trapped by uNPD mother -- feeling suicidal

[Our abuse recovery guide]

Jessienbp - would love to know how you're getting on. I was feeling suisidal 4 months ago, and now I feel happier than I have for years. My feer has gone, now I know why BPD do what they do. Now I know it's not our fault. And now I know I can predict her behavior. When you take their mask off - they lose their supprise factor. After all bload should never behave the way the do. I'm sure you'll get there too. (ignore my spelling, dyslexic)

[HappyChappy]

Jessienbp - would love to know how you're getting on. I was feeling suisidal 4 months ago, and now I feel happier than I have for years. My feer has gone, now I know why BPD do what they do. Now I know it's not our fault. And now I know I can predict her behavior. When you take their mask off - they lose their supprise factor. After all bload should never behave the way the do. I'm sure you'll get there too. (ignore my spelling, dyslexic)

[jessienbp]

HappyChappy --

What scares me is that I'm not actually feeling suicidal in the usual sense, I'm seeing suicide as a repugnant, terrifying, but possibly necessary measure to get out of this situation I'm in.

I'm calling all the friends and relatives I know who might be able to help, and they all sincerely want to help, but so far they all are turning out to have their own severe problems they're dealing with. It's like a curse or something. Everybody I've called has a sister with cancer moving in with them next week for chemotherapy, is insane trying to sue their school district to get their emotionally disturbed kid some special needs help, has to sell their apartment and move in with their own parents because they lost their jobs and unemployment has run out, just got divorced and are single mothers trying to cope with working and taking care of their rambunctious triplets while renting out the spare room for cash to pay the babysitter... .

People are in trouble themselves all over.

(Or at least the ones I know. A lot, just coincidentally right now. I'm starting to feel like my situation is ordained by God for my sins, seriously.)

Or, actually, it's probably the quickening slide of the middle class into the struggling class that has been so well publicized. (Not that most of my friends were that middle class -- one problem with being a professional writer, or having been when you had a job, is that most of your friends are also professional writers, and were poor to start with and are now getting laid off right and left, or were years ago and are renting out their spare rooms to boarders to keep food in their mouths by now.)

They're not emotional, depression-caused suicidal thoughts. They're practical ones. Like, maybe it's the only way out that is not as slow and torturous and painful as living on the way things are seemingly going to keep going. A way to take care of myself in the only way I can.

As in the poem by Rudyard Kipling, which was actually good, if grim, advice:

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains, roll to your rifle and blow out your brains, and go to your God like a soldier.

What's sometimes called "field mercy."

Euthanasia for a mortal disease that in the meantime is nearly unbearably painful.

Mind, I'm not there yet. (To the point of acting, that is.) Just constantly thinking about it as a future contingency, because it is in a weird way a comfort to know there is at least one way out. But of course somebody could still come through with a place for me to stay to get over the PTSD my mother is giving me that's making it so hard for me to do the things I could be doing to try to help myself here, in her shadow. Heck, there could be a divine miracle.

But my hopes, I must admit, are dwindling. Not many uncalled folks left in my phone contact list. And I'm decompensating, meaning i Am getting less and less able to help myself.

Sorry to sound self-pitying. I know there are countless people on the streets with no hope at all. And children being raped by their parents as we speak, and all the really hopeless and suffering of the world, and so on. My problems dwindle to nothing compared to that. it's just that they're mine, and making me disgustingly self-absorbed right now.

[HappyChappy]

It's like these BPD people all operate the exact same.

Exactly, so that means we can predict their next move. Kind of gives us an advantage.

[P.F.Change]

I'm glad you were able to reach out to the hotline. You don't have to be about to kill yourself to call--even if it's just to chat or talk about a safety plan, it can be helpful. Your feelings are real and they matter, regardless of what other people may be going through. It is ok to acknowledge your feelings and admit that you have been abused.

jessienbp, your mother may have a personality disorder. It can be hard to accept that she will put herself first when you need someone to care for you, yet this is reality. It sounds like you have learned some hard lessons about trusting her to care for you. I understand you feel trapped and hopeless. There are solutions, though, and I know you will find some that work for you. I am glad you are looking into support to find a job you can do.

