Will soon face BPD parent What should I do

[Bones like Stones]

So I will be going to my parents house to help them move into their new home. That means I will have to interact with my BPD mother. She will likely say things that will hurt me, so how not take it personal (repeating to myself that it is a disease won't help)?

She will likely want to talk to me, ask me questions which are invading. How to keep my life private without hurting/affecting her susceptibility?

How how how?

[Kwamina]

Hello Bones like Stones,

When was the last time that you saw you mother? Do you still have contact with her? I can relate to the anxiety you're experiencing now. Dealing with a BPD parent is always stressful and moving to a new home gives additional stress which can trigger bad behavior in a BPD parent.

What might help is trying to keep in mind that your focus should be on protecting your own emotional wellbeing. It might help to worry a bit less about 'not hurting' her and more about how to respond when she hurts you. I too was always thinking about what I could do to prevent my mother from acting crazy, but that also meant that I was always focusing on her needs and not on my own and that just isn't right. If you want to keep things private just say you don't want to talk about them and if she can't handle that, that's her problem. Good luck!

[Sitara]

Do you want to help them move or are you doing it because you feel you have to (FOG)?

Have you figured out your boundaries?  I know for me, figuring out what was important to me was very helpful in deciding how to deal with mom.  I no longer talk to her about important things in my life, and if she asks I give a very generic answer.  Interacting with her lately has been a lot like interacting with that coworker you don't like but have to work with.  I recently had to deal with my mom and it didn't turn out as bad as I had built it up in my head to be.  You'll work through this.

[Bones like Stones]

I hadn't talk to my mom in a few weeks... . Turns out it wasn't so bad at first when I arrived over there yesterday. Then today was good too, but it was only this evening now, after a dinner and few drinks that she began her game again.

In her mind, I am my father's daughter, therefore I am in "his camp" and she says "I look like the big monster, but your father has something to tell you both you and your sister and it's gonna have to come out of his mouth"... .

Power of suggestion can really make your mind go nuts... . By the way, my mom has unDiagnosed BPD!

I don't think she is a monster, but making me doubt the only parent which has been stable and sustainable emotionally, I don't know what to make of it... . And worst of all, "what if"! That F**kin question that stir your world upside down.

SOmehow I don't want to play the blame game, I don't want to point the finger at my mom for everythings that is screwed up in my me, the trust I have in people, in myself... . Some part of me wants to look fairly at everyone's input and output in our family dynamic, including myself, my father... . and so on. But it all comes down to nothing but chaos and self-doubt!

The thing is, I have the power to forgive and forget so long as it is not put to my face again... . If this weekend could have run smoothly with no altercation from her, then I would have left everything else to the past and enjoy the present and look forward to my future... .

But when she acts out again, or she stirs up crap about my father or whatever, then I feel like she is forcing me to live every bits of the past as well again; it all comes back, every quarrel, every threat, every accusation, and all the pandemonium spanned through 20 past years resurface in me... . And believe it or not, I tried to explain that to her when I told her I would move out and she demanded why. I told her what resurfaced in me each time heard her voice raised up... . Needless to say that did not end well, and it was the reason we had not talked for several weeks.

This is exhausting!

Oh by the way, Sitara, Yes I am helping them move because I feel I have to help my family! To me, it's a credit to myself and something I can throw back at her if she ever calls me "ungrateful" again.

So I am doing it for the best and the worst reason at the same time.

[Sitara]

And believe it or not, I tried to explain that to her when I told her I would move out and she demanded why. I told her what resurfaced in me each time heard her voice raised up... . Needless to say that did not end well, and it was the reason we had not talked for several weeks.

