Still the dutiful daughter on the end of a leash

[zone out]

Today I found myself accounting for my precise movements to my mother who had been unable to reach me on the phone to vent... . it was like 'I was at the bank, then the library etc.'  I am well into middle age - I left home 35 years ago, I am a wife and mother of a grown up family ... . such is the control that the woman has over me, I think I probably had more independence when I was a teenager.  Then I just did what I wanted and made sure she did not find out.

I know I am being manipulated, she is extremely enmeshing - she even uses plural terms, we rather than I etc.  I am aware of it ... . but I keep letting it happen.

Can anyone identify with this

Zone out

[bethanny]

Relate.  Zone, my borderline mother has passed on.  After she died only did I come to grips with her profound borderline disorder. I always blamed my dad's drinking for her craziness. Now I see her craziness undoubtedly contributed to my dad's drinking.  They both hurt each other and me so much.

It would have helped to have known I was dealing with someone with a ferocious disorder with a formidable and terrorizing state of paranoia, my way or the highway, all or nothing judgementalism! 

I recommend the book by Christina Ann Lawson, Understanding the Borderline Mother.  There is such a thing as object constancy for the borderline.  I would be sabotaged with such shaming and guilting from her when I focused on my own needs and did not arrive with a reliable pattern of visitation no matter how old I got. To a normal person it was a small thing. To my mother it launched a nuclear war intense attack.

When I finally stood up to her and said NO to a visit, she character assassinated -- it was heartbreaking for me in terms of her and those she sought out to destroy my relationships with (my very siblings) -- me with my primary and secondary family for being cold and insensitive to her and ME being seemingly CRAZY and then there was an estrangement of ten years that tortured me with loneliness and horror from not only her but those she had turned to for solace from terrible me. 

When she had a stroke 10 years later I was contacted by my siblings and then I reconnected with some of the family. Sadder but wiser and on the faraway margin of a family system I had loved.

I tried to communicate where I was coming from mostly by letter not phone during my estrangement to my mother and my honesty enflamed her borderline hysteria, there was never a tiny window for conflict resolution. I had a choice of being a Stepford daughter or being the enemy and outlaw.  My honesty also met with denial in others.  And I kept hoping I could resolve it with her and postponed unloading on family. I did not want sides and divisiveness.  I was naive about what I was dealing with. 

Affinity is what she needed.  It was not about mutual love and respect. Sadly she was not capable of that.  When my affinity was suddenly not automatic, despite my huge commitment and devotion to her for years, it was like I was thrown out of a plane by her.  I had betrayed and I was ejected. 

My mother I pitied and I respected and I admired in many ways.  But the specter of the dark side of my mother made me walk a net-less tightrope growing up and through half of my adulthood to try to ensure she be seemingly normal and affectionate for me to coexist with without being rained on with terrorizing annihilating and profoundly eroding to the spirit and esteem anger.  Zero tolerance from her from anything but perfection in her eyes.  I had to give up my rights, needs and will to keep her insanity in check, which of course often did not work anyway.

I see today how she was someone so disturbed she required inappropriate and illegitimate POWER over the lives of her chosen others who had to give up so much of their life for her ongoing and pitiable potential for hysteria.

Detach.  One day at a time. Get support from others who relate.

Making a schedule with her and sticking to it.  Make it realistic for your needs not hers but I see looking back my mother panicked when I cancelled or postponed even for a short time. She panicked and felt massive levels of anxiety and abandonment and RAGE. It was nuts since I was on such a short leash but with such a disorder that did not matter.  So make fewer promises, but make some of them and keep them.  If you can.  It sucks, but you are not dealing with an authority figure. You are dealing with a primitive child who throws tantrums at the slightest provocation.

Otherwise, detach for your own sanity.

best, bethanny

[Clearmind]

Try to get out of the habit of explaining, justifying your whereabouts to your Mom – she is controlling you! Maybe time to deal with some guilt and the internal thoughts of "I must be available for Mom whenever she needs me". We set up a relationship pattern without realizing we are reinforcing the very thing we detest.

How could you deal with it differently if the same situation was to reoccur?

[Blonde Mermaid]

Zone out, how old are you?

Sometimes I feel guilty for not abandoning my mother at a younger age and believing over and over that she was going to change.

I am 34 by the way.  For me the concept of mother was of a burden, because, sadly i have met a lot of mothers that are in some way burdens to their kids.  I would blame it on the fact that my mother was a young mother when I was born (21) so I always refused to become a mom at a young age.