Is there any possibility you would be able to find a therapist to talk to? There is a pretty good on-line Cognitive Behavioral Therapy module available if seeing a counselor in person is really not an option. You might look at MoodGYM and see what you think.

PF

[jessienbp]

I'm making good use of the suicide hotline in the past few days -- I think I called them three times on thursday night. (They only give you 20 mins. per call.)

I just found out, from a lawyer I consulted for free, that my trust fund was effectively stolen when it passed into my mom's nephew's private hands. There is nothing to prove that it is my money -- and worse, my mother seems to have convinced her nephew that it is actually her money, i.e., that it is a normal kind of trust fund, where a parent or grandparent or someone sets up a trust for someone else.

but of course it's not. There was never any question, in NY, that it was and is my own money -- my mother just succeeded in having int bound up in  a way I can't access it at will. Or supposedly did. In fact, it is now in a bank account in my nephew's name with nothing to indicate that it is my money. He could very well -- illegally, but certainly practically -- give it to her, and I would be forced to have both of them prosecuted for theft and then somehow get the money returned to me. Which would take forever, and probably all the money. I mean, a sheriff would have to seize my mother's assets or something, and that would be after I had to go to to court in a different state and explain how a check that the real estate lawyer made out to a CPA firm in LA, which was the not the trustees named in the settlement, is actually supposed to be the trust for me named in the settlement that the real estate lawyer was named to hold. And that that check was what constitutes the $X that appeared in this private bank account in my nephew's name, and then that he wrote a check against to my mom.

That could take years. If it's provable at all. And if it's provable, I AM going to starve before I ever see any of it in my hands where it's supposed to be, if I do. Because it's what I have to live off of, or thought I had to live off of, and all I have to live off of.

So, great news, technically as of this moment I don't even have my trust fund, inadequate as that would have been per year. As a legal entity, it got stolen, all of it.

My social worker friend was discussing the pros and cons of homeless shelters to me, when I asked her advice. That was not encouraging.

After all, I can't very well even initiate legal proceedings with my mother while she's got me in a position where she's putting me up in my apartment but only her name is on the lease. And I've had no luck finding any friends who can take me in. And after Wednesday, when I finally have my knee surgery, I will be even more immobilized for while than I am now. Not to mention on oxycodone for the pain, which won't do much for my mental functioning or ability to move, say, even my computer to some kind of temporary paid crash pad.

OK, back to the suicide hotline.  

Those of you inclined to and generous enough to pray for others, please pray for me.

[jessienbp]

Well, I had my knee surgery this morning, and apparently my knee is really pretty screwed up, once the doctor got in there with a scope and could take an actual look around. Torn cartilage in not one but three knee compartments, which he removed, and advanced osteoarthritis. He's a very, very conservative doctor when it comes to surgery, and he's now talking knee replacement.

The good news is that he's one of the few people I've ever met who pegged my mother for what she is immediately. He volunteered, spontaneously, while talking to me post-op, that he's not willing to have any future conversations with my mother. (She took me to the hospital and home again. Her reasoning as given to me was to demonstrate that he should take me seriously as a patient because she was also Korean and knew how to talk to Korean doctors to get their attention. Her real reason, of course, was that she likes to interfere in my medical care. To ask questions like, when can she walk with a cane and then demand I walk without a cane after that period. Her way of enforcing that being to cut off my housing if I don't comply -- the standard device for enforcing compliance. As though this needs repeating-- Never, ever, ever get financially dependent on someone with BPD if there is any way of avoiding it. Don't let them control the money, don't let them be the sole wage-earner and get disabled yourself, don't believe anything they promise about how they will take care of you or repay you for your contributions to your joint situation, or any of that. Just don't, if there's any way to help it.)

But, anyway, this time she screwed up with the lying, which she is normally so very very smooth at. Apparently, and I have no idea when -- she must have looked him up and called him pre-surgery --- she told the surgeon I was an opiate addict and not to give me any opiate-based pain medication post-surgery. (I don't take opiates, let alone be addicted to them. Which she knows perfectly well, having access to my apartment and my presence at will at this point. She was just out to torture me physically, while getting around the problem of not being physically strong enough to batter me, as when I was a child.)

