the real problem with this disorder. The fact that anyone would accuse a mother (or father) of being a monster for doing what she should have done in the first place, IS at the root of the problem. It's because we define good mothering as "unconditional love" that we are in this mess in the first place. No mother, no PERSON should ever take the kind of treatment and just plain using that BPDs engage in.

**Now I'm going to shift gears from Flossy's situation, since her daughter is married to a wealthy man from a wealthy family and therefore Flossy doesn't currently have to worry about her daughter being homeless, which, once I thought about it, makes her stance a lot easier for her. But I thought about it some more, and I realized that that's the second problem perpetuating the cycle of the BPD:

It's because we think that endlessly supporting our children is what we're supposed to do that BPDs continue their game. It's why so many people are flailing about while dealing with this issue with their children when really cutting them off is the only thing that CAN work because ANY level of involvement will perpetuate the cycle. We are actually being KIND by cutting them off. The sooner the people involved with BPDs understand and accept that—and that means ALL the people involved with these people, from the parents on down to the friends, lovers, therapists, coworkers, siblings, cousins, grandparents—the sooner BPDs can start to get better because the only thing that will work is if they discover self-reliance, personal responsibility, and hard work. We are actually LOVING them more by giving them no safety net. It's harder for us to NOT do something than it is to do something. MUCH harder. So mothers are the opposite of monsters when they "give up," which isn't actually giving up at all, it is "letting go," which is what we should've done all along.

Flossy, you said, "the death of my son has helped me learn when the grieving process reaches acceptance that someone is gone. She's gone too." I'm not sure what I thought my son was was ever there. But after he said some things to me that were so over-the-top egregious, I started the mourning process at that moment and have almost completed it after about a year and a half, but yes, the grieving process has to be gone through.

Flossy, you said that you will give your daughter "Only one access that has strict rules to limit her ability to come into my mind in any way." That idea is very powerful, and I get it completely. As a mother, no matter whether we've been through the grieving process, we fundamentally have to compartmentalize to a certain extent in order to achieve this.

Flossy, you said: "I will not have hope for it to work." This is also very important. You DO have to move beyond hope to have any peace.

Flossy, your assessment of a healthy person vs. a BPD is spot on. You described the people to whom you and your husband are willing your estate (as opposed to your daughter) as "honest and they try to live a life as grownups. They haven't succeeded completely but they self-examine and keep trying despite the pain of growing up. I admire that. I think its what makes a quality human. Bravery. Courage. It's what's lacking in these '4 year old's in adult bodies.'"

And then you finished with the idea that giving up "doesn't make you a monster. It makes you have hope to live some small part of your life with joy." As many others have said here, our lives and the lives of our other loved ones have just as much value as the BPD, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let my son rob the rest of us of our joy. Doing so would be every bit as wrong as others think cutting them off is.

Despite what our cultural norms dictate, motherhood does NOT make us beholden to the people we've birthed for the rest of our lives. Instead, being HUMAN should dictate the respectful treatment of all others, which holds just as much for BPDs as it does for anyone else. The responsibility of all people to strive to be good humans trumps mothers' collective responsibility to endlessly care for their BPD children, who won't even live up to their own responsibility as fellow humans.

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[Flossy]

Leaf 56
I agree on every point. Absolutely.

I have a few theories also. Not theories that explain or excuse behaviours, but that interest me on a Anthropological level.

I wonder if those with BPD are  somewhere "on the spectrum".
Their mercenary attitudes and lack of attachment to parents and others are similar traits to humans with mild Aspergers.

They do not 'Connect". But Aspergers does not involve the rage quit aspect or lies and manipulation.

They also show a couple of similar traits to Narcissists when they "split" their opinion of others from Anglisising (sic) to Demonising them, if they dont like something they said or did.

They could be mistakenly diagnosed as having Attachment Disorder, but that is usually when parental attachment is slow or missing in infancy.

The very fact that my daughter's marriage has lasted for over 20 years and she was given "strict disciplinary guidelines" from her husband in order to be given access to finances tells me that she is capable of controlling her behaviours. I believe they all are.

I believe if a person with BPD was taken out of society and put into an institution and trained to submit to "norms" , for years, they would change.

I believe if they were put into a tribal village and had to work for their food they would change.

I believe if they were banished into the woods at night if they misbehaved they would change.

It believe if they had a threat of corporal punishment if they lied, cheated, stole they would change.

But our society would undo all of that change if/when they returned to it. Because of how the person with BPD thinks.

In a mercenary, selfish, childish, greedy, uncaring manner.

