Totally Frustrated With uBPDM and Looming Summer Holiday (vent)

[invisiblelight88]

I'm an adult child of a uBPD mum and enabling dad. I moved overseas years ago when the opportunity arose, and have remained far away for both personal and professional reasons. My parents and I are still officially in contact- I talk to my dad once a month or so, but mum has been giving me the silent treatment since last year. It's been her weapon of since I was a small child and I now see it as the ridiculous manipulation it is, but at the same time, it still gives me some low-level anxiety. She won't admit to doing it- when pressed, she will say she is just too busy to communicate. She uses my dad as her loyal foot soldier and mouthpiece whilst I am being "punished" by not interacting with her. 

What's tremendously irritating is how my mum interprets my life choices- big and small- as a personal insult to her. She insists I chose my husband specifically to annoy and shame her (he is of a different culture). In addition to my partner, my choice of jobs, where I live, etc. are all designed to be maximally hurtful to her. Every encounter, every incident, always ends with HER being the injured party. And she's not shy about airing these grievances about her awful daughter to all our shared family, friends and acquaintances. It's not just me, though- she is always the victim of cruel, scheming people who are jealous of her amazing talents.   

Even before I knew what BPD was, I knew to carefully limit any information I shared since it always seemed to be used against me at a later date. Since Mum knows very few facts of my life, she has left it to her imagination to fill in the gaps. I am painted to be the monster, with my father pleading with me to "try and make it up to Mum" and "make Mum feel special and tell her how much you love her," etc. I told him I will not discuss my relationship with Mum, and he gets very angry and derisive. I have politely ended calls with him when he chances his arm and tries to bring it up, but he seems to be a slow learner.

So, as if things weren't already quite awkward enough... . I am planning a fairly short summer "holiday" to my home country to visit some family and friends and introduce my new husband since we eloped last year. My mum is in the midst of dishing out the silent treatment, so will not discuss anything with me, but has been in contact with other relatives and she knows I am coming. Dad has told me I can to stay at their home, but neither my husband nor I are comfortable doing that. I'm choosing a hotel in town, but i know this will really upset my mum. It will be interpreted just another case of her cruel, abandoning daughter twisting the knife in her back, I'm sure! Another chance to whinge to all and sundry and play the victim again.

Obviously, I'm going to stick with the hotel plan since it's what my husband and I are comfortable with. I just hate how there are no good choices when a uBPD mum is involved. Issues are unresolvable, the pwBPD can never be wrong, and logic is just something learnt in math class! I am resentful, fearful and most of all, just plain exhausted with dealing with BPD, enDad and the crazed FOO. I will surely need a holiday from my holiday!

I know I must get to the point where what others say and do no longer affect me, but I am not quite there yet. On those rare occasions when I see my mum, there is sure to be a petulant, "Why have you shut me out of your life when all I've ever done is love you? I'm sorry if you imagine I've wronged you somehow. Tell me why you're so cold!" from her. I never know how to respond to this one! Any suggestions?

[Calsun]

To:  InvisibleLight88

Wow, you sound like you have a great deal of clarity, and that you are visiting with good boundaries, staying in a hotel, rather than staying with your Mum.  I just relate to your story so much and the role of your father in all of this.  My father passed away a few years ago, and I loved my father, he could be very kind, but my father was such a problem in the system.  He didn't protect himself or his children from the abuse from my UBPDM.  He would say something similar to what your father would say to you, things like you're mother really loves you, she cooks and cleans for you.  Try to do things for your mother, don't get her excited. So, he was a lynchpin in the system, and he invalidated the reality of what was really going on, and set me up for internalizing my mother's illness as my illness.  He was also very fragile, both emotionally and physically, so it was very difficult to ever get angry at him for what amounted to a huge betrayal of his role as father to me.  Now, that he's gone, it's even more difficult to feel the anger that I have towards him for that betrayal and abandonment.  To be angry at my deceased father. I wonder if I turn some of that against myself.

And my mother would constantly play the role of the martyr.  She would say I sacrificed for you, never went any place because of you.  She would use any confidences to eventually humiliate or abuse, and then say why don't you want to be close to me, other sons share things with their mothers. And then to detach felt like I was heartlessly abandoning her, which is what the BP fear most of all.  It's just a part of their disease that they ironically effectuate abandonment because of their behavior, which is what they fear most of all.  

I think awareness and acceptance of what is going on is key for me.  Having a support system in place to realize that it's not you, and that the projecting and attacks and guilting is so common to BPD's, deflecting accountability, playing the martyr.  BPDM's can elicit a lot of sympathy. Mine certainly has played and still plays the suffering, selfless mother sympathy card with strangers. And it can work with people who don't know her or have never seen her abuses and rages in private. And I can still feel heartless at times when I detach.  But knowing increasingly that I am not alone with this, reading and hearing other people's stories, like your own, which have eerily powerful underlying commonality, has helped me.  If others are experiencing the same complex of issues that speaks to an underlying disease, could it really be me?

And great that you have a husband who understands the dynamic, is honoring your experience and is not urging you to stay with your mother.  That support is great!

All the Best,

Calsun