Parents who have parents with BPD

[sunshinemama]

Hi!

I finally registered on this board after lurking for quite some time. I have come to the conclusion that my mother is an undiagnosed BPD. Her behaviors in my childhood can best be described as unpredictable. Now that I'm grown and live across the country, I feel like our relationship has greatly improved - whether the distance helps her to be on her "best behavior" when we do see each other, or she's outgrown some of her more negative traits with age.

I recently became a mother myself, and find myself thinking back to my own childhood much more frequently as I worry about possibly repeating patterns or behaviors that I experienced. This will often "trigger" sad emotions in me. However, knowing the good relationship my mom and I have now, I want to keep it that way, and I truly want my daughter to have a good relationship with her grandma.

I'm curious if anyone has gone through something similar? Or experienced a shift in the dynamic with their uBPD parent when they became parents, and what your relationship is like now that you have kids?

[Sitara]

Welcome sunshinemama, and I'm glad to hear your relationship with your mother has improved.  If you have strong boundaries for yourself, and establish good boundaries for your child, you can probably establish a good relationship with grandma.

My mom either is getting worse as she gets older, or I'm just seeing things as they really are now.  I'm not sure if my story will help you, but I thought I'd share.  She was ecstatic when I told her I was having my first son.  She started babysitting for him when he was about 1, 4 times a month.  My husband and I thought it was a win-win; she got more time with him and we saved money on daycare.  We offered to pay and drop off at her house - both to which she declined.  Things started off well, but as time went on she started to get more passive-aggressive and angry.  She took him stomping through mud puddles in his nice leather shoes, and flipped out at me when I asked her politely to use his play shoes next time.  She would tell me my husband was a great father but I was a terrible mom and list off things I was doing wrong.  She started calling us more and more telling us she couldn't watch him for whatever reason.  Once she called me at 9 pm the night before saying she was sick and asked if it would be inconvenient if she couldn't watch him.  I mistakenly answered honestly that yes, it was inconvenient because my husband and I both had work obligations that were difficult to get out of at that short of time.  She flipped out and said we needed to have more backups for when she couldn't watch.  We had two people other than her, but they couldn't do it on such short notice.  Once she had a tooth pulled and told me she'd "need a whole month to recuperate."  So I called her a couple days after the surgery and asked how she was doing.  Her response was, "Oh I'm great! Why wouldn't I be?"  Well, maybe because you told me you needed a whole month off.  She was starting to take more days off than she was actually watching by the end.

When I had my second son, my mom was the one who was supposed to take the oldest while we were in the hospital.  She assured us she'd keep him as long as we needed, just take a few days to get some rest before dealing with both!  She ended up taking him a couple days before giving birth because I had precursors to labor that sent me to the hospital.  She wanted to bring him back as soon as she found out I got sent home, but I asked her to keep him because I thought I'd go into active labor soon.  Long story short, we were home less than 24 hours before she dropped my first son off on our doorstep.  Trusting her in that situation was a huge mistake, as we turned down someone else's offer to take my oldest.

We asked my mom if she would continue babysitting for both boys, but for only 2 days a month.  She told me she needed my whole maternity leave to decide.  My husband and I decided it was far too stressful having her babysit anymore.  When I told her, I had kind of hoped she'd be disappointed about seeing the kids less, but she was ecstatic.  She saw my youngest a total of 3 times in his first year, but she constantly wanted to have the oldest over for long weekends when it suited her.

She eventually accused me of threatening her that if she hadn't agreed to babysit, she'd never see her grandkids.  She said I was taking advantage of her, and think about how difficult it was for her to drive through traffic and how early she'd have to get up and how she figured she spent $200 for 2 days of babysitting because she'd have to bring food and for gas. (We always had food for our son, she always found a reason he couldn't eat it, or she didn't know it was for him.)  She told us we never offered to pay her and that we never offered to drive him to her place.

Before we moved cross country, she started telling my oldest son that, "he'd never see grandma again."  He would come home in a depressive funk and that's not normal or ok for a 4 year old!  That's when we stopped his visits, that's when I found this website.

I completely stopped existing once my children were born, and she was constantly telling me how I was a terrible parent and what I should be doing as a parent.  The only times she contacts me is when a holiday is coming up, so she can have her perfect little image of a holiday surrounded by her grandchildren.  My children helped me realize my mom isn't healthy and are my driving force to make myself better, so they can grow up in a healthier family than I have.  They are what finally gave me the strength to say no.

Sorry that got so long.  It was a huge frustration in my relationship with my mom.  I really do hope you are able to have a good relationship with your mom, and she can continue having a healthy one with your child.