After the two week long silent treatment

[Torocat]

As some of you know, after I told my uBPD mom (a month ago) I may not be able to jump up and accompany her to Washington to see her mom (my work schedule), she accused my of trying to kill her, with stress. I tried to reason with her, to defend myself. She hung up and did not call me for 2 weeks. During that time I did not call her either. Finally I did, just to ask if she needed me to pick up her meds or get her groceries (she lives 1 hr away in a rural town). Since then instead of calling her twice a day to check on her, I call twice a week now.

What I have decided to do is take care of myself. Ever since she moved to the area (3 yrs ago), my life has been adversely affected because of her hysteria and my reacting to her hysteria.  I used to be thin, now I'm 35 pounds overweight. I used to be hyper, always getting everything done, and everyone else's stuff done too. It is all I can do to work, get my shopping done and keep my house reasonable clean now.

She has taken a huge emotional toll on me, especially since the last grenade he tossed at me.  I feel that she is breaking me finally. I have thought about when this began. Yes, in childhood, but the times when it took the heaviest toll is when she had no one else to be in a sick relationship with. Anytime anyone gets too close to her, they end up 2 steps from county mental health or jail.  I cannot let her turn me into the monster she is.

Time and time again, she has been abused by men. There is no excuse for violence, but I am now understanding better why the men in her life ended up hating her. It is clear now that she abused them too, mentally and emotionally, and they responded with physical violence. She has a need to push those hot buttons and enrage people. She has done it to me time and time again, and now worse than ever because for the first time I have established boundaries.

I have decided to seek medical help for this, for me. I spoke to my doctor about this and she has put me on meds, said she has noticed significant changes in me the last year and thinks I am stressed and depressed. After I told her my mom was Borderline, she sent me to a shrink. I have appt with her in about 6 weeks. I hope it helps.

[lucyhoneychurch]

Hello Torocat - it's such a good thing to hear the resolve in your words.

Mostly I hear, "I'm taking my power back." We get whittled down to little nothings, it's so ongoing and subtle and then so brutally obvious how wrong it all is - I look back at the time in my life when I consisted of taking care of my children and living on a phone line with her pretty much 24/7 and all I see is a shadow. I sucked at being a mother because her needs came first even though she was hours away. And you know what she thought of me as a daughter - one minute I'd be the answer to her prayers, and the next I had somehow slighted her even though she was hours away. The absolute absurdity of that! But my little shadow self - hostage to the guilt of thinking I couldn't "turn away" from her. I had to. I'm fortunate I have healthy, independent children. At some point there, they were so abandoned even though they had a home because their sick abusive grandmother had first dibs on my mind and heart.

I think you have such good things ahead. I think you are going to delve into who and what you are and just rip away the debris and the pain and the depression and you are going to shine so so brightly.

There was a definite cut off date and time with my mother and me. I can't say my life has been just peachy since that point, but the things I had to go through that weren't connected with her were impossible enough at times. Family and health matters will always guarantee life can be pretty scary. But I was free to navigate those troubling times with all the energy I no longer lavished on her. Every contact with her ate up my creativity and my hope. That guilt I was so obsessed with feeling - honestly - it just never hit like I thought it would. Even the day I found out she was dead, it just felt like, "I did what I had to do." You're going the extra mile of finding medical help so you can really thrive. I applaud you. My body took a beating from the stress. None of us can avoid the physical outcome of such toxic dynamics. Body and mind are just too interdependent.

So here's a big hug for your recovery and finding your center and focussing on yourself. Just as in my case and so many others, it's so long overdue.      

[finchfeather]

Hi Torocat! I can relate to so much of what you're saying. I'm glad that you're getting medical treatment, and that you're trying therapy as well. I hope that it helps.

My uBPD mom recently put me through a long silent treatment as well. She booked a trip to see me without asking me about it, and as it turned out, I already had out-of-town plans for the dates that she picked. When I refused to cancel my vacation in order to accommodate her, she went silent on me. During her silent treatment, I didn't contact her until she contacted me. It was hard for me to do, because I've historically been her rescuer, and I came undone a bit - I was sticking to my resolution not to beg her for forgiveness when I hadn't done anything wrong, but I still felt a lot of guilt about that. After a couple of weeks of the silent treatment, I reached out to a therapist that I had seen a few times last year and got back into therapy to help me deal with the guilt and start learning some new ways of reacting to my mom. It's been helpful so far. It was my therapist who suggested that some of my mom's behavior sounded similar to BPD, so that's when I started researching BPD and found this community.

I think that the sentence that most stood out to me in your post is this one: "I cannot let her turn me into the monster she is." Those are really powerful words, and I think that they really speak to how high the stakes are as we go into recovery. Please know that you're not alone in struggling with this.

[funfunctional]

She really sounds like an "energy drain" on you.    Ouch.   And if she were a friend - she would no longer be one.    Why would you surround yourself with someone so awful.    Sometimes these people are so awful that you can only hope they pass away peacefully and fast.  My mother wasn't BPD but often she left me daily in a state of emotional turmoil.   So negative.    I used to fantasize that she died just so I was at peace.  I know that sounds terrible.   She passed away fairly quickly at age 62 - cancer.    Now I miss her but also realize that since she has been gone my life got lighter and I have changed so much. 

I think you are drawing lines and seeing this for what it is.   Protect yourself & put yourself first.  Ignore the BS as long as you can.   Once we see someone as "ill" and treat them that way we can stay in control and exercise more compassion.

Best to you!    I need to lose about 20pounds... . uggh... . spin class anyone? 

[Torocat]

Thank you guys. I have recently been reminded by others that her prying into and manipulating others' relationships have caused many relationships to end or have major issues. I remember that just in case I ever feel guilty for mentioning the polka-dotted elephant in the room.