BPD Mom? ... and everyone affected by that

[Our abuse recovery guide]

Not sure if I can post here or not, as my mother has never been diagnosed (she doesn't believe in 'head doctors' and reacts to the suggestion of therapy as if it's the greatest insult), so if I shouldn't be posting, let me know.

I just wanted to say I am so incredibly grateful for this board.  I feel like I have been piecing together a puzzle for a long while, not understanding what was "wrong" with my family, my mother, my dad, my siblings, me... .

And this site is so very clarifying. So thank you.

Everyone who is close to us knows there is something 'off' with my mom. Meaning, our family, and friends who have gotten too close. Some of these other threads resonate with me so much. My mom was abusive to me and my siblings when we were growing up. Physically, yes - things would often escalate that way, and she would also goad my dad into physical abuse of us sometimes too.  But the mental and emotional abuse is what sticks with me. It's what we still endure as adult children.

When my mother is in a good mood, she is smiles and grace.  Unfortunately, this is pretty rare - usually only happens in public, almost like she's putting on a performance.  When we were growing up, I often wondered if every family was this way... .all smiles and perfection at church and then raging, throwing things, threatening suicide and saying hateful things when at home.

I've since learned no, not all families.

Everyone tiptoes around her at home, walking on eggshells. When I visit now as an adult, the most common phrase from my Dad's mouth to me is some variation of, "We don't wanna make your Mama mad." Or "Your Mama might get mad." Or ":)on't tell your Mama; she'll get mad."

The truth is, she is already mad most of the time. There is no winning. It's hard to explain to people who don't live in it, how suffocating and crazy-making it is to live with someone who - almost every word out of their mouth to you is either hateful, mocking, or pouting/guilt-tripping.

If you accidentally compliment something your dad made at the dinner table BEFORE you compliment her, she will sneer mockingly, exaggeratedly mimicking you and then get angry, "Ohhh, these beans are SOO good, Daddy! WHY DON'T YOU EVER COMPLIMENT ME?" Or else she'll pout/whine, "Nobody ever compliments my cooking." When both things are not true.  There is no winning once this happens (and it will happen, no matter if you try and prevent it - she WILL get offended 100 times a day).  If you try to point out in a calm neutral tone of voice that you do love her cooking and often compliment it or that the dish she made is also delicious, or that complimenting someone else should not be taken as an insult to her - she will get livid. Her preferred response from you is bowing and scraping - apologizing and validating her messed up comments.

I am so very tired of it.

Almost once a day she pitches a fit because someone didn't apologize the right way or because someone went somewhere without her (even if she was invited and said no - - the truth is, you're never supposed to want to go anywhere she doesn't want to go!), and then she's storming into her room, slamming and locking herself in, and sobbing loudly on the bed so the whole house can hear. Then you're supposed to beg and plead at the door for her to let you in, apologizing profusely all the while, for about an hour or so, before she comes out, pouting like an entitled child you somehow wronged, for the rest of the day.

If you DON'T beg and apologize at the door... .if you refuse to engage... .she will eventually either escalate to threatening suicide (usually only on holidays and special occasions) or she will come stomping out of the room in a RAGE, screaming at the top of her lungs about how ungrateful you all are, how she wishes you were never born (or in the case of my dad, that she never married you) and she'll be looking for a physical fight at this point. Picking up random things and throwing them at you (glass grape juice bottles, books) or swinging a belt or toilet plunger - whatever she can get her hands on - or full on just lunging at you and hitting/swinging/clawing.  

If you manage to get the RAGE version of her that is NOT throwing or hitting right away, she will follow you around the house, yelling hateful things at you, trying to goad you into losing your temper and fighting her.  If you are able to maintain your calm and not lose your temper, she'll suddenly switch tactics, arrange her face in a scary sarcastic big-eyed smile, and then dig in at all of your weak points. Things you had shared with her because she is your mom and you were looking for support - she will twist them and exaggerate them and even outright LIE to you or about you. When we were kids it was: "No wonder so and so doesn't want to play with you... ." "No wonder you don't have any friends... ." "So and So's mom told me she doesn't want you playing with her kid anymore... ."  

