She thinks evceryone is trying to use her

[lm1109]

Yeah I just cant handle it anymore! She called me last week and told me that my 5 year old son asked her on the phone if he could sleep over her house. She started this a few years ago... and only lets him sleep over a few times a year. My son doesn't understand why he cant go over... so he will ask her. My husband and I have told our son not to ask her over and over, because she acts so annoyed and put out and we are totally uncomfortable with it. But he is five and asks anyway sometimes! Anyhow, she called me up and asked what the plan was because she "assumes I put him up to asking her!" I told her she was wrong and I was annoyed she would say that and got off the phone. I asked my son about it and asked what they were talking about when he was on the phone with her and was whispering. He said he couldn't tell me because it was a secret his grandma told him not to tell mommy. Finally he told me, she said "Your mommy thinks she is the only person in this world who has her hands full just because she has babies!" Why would someone say that to a 5 year old? For the next 4 days I did not answer any of her phone calls. Yesterday I had a stupid moment and I answered telling myself that I was going to tell her I was upset and wanted some space... . I was NOT under any circumstance going to fight with her. When I answered I was blind sided... she twisted everything! She told me that me and my husband are pieces of ___. She said that I had no right to get mad at her for what she said to me or my son... that Im just an oversensitive mean person, that SHE is tired of walking on eggshells for ME! She told me that we are users, all we want is to dump our kids on everyone, I wont allow her to have a life because I want her at my beck and call, one second she was saying that I keep my kids from her the next shes telling me I dump them off on her, she had multiple flat out ridiculous lies... one of which was that I told her "what kind of Grandmother buys a dog?" HUH?, she told me that I cant handle being a mother, Im the crazy one, Im the one that has issues! So much more! I was dumbfounded. She was mad because I didn't answer my phone for 4 days, because of the things SHE said! Im not allowed to be offended, mad, nothing! I lost it! I flipped out on her! She knows trying to make me feel like a bad mom is the WORST thing she could do! I am a stay at home mom of 3 boys with NO help! My husbands family live far away and my parents are nuts! My husband and I do it on our own, but most of all, we try SO hard to be the best parents we can be. We both decided our kids will have better childhoods than we did and our world revolves around my kids. I don't ask her for help! She is 100% delusional. My husband thinks she actually has multiple personalities? Because she acts like a child so much!

What is the deal with acting like everyone alive is trying to use her? Is this something common with BPDs? She actually told me a few months ago that her new neighbor(who has children) waved at her, and that "this woman better not think Im the neighborhood babysitter!" WHAT? Someone waved hello and you think they are going to throw their kids at a complete stranger! She also has this weird thing with her pool. I guess she thinks she is a class act because she has a pool(nothing special... your standard above ground pool) She makes remarks constantly about, we just want to lay around in her pool while she takes care of the kids(never happened) She said my Aunt was trying to mooch to stay at her house so she could lay around in her pool... my cousin... my nephew... everyone wants to be in that pool!   My family and I haven't been in it for YEARS because she is so weird about it! She tells us she is going to have people over to come swim in the pool with our kids and then never does it? Only my oldest has ever been it and that was years ago? so every summer she swims in her pool alone everyday! She thinks everyone is trying to use her to pay for things, to dog sit, to cut their grass! She thinks she does everything for everyone and everyone is just trying to suck her dry! Just wanted to know if anyone can relate(sorry this turned into a rant!) 

[lm1109]

UPDATE! My dad just called me to let me know that dhe just got out of the hospital. She thought she was having a heart attack because I stood up for myself and tried to set boundaries! Unreal!

[lucyhoneychurch]

I just wanted to reach out and give you the most enormous, amazing mom hug of all time     

3 kids - me too.

crazy accusations over the phone for years at a time - me too

always the perp - me too

her always the victim of everyone's PLOTS - me too

your truth never registers with her - me too

being better parents than I ever knew - me too!   

I'll ask you this - with your goal being a better parent, how much more of your time will you throw away on this woman? she is your mother yes. But she is inhaling your energy, she is turning your mind into a void, even as you are trying to look after 3 boys.  They will never come first in her mind, she does. YOU will never come first in her mind, she does.

You totally know what I'm asking     when do you deserve a break, a long term break, from this crazymaking chaos? she is alone and that's very sad. But she drives even total strangers away I'm sure as mine did with her paranoid thinking and talking.

