The Lies, Drama, Alcohol, Yelling, Mind Games, Abuse, and the list goes on...

Thank God I found a community of people who are dealing with similar issues with their family members. I have gone through what most people on this message board has experienced with a loved one, so I hope that sharing my experience would comfort someone else in the position.

My name is hit, 29 years old, a son living in the same house as his undiagnosed BPD mother who is also struggles with alcoholism. My mother is retired and in her mid-60s and I am the youngest child of 3 older siblings. My father is deceased. I come from a middle-class African American family where mental health is a taboo subject to discuss. I have lived with her since 2011 after 10 years of living and working in the Washington, DC area. I won't start my story from childhood but I will begin my experience when I really started to notice behaviors that were unhealthy.

As I was heading out to work in DC, I received a phone call from my sister informing me that my mother's house caught on fire. I began to become very concerned. She told me that my mother was in the house while it caught on fire. She said to me that our mother may be bipolar. My sister worked in the mental health field so she knew about the different mental health illnesses. I honestly did not know what bipolar disorder was and I didn't bother at the time to research it. I called my mother to check in to ask her what happened. She didn't even remember the events and explained it as if there was something wrong with the house. An investigation was done and nothing was found. As months passed, I started to become very depressed as my emotional, career, and financial life started to take a turn. Long story short, I got to a point where I needed to just go home. I told my mother that I was leaving the city and moving back home. My mother was excited about my decision to move. Being a caring, loving, and selfless son, I hadn't realized what I was really about to get myself into with moving in with my mother.

During the months of living with my mother, I have experienced several episodes where my mother has been drinking and lost complete control over herself in bouts of rage and fury by throwing chairs and slamming doors. It would be over very small issues such as doing my own laundry or not doing something exactly the way that she needed it to be done. Her controlling antics would run all the way from my wardrobe, how my hair was cut, and using some of my personal hygienic products. Her erratic behavior is the strongest when she is drinking alcohol. She starts singing, yelling, and playing mind games to get her way. If things are not done the way she wants them done, she will immediately cut you off and give you the silent treatment as if you do not even exist. There were times where she would get angry because I would not agree with her on how something needed to be done. She has threatened to call the police on me, berated me on how skinny I was, told me that I was a liar, a cheat, a prostitute, a drug dealer, and alcoholic, every name in the book I have heard it. I have had to play the role as the armchair psychologist, validating all of her feelings of fear and abandonment. She has shared with me many issues that a son should not hear from his mother, i.e. issues pertaining to sex, body image, personal finances, etc. My siblings have similar experiences with her, but worse, and all of them keep a distance from her for the fear of humiliation and abuse. My mother criticizes my other family members in front me, sharing her deeply rooted pain and resentment towards them. She demands that I stay away from certain family members, including a few of my siblings; and if I am in anyway involved, then there is something wrong with me or I am just like them. She has an incessant need to be in control of other people's lives by telling them how they should live it, while her life is completely out of control. It creates so much confusion in my mind on whether she is in a good mood or bad because to live with her is an emotional rollercoaster. It is a life filled fantasy that is never ending.

There have been many days and nights where I have cried and prayed to God for understanding and healing in my soul. There are days where I am afraid to even say something to her because of a fear of conflict and confrontation. She refuses to get the help that she needs because everyone else around her is wrong and she is right. She has self-righteously admitted to be a perfectionist and that she has ESP and everything that she is around must be in order. From the outside world, she puts on a facade of perfection as if everything is normal with her. But behind closed doors, she turns into a completely different individual.

I joined a church and met a therapist who is now my best friend who has been instrumental in helping me develop a new identity. The church has been supportive and has kept me very involved with many different activities. My therapist is really the only person who knows who I really am, and all of the relationships that have been created with my family members have been all lies. Lies are being exposed and the truth is being revealed.

Consequently, I have tried to leave my mother's house to rescue myself from the situation by attempting to move back to DC. But in every attempt I always got reeled back home. As I was making attempts to start my life back over, my mother has attempted with her words and actions to create a feeling of guilt in leaving her by herself. She would discourage me from moving back to DC as it is a crime-infested, dirty city where I had no family. She would guilt-trip me in saying that the only family that I have is home and how I don't have anyone else but her. She has a plan in her mind about where she wanted my life to be. So, these words would crush me as I would go back into my state of depression, loneliness, and entrapment. And when I would get out of those feelings and start back up, the pastor of the ministry I am involved would give me another assignment to work on, lengthening the duration of my time home even more. So it creates a sense of guilt in me but also a feeling of being ignored and overlooked by individuals who say that they "love" me and want the best of my life. I have finally come to terms with now that none of these relationships, family and church, are really that authentic.

I am faced with a dilemma now where I have to choose to walk out on faith or continue to stay and live in the fear. My life will continue to be miserable, phony, depressed, and lonely if I don't get out. It has taken a toll on my mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. I hope that I could meet some people on here that could really help me with your dealings and your stories of freedom. Thank you for allowing me to share my story and reading it too!



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