Plus I always knew she was troubled because she suffered from abuse from her parents and siblings.

Although my mother doesn't control me, she still makes me go through bitter moments. She still pisses me off.

My response to her attempts to control me are telling her off in many ways.  Sometimes she has admitted she is afraid now, of my reactions.  I tell her, really? welcome to my nightmare!

I have realized, distance is the best medicine, since she doesn't want to see a counselor.

You are old enough to run a family you cannot let your mother destroy your life by making you go through bitter moments like that phone call.  A BPD parent can damage your self esteem by making you believe you aren't a good person, but that is her perception, in her twisted world.  It is not necessarily true.

Set boundaries.  Don't answer the phone, try to be as away as possible and when you say NO make sure it is really a NO, then she will think twice about calling you again just to give you orders.

[zone out]

Thank you Clearmind, Bethany and Blonde Mermaid

I have given her free reign for way too long (I am in my mid fifties!).  She has always been accustomed to ringing me to vent whenever the slightest thing bothers her/whips her up into a rage.  I usually try and reason with her - totally futile, reason is one word which does not enter the BPD vocabulary.  On one occasion she actually managed to trigger in me a panic attack over the phone but still she kept on yelling.  However this expecting me to account for my movements is new - a subtle change but a change none the less.  She is digging her claws in further and I am going to have to take a stand - thank goodness for this site,  but for it I would not have been alert and aware enough to pick this up and she would just have continued to encroach further and further.  From now on I will be accounting for nothing - I HAVE BEEN BUSY, no explanations, no further comment.  My husband has taken to answering the phone when he is at home - she acts very differently with him.

All these years I have given her the benefit of the doubt - that she would change, that she was just having a bad day etc etc.  A therapist who I was once seeing threw up in hands in horror - when he asked how I was I replied - 'fine, she is being nice to me, things are ok' - he said I was acting like a grateful puppy, that's the way she should be all the time.  I should have done something to address the situation years ago when I was young and she was middle aged but I had not got a clue what I was dealing with.  She is an expert manipulator ... . when she runs out of steam and the rage subsides she pulls out the trump card the 'how will you live with the guilt that you killed your mother'.  I don't ever respond to that comment ... . but I always try to ensure that we part or finish the phone call on 'good' terms, even though the effort is always mine.

Zone out

[Clearmind]

Best thing to do is not engage in her pity pleas - make excuses to get off the phone, don't answer the phone every time she calls, call back when it suits you and reduce the time and frequency of these calls.

[Taolady]

Hello, DDl. I was a dutiful daughter,too. The guilt and obligation is what holds us back. I started not answering the phone and letting the answering machine get it. She accused me of screening my calls and I said, "Of course! That's what it's for!", and amazingly she thought that was a good idea and started doing it herself. Then when she wanted me to account for my activities, I told her I was "doing the same old stuff, how about you?" and she inevitably changed the conversation to talk about herself. The last thing I did was tell her I would be busy for a couple of days (or whatever time limit I wanted) and that I would call her on _____ (day of the week convenient for me). It didn't always work but it helped me enough that I didn't feel so hounded. Good luck to you. You can do this! 

[zone out]

Thank you all for your help -

I actually think that it is all linked to her feeling of complete entitlement to unleash all her inner turmoil to me, I suppose it is all tied up with enmeshment.  She even uses terms such as 'I thought you should know' etc.  There would be some useful purpose in this if she was capable of listening to reason but that is not the case.  Every attempt at reasoning or trying to offer a solution is met by 'don't lecture me'.  I have heard the term that happiness and contentment comes from within - you cannot make someone happy, that must be doubly true of the BPD.

I will still have to check on her by phone or visit every day (she refuses to have any aid alert type of device - possibly manipulation again) but it up to me to change the scenario that has been played out so many times over so many years with her cracking the whip.  I will keep the calls short, making an excuse if necessary - I have even noticed quite a few occasions when she starts a call in an ok mood and whips herself up into a rage as the call progresses.  Totally self fueled, I am very adept at not triggering her.  I take the point about not engaging in her angst, I might even turn the subject back to her by asking what she is planning to do about whatever etc ... .    

Above all I have to get away from that futile 'punchbag' feeling where you are under unremitting attack with no chance of defence.  It is just utterly draining.

Zone out