This is long. Microwave that popcorn now, or move on... .
I landed on this site last September in a desperate attempt to salvage my r/s with the cheating, lying and dissociating mother of my children. These behaviors were new, but the rest of our r/s was typical of that with a fairly high functioning pwBPD. uBPDx was a different person behind closed doors. She has only been dX'd with depression, similar to my mother. Our story has been told elswhere, and still is given that we have S4 and D2 to co-parent together from different households.
I've posted here about my mom's waifish behaviors. She lives on the edge in a house in the woods that is literally falling down on top of her. It's full of... .stuff... she's a hoarder of things, animals, and often "rescues" highly dysfunctional people. She's finally all but stopped doing the latter... I've talked to her about boundaries, and she was able to rebuff a former waif she was rescuing. The young (middle aged, but young compared to mom) got out of prison after being sent there for 6 years after slashing her bf on the head with a knife. She was into drugs and alcohol. She went back to them after she was released. I was proud of my mom for rebuffing her, but frustrated she even let her back on the property even once. I have many stories like that, but this gives a snapshot.
In 1989, I had graduated high school at 17. I was counting down the days until I turned 18 in the fall so I could sign a lease and move out. I did that on the day I turned 18. Being the single child of a single mother who worked nights, I was a latchkey kid. Independent. Self-raised in a way, like many of us here. I'm the opposite of a momma's boy.
That summer, my mom's waif child was abandoning her (she rescued me from foster care when I was 2.4 years old, I have vaugue memories of the adoption). She entered therapy. Was put on Prozac. It made things worse. I became her emotional caretaker, though I spent as little time at home as possible, working, then started college in September, a brutal 50 mile commute. I still worked weekends. That summer was the last time she slapped me, not having done so for a while. I raised my hand intinctively. She was crying with rage and said, "what? Are you going to hit your own mother?" :'( I walked away.
I won't detail her complete breakdown, but her repressed memories came out in therapy. Being raped by her father from 7-14. It only ended when he dropped dead. She was orphaned by her mother when she was 11, and left alone in the house with her father since her three older siblings had moved out. She lived with her sister, but emancipated herself at 16 (something which is hard to do according to my T). Hearing her story elicited compassion from me, despite the splitting and often Witch behaviors of my childhood. Still, after I moved out 50 miles away, I relished my independence, though I was dirt poor for the next three years. Her contibutions to me helped, though they were mnimal. I still worked. She kept claiming me on her taxes as a dependant. She kept asking me why I didn't apply for financial aid. I told her that claiming me blocked it. She kept claiming me, and still peridically asked the same question. No win there. Sometimes in the winter when tips were low (I worked in a small restaurant that lived and died on the tourist season), I had to borrow money to eat during the week. I always paid it back.
I graduated. My mom was proud, though not approving of my vocation, and even two years ago was saying I should go back to school for something else. I am all but immune to such criticism. I do very well for myself, having come from basically nothing. I could take advantage of my minority status (my birth mother is native american), and also a physical disability, but I don't. Those things don't define me.
So after years of something like LC (I would sometimes go home weekends and not stop by to see her, despite being only a few miles away), I moved out of state for 3 years. Before I did that, however, I went and saw her, and told her I forgave her for my childhood. I didn't go into details. Not about the verbal, mental, and physical abuse. Not about our bout of homlessness for a number of years. Her response was some tears, a nod, and a thank you. Then I left. I was 26. . I was running due to other reasons, but it turned out to be a brilliant career move.
I came back just after I turned 29. Dragged back almost kicking and screaming by my former biss who had switched companies. I had this Hermit Plan in my mind to never return (though I did visit, coordinating long weekends with business trips 1-2 times per year). Again, a brilliant career move, not planned. I've always kind of been like that. Things just seem to work out for me, also with the support of great long time friends whom I may frustrate sometimes. Things work out, except for my family :'(
Last night, I got ahold of my mom. She said I hadn't called in 3 weeks. Maybe so. She was upbeat. Told me how she was proud of herself. Went through the bureaucratic hoops to get her properties switched over from her dead husband's name who passed on almost a decade ago. He was a good man to us, but she didn't marry him until I was 30, and I resented her finally giving me a father decades after I needed one. I still feel guilty to this day for making up a lame excuse to not attend the Nevada wedding. I know it hurt both of them.
My mom's been dealing with $8k in unpaid back property taxes. She was within a month of getting booted from her 5 acres by the county. The mortgage is long paid off. It's all of $1200/year. This is a mess of her own making. I sent her $900 a year ago when she was within weeks of having her property confiscated. Then my troubles started. I now pay $700/mo in child support and childcare I wasn't before. I took out a substantial loan from my retirement to retain liquidity. I easily have the $5500 my mom needs to rescue her, but I'm not going to.
Stop Caretaking.
My mom is paying $1000/mo on the back taxes. If she misses one month, it's done. No mercy from the county. She sounded so well last night, so proud of herself. I validated that, though I wasn't gushing. She's living on a remainder of about $200/mo. Gas, insurance, utilities, food, and food for her unnecessary animals. Here I'm finally getting to it, and
if you've made it this far.
When I first shared my BPD "dX" with my mother, she replied, "of course she's BPD." I wondered how my mom knew about that, but she said she's been aware of it for decades. She is a registered nurse, though not a psych nurse, so that seemed credible.
For some reason, we started talking about her father, the only person I've ever heard my mother label as "evil." She told me her brother agreed, at the ripe old age of 86, a year before he passed. She finally came out to him about the sexual abuse of her and her older sister (who passed in '83 from cancer). Her brother's reply was, "we always suspected... ."
My mom then said that she thought her father was BPD. I replied, probably NPD or even ASPD too. He was born in 1903. In 1912, right after the Titanic had sunk, his mother went from Canada back to their native Australia, taking all the kids except him... my mom's grandmother said her son was always "a mean boy." I'm sure the abandonment didn't help.
She then said that one of her therapists gave her a book on BPD years ago. She had mentioned reading a book years ago, but it never occured to me to ask why she would read it. She's a compulsive reader anyway, but mostly of historical fiction and non fiction. She said, "I think my T was giving the book to me for me, suggesting I may have BPD." (Dang it, I just started crying when I wrote that, thinking of the mother of my children).
I validated that a bit, talking about what I saw were waifish behaviors. The hermit thing is obvious. I didn't go off on her about the Witch behaviors in my childhood. I would be a Lie, since I told her I forgave her almost 16 years ago. We talked about it a bit, then I changed the subject, before she could start talking about her chickens, or The Apocalypse.
This is good, and it opens up a delicate door and another source for me to reach out for support. In truth, I have had trouble doing that. On the surface, it looks like the typical man not wanting to ask for directions, or the engineer (which I am) being focused and challenged to solve a problem on his own, but it is really my FOO issues more than anything. And thank you bpdfamily and all of the great members, staff and information, for helping me work to be a better man and human being. To face my fears (which my False Self often denies), and to turn inward to face my Real Self, and begin to heal.
All The Best,
Turkish
(p.s., forgive any typos, I was finger pecking that on my tablet
