What to tell in-laws who don't know, if they ask about pwBPD

[Depression = 72% of members]

Hi again!

I have a trip coming up soon with my DH's family to visit my niece for her birthday. I'm starting to feel a little anxious that some of his family members might ask me what is going on with my uBPDmom. My uBPDmom is friends on social media with a lot of my DH's family and she regular trashes me on her account. Most of what she says are flat out lies or misinterpretations of the truth. For example, for Mother's Day, she wrote several posts complaining that I didn't contact her at all when in fact I had sent her a card. I'm sure she basked in all the pity that was thrown her way—I honestly think she was happier having something to complain about to friends than she would have been if I had called her or sent her lavish gifts.

I know that my DH's family members are probably seeing all these hateful things she's saying about me and wondering what's going on. I'm close enough with his parents that I have explained to them what's going on, but my BIL/SIL have no idea. I worry that they might put more stock into what she's saying because they don't know me as well and because my mother has sent them many gifts for my niece even though she's of no relation to them and has never even met them. She also follows them both on social media and regularly has conversations with them. I'm sure she appears very loving and kind, she's very good at playing that role to others.

So when I go on this trip, I'm worried I'm going to be asked what's going on. I don't feel pressure to defend or explain myself, but I feel that saying something like "I'm not comfortable discussing this" makes it appear that the things my uBPDmom is saying are true. To complicate matters more, I believe my SIL may have uBPD, she has exhibited Queen/Witch traits in the past. I worry that she is more easily swayed and will quickly paint me black if my uBPDmom is constantly talking about how terrible I am, and I will lose access to my niece.

Have any of you been in a similar situation before? How did you respond to family members who weren't aware that you're dealing with a parent with BPD? Is it okay to say something vague like "My mother is suffering from a mental illness" or "My mother is dealing with some personal issues" or even "I'm no longer in contact with my mother due to personal reasons." So they're aware when dealing with her to take the things she says with a grain of salt? Hopefully it won't come up but I want to be prepared in case it does. I'm currently NC, though I think it's probably more like NR (no response) that another poster described.

[oceaneyes]

Hi again!

I have a trip coming up soon with my DH's family to visit my niece for her birthday. I'm starting to feel a little anxious that some of his family members might ask me what is going on with my uBPDmom. My uBPDmom is friends on social media with a lot of my DH's family and she regular trashes me on her account. Most of what she says are flat out lies or misinterpretations of the truth. For example, for Mother's Day, she wrote several posts complaining that I didn't contact her at all when in fact I had sent her a card. I'm sure she basked in all the pity that was thrown her way—I honestly think she was happier having something to complain about to friends than she would have been if I had called her or sent her lavish gifts.

I know that my DH's family members are probably seeing all these hateful things she's saying about me and wondering what's going on. I'm close enough with his parents that I have explained to them what's going on, but my BIL/SIL have no idea. I worry that they might put more stock into what she's saying because they don't know me as well and because my mother has sent them many gifts for my niece even though she's of no relation to them and has never even met them. She also follows them both on social media and regularly has conversations with them. I'm sure she appears very loving and kind, she's very good at playing that role to others.

So when I go on this trip, I'm worried I'm going to be asked what's going on. I don't feel pressure to defend or explain myself, but I feel that saying something like "I'm not comfortable discussing this" makes it appear that the things my uBPDmom is saying are true. To complicate matters more, I believe my SIL may have uBPD, she has exhibited Queen/Witch traits in the past. I worry that she is more easily swayed and will quickly paint me black if my uBPDmom is constantly talking about how terrible I am, and I will lose access to my niece.

Have any of you been in a similar situation before? How did you respond to family members who weren't aware that you're dealing with a parent with BPD? Is it okay to say something vague like "My mother is suffering from a mental illness" or "My mother is dealing with some personal issues" or even "I'm no longer in contact with my mother due to personal reasons." So they're aware when dealing with her to take the things she says with a grain of salt? Hopefully it won't come up but I want to be prepared in case it does. I'm currently NC, though I think it's probably more like NR (no response) that another poster described.

