Barely Surviving, or Barely Thriving

[Turkish]

No, that's not about me, but my dBPD mom. My mother alternates between Hermit and Waif. An outside observer would definitely judge her a hermit, living in the woods with her hoarded stuff and hoarded animals, "rescuing" waifish people now and then, which usually gets her taken advantage of or put into danger.

In the summer of 2013, I did yet another partial financial rescue of my mother's property. She asked for a certain amount of money, and I mailed it to her, with a few hundred dollars added. Then the r/s to the uBPD mother of my children started imploding, so I had my own problems to deal with.

My mom retired early, taking a minimum social security stipend. That was her choice, but her depression meant that she couldn't (wouldn't) go back to work. She was on and off disability for her depression for a few years before she could get the social security.

In 2013, a friend of mine warned me that my mom had unpaid property taxes totaling about $8k. I didn't tell my mom that I knew, and she contacted me a month later because she was less than 30 days being evicted from her paid off property. No mortgage, just property taxes. I had already saved her by sending her $5k in the late 90s because she was being foreclosed upon. The property taxes were all of about $95/mo. She let those slide for years until they accumulated to the $8k bill and near confiscation by the county. If she had told me, I would have just paid the semi-annual bill. I know better than to not send her money in general because she blows it on her shopping/hoarding issues.

So I concluded that i would stop enabling her, and let the chips fall where they would. If she was evicted from her 5 acres of paid off property, then so be it. That was a mess of her own making. My last rescue of her was only about $900, enough to cover the first lump sum towards a payment plan she negotiated with the county.

Despite the financial drain my Ex caused me, and the child support I pay, I have the money to cover the remaining property taxes. This time, however, I didn't offer. This past summer, she sounded more upbeat and less depressed. She took value in herself, I think, by figuring out how to come up with the money on her fixed income. Around $1000/mo of disposable income isn't enough, yet now she's living on less than $200/mo (food, gas, animal feed, utilities--- the latter of which might become an issue, as it has in the past). She's making it. I validated that she was doing well. I fought my urge to step in and say, "mom, here's the money, don't worry about it."

The other night, I called her, and she was very upbeat. She said, "you know what, I found $432 in my wallet. You know I am really learning to survive by barely getting by!"

This sounds right:

Love the Hermit Without Feeding Her Fear (I've seen this played out a great deal with folks who refuse to drive (they're afraid), refuse to work (people bug them), refuse to leave the house (they'd rather stay at home).  So, not enabling these fears by "doing for them" what they need to is part of the boundary work with this type of acting out.

[Woolspinner2000]

Turkish,

I really appreciate your post. I've read many things in books and articles that talk about the hermit and waif and their common traits, but you were able to put it in a way that brought it down to that practical level. It helped me to understand better what went on with my own uBPDm. Pat yourself on the back for boundary setting and not enabling her! 

Love the Hermit Without Feeding Her Fear (I've seen this played out a great deal with folks who refuse to drive (they're afraid), refuse to work (people bug them), refuse to leave the house (they'd rather stay at home).  So, not enabling these fears by "doing for them" what they need to is part of the boundary work with this type of acting out.

This quote caused me to stop and ponder my mom some more, and started me to thinking about the co-dependency and enabling in my siblings and myself. Never really looked at it that way before. Great thoughts-thanks.

Wools

[claudiaduffy]

Turkish,

Good stuff! It is so encouraging when we stick to our growing-healthy gut instincts and the world doesn't end. 

My uBPDmom got pneumonia right before Christmas this past year, was in the hospital for about five days, and her brother - who is not disordered, and really the only sane person out of that side of the family - kept trying to get me involved in helping him plan how to interact with the hospital and help my mom lay out a plan for what to do if she couldn't go back to work. (Mom is a schoolbus driver, barely making it financially, only reason she hasn't lost the house is because this uncle has helped her get her ducks in a row with good advice.) My uncle kept telling me that anyone in the hospital needs an advocate just to help ask the right questions, et cetera, when someone is off their feet and under medication. While I generally agree with him, and while I hated to think of my mom being confused, making poor choices in a situation that had little to do with her BPD, I knew that I absolutely could not come swooping in to take responsibility off her shoulders - because once I pick that up, it will be hell to put it back down. My uncle can perhaps do things like that without suffering harm to his boundaries and sanity; I cannot.

So I didn't. I told him that if he wanted to come up with a list of questions he wanted to make sure my mom was asking of the doctors, I would help him refine the list and he could get it into her hands or into the hands of people at her church. But before he got that list together, my mom started recuperating and has since, somehow, managed to keep going. I don't know how; she still hasn't been able to return to work. I guess she's on disability for the time being. But I refused to be her rescuer, and her life didn't fall apart. SELF HIGH-FIVE!

So glad to hear your story about not enabling. Yay!

[Kwamina]

Congrats Turkish on being able to fight off the urge to 'save' your mother What do you think made the difference this time that allowed you to not rescue your mother?

I am also very happy to hear that your mother is sounding so upbeat and has found ways to deal with her financial problems I've followed many of your posts about your mother and I think you're doing a great job monitoring her situation and caring for her from a distance while also being mindful of your own emotional and mental well-being. One of the key elements in your story for me is also 'caring for' vs. 'taking care of'. You show your mother that you care for her, but don't step in to take care of the things she can do herself 

[Turkish]

High-five to you, claudiaduffy!

I think I learned over the years to know what she was going to and not going to do. I remember giving her $700 around 13 years ago to take care of the probate for her house (she put it into her late husband's name to escape the property taxes, so this has been a recurring issue). She blew the $ on something else and I never could get a straight story why she never took care of it. She's smart enough to go down to the county offices and get help and advice. Though dulled by age and isolation, she has/had a near genius IQ. That's not the problem.

When I saved her home in the 90s, I had to charge up my credit cards to come up with the $5K for her. I think she eventually gave me $1K back, though I never asked for it, nor considered it a loan. At that time, too, she waited until the last minute, as the owner was already saying he was about to foreclose. Sadly for him, but lucky for her, he turned out to be dying of skin cancer, so he gave her grace to be about two months late on payments after that until she paid off the note. I think he died right around that time. A few years later, I gave her $2K for roofing materials, because "a guy" was on his way out from cross-country and was going to do the labor for a good price. The lumber sits ruined in the yard... .yet other piles for me to haul away at some point.

Another time I had to gather my "posse" and encourage a gypsy-like family who had taken over her home and life to get out of her house. It was all legal, and I had credible witnesses, but it took effort. It was going to come to some type of violence between she and probably the 13 year old boy, who got so angry that he raised a hammer on her and his older sister one night. Given that his older sister (like a mother figure since theirs was dead) was not mentally healthy either, I almost felt like asking, "just what were you two going off on him about anyway?" I remember growing up with my mom and being very angry. Still, my mom was my mom, so those people had to go, but not before they caused social damage to my mom in that small community. Good riddance!

What I struggle with is that BPD, depression or not, she's getting old. So what I want to know is how do I do the right thing? What is the normal "taking care of your parents in their olde age," and "enabling."

I get along with her now, though her occasional waifish comments when she sees the kids are annoying, at least they're not harmful as is being talked about by others here. 3 months between visits mutes that, I guess.

When she's physically unable to care for herself, that is when the real test will come, whether she wants to move into my extra room (S5 and D2 can room together for a number of years yet, or I can plant my mom in the living room). Or, whether she wants to "die on the mountain" as she says. Maybe I do get my hermit fantasy with my cabin in the woods and my hybrid wolf familiar from her  Grizzley Addams? Hopefully not Jeremiah Johnson.