I would suppose that the way the doctor knew that for the bald-faced lie it is, is because, unlike opiate addicts, who ask for opiates with the excuse of faked pain, would, I had a perfectly legitimate excuse (invasive surgery involving removal of body parts I have to walk on) but never asked him to prescribe me any opiate-based pain medication. He just told me he was calling in a couple of prescriptions for me that I should pick up before the surgery, and one of them turned out to be for Percocet (sp?). Surprised me. But not too much, because, hey, when I thought about it, they give actual opiate addicts opiates when they have invasive surgeries. Or gallbladder attacks, or anything else demonstrable and known to be extremely painful. Anyway, he sounded pissed and disgusted by her doing that (we were talking on the phone), in a particular way I have not heard very often at all -- as though that were the natural reaction to something she did/said concerning me. Which it should be, but she's gotten away with similar lies/actions on even flimsier grounds in her smear campaigns. She missed her calling -- should have been an actress.

So the bad news is, my knee is pretty screwed up and will remain so, barring a knee replacement, which I would have to find a Medi-Cal doctor in my HMO and also my PCP's particular medical group, and is willing to do it on someone only 49, based on another surgeon's arthroscopic images. (The X-rays don't look that bad. X-rays don't capture the whole picture the way a scope inside the knee does. But most replacement doctors, in my experience, go by the X-rays.)  And then stay here for months and months while doing all that, getting the procedure, and having the months of intense at-home physical therapy required, plus finding a helpful soul to act as an in-home health aid, because a friend whose wife had one had to stay home all the time to open the front door for the physical therapist, as I gather one can't get out of bed right after a knee replacement.

The good news is is that at least I have one person on-scene who's cottoned on to my mother. Not that there's a lot he can do to protect me from her -- he's just a good, insightful orthopoedic surgeon -- but it's heartening to know there are people who can and do, besides my ex-shrink. And a friend in Texas who has a uBPD sister and knows what he's hearing, even in the smoothest and most rationalizable fibs and just slightly off tones.

That is comforting, actually. She gets away with it with so close to everybody, I was thinking she gets away with it with absolutely everybody. Even if the people can't help me, the affirmation is very emotionally necessary to me. for the FOG, and for the meeting of puzzled confusion in everybody I try to explain the real situation to.

I suppose that is why these boards are comforting to us, too.

[jessienbp]

After actually seeing inside my knee in the recent surgery, my (very good) doctor is recommending a knee replacement as the only way I will walk again.

My mother said that no matter what the doctor says in her hearing or otherwise, she absolutely forbids me to have a knee replacement, that I would have to return to New York if I want to have the procedure -- which I cannot do, for various solid reasons including but not limited to financial, and she has the power to prevent me because she can have me kicked out of the apartment at any time. She also has all my money bound up in a trust against me, though it is my money. I cannot afford to live here by myself -- that was part of the trap. She said she would set no conditions whatsoever on her help financially if i came here. She lied.

I would not only need a new place to live, I would need a place to lie up after a knee replacement and someone to open the door for the physical therapist and put groceries around my head and, if I tried to lessen costs by getting a roommate, a roommate who is willing to have someone bed-bound living with them who needs supportive care,  -- I have no support like that, here or elsewhere.

This is the second opinion I have gotten that I need a knee replacement, after trying the arthritis shots and months of arthritis-aimed physical therapy when I was still in NYC. The first was from the head of adult reconstruction at Montefiore and also a very conservative surgeon. I am lame to the point that I not only walk, I cannot stand on the leg.

I have sent out an APB to everyone who might help me get back to NYC -- where i would have to get back on medicaid, which took 8 months here -- and nobody can help.

i tried calling Adult Protective Services here -- they cannot help me because I am not qualified for SSI, not being permanently disabled yet as long as a knee replacement could fix me. My emergency housing option is limited to homeless shelters.

I have worn out the suicide hotline -- they have no real resources to help.

I am out of ideas.

