Borderline elderly waif mother

[sophiegirl]

I do need help with my anger towards her though, In the past I have moved house, job and got away from her and we get on fine on the phone. Now I'm stuck - I have a lovely family and she has moved to be near us. I thought she genuinely wanted to be near family and time and age had mellowed her. But no if anything she is worse than ever. We don't want to move. I guess I just need to find some strength from somewhere and pull myself together. She also talks  about her death - its a sort of blackmail to get herself included in various outings, 'as I won't be here next year' she talks about her health, constantly making dr appointments in search of cures. Constantly complaining that the drs are always giving her medication. Like many here she is also on her own as my father left her and didn't keep in touch. (she even blamed me for that and I was only 2 at the time)

sorry for the long posts, I really need to talk.

[nevermore]

If you can move I would.  Even a few miles can make a big difference. I am 15 minutes away from mine but when I lived on the same street it was horrible.  Mine will try to ruin every family get together.  They are held at my house because it is bigger. She sits in a corner all alone and if I go near her she complains about everyone there.  She is never worse than she is at weddings, funerals and holidays.

[Clearmind]

nevermore you have developed good coping skills and good boundaries - this is all we can do if light of an ill parent.

Sometimes what we need to process is the Obligation - I felt obligated to listen, fix, talk my family member through upset, be available and rescue if no one was talking to them!

Do you feel any obligation towards Mom?

Having a BPD parent certainly impacted my adult life - have you explored and healed from your childhood

[zone out]

Hi Sophiegirl - I have been reading through your posts on this thread and I can sure relate to them.  I am a only child too of an uBPD elderly mother and like you I have often wondered why a mother with an only child can be so nasty - it is not as if they have others to rely on.  Of course since joining the site I have discovered that siblings are often treated very differently by the BPD leading to poor sibling relationships so I have come to the realisation - if only I had a brother/sister to share this with - is only a dream.  Do other family members know what you are going through or is your mother more of a high functioning BPD. I only told a cousin fairly recently and she was shocked.  My mother can generally hold it together quite well with others to their face - then she takes out all the grudges/ill feeling on me. I would have thought sibling rivalry would have been a thing of the past at her age but apparently not.

For many years I struggled on feeling like I was the only person in the world dealing with such crazy behavior - mother is like a simmering cauldron, she can erupt in the most terrible rage in a flash.  Now since joining this site, I know differently.  One thing I would say to you - I really don't think they are in any way rational when they are in a rage.  Mother lashes out just with the most hurtful thing she can think of at that present time - next time she may say completely the opposite.  So really I take the content with a pinch of salt - it is more the manner in which it is delivered that terrifies me, the look in her face, the harshness of her voice.  It is either that or the waif - why me and the crying - I don't know which is worse.

I too would like to know how to deal with the anger - I think it emanates from the manipulation and the feeling that I have that rather than doing as I want I end up doing what I have to - that leads to resentment.  It is also very frustrating not to be able to have a rational discussion ... .it is like all the balls are pitched at you and you don't ever get a chance to throw some back.

Zone out

[sophiegirl]

Hi Zone out, funny I nearly messaged you yesterday to say Hi, all your posts could have been mine, our mothers sound so similar. So yes mother has started the build-up to xmas nightmare, and its only October! last year she baked a cake for my sons birthday, but  as it was outside in the garden she just put it down and left -  so the party becomes (briefly) about her. I actually felt a bit sorry for her - the only person missing out was her. I didn't invite her to my wedding as she came to the engagement - we did it one xmas and she told me after she thought it was a joke as my ring looked like it had come out of a cracker! she wasn't even happy for me. Yes she is high functioning, held down a job that demanded organising and finance. I too have only told my cousin and she was shocked, I don't think she even believed me so it hasn't been discussed again, we live on opposite sides of the world now anyway.

On the obligation, yes I do feel obligated, blackmailed, often still a little girl desperately trying to please a mum who I clearly am not good enough for.

I'd been practising my responses to her but she just gets smarter and finds a new way to hurt me which I don't have a rational answer to. I am thinking about just telling her the truth about herself. Tried everything else. I have done before whilst angry and get the crying waif response. Sometimes followed by pathetic demand to be taken to hospital.

I don't know. I am so over her at the moment (of course she can be normal sometimes and worms her way back). Wish she was out of my life

[nevermore]

Do I feel obligated?  No, not to the point that I let my guard down. I won't let her be homeless but I won't ever bring her to my home. I won't let her be unsafe but I won't sit guard for her. I think the greatest obligation a human being can have is to be there for their child. As I have said before when my brother needed a little money to keep a roof over his head she refused him and laughed in his face.  He took his life.  Any real obligation I might have felt left with his death.  She is the most selfish human being I have ever known.  She does have a friend who helps her a lot.  Recently the friend was carrying a chair up from her basement. My mother told her ":)on't hurt yourself!  Who would take care of me?"  She told me this story over and over.  I know her point was to make me feel bad that her friend was doing things for her.  My take away was she so blatantly ignored what harm might have come to her friend aside from how it would take away from HER. 

MY brother and I were taught only one Bible verse and other's have posted that one verse was "honor thy father and mother".  Again, it was all about her.  I do not owe her anything at all but I continue to watch out for her at a comfortable distance.  I do not like her. I do not love her but in the decade since my brother's death I have been able to move away from hating her.

[zone out]

Hi  I've had to deal with the 'woe is me' tearful waif like behavior this week and I think it is nearly harder to handle than the anger and rages.  I think perhaps I can now see the rages for what they are - explosive and irrational but the waif like behavior just makes me frustrated in the fact that no matter what I try to do or say to help, any suggestions are just immediately rejected.  Your instinct makes you want to help someone who is upset and hurting but the BPD always seems to be on the defensive, contra suggestive if such a term exists.

You are so right Sophiegirl, our stories are very similar - when I first joined the site I was paranoid that I would get found out, perhaps by a computer savvy cousin who would grass me up to mother.  I needn't have worried, so many of us relate such similar experiences - it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Zone out

[nevermore]

The waify behavior is maddening especially when she can spin it around and act insulted that anyone thinks she would need help.  One minute it is poor me, I can't do anything for myself and the next it is a speech about how she has never asked anyone for anything.    I have also found that the more I give the more she needs.  If I take her one place she comes up with a dozen more places to go. When it is time to take her home she needs to have me come inside and do more.  Getting away is almost impossible.  She sucks my soul dry.

[Clearmind]

nevermore boundaries are so important. We allow them to dictate our every move. If she was to ask you to come inside and do more what could you say?

Then we need to deal with the obligation and guilt of not doing what they ask. We are not those little kids anymore who must obey.

[nevermore]

I just stay away. In the two years that I have lived near her (again) I have only been to her house about three times. I hate being there because it just brings back all of the walking on eggshell years I spent trying to grow up and escape from there.  I speak to her by phone and let her jabs that I don't do anything for her roll off.  She saw the Dr. today and talked him into giving her Xanax. I expect a frantic call in the middle of the night tonight when she will claim she is having an anxiety attack. I don't plan to pick up.  I am just empty.