I can imagine how that went.  My mom and I also recently had a "conversation" that went about the same.  We actually hadn't talked for 9 months previous over something she did to my husband and refused to apologize for ("I don't think I did anything wrong so therefore I don't need to apologize and everyone agrees with me!".  We only asked my parents to come over to tell them in person that we would be moving out of state.  She initially thought it was just a threat.  It was also my last attempt at fixing our relationship (things have not been going well the past few years) because I was just about done with her behavior.  I also didn't realize what her issues were at the time.  But, everything was "my fault" and now she's playing nice so that she can throw that back at me: "I'm trying! Nothing I do is good enough for you!"  Enough is enough.  I'm done with being everything that's wrong in her life.

Oh by the way, Sitara, Yes I am helping them move because I feel I have to help my family! To me, it's a credit to myself and something I can throw back at her if she ever calls me "ungrateful" again.

So I am doing it for the best and the worst reason at the same time.

You should check out this board about the FOG: Fear, Obligation & Guilt:

https://bpdfamily.com/content/emotional-blackmail-fear-obligation-and-guilt-fog

I know that helped me.

I used to feel the same way as you.  I didn't want to be that person who kept the grandkids away from their grandma, or the person who didn't show up to family events, basically the person who was letting down the rest of the family.  But after leaving one holiday in tears and developing panic attacks, I couldn't do it anymore.  And so I stopped going to things - so my mom started planning more events that she knew I wouldn't come to, so she could use that against me.

You can try to do things just so you can say you helped - but the thing is, she'll just say you didn't help good enough or in the wrong way.  My mom is the master of the lose-lose situation, so I refuse to play that game anymore.  Plus I have to do what's best for my kids.

It sounds like you're still pretty young though.  I'm glad you're figuring out you deserve better earlier than I did.  The last 10 years of my life would have been so much happier had I started taking control of my life at that age.  You'll get through this and figure out what you need to do to stay happy and healthy.

[Bones like Stones]

Thank you Sitara, it's very encouraging what you wrote!

I once read that BPD symptoms in women will often alleviate after their menopause. It is true that now my mother  is past hers that she is not as bad as she once was, especially if I compare her to what she used to be when I was a child/toddler and growing up. Now she seems aware that there is something wrong with her managing stress and emotions, however she always blames it "the  chemistry in the brain" which really bothers me to some extend. I do agree that a hormonal disease could and would change one's personality, however I also believe that we are always to some extent in control of how we choose to react and feel. I tried to explain that to her, calmly, but she is convinced that it's all up to "the chemistry in the brain" that makes her do this or that.

My mother is extremely intelligent, and I know her to be smart enough to manipulate facts to her advantage, such as the one I explain above. However, I once read that that BPD individuals often have a dissociative disorder, and/or split personality. Therefore I am often confuse when I hear her usual refrain of the Brain Chemistry: is this a manipulative attempt to once again blame external factors, so she doesn't have to take responsibility for her behavior. OR is it the disease, is it really the chemistry of her brain making her unable to see herself, hear herself, and aware of the power that she has as a human being over her emotions and reactions?

In other words, Is she mean enough to use "Sickness" as her shield OR is she really so sick she doesn't know she is mean?

I once read a very nasty piece about BPD individuals describing them as "emotional vampires... . incapable of empathy... . who are, deep down, emotional 3-year-old!" At first, I absorbed the text and developed very angry thoughts at my mother, but the following days I started thinking about what I had read and, although I do think that BPD individuals can be emotional vampires and throw temper-tantrum like toddlers do, I have a hard time thinking of my mother as "incapable of empathy". Certainly she seems to have more empathy towards people who had similar life experiences/traumas, such as losing their fathers in their young age like she did. However, I have seen and heard her expressed feelings of sympathy towards all kinds of individuals, including me, my father, my sister... . She just seems to forget at times.

What I am trying to get at is that I have a hard time to come to term with the very cruel image depicted by experts about BPD and the image I have of my mother, who again is undiagnosed BPD meaning I do not know for sure she is BPD or not. Is my mother a cruel being (at the core), or just capable of cruel words and deeds?

I don't want to have been born and raised by a cruel mother!