Now that we are adults, she tries to play my siblings and I off of each other, and off of my dad, and off of my aunt. She will lie about things we supposedly said to her about each other, or worse - she'll again take a nugget of something true, like she did in childhood, and she'll twist it so it can seem plausible. If your sibling said to her at some point that she was worried about your stress level (out of CONCERN and LOVE she said this) she will save it and use it against you now: "Even your sister thinks there is something wrong with you... ." or "No wonder your sister thinks you need help... ." Which makes it sound like your sister sits around gossiping and saying hateful things about you to her.  When she says these things, the goal is always to hurt you and goad you into fighting back with her.

When we were young, my Dad would sometimes fight back. If she was attacking him, hitting him. He'd push her off. Or sometimes he'd pull her off of us.  She used to love this, I think. She would take photos of any bruises afterwards and keep them in a file. She once had him thrown in jail overnight, calling the cops and making out like he was abusing her. No one believed us kids that it was the other way around.

When I was around 14 or 15 or so I started fighting back sometimes, before realizing all of this, above - before realizing that fighting back doesn't help. She once left the house after goading me to fight her, and brought a cop back with her, having cried hysterically to him I'm sure and told him that I was abusing her and that I was a martial arts expert (I had just started a class and wasn't even a yellow belt yet), which meant that I was using deadly force against her. Deadly force! I'm sorry, just typing that out, all of these years later makes me want to LOL.    I know humor has been one way I've coped.

Anyway, I didn't mean to type so much of this out - I wanted to post a short thank you, but I kind of got carried away thinking about all of it.

I first came to this site yesterday, and I've been reading so much that is hitting home for me.  One of the articles talked about a "breakthrough crisis."  I think I've been having one for about a year now - a slow build.  I've been in therapy myself, trying to fix my own marriage, and shocked at how much EVERYTHING I am thinking about and dealing with in relation to my marriage leads me back to my mom. I always end up talking about her.  I've been reading a lot about NPD, thinking that a lot of it fit (everything is always about her, she never never calls or emails to ask how any of us kids are doing even when we are in trying and difficult times, when you call her she goes on and on for half an hour about everyone who has slighted her, etc) but a friend mentioned BPD to me and this new perspective is completing a large piece of the puzzle for me right now.

I realize I have been slowly disconnecting from her all year. I still call her on her birthday and Mother's Day, and I am polite, but I haven't shared with her anything about my marriage problems, not that she has asked. She knows because of things I have shared with my dad and siblings, but she doesn't care to ask.  If I WERE to share something, she'd store it and use it against me in some way down the road. I know this now. I am starting to recognize the pattern.

It has been hard letting go, but I realize I'm only letting go of a version of her that doesn't exist -the expectation and hope for a mother she has has never been. There was a day early this year that I called home to finally tell my dad about some of the things I was going through, things I'd been keeping to myself for months, and she answered instead; he wasn't home. There was a MOMENT, a split second when I was so desperate for some kind of familial support and love that I thought I would share everything with her instead, but thankfully she jumped into her usual half hour rendition of everyone who had recently wronged her and I let the moment go. I sobbed quietly on that call for 30 minutes while she complained and she didn't even notice. I think that's when this expectation/hope for the mother I want her to be finally died. I have been in a kind of mourning since, maybe.  But it's not so bad. I think it's actually much healthier for me to let her go for now.

Ok, this has become a very long journal entry at this point, right? If it's not appropriate, considering she is not diagnosed as anything, I understand. But it has helped me just to jot these thoughts down in linear fashion. And reading on this board has already helped me so much, in just a day. So... .thank you.

[SunshinePuzzle]

Not sure if I can post here or not, as my mother has never been diagnosed (she doesn't believe in 'head doctors' and reacts to the suggestion of therapy as if it's the greatest insult), so if I shouldn't be posting, let me know.

I just wanted to say I am so incredibly grateful for this board.  I feel like I have been piecing together a puzzle for a long while, not understanding what was "wrong" with my family, my mother, my dad, my siblings, me... .

And this site is so very clarifying. So thank you.

Everyone who is close to us knows there is something 'off' with my mom. Meaning, our family, and friends who have gotten too close. Some of these other threads resonate with me so much. My mom was abusive to me and my siblings when we were growing up. Physically, yes - things would often escalate that way, and she would also goad my dad into physical abuse of us sometimes too.  But the mental and emotional abuse is what sticks with me. It's what we still endure as adult children.

When my mother is in a good mood, she is smiles and grace.  Unfortunately, this is pretty rare - usually only happens in public, almost like she's putting on a performance.  When we were growing up, I often wondered if every family was this way... .all smiles and perfection at church and then raging, throwing things, threatening suicide and saying hateful things when at home.