I'm so glad you vented and externalized your disgust and pain.

I'm so sorry you're living like this. Every word you wrote, except about the pool is how I lived for years too. I get it. DO something about it and don't regret time lost with your sons like I wish I'd wised up so much sooner for mine.  Make them the sole possessors of your time and energy.    It's worth it and so are you.   

[lm1109]

Thank u so much. I needed to hear what u had to say so much that it put tears in my eyes. She has exhausted so much time and energy from me over the years and its no longer just on me at this point... she has robbed it from my children. I guess I always felt guilted and obligated into dealing with the abuse. But I have reached a point of utter exhaustion. My brain has been mush for the past couple of months because it has been so bad lately. I realize that as long as I have her in my life I will never be able to give my children 100% Between taking care of babies all day everyday and then dealing with her insanity... I have 0% to take care of myself... and I have not been. Your reply struck a chord because I never looked at it in that way before... . I also dont think I have ever been in a place that I was truly ready to let go and give up on this woman that I have felt responsible for since I was a small child! Thanks again... Im sure its going to be a journey... but I have to do it for myself and my own family that I TRULY am responsible for! 

[lucyhoneychurch]

How weird - I just responded to Torocat's update with pretty much a description of what you're living - I used the word "shadow" for myself back when the babies were little and my days were devoured with phone calls with her *instead of* being with my babies in the present and focussed on them. They were cared for physically, absolutely, but with a strung out tense sad horrified uptight paranoid basically mom freaking out about the next time that damned phone would ring or god forbid she and my father would come to visit.

Almost 30 years later and I still have nightmares and i'm the shadow again - I own my home, I live here by myself now, but I will wake up in this utter panic that they are in the house, I've let them move in (she's now deceased and he lives with a sibing) and I freak out in the dark trying to remember if it's true or not. I have a good life. I'm not a shadow anymore so to speak but those childhood years and then the depravity of succumbing to an abuser when you're in a caregiving role - torn in so many little pieces there is never enough superglue for repairs.

Take that last little bit of residual air down in your lungs and exert yourself and kick up to the surface and start swimming! You have testimonies here about older moms who got out, who recall the pain and the trauma. Most of us all say, We should've done it so much sooner. That would be my only regret. My kids deserved a whole, present, activated mom. They eventually got that. But I live with that regret.

Your exhaustion will ease as you find new things to do with the time you don't lose with her. Exercise if you can - garden, walk, get an aerobics DVD - flush your body with O2  Mentally as well. I kept a stack of books by the bed and read nonstop and went to bed really early - novels where the heroine always overcame the challenge and triumphed.   

Rest up and think of some of us as your cautionary tale. Don't let the time get away from you. You can never get it back.     

[PleaseValidate]

Hi lm,

I think the whole "being used" mentality is akin to how they see themselves as victims and (falsely) believe they do so much for other people and have difficulty seeing what people do for them. Or worse,  feel an unspoken entitlement to it.

My BPDmo accused me of "using" her since I was about 10. Whenever I would ask her for a ride. Soon I stopped asking and became the town charity case when it came to transportation.

But the worst episode was when I was 17 in HS w a part time job. She drilled it into my head from elementary school that she wasn't paying for college so i was saving furiously. Not only that, but the thought of how I would pay for school brought on so much anxiety that i often worked over 30 hrs per week. One day,  I asked her for money to buy underwear and she kindly gave me a check for $19. A few weeks later,  she snooped into my bank account statement and became furious I had over 1k in it (as if THAT was going to pay for 1/5th of one semester! ) This set her off big time. She started balling her eyes out playing victim and that i was using her for money! ? Mind you i NEVER asked her for money for ANY THING besides clothes in September- no food money, no school money,  nada! I just forgot to buy underwear that September. In retrospect,  i probably should not have asked even though she could afford it and went to 3 trips to Jamaica that year. But having a tantrum because your daughter is pragmatic enough to save for college yet needs underwear is pretty irrational.

Later this year, when I turned 18 while still in hs, I JUSTICE learned BPDmo was collecting $250+ a month due to my estranged dad's disability. I had been screaming at about "using" her while for 13+ yrs she had been raking in more than half of what she paid my Grams for rent AND food for BOTH of us!

GRRR! I feel your pain and am surprised this topic is not mentioned more often.