She is demanding to speak to the doctor tomorrow.

Please, pray for me. it is all i can think of to do at this point.

She wants me lame (and in pain, or she would not have told that lie about my being an opiate addict and not to give me any painkillers after the limited surgery I did have, which i had hoped woould resolve the problem to at least give me enough mobility to have chance of escaping her).

I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do.

[PleaseValidate]

Jessie, just want you to know that I am praying for you in that i am sending many healing and peaceful vibes.i am sure many others are also following your story as well and sending their own prayers. This is such an extreme situation you are describing and i am so sorry that i are suffering!

I have also I been lied to by my own BPDmo, had my money stolen by her, been emotionally manipulated and  my medical problems dismissed by her.

I'm glad to read that u r utilizing the hotline as needed. Sometimes it helps just to verbalize things even if there is no current solution for all of your stress.

Also, remember that your mother is not entitled to get any info from your MD due to hippo laws. Sounds like you've at least found a good doc for your knee.

[jessienbp]

thank you very much, Please validate.

I know she has no right to speak to my doctor, but a surgeon friend I have here suggested i let her go along and hear what he has to say, a) just on the off chance she is acting out of mule-headed ignorance and not malice, and b) so he at least knows why, if i am not improving, under his care, why that is. (Intefering mother.)

Since she has the power to prevent me from being treated by him at all in any visible ways -- surgery, use of assistive devices -- if she wants to (financial blackmail), she can't really interfere any more if she listens to him.

He is on to her in the sense of not taking orders from her, or even her input. I am just hoping his input might do some good with her.

[Valley Quail]

What do you think of Boisnix 79's offer to help?

[jessienbp]

Boisnix very kindly called me, but I was still full of anesthaesia from my knee surgery the day before, so I was too muddled to talk coherently. I've Pm'd him -- i think he will call again; he seemed extremely nice.

[jessienbp]

I did find a really terrific website that has been helping me feel better emotionally, at least, as well as underscoring my need to GET AWAY from my mother, no matter if i have to limp to another state on one leg and live in a car.

I don't know if it's already listed as a resource here -- I did a site search and didn't turn it up -- but if not, it's called Emerging from Broken. The URL is that title run together, plus dot com.

It's by a woman healing from an abusive uNPD mother, her gradual realizations that it wasn't her that was sick and abusive but her mother, and her recovery process from depression, low self-esteem, self-blame, and dissociative disorder. (She's now No Contact.) I very highly recommend it.

[Valley Quail]

Very cool, so glad.

[P.F.Change]

Hi, jessienbp,

I'm sorry to hear things are still difficult for you. It must help a lot to have validation from your surgeon about your mother. I can tell you are taking steps to try and improve your situation where you can, and that is good. You are talking with the hotline and have consulted with an attorney, you are able to find yourself medical care (even if it is a hassle) and explore your options. You are looking out for yourself, and you are asking for help when you need it. Those are all good things.

Have you talked to your surgeon or any other doctor about the depression you are experiencing? Depression--especially when it becomes severe enough to produce suicidal ideation--may need medical treatment. Taking an antidepressant really can help get things balanced enough so that you can make other improvements. Have you considered this option?

Did you get a chance to look at the MoodGYM link? Are there any pastors in the area you might call for help in addition to the social services you've already consulted?

I will keep you in my prayers. I have been suicidal before and know how hard it can be--and also that there is hope to come out of it.


PF

[jessienbp]

I am on antidepressants. They aren't helping -- or maybe they are, maybe i would be worse off without them.

I am not suicidal tonight. I am just very, very afraid.

it's the isolation here in this strange highrise in this strange, not very friendly culture in this strange city, where my mother is really the only help I've got. She is uNPD but she is, in her way, trying to help as she thinks I need it, it's just that what i need is just a little human comfort and contact and she can't give me the first and there's nobody but strangers to give me the second.

Being so lame i can't walk anywhere to just see people on the streets, stuck in here all day and all night like nobody knows I'm alive, is just scary.