I've since learned no, not all families.

Everyone tiptoes around her at home, walking on eggshells. When I visit now as an adult, the most common phrase from my Dad's mouth to me is some variation of, "We don't wanna make your Mama mad." Or "Your Mama might get mad." Or ":)on't tell your Mama; she'll get mad."

The truth is, she is already mad most of the time. There is no winning. It's hard to explain to people who don't live in it, how suffocating and crazy-making it is to live with someone who - almost every word out of their mouth to you is either hateful, mocking, or pouting/guilt-tripping.

If you accidentally compliment something your dad made at the dinner table BEFORE you compliment her, she will sneer mockingly, exaggeratedly mimicking you and then get angry, "Ohhh, these beans are SOO good, Daddy! WHY DON'T YOU EVER COMPLIMENT ME?" Or else she'll pout/whine, "Nobody ever compliments my cooking." When both things are not true.  There is no winning once this happens (and it will happen, no matter if you try and prevent it - she WILL get offended 100 times a day).  If you try to point out in a calm neutral tone of voice that you do love her cooking and often compliment it or that the dish she made is also delicious, or that complimenting someone else should not be taken as an insult to her - she will get livid. Her preferred response from you is bowing and scraping - apologizing and validating her messed up comments.

I am so very tired of it.

Almost once a day she pitches a fit because someone didn't apologize the right way or because someone went somewhere without her (even if she was invited and said no - - the truth is, you're never supposed to want to go anywhere she doesn't want to go!), and then she's storming into her room, slamming and locking herself in, and sobbing loudly on the bed so the whole house can hear. Then you're supposed to beg and plead at the door for her to let you in, apologizing profusely all the while, for about an hour or so, before she comes out, pouting like an entitled child you somehow wronged, for the rest of the day.

If you DON'T beg and apologize at the door... .if you refuse to engage... .she will eventually either escalate to threatening suicide (usually only on holidays and special occasions) or she will come stomping out of the room in a RAGE, screaming at the top of her lungs about how ungrateful you all are, how she wishes you were never born (or in the case of my dad, that she never married you) and she'll be looking for a physical fight at this point. Picking up random things and throwing them at you (glass grape juice bottles, books) or swinging a belt or toilet plunger - whatever she can get her hands on - or full on just lunging at you and hitting/swinging/clawing.  

If you manage to get the RAGE version of her that is NOT throwing or hitting right away, she will follow you around the house, yelling hateful things at you, trying to goad you into losing your temper and fighting her.  If you are able to maintain your calm and not lose your temper, she'll suddenly switch tactics, arrange her face in a scary sarcastic big-eyed smile, and then dig in at all of your weak points. Things you had shared with her because she is your mom and you were looking for support - she will twist them and exaggerate them and even outright LIE to you or about you. When we were kids it was: "No wonder so and so doesn't want to play with you... ." "No wonder you don't have any friends... ." "So and So's mom told me she doesn't want you playing with her kid anymore... ."  

Now that we are adults, she tries to play my siblings and I off of each other, and off of my dad, and off of my aunt. She will lie about things we supposedly said to her about each other, or worse - she'll again take a nugget of something true, like she did in childhood, and she'll twist it so it can seem plausible. If your sibling said to her at some point that she was worried about your stress level (out of CONCERN and LOVE she said this) she will save it and use it against you now: "Even your sister thinks there is something wrong with you... ." or "No wonder your sister thinks you need help... ." Which makes it sound like your sister sits around gossiping and saying hateful things about you to her.  When she says these things, the goal is always to hurt you and goad you into fighting back with her.

When we were young, my Dad would sometimes fight back. If she was attacking him, hitting him. He'd push her off. Or sometimes he'd pull her off of us.  She used to love this, I think. She would take photos of any bruises afterwards and keep them in a file. She once had him thrown in jail overnight, calling the cops and making out like he was abusing her. No one believed us kids that it was the other way around.

When I was around 14 or 15 or so I started fighting back sometimes, before realizing all of this, above - before realizing that fighting back doesn't help. She once left the house after goading me to fight her, and brought a cop back with her, having cried hysterically to him I'm sure and told him that I was abusing her and that I was a martial arts expert (I had just started a class and wasn't even a yellow belt yet), which meant that I was using deadly force against her. Deadly force! I'm sorry, just typing that out, all of these years later makes me want to LOL.    I know humor has been one way I've coped.