When around normally socialised humans again, I think when a "want" happened, they return to old patterns, if they felt they might get away with it.

It could be a lack of Oxytocin which is a reward/attachment hormone. That is available in a nasal spray and is used with some people on the spectrum.

I no longer care why. I am not trying to find a reason. I know my daughter had this way of thinking at the age of 3. I just have an interest in Anthroplogy and village guidelines for social norms.

So, please dont think I am trying to excuse or reason. I am at a point of thinking "fukoff" to anyone who comes into my life who shows one red flag of BPD and blocking them immediately.

I respect the choices of others who want to keep trying, but I want them to know there needs to be a limit and if they reach their limit, I say ...

"You go Girl/Guy". I have PTSD and Fibromyalgia and an extra 20kgs from all this s..t. No more. Nothing. I'm done. I'm not going to develop any other health condition from this BS. I'm done.

If we lived in a cave, I would have whacked her with a stick and chased her out of the village years ago. If she didn't learn to behave, she would never be allowed back.

"Behave" is my favourite word. Anyone who doesn't know how to behave or will not ask what is necessary or practise what is necessary. That's it. Out!

This is such a new solid thought and it feels so good.

So if a reader can't see my viewpoint, don't even try to argue the point with me.

I feel no nausea, no distress, no hope, no despair and I am so grateful for that.

Best wishes.

[Leaf56]

Flossy, yes! I also am extremely interested in the anthropological aspects and have also thought many of the same things you expressed (loved the chasing out of the tribe with a stick image!). Can’t wait to respond to your latest. Will try to do a bit later this morning.

[Swimmy55]

It does help to remember that we are as important as our BPD adult kids.  As others have stated,  enough is enough, especially when life is threatened. 

[Leaf56]

Flossy (and anyone else following this thread), I'm ready to respond to your very thoughtful and interesting post now.

You said: "I have a few theories also. Not theories that explain or excuse behaviours, but that interest me on a Anthropological level."

This is exactly how I've come to think of my own quest for knowledge about this problem (I hesitate to even call it a "disorder" anymore because doing so, I think, somehow lessens the idea of their own responsibility for their behavior). It's so important not to excuse any of it, and I also want to make sure I state that discussion of the possible causes and explanations in no way excuses any of it.

You said: "I wonder if those with BPD are  somewhere 'on the spectrum.'" (And you wondered about narcissism and attachment disorder, also, which I'll touch on in general below.)

I posed this exact question in an earlier post I made here a couple weeks ago, and I DO think there are similarities, but also important differences. I think Aspergers DOES include the rage-quit aspect, actually. I'm not sure about the manipulation. The experts who have observed my son have never been able to diagnose Aspergers, but they've said that he checks many of the boxes. It seems likely that there's overlap. Then you think of the study you linked to on the other thread showing possible overlap between BPD and psychopathy. Then you read about the multitude of diagnoses that so many people have had over the years trying to explain their children's behaviors. What I now think is that, as much as we'd like to think that good progress has been made in brain research, really the experts no almost nothing. I also believe that it doesn't really matter what the diagnosis is, especially since, once diagnosed, people start discounting behaviors that don't fit the diagnosis because they want to shoehorn the person into a box. The brain is not a box. Other than aspects of schizophrenia (i.e. hallucinations), I don't think it's really possible to diagnose a brain yet. All we can do is take a set of traits that are similar in a population of people and compare them to traits of others and find correlations, and now we can look at MRIs. But we don't know yet what it's telling us. I've read many studies and I've concluded that no one knows anything of much interest yet. The only real leads consist of certain medications working for some things, like lithium for schizophrenia. Scientists didn't even have a clue as to WHY it worked until very recently, and even now they only have a clue, not an explanation. I think most diagnoses aren't worth a hill of beans. And I think most behavioral therapies (like DBT, etc.) won't work for most people in most circumstances. There is no holy grail yet. There will be, someday, but I doubt I'll live long enough to see it. Modern psychology is mostly a crock (and I say this as someone who used to believe in it wholeheartedly). It's not science. We will have to wait until the neuroscientists solve this. Meanwhile, those in the psychological profession can go on bandaiding these problems, and probably making them worse. But at least they'll be making money off people. I think that if we really want to help solve this problem, we have to fund the neuroscience research.

You said, scientifically, I might add: "The very fact that my daughter's marriage has lasted for over 20 years and she was given 'strict disciplinary guidelines' from her husband in order to be given access to finances tells me that she is capable of controlling her behaviours. I believe they all are."

