Worrying for worryings sake?

[hadenoughmum]

Hi all,

I'm now overdue in my pregnancy and as I don't have enough energy to actually do anything I feel like all I'm doing is sitting around running scenarios about my BPDmum and En?Dad. It's exhausting but I don't know how to switch off, largely due to pregnancy hormones I'm assuming. Mum is definitely living rent free in my head these last few days.

I guess I'm doing some healthy stuff too (albeit probably at a bad time for me) like revisiting and re-examining memories. Someone mentioned in a thread a story about being denied school shoes which triggered a memory for me about being 12 and asking my mother on a family shopping trip for new school shoes as mine hasn't fit for months. She exploded at me for being selfish and an ingrate little b**** and "stealing" her chance to "do something for herself, just once" because she "never treated" herself. My younger brother followed her after letting me know that he hated me and my dad started shouting about how I always ruined everything before storming after her. He then returned to throw a full water bottle into my shoulder. In front of a full shopping mall full of people who did nothing to help or console me. I think that last fact really compounded the shame and guilt and reinforced that I actually was doing the wrong thing by asking for new shoes (my family was not poor and could have afforded both shoes AND whatever "treat" mum wanted for herself).

I've spent some time in that memory from the perspective of the child I was at the time as well as the parent I am today, who would never treat my own daughter that way. I had a cry about it and gave little girl me a big hug, confronted my dad about it and received a sincere apology for the incident and again that he didn't protect us kids from my mum. So those things are good.

The scenario I'm having trouble with though is what to do when my baby is born. I'm NC with my younger brother at the moment (his choice, he still blames me for mum's 'suicide attempt' and don't want to let him know about the birth of my child. I'm still having issues with my 'identity' as the family drama queen who holds grudges too long and is generally badly behaved (meaning I cause drama by standing up for myself, don't let go my hurts when mum decides she no longer has a problem with me and that I do crazy things like asking for new school shoes when mine no longer fit, ha). I'm making slow progress but still have trouble with the idea that those outside my family don't automatically "know" those things about me too. I don't know how to ask DH not to text my brother about the new baby when I give birth without feeling like and thinking that he will see me as a grudge holding drama queen.

I'm fine with my parents being told but I also know that they will want to call me. My dad is being great about accepting responsibility for his role in our abuse BUT he also thinks mum has recovered fully after only a couple of months in therapy and seems to also assume that HIS apologies and responsibility taking double as HER doing the same. Not directly but I can see that he thinks his efforts are healing 'our' (mine, his AND hers) relationship. In reality the few times I have spoken to her since her apology for the suicide attempt (but not the behavior and harassment leading up to it, or the creepy objectifying of my daughter directly after) she has been acting as though nothing ever happened. Which is textbook for her. I'm not ok with it but currently she seems to be pretty much accepting my refusal to answer her phone calls or respond to texts more than once a month. That in itself is a miracle though I put it down to being on her best behavior for a while due to the magnatude of her last blow up and how I dealt with it. She has to know that any bad behavior for the next while will not be met well.

My birth will now fall smack in the middle of my monthly phone call and I really don't want to have to take a call from them at that time. I don't want to share my special event with my mother, I worry that hearing her gush and act like a proud grandmother will ruin it for me. I also worry that her NOT doing those things will ruin it for me as she has shown absolutely no interest in this pregnancy (did not even ask the gender of the baby) while being obsessed with my daughter. I'm worried she is splitting my children already as she did with my brother and I. I worry that NOT taking their call will kick her off again which I don't want to deal with, even if I refuse to engage just knowing it is going on will cause me stress.

And my biggest worry of all is when to invite them to meet the new baby. I don't want to, at all. DH and I have decided on no unsupervised visits ever with our children and that she cannot have our address (neither of these issues have come up yet thankfully) but really, even the thought of meeting her at a cafe for coffee makes me stressed. I don't want her touching my baby. The sound of her voice talking on the phone to my daughter makes me grind my teeth. I really obviously am no where near ready to be face to face with her now, or any time soon. I've mentioned before that I would love to be NC with her at this time BUT feel that she's taking real steps towards proper treatment/therapy FOR BPD that I don't want to discourage her progress. I just don't like her anymore, no matter what responsibility or apology she makes (so far none). I'm worried that not inviting them or denying their inevitable request to come to visit will kick her off. DH is useless to talk to about these worries and fears, he's not a "talk about our feelings" kind of guy and his advice is "stop worrying about it, we'll just tell them no". He feels conflicted about giving advice about this at any rate because he really can't stand either of my parents and wants to be totally NC for good with them but doesn't want to influence my decision at all. When I pushed and pushed him for his opinion on the situation one night he admitted that and also that he doesn't want me to take his advice and then wake up one day regretting cutting them out and blame him for pushing me to it.