Anyway, I didn't mean to type so much of this out - I wanted to post a short thank you, but I kind of got carried away thinking about all of it.

I first came to this site yesterday, and I've been reading so much that is hitting home for me.  One of the articles talked about a "breakthrough crisis."  I think I've been having one for about a year now - a slow build.  I've been in therapy myself, trying to fix my own marriage, and shocked at how much EVERYTHING I am thinking about and dealing with in relation to my marriage leads me back to my mom. I always end up talking about her.  I've been reading a lot about NPD, thinking that a lot of it fit (everything is always about her, she never never calls or emails to ask how any of us kids are doing even when we are in trying and difficult times, when you call her she goes on and on for half an hour about everyone who has slighted her, etc) but a friend mentioned BPD to me and this new perspective is completing a large piece of the puzzle for me right now.

I realize I have been slowly disconnecting from her all year. I still call her on her birthday and Mother's Day, and I am polite, but I haven't shared with her anything about my marriage problems, not that she has asked. She knows because of things I have shared with my dad and siblings, but she doesn't care to ask.  If I WERE to share something, she'd store it and use it against me in some way down the road. I know this now. I am starting to recognize the pattern.

It has been hard letting go, but I realize I'm only letting go of a version of her that doesn't exist -the expectation and hope for a mother she has has never been. There was a day early this year that I called home to finally tell my dad about some of the things I was going through, things I'd been keeping to myself for months, and she answered instead; he wasn't home. There was a MOMENT, a split second when I was so desperate for some kind of familial support and love that I thought I would share everything with her instead, but thankfully she jumped into her usual half hour rendition of everyone who had recently wronged her and I let the moment go. I sobbed quietly on that call for 30 minutes while she complained and she didn't even notice. I think that's when this expectation/hope for the mother I want her to be finally died. I have been in a kind of mourning since, maybe.  But it's not so bad. I think it's actually much healthier for me to let her go for now.

Ok, this has become a very long journal entry at this point, right? If it's not appropriate, considering she is not diagnosed as anything, I understand. But it has helped me just to jot these thoughts down in linear fashion. And reading on this board has already helped me so much, in just a day. So... .thank you.

[Kwamina]

Hi SunshinePuzzle

You most definitely can post here! Welcome to bpdfamily

It is not uncommon at all that your mother has never been diagnosed. Many of our members here have undiagnosed family-members, often because those family-members refuse to acknowledge there's something wrong with them so refuse to seek help.

I am very glad that you've found this site so helpful and that it is helping you make sense of what you've been through with your mother. I have an undiagnosed BPD (uBPD) mother myself and can relate to many aspects of your story like the pouting, storming into her room and the crying. Very confusing and difficult behaviors to deal with when you're a child. But also as an adult it still isn't easy to deal with.

I can understand why you describe what you're going through right now as mourning. That makes sense because accepting the reality of your uBPD mother means letting go of the fantasy mother you never had yet still might always have longed for. Letting go of that fantasy parent in many ways feels like the loss of a loved one.

I am sorry to hear you are having marital problems, I hope the therapy will help you.

You mention feeling like you've been having a breakthrough crisis for about a year now. To the right of this message board you'll find the Survivors' guide for adults who suffered childhood abuse. The guide takes you from survivor to thriver through three major stages: 1. Remembering --> 2. Mourning --> 3. Healing. Each stage consists of 7 steps and the first step is the breakthrough crisis. When you look at other steps of the survivors' guide, do you feel like there are also other things listed there that you currently find yourself working on? Perhaps also in relation to your marital problems?

[GreenGlit]

Welcome 

I can relate to so much of what you said - and your grateful attitude towards this board. You might notice a lot of people don't have formally diagnosed family members here - my mother was never diagnosed. But I have no question she is BPD based on how well I can relate to people here.

So much of what you said resonated with me - how your mom becomes easily hurt at comments that have nothing to do with her... .so egocentric! And then requiring to "bow and scrape" for an hour when you make the fatal "mistake" of offending her. My mom calling me an ungrateful child are some of my worst memories. I felt like my existence was centered around her emotional well-being, and when I faltered, any effort I had made in the past were null and void. It is infuriating and at the same time fills you with guilt. The betrayal of feeling like your own mom doesn't recognize your efforts is hard to overcome or accept.

