Do I let her know how much she has hurt me?

[Santa Clara]

Hello,

My question is do I tell my BPD mother (also alcoholic) that when she tries to hurt me, it hurts me so much I fall apart and that is why I won't be seeing her.

A bit of background... .  

I have started to see a therapist.  I live in Sweden and my mother lives in Australia.

This coming summer my mother is flying out to the UK to see my brother and his family.  Originally I planned to fly out with my husband and our kids to see her and for the whole family to be together.  When I told my BPD mother this in an email she sent me back a nasty email, accusing me of comptetley unrealated other things and said she has decided to change her summer dates  etc... .  The message I got was she didn't want to see me and my family.  This was very painful and as always when I recieve an email of this type from my mother I fall apart emotionally.

Recently my mother rang me and said through a drunken haze that she loved me and wanted to see me in the UK.  I said we hadn't decided yet if we would come.

We have decided we won't see her.  My therapist thinks it is a good idea too, that the possibility of emotional hurt is not worth the risk.  Now it is time to tell my mum I won't be seeing her.  That is the scary bit.  My therapist thinks I should let my mother know I found her initial email very painful.  Therpist (who is not a BPD professsional but expert in drug and alcohol abuse) thinks letting my mother know how upset I was would be good for me, even if my mother is not able to take it.

I am not sure about this.  On the one hand I really want to tell her, on the other hand I expect her reaction to be one of anger and blame to me (I am the evil one).  so partly I think it would be better to just say we are not coming and just leave it at that. 

I have already agreed with my husband and therapist that any emails from mum I will have my husband read first and I won't read any mixed up guilt provoking emails from her.  Also that I won't take any phone calls from her (we now have caller ID). 

So in theory, it doesn't matter if she writes nasty stuff in return as I won't need to read it, but I know she can go behind my back and btch about me to my brother (he knows she has a problem and to trust me and not her).

So, any advice on if I should tell her how much her words and actions hurt me?

Thank you

N

[GeekyGirl]

So, any advice on if I should tell her how much her words and actions hurt me?

Good question. It really depends on what you want to get out of telling her. I agree with your therapist that it might be good to get your feelings out--it can be very empowering--and I also understand why you'd be apprehensive about telling her. It's good to prepare for any reaction.

Have you read up on SET ( TOOLS: S.E.T. - Support, Empathy and Truth )at all? It's a good tool to use when you have to give a difficult message (not just to people with BPD).

I have already agreed with my husband and therapist that any emails from mum I will have my husband read first and I won't read any mixed up guilt provoking emails from her.

That's a good tactic. That way your DH can screen the message and prepare you.  Keep us posted.

[Kwamina]

Hi Santa Clara,

I agree with the advice GeekyGirl has given you. It really depends on what you want to get out of it. If you're doing it to let your mother know how she hurt you and that you won't stand for it regardless of how she reacts, I think telling her can be a good idea because it signifies a boundary. But if you're doing it because you expect or want her to change and stop hurting you, telling her probably isn't a good idea because there's a good chance you'll just get hurt again since people with BPD often seem unable or unwilling to understand and/or accept how their behavior hurts others.

[Cordelia]

I am not sure about this.  On the one hand I really want to tell her, on the other hand I expect her reaction to be one of anger and blame to me (I am the evil one).  so partly I think it would be better to just say we are not coming and just leave it at that. 

Exactly this.  The purpose of telling her would be to prioritize your own feelings over hers.  To say that your experience of the relationship is your responsibility, her reaction to whatever you might say is hers.  It can be incredibly empowering to let go of the responsibility for managing a BPD's emotions!

But I know, easy for me to say when I won't have to listen to the subsequent outburst.  I have mostly chosen a non-confrontational path with my BPD mom, focused on creating distance rather than expressing my feelings to her.  At this point it isn't so much that I'm worried about her reaction as it is that I would just rather express my feelings to people who actually care.  If you think she won't hear you and you are tired of constantly trying to make your voice heard only to be shut down over and over by the hurricane force of her self-involvement, as I was/am, then yeah, there's an argument to be made for not engaging.  Just think about your motivations - are you motivated by fear, or an evaluation of what your goals are in this interaction?  (not always easy to tell the difference, I know... .  )

[Clearmind]

SC, after being NC with my uBPD father for 4 months I had "THE" conversation.

SET is good!