Thanks for letting me ramble and vent, feels good to put those worries and fears out into the universe instead of keeping them cooped up in my head...

[XL]

I'm new here, the only partial advice I can give is that partners & friends aren't trained therapists. I bounce a lot off my partners, and they never quite 'get it'. This board or a paid therapist are probably good places for support.

I deal with this a lot too; I don't want my mom being proud of my accomplishments. It's a way of claiming ownership & identity thieving. I actually feel uneasy about kids at all because I suspect I'd be worrying about the same things you're dealing with.

Maybe you can focus your energy on a positive list of things you want to do right for your own child?

[XL]

I'm glad you're NC with your brother. Trying to blame others for suicide, either from the person who attempted it or other family is one of the most horrible, manipulative things. Adults know shrinks exist. They know there is a safety net. People get to that point sometimes, but it's their own choice how they deal with it. It's not necessarily wrong if someone is so ill they think about suicide, but it is definitely wrong to blame those thoughts or actions on other people.

That sentiment is garbage, and I'm glad you refused to accept it.

[Clearmind]

All the best with the birth of bubs - its an exciting time for you and DH.

Lots of worry and lots of guilt hadenoughmum - I understand it trust me - I find using Wise Mind techniques good at balancing out the emotions - and separately the facts from the emotions.

Wise mind: How to Stay Centered

You may caught/stuck on the obligation - what you feel you 'should' do. Maybe think about what you want to do and what feels right for you - rather than what feels right for BPDmom and enDad and bro.

What do you need at this time - space, sleep, peace... anything else?

[hadenoughmum]

I'm new here, the only partial advice I can give is that partners & friends aren't trained therapists. I bounce a lot off my partners, and they never quite 'get it'. This board or a paid therapist are probably good places for support.

I deal with this a lot too; I don't want my mom being proud of my accomplishments. It's a way of claiming ownership & identity thieving. I actually feel uneasy about kids at all because I suspect I'd be worrying about the same things you're dealing with.

Maybe you can focus your energy on a positive list of things you want to do right for your own child?

Absolutely, on the part of my friends they have only ever seen the high functioning sweetheart my mother can be and while they don't disbelieve what I say they can't wrap their heads around the duel-headed monster idea one little bit. DH has seen her in all her horrifying glory but because his upbringing didn't involve fog he has a normal response system in place: someone treats you badly? don't put up with it, walk away, end of story, why are we still thinking about this? That he doesn't try to pressure me into cutting all contact shows that he understands that it's more complicated than that due to conditioning BUT that's not the same as understanding the feelings themselves. That's why I love it here and also why I intend to return to T when i've had the baby and settled in with having 2 children to care for.

My mother is classic at stealing achievements or inserting herself in them. An example I saw on facebook last week (she's not my friend on facebook but my brother still is and I can see her activity on his facebook): My brother is an aspiring photographer who held his first exhibition a few weeks ago. I wasn't invited but that's beside the point. The gallery had someone take photos of the opening night, put them in a facebook folder on their business page and tagged my brother in the photo he was in. My mother went onto the gallery page (she did not attend the event) and commented on the photo "ok, so that is my son in the white t-shirt" and tagged HERSELF in the photo as well. Even though she wasn't there or in the photo.

I've googled her name before and found comments from her on random mum blogs with replies that lead me to believe that she's holding private email relationships with various bloggers where she talks about my daughter. Comments from her with replies like "thanks hit_, granddaughter must love you so much too, your relationship is so special and she's so lucky to have you in her life. She'll never forget the time you did blahblahblah" My mother has probably met my daughter 6-7 times in the 2 years she has been alive and certainly hasn't bonded with her enough to have a "special relationship". She uses her full name, my daughters full name, her town's name and my city's name in these exchanges.

My brother has chosen NC with me which hurts my feelings a lot. Even my mother has apologised for telling me she was committing suicide because of me. He and I have so many issues of our own thanks to being split growing up that I wouldn't be surprised if he's decided to cut the "drama" out of his life. To him I am the drama because if I would just agree to all mum's demands she wouldn't rage or threaten suicide. I'm very sad about it but that said, I also don't want a relationship with someone who refuses to see the manipulation in threatening suicide to get ones own way. That's crazy to me.