Like you, I don't share much with my mother anymore. Anything I say is potential ammunition for later. It can be literally anything. It is always a lose-lose situation. As an example, I'm getting married in September and my future MIL, who is so kind and generous with me, is planning a very special rehearsal dinner just for the wedding party followed by a cocktail hour for all guests. My mom called me upset because she has a close friend who is coming - both of her daughters are my bridesmaids, but she was not invited to the rehearsal dinner. My mom was upset because "she can't eat by herself! I need to be with her!" (because humans are helpless and can't just eat a meal on their own.) At the same time, my mother obviously won't miss the rehearsal dinner because it is a special event. I explained to her that she is not the only parent whose child is in the wedding party who is not invited to the rehearsal dinner. Plus, she can come to the cocktail hour two hours later. We can't include everyone in the dinner, and not even aunts and uncles are included because my fiance's family is huge. I can tell she understands, but is mad anyway because my fiance's selfish mother wouldn't invite HER friends. Any reason to hate the future MIL, who my mom obviously perceives as a threat.

"Letting go of the expectation" - how that resonates with me. I long for a mom who cares and understands and accepts. But it won't ever happen with her. I also have begun to accept that I should except much less of my emotionally crippled mother. It's so hard... .but reading people's stories here makes me feel like i'm in pretty good company.

[SunshinePuzzle]

You mention feeling like you've been having a breakthrough crisis for about a year now. To the right of this message board you'll find the Survivors' guide for adults who suffered childhood abuse. The guide takes you from survivor to thriver through three major stages: 1. Remembering --> 2. Mourning --> 3. Healing. Each stage consists of 7 steps and the first step is the breakthrough crisis. When you look at other steps of the survivors' guide, do you feel like there are also other things listed there that you currently find yourself working on? Perhaps also in relation to your marital problems?

Thanks so much for taking the time to read and respond to me. In looking over the steps in the Survivor's Guide, I feel like I'm definitely in the beginning of the Mourning stage.  I just had a pretty traumatic trip home (traumatic b/c of my Mom of course) but there was also a lot of good that came from it. One was finding this site while in the midst of it, and as I mentioned to my husband, I feel like I have been unburdened a bit - just by finally having a name for what is "wrong" with her, and by extension, our whole family.

My siblings and I definitely exhibit BPD traits - one of those being that we share her impulsive anger issues.  I'm not at a place yet where I can say I've mastered how to control my anger - one of my siblings and I actually lost our temper with each other recently, but I've been thinking about it a lot after finding this site. The step about facing my shame and developing self-compassion - that's eerie b/c it's something we talked a lot about in counseling recently.  Our counselor thinks I turn a lot of my anger and aggression inwards on myself, and this perspective rings true to me if I think about my self-destructive behaviors over the years, and on my tendency to beat myself up while holding my husband up on a pedestal. So I have a ways to go in this "mourning" stage, but I feel hopeful for the first time in YEARS.

[SunshinePuzzle]

Welcome  

I can relate to so much of what you said - and your grateful attitude towards this board. You might notice a lot of people don't have formally diagnosed family members here - my mother was never diagnosed. But I have no question she is BPD based on how well I can relate to people here.

So much of what you said resonated with me - how your mom becomes easily hurt at comments that have nothing to do with her... .so egocentric! And then requiring to "bow and scrape" for an hour when you make the fatal "mistake" of offending her. My mom calling me an ungrateful child are some of my worst memories. I felt like my existence was centered around her emotional well-being, and when I faltered, any effort I had made in the past were null and void. It is infuriating and at the same time fills you with guilt. The betrayal of feeling like your own mom doesn't recognize your efforts is hard to overcome or accept.

Like you, I don't share much with my mother anymore. Anything I say is potential ammunition for later. It can be literally anything. It is always a lose-lose situation. As an example, I'm getting married in September and my future MIL, who is so kind and generous with me, is planning a very special rehearsal dinner just for the wedding party followed by a cocktail hour for all guests. My mom called me upset because she has a close friend who is coming - both of her daughters are my bridesmaids, but she was not invited to the rehearsal dinner. My mom was upset because "she can't eat by herself! I need to be with her!" (because humans are helpless and can't just eat a meal on their own.) At the same time, my mother obviously won't miss the rehearsal dinner because it is a special event. I explained to her that she is not the only parent whose child is in the wedding party who is not invited to the rehearsal dinner. Plus, she can come to the cocktail hour two hours later. We can't include everyone in the dinner, and not even aunts and uncles are included because my fiance's family is huge. I can tell she understands, but is mad anyway because my fiance's selfish mother wouldn't invite HER friends. Any reason to hate the future MIL, who my mom obviously perceives as a threat.