[Boxernanna]

I have dealt with a similar situation with my BPD mother some time ago before I went NC. She was beginning to become acquainted with her new computer. It was a new way to trash family members without being face-to-face with them or getting immediate responses. First she discovered e-mail, until she realized her e-mails were being trashed unopened and she did not receive responses. Then she discovered Messenger and was constantly interrupting my work, until I became permanently invisible. Then she discovered Facebook, but made the horrible mistake of threatening to "expose" me to all my friends and friends of friends during one of her rages. That did it. I not only unfriended her, but removed her from my list of family and blocked her. She did not have a chance to friend any of my friends, most who knew I had a mentally ill mother. Facebook has a ripple effect and I professionally did not want my reputation harmed by a selfish idiot. I was lucky to stop her before she understood Facebook well enough to enmesh herself in my friends list.

If anyone asked me about my mother and our relationship because they were recipients of her smear campaign against me, I was very quick to give them a quick synopsis of BPD. I hid nothing, including my own dysfunctional issues. My mother is a low functioning BPD, who does not hide her dysfunctional behavior well. Anyone still skeptical of my explanation got to meet my mother in person. It only took her an hour or two, before she had them squirming to leave. I am forever thankful that she does not possess the ability to hide her disease.

I have not had to speak to anyone about my mother, since I went NC. My social circle and work circle are far removed from my mother. She no longer is a part of my life. My extended family all know her and her disease.

[bethanny]

Oceaneyes,

It's good you will be seeing people in person so they can appreciate you more closely and to refute the character assassination your mother is doing cyberwise.  It is so hard to endure this level of betrayal of a parent. Especially if one was raised as I was by a mother who made "impression management" and "secrecy" about my parents' reality so important.

I wish I had been more open with relatives long ago about something being terribly wrong with my mother.  I was in denial about how disordered she was and blamed her hysteria and bouts of irrational malice on stress from my father's drinking and narcissism. I was naive about how punishing she would be when I began to fight her for mutual respect.  

She framed me to relatives as the crazy one and did that immediately after my separation from family.  Took excerpts of my letters to show how mean I was to my father and herself and painted herself as saintly.

My siblings who lived far away from my parents I thought would back me up since I knew they didn't respect how frightened I was of my mother growing up and had endured the high stress themselves, but instead pressured me to accommodate my mother who would posture as inconsolable about me with them more than angry.  With me directly she let the malice rip.  They were so far away and so quick to minimize the enormous stress I had been under.

I detached not only from my immediate family for almost a decade but from much of the secondary family which I am sorry for that.  I think a part of me could have been honest with them and gotten comforting support from some, the younger ones, but also I think I didn't want to "illuminate" how dysfunctional and hopeless my relationships in immediate family then actually were, by getting what I deserved and wanted instead of from my immediate family from some of my secondary family. I wish I had cultivated real intimacy with them.  But I would have to face down how disordered my immediate family was.  

This was a case of that "recovery is letting go of what you never had."  I couldn't at that point let go of what I didn't have.  It was too daunting.

I think if I were you I would say neutrally that your mother suffers from "borderline personality disorder" and describe it briefly and try not to become angry and emotional when you say it, even if encouraged, but pitying and detached about your mother and drop it.  

In her propaganda war against you you will have to surrender to the effectiveness of some of her lying that people may not catch up with ever or for a long time.  Your DH may have more effectiveness keeping it simple and neutral for your sake than you as direct participant can exercise.

Re your SIL, and her jumping to dark conclusions about you, keep breathing, detach as best you can.  Sometimes gossip and schadenfreude drama appeals to people, especially those who like to project their own anger and low self esteem out at others who are vulnerable and also who groove on gossip.

If you can, stay in touch with this website as a base camp of support and to do self-reality checks.

Good luck.

[claudiaduffy]

You could try a simple response of "Not everything my mother says is factual. I have no wish to speak ill of her or her behavior and am not planning on responding to her accusations. But thank you for caring enough to ask me; I always appreciate it when people don't assume that all they're hearing is true."

One of the things that was a pleasant surprise for us when my uBPDmil went off the rails a couple of years ago was that, even though she tried a fairly full-scale character assassination on us, there were actually very few people who believed her. Most could tell that there was something wrong, and didn't assume it started with us. We had to field a few batty interferences from older or more distant acquaintances (or complete strangers in a few cases) who were convinced it was their duty to intervene, but almost everyone who had met all of us did not swallow MIL's stories. DH and I stayed low-key and undramatic, did not speak hatefully or angrily about MIL, but also recognized that we had the full right to state simple truths about our own lives. We didn't have to fully explain her behavior in order to state things like "I'm sorry that you have that impression of us. Please know that the facts of the case are different from what you've heard."