Ding, ding, ding, ding! Exactly. This statement is science in a nutshell. If anyone else here doubts it, just think about whether your child is able to behave differently when they choose to and you have your answer. Someone else on here recently said that their daughter raged at her and then got on the phone immediately after and was all "chirp chirp." We're being played, folks! By experts.

You said this and others examples like it: "I believe if they were put into a tribal village and had to work for their food they would change."

THIS--100%! (Except they'd invariably find someone in the village to manipulate, hehe!)

You said: "It could be a lack of Oxytocin which is a reward/attachment hormone... [but] I no longer care why. I am not trying to find a reason. I know my daughter had this way of thinking at the age of 3. I just have an interest in Anthroplogy and village guidelines for social norms."

I, as I suspect you also are, am still interested in the why, but like you, only from an anthropological standpoint.

You said: "I respect the choices of others who want to keep trying, but I want them to know there needs to be a limit and if they reach their limit, I say ... 'You go Girl/Guy.' I have ... an extra 20kgs from all this s..t. No more. Nothing. I'm done. I'm not going to develop any other health condition from this BS. I'm done."

I've gained the exact same amount of weight (45 lbs. for those of us who don't know kgs) since this started in fall of 2019! I now have to take a statin daily due to high cholesterol. Every time the phone indicates he's communicating with me, my blood pressure skyrockets and as soon as it's over I reach for the food. My whole life I was underweight or just plain thin, even after 3 pregnancies. I've NEVER been an emotional eater. It's been so hard to believe ANY of this is happening. It's like I'm living in the Twilight Zone.

You said (and I laughed out loud): "If we lived in a cave, I would have whacked her with a stick and chased her out of the village years ago. If she didn't learn to behave, she would never be allowed back."

While this IS hilarious, it's also SOO true. No society of the past has ever put up with this behavior, why is ours doing so now? Why are we listening to scapegoating "experts" who advocate that we must change our behavior to accommodate theirs? (Just to be clear, if you're a jerk and not behaving well toward your child you obviously need to change and I'm not giving you a pass, but I believe that most if not all the moms on this forum have parented well or at least "good enough.") We need to look at what's happening on a societal level that's allowing this.

You said: "'Behave' is my favourite word. Anyone who doesn't know how to behave or will not ask what is necessary or practise what is necessary. That's it. Out!"

Funny story, when my youngest son was about 3 and was acting out, I said, "Behave!" and he replied, "I am have!" Get it? He thought I was saying "be have" like "be good" or "be careful." I also expect good behavior from everyone in my life. I always have.

I have more to say but have to go for now.

[Leaf56]

I ran across this article about failure to launch that I thought was very pertinent to the topic of this thread. The author lists 5 types of adult children and the emotional button each pushes to get money from us, the parent-as-ATM-machine:
 
1. The first type pushes our Hope button by always promising that he's about to get the job that sticks, thus attaining his, and your, financial freedom.
2. The second type pushes our Fear button by always saying that if we don't cough up the money, she'll crash her car/sell drugs/be homeless.
3. The third type pushes our Guilt button by reminding us of any failings we had as parents when they were children, whether it be a divorce or that we inadvertently exposed them to anything less than ideal.
4. The fourth type pushes our Sympathy button by seemingly not having the intellect or ability to live independently.
5. The fifth type pushes our Intimidation button by breaking things or being verbally or physically abusive.
6. The sixth type pushes our Exhaustion button by simply refusing to do anything until we are tired and frustrated enough to just give her what she wants rather than argue anymore.

Here's a link to the article:

https://www.empoweringparents.com/article/failure-to-launch-part-2-how-adult-children-work-the-parent-system/

[Flossy]

Wonderful thoughts and so spot-on Leaf. I will respond properly when I have some energy.

On one note, with regard to eating and weight gain due to the stress of this, I intend to talk to my doctor and ask about a self-administered weekly injection pen medication called Ozempic. It was originally given to people with Type 2 Diabetes. It somehow interferes with the process of insulin responding to sugars and turning them into fat.

I have read reviews by users who say they lose an average of 1kg (2.3lbs) per week and have lost all cravings for carbs and over-eating. I think it's worth a try as it is nothing like the old 'diet pills" with no stimulants or potential for addiction.

I decided that this year was my year to indulge myself, be selfish and focus on reversing some or all of the damage caused to my body and my health.

I had no idea how far it may be possible to do that, but am starting to see that the possibilities are endless now that I feel free of the terror, grief and despair.

[Leaf56]

Flossy, Thanks for the tip! I'll check it out!