"Letting go of the expectation" - how that resonates with me. I long for a mom who cares and understands and accepts. But it won't ever happen with her. I also have begun to accept that I should except much less of my emotionally crippled mother. It's so hard... .but reading people's stories here makes me feel like i'm in pretty good company.

Thank you for your comments, GreenGlit.  I can't tell you how much less alone I feel having found a board full of people who have experienced this specific kind of traumatic family life.

Your story about the wedding rehearsal invitation drama is SO my mother. Ditto on her perceiving my MIL as a threat too.

In addition to letting go of that expectation for a mom that she'll never be, I'd say the other two biggest thoughts on my mind lately are how to avoid conflict/change the way I respond to her and similar triggers, and in that same train of thought - how to break the cycle so I don't replicate her bad behavior.

I feel lucky in one respect and that's that I've never treated my husband like she treats my dad. Not once have I unloaded on him in anger (though I certainly have on other people).  BUT, I am realizing now, that I wanted so badly to be different than her that I rolled over on almost every single difference of opinion in my marriage.  In a sense, I robbed myself of my own voice b/c I was so afraid of conflict with my husband. It's hard after so many years together to now try and change that dynamic - when you get used to years and years of interacting in a certain way, it can cause friction to try and switch it up and suddenly assert yourself about the things that you need/want. So I'm actually learning how to HAVE fights (but constructive ones) with my husband, in counseling. Kind of funny I guess.  

I think you are in a great place, entering into your marriage with so much awareness of your upbringing already. I wish you nothing but joy!

[Kwamina]

Hi again SunshinePuzzle

I'd say the other two biggest thoughts on my mind lately are how to avoid conflict/change the way I respond to her and similar triggers, and in that same train of thought - how to break the cycle so I don't replicate her bad behavior.

Since you mention these two other areas you would like to work on as well, I think you might find the following articles interesting:

Triggering and Mindfulness and Wise Mind

A 3 Minute Lesson on Ending Conflict

Here are two short excerpts:

What is mindfulness all about?  In the simplest sense, we all develop, from time to time, thinking patterns that do not serve us well.  When we do, we are easily "triggered" - having non-constructive reactions to specific words or actions based on prior experiences.  We've all been there - in resentment, pessimism, defensiveness, impatience, closed mindedness, distrust, intolerance, confrontational, defeat... .

Mindfulness is a type of self-awareness in which we learn to observe ourselves in real time to see and alter our reactions to be more constructive.

Before your can make things better, you have to stop making them worse.

Someone has to be first. This means generating the motivation to stop making things worse, learning how to interrupt your own negative responses, and learning how to inhibit your urges to do things that you later realize are destructive to the relationship.

[Attie]

I can really relate to your post I'm fairly new here... .I've been on and off lurking for the last year, but I rarely comment. I've told myself to interact more to try and heal.

My mother does go to a therapist, she's diagnosed as depressed and anxious, apparently (if that is the truth). She thinks everyone turned against her, and is out to get her, and so far in her life everyone abandoned her. Hence the depression and anxiety. The rage and anger and emotional abuse is only ever directed towards her intimate family. So, I'm guessing her therapist will never see that side... .

Just like yours, my mother was heavy with the emotional abuse. She slapped me regularly, but it was slaps across the face... .rarely anything worse. Sometimes, she wouldn't stop until I went down and then would kick me once or twice. But never to the point where I was injured. Emotionally however, her abuse was that of a mastermind.

She's also all smiles and perfection whenever we're out. And I'd always dread coming back home.

She also did the running into her bedroom, throwing the door close. Sobbing. Then raging. Oh and the twisting... .and using everything you told her while looking for support against you... .oh I know that so well. She's your mom. And you know what? She was good at it during the good days. Almost perfect. She supported me, was there for me, gave me the option to play instruments, read books, go travelling, always had an ear for problems and good advice on how to handle situations. Then a few days later she would turn into a raging person that used everything I ever trusted her with against me. And every time I fell into the trap again and again... .because she's your mom, right? If you're in trouble you'll want her help. I'm 31 one now and whenever I have a problem I still want to call my mother. And I always have to remind myself... .don't.