My Suggestion is to keep it simple - too much information and she won't process it. Keep it about you and how you feel and what you need.

Feel free to post it here first.

[Santa Clara]

Oh my goodness, thank you all so much for your thoughtful, caring and helpful responses to my question.  Wow.   

I like the advice that it depends on what I want to get out of it.  I think 90% of my purpose is to prioritize my feelngs over hers, and as this is breaking the invisible 'contract' we have, perhaps that is why it is so scary to do.  I do recognize part of me wants an appology and the relationship to change, but I am also very aware that this is almost certainly not going to happen.

So, I suppose letting her know in a very simple way that her words and actions are very hurtful, is really about me taking responsibility for my own feelings and letting go of responsibility for her feelings. 

I guess what I am saying is I will take the plunge and say I have been hurt.  Nowit s just a question of finding the courage. I will read up on SET before I do it.

THANK YOU Clearmind, Cordelia, Kwamina and GeekyGirl !

I will keep you posted.

Hugs

[Santa Clara]

Hello,

As Clearmind suggested I have put my draft of my email to my Mum here.  I have tried to use SET. 

Any feedback would be appreciated. 

Thank you.

Dear Mum,

I hope all is well with you and that it is not too hot.

I understand from B that you are busy planning your trip to the UK.

I am writing to let you know we won't be coming over to the UK this summer.

As you will remember from the email I sent you we had planned to come out to see you in the UK and to celebrate B's birthday together.   However, the way you responded to my email giving you this news I found very painful, so much so that I found it very difficult to simply get on with all the things I needed to do in my day to day life. 

Unfortunately several other emails I have had from you over the the past year or so I have found deeply hurtful, even to the extent of me reacting by 'falling apart' for a period of time. 

Of course I still love you very much, but after much consideration of all things I decided that the best thing is not to see you this summer.

[InaMinorRole]

I hope you don't mind if I give the minority opinion here. Bear in mind I don't know your actual mother, so I'm letting my mother play her part in my mind.

I think the first thing that will happen when she sees the letter is that she will take it as an attack. And nobody attacks her and lives to tell about it! (dramatic music!) They seem to feel any criticism like a physical knife wound.

She will then look around frantically for a way out of this horrible mess she's in (someone making her look bad) and will seize on comments you made about how upset you were, that you fell apart, and so forth. So she will then say, ah HA! The person with the problem is YOU. Clearly you have emotional problems.

After that I don't know what she'll do. But she won't learn a blasted thing.

Again, that's my mother, not yours. But I thought you should hear the other opinion.

[Clearmind]

The note may need a little rephrasing.

Santa - how do you think your mum was feeling in the email she sent you - what emotion came up for her?

[Santa Clara]

Thank you for your responses again  Clearmind and InaMinorRole.

Clearmind, my mother seemed very angry with me in her email, she seemed to be blaming me for rejecting her.

Why she reacted this way is anyone's guess. When I wrote to her I was only positive kept things very simple. I said how we were all looking forward to coming over and the family being together to celebrate my my brother's birthday. 

Some how Mum still seemed to interpret (or pretend to) this as me rejecting her. It was conpletely out of context.  Her ending words were 'I am still your mother'.

I got a very strong message that she didn't want to see us.  She expressed no excitment about seeing us or regret that she was changing her dates and expressed no wish to see us at another time.  It was very much a direct slap in the face to me.

Gosh, writing this email is proving to be a lot harder than I had thought... .  

Anyone any ideas how they would phrase it?

Thank you

[GeekyGirl]

This is probably one of the tougher e-mails you'll write, but you've been given some good advice here.

Clearmind's question is around trying to empathize with your mother. InaMinorRole brings up a good point, too: your mother will likely see the letter as an attack, so the more you can empathize with your mother, the more powerful your message will be.

Your goal here is for her to understand your point of view and how her behavior has hurt you, if I understand correctly. In order to do that, it's a good idea to make her feel like you're acknowledging her feelings and point of view, even if you don't agree with them. That's what the E in SET aims to do.

So maybe you include a line about how hurtful it must have felt for her to think that you're rejecting her, even if that wasn't your intention. "When you [do something], it makes me feel [emotion]," statements are good too. "When you said that you were changing your visit, it made me feel that you didn't want to see me, and that hurt my feelings." You're stating facts here and not implying blame.