I am being a big baby tonight. I felt better earlier but my mom called and actually suggested we walk around and look for some kind of teaching-English kind of job for me around here, but got frustrated and started screaming and hung up when i told her i wasn't going to be able to walk without a limp by next week. (As I mentioned before, koreans have this ancient cultural prejudice against the disabled. They think it means one's family did something wrong to invoke punishment from Heaven. It goes very deep. I'm half-Korean by blood but totally American in upbringing and looks and culture, so i am not used to these things.)

I shouldn't blame her for all my problems. She is mentally ill and has no frustration tolerance and will not validate my feelings of wanting to at least be around some other people and not so high up in the air; but she is in her way trying to help, she just has completely the wrong idea of what i need -- some reassurance, not screaming. And I made a lot of bad mistakes that are the root cause of my situation. the worst was coming out here with her -- I can't get back to where I was, where I felt safe, near friends, for a whole slew of reasons I've already bored everyone with -- but selling the apartment in New York was a mistake. I didn't foresee ripping up my knee moving and thus totalling my plans to retrain as a nurse or PA, i didn't foresee how scared i would get, leaving familiar turf. i have a lot of problems with feeling safe, a lot, and those are my own problems. Sure she had a lot to do with instilling them when i was a kid; but agoraphobes should not be stupid enough to sell their homes. I just didn't know things would turn out this way -- the hospitalization, and ending up a continent away from my support systems, such as they were.

The total isolation is just really giving me the heeby-jeebies. I am kind of a loner, but there is a difference between solitude by choice and this.

I'd love to call my friends at times like this, but they're all on the East Coast and fast asleep by the time night closes in here and the isolation feels really profound. And this building is like a ghosttown -- a highrise that's half empty with no common areas and everybody Korean and looking freaked if i try to say "hi" in the elevators or something.

I don't know what i'm trying to say. forgive me.

[P.F.Change]

I am on antidepressants. They aren't helping -- or maybe they are, maybe i would be worse off without them.

Sometimes, it helps to adjust dosages or try a different medication (or combination of medications). If the meds you are taking now are not helping, that is important to bring up with your prescribing physician. You may need to try quite a few options before finding one that works.

what i need is just a little human comfort and contact and she can't give me the first and there's nobody but strangers to give me the second.

Strangers are only strangers until you get to know them.   I know it can be hard being in a new city and having to build new relationships from scratch; I imagine you must feel even more isolated because of your mobility issues. I understand you feel the neighbors act weird when you say hi. Still, I can't help wondering if any of them might be feeling just as isolated as you. What would it be like to knock on some doors on your floor and introduce yourself? Would you be any worse off?

Alternatively, you asked for prayers, so I am assuming you have religious beliefs. Many churches have a way to offer rides or visits to people who can't get to church on their own. That is a great way to meet people that you have something in common with. Do you have a place of worship already, or would you be willing to call some up and ask if they can help you get there?

I'd love to call my friends at times like this, but they're all on the East Coast and fast asleep by the time night closes in here and the isolation feels really profound.

Do you get a chance to call them earlier in the day? Are you able to keep in touch?

i have a lot of problems with feeling safe, a lot, and those are my own problems. Sure she had a lot to do with instilling them when i was a kid; but agoraphobes should not be stupid enough to sell their homes. I just didn't know things would turn out this way -- the hospitalization, and ending up a continent away from my support systems, such as they were.

You know, they say hindsight is 20/20. No one knows what the future holds, and even if we do make a mistake, there are ways to overcome it and recover. Maybe now you have learned some things and would make different choices--that doesn't mean you were or are stupid. We all make mistakes. You sound very capable, and I think you will find a way through this.

PF

[SomerledDottir]

Hi, Jessie:

I wish I had some answers or other help to offer but everyone else has already covered every suggestion I had, and more.

The only thing I can think of is Catholic Charities helped my mum when she was disabled and needed re-training.  Anything like that around your area?

I can only imagine the pain you're in, mentally and physically.  You're in my prayers, I wish I could do more.  I have faith that you will turn this harrowing situation around.  You must stop beating yourself up and start believing in yourself.  I'm sure I'm not speaking only for myself when I say I believe in you.  Sending you blessings of peace and good thoughts.  The answers will come.