Thank you for sharing your story And remember you are not alone 

[SunshinePuzzle]

Thank you for pointing me to the two articles, Kwamima.  Since I last posted, I've devoured a book, "Understanding the Borderline Mother," that has been so eye-opening and given me useful ideas for changing my behavior or the way I interact with her already. I started highlighting passages relevant to me or my mom or family members, making notes, and soon realized I was highlighting pretty much the whole book.

I plan to check out the articles today, so thank you. I already anticipate the one on mindfulness will be useful for me.  One of my unhealthy methods of self-soothing and coping has been drinking. In dealing with that (without knowing anything about BPD at the time) I joined a Moderation Management group for a while and read some books on it - and a big part of learning how to moderate drinking (not possible for everyone) is practicing 'mindful' drinking. I assume practicing mindfulness is also a good tactic to avoid impulsive angry outbursts... .so I'm looking forward to checking it out.

[SunshinePuzzle]

I can really relate to your post I'm fairly new here... .I've been on and off lurking for the last year, but I rarely comment. I've told myself to interact more to try and heal.

My mother does go to a therapist, she's diagnosed as depressed and anxious, apparently (if that is the truth). She thinks everyone turned against her, and is out to get her, and so far in her life everyone abandoned her. Hence the depression and anxiety. The rage and anger and emotional abuse is only ever directed towards her intimate family. So, I'm guessing her therapist will never see that side... .

Just like yours, my mother was heavy with the emotional abuse. She slapped me regularly, but it was slaps across the face... .rarely anything worse. Sometimes, she wouldn't stop until I went down and then would kick me once or twice. But never to the point where I was injured. Emotionally however, her abuse was that of a mastermind.

She's also all smiles and perfection whenever we're out. And I'd always dread coming back home.

She also did the running into her bedroom, throwing the door close. Sobbing. Then raging. Oh and the twisting... .and using everything you told her while looking for support against you... .oh I know that so well. She's your mom. And you know what? She was good at it during the good days. Almost perfect. She supported me, was there for me, gave me the option to play instruments, read books, go travelling, always had an ear for problems and good advice on how to handle situations. Then a few days later she would turn into a raging person that used everything I ever trusted her with against me. And every time I fell into the trap again and again... .because she's your mom, right? If you're in trouble you'll want her help. I'm 31 one now and whenever I have a problem I still want to call my mother. And I always have to remind myself... .don't.

Thank you for sharing your story And remember you are not alone 

Thank YOU for sharing with me too, Attie! I assume (hope) I may get to a point where I can't read so many stories like this anymore without it affecting me negatively, but right now - at this stage I'm in - reading about so many shared experiences, no matter how tragic, are working to make me feel less hopeless.  Maybe this is the 'validation' the book I just read talked about - feeling like if you ever talked about this stuff you wouldn't be believed. (When I was young, I broke down and told one teacher I thought I could trust, after she asked me about bruises on my legs - - only to have my mom fling it at me unexpectedly during a later attack - - taunting me that my teacher had called her and 'even she knew I was full of lies.' Added to my trust issues and made things seem more hopeless. Only now am I realizing I never spoke about it again with that teacher, and even though she must have called my mom, I don't actually know anything about the content of that conversation - only my mom's distortion of it.) So right now - hearing so many stories I identify with, from people who GET IT, is really helping me.

I also hear you about falling into the trap over and over. I am only a bit older than you and I feel like I am only now at a place to change the cycle. It's taken me forever to get here and realize I have to stop taking her bait. I have to stop hoping she will transform into someone she is not or give me the love and support she has been incapable of giving.  I also identify with you about the ways in which my mom was good: mine was a great teacher, and she encouraged and supported us all academically. My sister said to me recently that it took her forever to reconcile that we were emotionally and physically abused, because we were privileged in other ways and the two things weren't supposed to go together, right?

[Attie]

Thank YOU for sharing with me too, Attie! I assume (hope) I may get to a point where I can't read so many stories like this anymore without it affecting me negatively, but right now - at this stage I'm in - reading about so many shared experiences, no matter how tragic, are working to make me feel less hopeless.  Maybe this is the 'validation' the book I just read talked about - feeling like if you ever talked about this stuff you wouldn't be believed. (When I was young, I broke down and told one teacher I thought I could trust, after she asked me about bruises on my legs - - only to have my mom fling it at me unexpectedly during a later attack - - taunting me that my teacher had called her and 'even she knew I was full of lies.' Added to my trust issues and made things seem more hopeless. Only now am I realizing I never spoke about it again with that teacher, and even though she must have called my mom, I don't actually know anything about the content of that conversation - only my mom's distortion of it.) So right now - hearing so many stories I identify with, from people who GET IT, is really helping me.

