The ugliest fight ever mom and I had with her BPD on Saturday died down over the past 2 days after I employed some communication techniques with her that had never been tried before. So for 2 days I felt better and told myself although she would never change, at least I could feel good.
Wrong! I'm hitting the first bump in the road.
I tested her reactions today. With masqued, neutral phrases. I had to. the fight that nearly had me thrown out of the house was involving the yard maintenance men coming at the time I requested ( to not interfere with my telecommuting work -- mowing and weed whacking is NOISY) so I noticed they came during the time she had actually fought me tooth and nail over, using every hate tactic in the book.
So i thought she might have felt bad about it and called them later. Here they were at the time I requested! I walked into the room happy, but made sure to say in a NORMAL tone of voice, "wow, isn't that nice the yard men came between the hours of x and x?"
She often won't look at me straight in the face. Her favorite activity during the day is to live in hell over her bills, and read the same books from her home library over and over again, without venturing out into public.
So she basically said something without admitting anything, or validating me at all. I knew she wouldn't say "I'm sorry for our fight" but still, her in
validation of the whole positive outcome made me SICK TO MY STOMACH within a few minute.
"oh yes! I told them to come in the afternoon, anytime after 12." (the same s**t she told me on saturday, yelling that she wouldn't call them back to correct the situation... . the same s**t that makes her feel almighty and important because she wants to have control over anybody else but herself. Because she is designed to invalidate what others do or think, whenever the idea or request is not ORIGINALLY HERS.
This is why my mother could never deal with me after my father left us, or after I went to college and wanted to concentrate in other areas of my life instead of all those "high school" things she used to join in on as a "proud parent." She wasn't a proud parent -- she was a controlling, codependent parent. And though she isn't codependent on me anymore (I either name the junk for what it is as soon as it appears... . or excuse myself from the room) she just won't validate anything that doesn't come from her ponderings or "way of reasoning."
This group of maintenance men were contacted by her when I secretly called our previous maintenance men and told them not to come anymore - that she was ill and that I had to make some decisions for her. She told me later these new people were here to say and that she "told them to never listen to anything my daughter says."
She knows my employers need for there to be absolute quiet when I work, so because it's not HER job, she likes to manipulate and then tell me I should move away when I don't cave to her s**t.
Should I try scheduling these people myself, in the future, after I have kept consistently using better communication techniques with her?
Her whole goal is to make me either respond to her knee jerk phrases or to make me feel bad or insignificant for drawing boundaries. The only way I have been able to beat her at her own game -sometimes- is to remind her she only has one friend left in town, and if she continues to have accidents at home (her blood pressure makes her fall down and break a bone) that her 65 year old married friend accross town isn't going to come take care of her house, car maintenance, etc. etc. because he has a wife of his own with severe depression to take care of.
Today I hate her. For a little while. It will pass.
