Gifts and the BPD person in your life?

[petridish]

I've just started thinking about the holidays and, again, am faced with my own issues receiving gifts. I think they stem from my uBPD mother's gift-related quirks and I'm interested to hear about other people's experiences with gifts and BPD individuals (parents in particular!).

I'll leave it there and chime in later!

[nutshell]

In my own experience gifts from a BPD always come with strings! I have gotten to the point where I just say "Oh I don't need anything, don't trouble yourself," and because the BPD in my life is so caught up with himself, he doesn't.

If I ever did get a thoughtful or nice gift from the BPD in my life I was always expected to reciprocate in unrealistic ways, ie spend the same amount of money on a similar gift, give up large amounts of my time and spend it the BPD instead.  It just got to be too complicated.

When my husband and I got married, my dad (the BPD in my life) offered to give us the down payment for a new home as wedding gift.  My husband and I excitedly choose a new home, did all the loan pre-approval paperwork, were pre-approved for a home loan, and the last thing my dad had to do was come and bring the down payment which he did (shocking), and we scheduled an appointment with the home decor center to be able to pick out the trim and wall paint etc.  The day of that appointment my dad called to tell us he put a stop payment on the check and that he didn't think we should buy that house anyway, could we meet him at the sales office to sign off on the paperwork.  What could we do but comply, we did not have the money for the down payment.  I was devastated.  When we got to the office, my dad had the audacity to tell the sales associate that WE CHANGED OUR MINDS, and THEY'RE JUST KIDS.  We were so mad we didn't speak to him for months.

To this day, when refers to the incident, he says "remember that one time I tried to buy you a house and you didn't want it... ."

Yeah I don't do gifts with BPDS.

[Clearmind]

Petri, did she give gifts that were inappropriate, something you didn't like, unusable?

[GeekyGirl]

Clearmind asked a good question. Do you see a link between the value or usefulness of the gifts and your mother's feelings towards you at the time you received them?

[Moonbeam77]

In my own experience gifts from a BPD always come with strings! I have gotten to the point where I just say "Oh I don't need anything, don't trouble yourself," and because the BPD in my life is so caught up with himself, he doesn't.

If I ever did get a thoughtful or nice gift from the BPD in my life I was always expected to reciprocate in unrealistic ways, ie spend the same amount of money on a similar gift, give up large amounts of my time and spend it the BPD instead.  It just got to be too complicated.

When my husband and I got married, my dad (the BPD in my life) offered to give us the down payment for a new home as wedding gift.  My husband and I excitedly choose a new home, did all the loan pre-approval paperwork, were pre-approved for a home loan, and the last thing my dad had to do was come and bring the down payment which he did (shocking), and we scheduled an appointment with the home decor center to be able to pick out the trim and wall paint etc.  The day of that appointment my dad called to tell us he put a stop payment on the check and that he didn't think we should buy that house anyway, could we meet him at the sales office to sign off on the paperwork.  What could we do but comply, we did not have the money for the down payment.  I was devastated.  When we got to the office, my dad had the audacity to tell the sales associate that WE CHANGED OUR MINDS, and THEY'RE JUST KIDS.  We were so mad we didn't speak to him for months.

To this day, when refers to the incident, he says "remember that one time I tried to buy you a house and you didn't want it... ."

Yeah I don't do gifts with BPDS.

I have had similar experiences with gifts and my NPD Father.  I told him I preferred not to exchange gifts this year at Christmas.  I feel the gift comes with an expectation I am supposed to feel or behave in a certain way.  This is a generational issue.  I was talking to my grandfather on his death bed and he was telling me how one of his sons wouldn't talk to him.  He was an alcoholic, beat his wife, and had a love child with a woman he had a 40 year affair with.  My grandfather said he didn't understand why his son was mad at him "I bought him a really nice set of tools and I always give him money at Christmas." 

[petridish]

Petri, did she give gifts that were inappropriate, something you didn't like, unusable?

Clearmind asked a good question. Do you see a link between the value or usefulness of the gifts and your mother's feelings towards you at the time you received them?

I would say she's never given me anything inappropriate but yes to unusable (though never intended as such). She has sometimes given me things she wants me to have emotional attachments to that I don't (things from her childhood, etc.).

Geekygirl, I would have to say that I don't see much of a link between the value/usefulness and my mother's feelings towards me.


My mother loves to give gifts, send thoughtful notes, bring flowers, etc. I'm sure part of it is her desire to be liked, but it's also part of who she is at her best. One thing I've tried to help her see is that her pleasure at gift-giving has to be separate from gift-receiving, because she can get really upset and down when she reads too much into less-than-glowing reception.