I think that (hope that) me focusing on these stresses about my parents at this time are my brains escape from having to focus on the big stress: actually giving birth. Last time I remember focusing on outside stresses and worrying that they would ruin the experience but after actually giving birth I was so joyful that I forgot everything that was bothering/worrying me and just enjoyed the moment. I think talking on here helps, being validated and having a discussion stops the cyclical scenario running a little and kind of causes me to process rather than ruminate. So thanks very very much for responding and your thoughts

[hadenoughmum]

All the best with the birth of bubs - its an exciting time for you and DH.

Lots of worry and lots of guilt hadenoughmum - I understand it trust me - I find using Wise Mind techniques good at balancing out the emotions - and separately the facts from the emotions.

Wise mind: How to Stay Centered

You may caught/stuck on the obligation - what you feel you 'should' do. Maybe think about what you want to do and what feels right for you - rather than what feels right for BPDmom and enDad and bro.

What do you need at this time - space, sleep, peace... anything else?

food? ha!

Thank you for this, I really hadn't seen it that way- I am absolutely still focusing on feeling guilty about what i 'should' do. You really opened my eyes. I think my head understands being out of the fog but I still have so much work to do to get my heart on the same page. Those instilled obligations really run deep don't they? I am just going to have to suck it up and tell them that I am not ready to see them and don't know when I will be. It's not my job to feel guilty that my mother may not get to meet my new baby when it is brand new, that is a consequence of her behaviour, namely telling me that she was at that moment committing suicide because of me. I'm not doing it to punish her, I simply can't yet get past the hurt that she caused with that action (and the others surrounding it that she still hasn't acknowledged let alone apologised for) and if she didn't want this to happen she should not have caused that hurt. She had that choice and my reaction isn't 'wrong' just because it hurts her. That's an affirmation for me.

I hope very much that they won't be so tactless as to bring it up during the 'congratulations' phone call I know will happen right after the birth but if they do I will try to look at it as getting the conversation out of the way. If she kicks off or starts acting like a wounded victim at that time I will just have to leave the conversation.

How am I doing here? 

[Clearmind]

Ah of course - food! Looking after you is Number #1 priority my friend. This is your's and DH's shining moment - letting them rent space in your mind when you have so much going on is maybe not helping.

Obligations are like a black hole - they suck us in/attempt to lure us into our childhood conditioning - when we feel ourselves ruminating/venting - pause and remind yourself whose life this is. We are not those kids anymore who had to bend our values/boundaries to fit our BPD parents.

I am just going to have to suck it up and tell them that I am not ready to see them and don't know when I will be.

Good for you! My SIL had a baby back in September and she even asked family to give her space - it takes time for new moms to adjust - this is about you.

It's not my job to feel guilty that my mother may not get to meet my new baby when it is brand new, that is a consequence of her behaviour, namely telling me that she was at that moment committing suicide because of me. I'm not doing it to punish her, I simply can't yet get past the hurt that she caused with that action (and the others surrounding it that she still hasn't acknowledged let alone apologised for) and if she didn't want this to happen she should not have caused that hurt. She had that choice and my reaction isn't 'wrong' just because it hurts her. That's an affirmation for me.

I know you are hurt - so was I - acknowledging you hurt is part of the healing process - its this remembering stage of our healing that helps us then mourn - Over to the right of the screen is the Survivors Guide ---> you are probably at that stage where denial is no longer an option - you may see where you at in that guide quite clearly I am sure.

Yes, and I know why I feel guilty - it stems from being the fixer and not being accustomed to looking after me. If your upbringing was anything like mine, I was not permitted needs - I was made to feel guilty for it and now carry that belief into adulthood.

Its those faulty beliefs we need to process using Wise Mind.

Ah yes choice - wouldn't it be nice if they could 'just' see the damage! Unfortunately this is what we mean by radical acceptance. Understanding our parents are imperfect - accepting these imperfections and now taking charge of our life - relinquishing that childhood conditioning and grieving our childhoods.

You deserve to be angry and we also deserve happiness - to do this we need to learn acceptance.

I hope very much that they won't be so tactless as to bring it up during the 'congratulations' phone call I know will happen right after the birth but if they do I will try to look at it as getting the conversation out of the way. If she kicks off or starts acting like a wounded victim at that time I will just have to leave the conversation.

How am I doing here?  

She may be tactless - can you dig down to figure out the reason why you feel a congrats would be tactless? Why it concerns you?

Definitely, don't bargain with the whole woe is me trick - trust yourself that you have the necessary tools to cut a conversation short if you are uncomfortable - you have the tools, you can and will protect yourself if the need arises - this is the difference between feeling victimized and feeling in control of your own destiny.

You Go Girl - Be pregnant and Proud You are going to be a Mom - time to look out for your own family now.