Get Rich Quick Schemes

[Turkish]

Ever since I can remember, my mom was enamoured of these.The freeze dried food pyramid scheme when i was about 8 was the earliest i can remember.

Raising dogs was the only thing she made some money on. . Even as a kid, parentified having to take care of them, I felt bad for them as she never provided proper facilities for them. They alternated between "free range" in the daytime, to being locked in kennels. It wasn't small cages like on a puppy farm. They were all pets as well, and I had nicknames for all of them, even when we had at once point 50 dogs. Roaming the 25 acres with them during the day was the most freedom we all had. Fast forward... .

About ten years ago, she got in her head she could make money from commodities. This was despite the warning of my friend whose dad literally lost over $100k on the same thing, resulting in him delaying retirement by a number of years. She blew $5k she couldn't afford to lose buying

Into the scheme. She never made a penny,.and was unrepentent about the foolishness of that decision. Fast forward... .

She called me tonight, telling me about her neighbor, going through a contentious divorce with a husband with narcissistic traits. The neighbor wanted her to ask me if I wanted to buy their houseboat for about $20k. My mom knows, as does the neighbor, that I am still working out child support with my uBPDx. As it is, with nothing filed, I'm paying out $700 more per month than I was used to when the kids' mom still lived with me. I told her no. She understood why, but then started talking about how nice it would be to have a house boat, and I could invite my friends on it and such.

We then segued into a conversation about her two properties on which she owes back taxes, on threat of confiscation by the government. She said she ordered a "kit" from a well known female financial guru (I won't say the name, but she's blonde), and that with this kit, my mom would have access to this woman's lawyers for free legal advice. I didn't ask how much the kit was because I really didn't want to know. But this is my mom, living on the edge as she has been for the last... . well, her whole life.

[Marcia]

My BPD mom is obsessed with her money, but doesn't make wise choices. She shops too much, constantly returning items ( now by mail as she doesn't get around any more) fights over bills and interest charges all the time) and thinks all of her "antiques" are worth a fortune.

She needs to sell her at this point very dated condo (hello 70's) burt wants an exorbitant amount for it, despite what realtors have told her, so won't list it.

So, my experience is that the BPD can be quit unrealistic about money... . also quite paranoid and nasty... .

[Turkish]

My mother has a high IQ. Not that it means anything if misdirected, or muddied by magical thinking.

A few years ago, she told me she had to cut up her ATM card. I asked why? She said that she spent too much jewelry shopping from tv (I think QVC). Some months later, I had reason to enter the house and saw stacks of little jewelry boxes piled haphazardly on a table. It was then that I understood. At least she got to the point where she realized she had a specific problem and acted upon it.

She used to complain about living on a fixed income. Since her home is paid off (and I wasn't aware of the unpaid property taxes piling up at the time), I compared her social security income to my net income, subtracting what I paid for rent to make it equivalent. I lived on a little less than she did, and I had a car payment to boot!

[P.F.Change]

But this is my mom, living on the edge as she has been for the last... . well, her whole life.

It sounds like you are becoming aware of a truth--this is how your mother is.

How are you coping with that truth, Turkish?

[Turkish]

But this is my mom, living on the edge as she has been for the last... . well, her whole life.

It sounds like you are becoming aware of a truth--this is how your mother is.

How are you coping with that truth, Turkish?

I think I got to this point before I came here, interestingly. Not consciously. That I stopped care-taking her helped me a lot. No more money rescues. Fixing her plumbing last year was an exception (survival), but giving her money when she wastes it on too many animals or doomsday prepping (yes, another fixation of hers now) would be enabling her. So I'm coping by altering my behaviors, and by this I feel less resentful towards her.

Maybe by caretaking, I was engaging in "covert contract" behavior. That is, I expected her behavior to change by what I did, but that lead to enabling and a continuation of the pattern. I have distanced myself from the pattern, and I actually enjoy seeing her now.

The other thing is accepting she will make waifish comments about her r/s with her grandchildren. They used to drive me crazy, and truthfully, uBPDx was part of that equation, but I try my best to ignore them these days instead of "fixing" them as I did before, resulting in more frustration for myself.

[Randi Kreger]

When my narcissistic dad was alive we were freelancing in the same field. I hired him to work with me on a project, but he demanded to get paid before I got paid. When I said no he was silent in the car, but then sent me an email saying he quit the project and I SHOULDN'T ASK HIM WHY. But it didn't matter because he acted so arrogant to the client and treated them so far far below him I lost the job (after I had gone through a whole proposal process). Later, he said he didn't remember the entire incident, which is probably true because that's the way he lived his life. He was so certain I owed him a living that in general he was furious with me my whole adult life because I made more money than him (which was not hard to do) because he couldn't hold or keep a job because he was IMPOSSIBLE to work with. So he died in poverty still looking for the world to give him money because "no one ever told him he should save money for retirement." All the family but me (three younger siblings) gave him a bunch of money except me, the "bad seed." I never did because he and my stepmother blew it all away on eating out at fancy restaurants and generally living as if they were rich by maximizing their credit cards and not answering the phone. By the time they lost the house (which had been given to them for FREE) they flung themselves on stepmother's relatives and looked for everyone else to give them money. Which they did because it was the only means of getting his "love." I'm pretty good at boundaries and had NO urge at all to save him (even if I had wanted to give him 10K my husband never would have stood for it. (By this time he called me his "extended relative" and called his second family his real "family. He deserved everything from everyone and gave nothing in return, not even a birthday card. I knew he would go insane if I didn't give him a father's day card or birthday card so I hired by assistant to do it. I never knew if they noticed the difference in signatures. However when my garage was burned down my arsonists and we lost thousands of dollars in old uninsured cars, he dismissed it because "it was only property." My husband developed PTSD from waking up and seeing the garage on fire. It burned all the wires around the neighborhood for blocks.