My issue is that I really don't like receiving gifts. Growing up, I took on some of the financial worrying, and I'm sure that this is part of it. I am not anti-stuff, but I do have trouble receiving presents from people, especially those in my family. I have had trouble at times fighting back near paralyzing guilt over items. Some stuff is worse than others -- I feel guiltiest about electronics purchased new (it's like I can feel it becoming outdated and depreciating in value right away! not to mention environmental/labor/technical concerns). I also tend to feel more burdened by gift items than by non-gift ones, though I am getting better about that for the most part.

Especially around the holidays when it's an advertising parade of STUFF! STUFF! STUFF! I feel a lot of guilt about my privileged position in the world, the environmental consequences of thoughtless gift giving, and all that kind of responsibility. But I also believe strongly that gift-giving has a specific symbolic relationship value in how it gives us this dedicated mental space to consider someone we love and their interests, likes, needs, as well as how it allows us to be gracious in being "taken care of" by others.

My mother, despite her love of gift-giving, doesn't always nail my likes very well, especially as an adult. But it's so important to her, that making her happy in my reception of it is really important to me too. I, on the other hand, can really nail presents for her most of the time (part of it's luck at finding things) and she's felt badly about this in the past when she's been in a particularly reflective state, about not being good at reciprocating.

My mother also likes to know her gifts to me are used or appreciated, even though sometimes they aren't really me (sometimes she gets me things I think she means to get herself, and she and I have talked about this). The main strings attached to her gifts (or at least the only ones I really respond to with any FOG) are those of being a good gift recipient and expressing pleasure and positive appreciation at the thought.


This might be related somehow. When I learned there was no Santa at age 5 (I'd had my suspicions), I immediately told my siblings but NOT my parents (who, as Santa, knew the truth). I hid from them that I knew until my mother sat me down as tween to tell me. I think in my child brain, it was clear that they derived some sort of joy from believing we believed, and I wanted to protect their adult-like naivete.  

[Sitara]

My parents are terrible gift givers.  The things they gave were either responsible (i.e. household items) because responsibility was drilled into our heads (no room for fun in our family) or completely thoughtless.  The first year of my marriage, my mom actually tried to get a nice gift for my husband, and though he truly appreciated that she tried, it wasn't really his style, so she stopped trying after that.  He just wasn't wowed over enough for her.  I honestly can't remember the last time I got a gift with any real thought into it.  I know the last several years she's bought me pajama pants, usually with a snarky remark about how she never knows what to get me because she doesn't know me at all (because that's obviously my fault).  For birthdays all I'd get were generic cards with nothing more than a "love mom & dad" written on the inside.  My golden birthday, my mom had to go the extra step.  She asked me what I was expecting for my birthday, and when I said I didn't expect anything, she yelled, "Good! 'Cause I didn't get you anything!" and threw my card at me from across the table.  As far as her receiving gifts, she always acts like we didn't do a good enough job or it was somehow insulting.  One year, she specifically asked for a certain candy, and when I gave that to her, she got mad because she was suddenly on a diet and everyone just doesn't want to see her succeed.  Last year she didn't give us any gifts because I called and said I wouldn't be coming because I didn't think I would enjoy it.  So she silent treatmented me, and sent my dad on over to our place to bring the kids gifts.

And since nutshell brought up money, I thought I'd share my money borrowing story.  It wasn't so much a gift as, "You can borrow money from us interest free and don't worry about paying us back, just give us money when you can."  It started with little things like appliances when we bought our house, but they eventually ended up paying for a car for me.  Then my mom started flip-flopping about how she felt about the loan.  Sometimes she'd ask when I was going to make a payment, if I brought it up she'd act like she didn't care.  The worst was when she told my husband that she was "thinking of forgiving the loan."  Then when I brought up the subject the very next day (because she was sending mixed messages) she told me that, sure, I didn't have to pay the money back if I wanted to be included in her long list of blood-sucking relatives.  Then just after having a new baby and doing some major repairs on our home (a time where we were very strapped for cash) she flipped out on me because suddenly I was supposed to "check in at least once a month to see if it was still okay if I paid them back whenever." 

I know my husband and I won't receive gifts this year because we moved cross country, but I can't figure out how to deal with the kids gifts.  She hasn't spoken to me in months, but if she calls wanting to send them gifts, should I allow it or should I tell her no?  I just don't know how I feel about it.