I also hear you about falling into the trap over and over. I am only a bit older than you and I feel like I am only now at a place to change the cycle. It's taken me forever to get here and realize I have to stop taking her bait. I have to stop hoping she will transform into someone she is not or give me the love and support she has been incapable of giving.  I also identify with you about the ways in which my mom was good: mine was a great teacher, and she encouraged and supported us all academically. My sister said to me recently that it took her forever to reconcile that we were emotionally and physically abused, because we were privileged in other ways and the two things weren't supposed to go together, right?

I told two teachers. It was a mistake. At home my mother was waiting to ask me what I was thinking making up such lies... .and at school both teachers were waiting, explaining to me that attention seeking and lying isn't a good trait in a kid. No one who knows her believes me. Except for my father. He's my validation. I've had this really great moment at the age of about 19, me and my mother on the balcony... .a good moment. We were talking and it was nice. And suddenly she asks: "why do you hate me so much?" and I thought... .why not. Let's try. And I started with, "well for one you've used to slap me across the face several times every other day... ." I don't know why I started with that. I just did.

She looked at me... .utterly heartbroken. And says: "I've never hit you. I was a good mother. I did everything for you. You were able to go on vacations, play instruments, go to a good school, learn languages... .I was a good mother. I think you need help. Those are hallucinations. Maybe you're schizophrenic."

I just took off. I grabbed my cell phone and walked out the door. Called my father and my first sentence was: "Please tell me she used to hit me every other day."

For a moment I doubted myself. I wondered am I crazy. Am I misremembering things. Because she's my mother... .and mothers know best. You kind of grow up knowing that mothers always know everything, right?

Also the whole "good days" makes it really hard for me to hate her or detach from her. I do remember all the good times and all the good things. And I still enjoy a good talk to her today. I just know it could turn at any moment... .and if it doesn't turn it could be used against me. If she would have just been all bad, I feel like I could turn my back. But funnily enough I think she tried really hard and failed. I think she comes from a very broken childhood herself and she tried... .she tried to do it better but there was too much rage and she couldn't control it. And she can't admit she's made the same mistakes and hence doesn't remember them. And that makes me feel bad for her.

[keldubs78]

Yep.  Everything you described is my mother to a T.  Walking on Eggshells and "no win" no matter what.  The example you gave about no one inviting her to go but if you had asked her she would have said no.  Classic BPD.  Don't worry about her never being formally diagnosed.  It wouldn't help anyway.  I thought I was doing the right thing about 4 years ago by approaching my mom with evidence that she has this and trying to get her help.  The reason I did this was because my mom does say she feels like something is wrong with her and she needs help.  So, I tried to help her.  It totally backfired.  The problem is when she sees a therapist, she tells HER version of what is going on, how she's the victim.  BPD is hard to diagnose and even harder to treat.  You almot would need a therapist to live with you and your family for months (without your mom knowing) for them to come to that conclusion.  Anyway, I'm sorry you have this in your life.  It is the single biggest thing that has affected my entire life.  I've been in therapy for years and it has definitely helped me understand that her craziness wasn't about me and that it is truly an illness.  It is VERY difficult to love someone with BPD because by the very nature of the disorder, they make it nearly impossible.  They almost want everyone to abandon them despite that being the one true thing that they fear more than anything.

[SunshinePuzzle]

I told two teachers. It was a mistake. At home my mother was waiting to ask me what I was thinking making up such lies... .and at school both teachers were waiting, explaining to me that attention seeking and lying isn't a good trait in a kid. No one who knows her believes me. Except for my father. He's my validation. I've had this really great moment at the age of about 19, me and my mother on the balcony... .a good moment. We were talking and it was nice. And suddenly she asks: "why do you hate me so much?" and I thought... .why not. Let's try. And I started with, "well for one you've used to slap me across the face several times every other day... ." I don't know why I started with that. I just did.

She looked at me... .utterly heartbroken. And says: "I've never hit you. I was a good mother. I did everything for you. You were able to go on vacations, play instruments, go to a good school, learn languages... .I was a good mother. I think you need help. Those are hallucinations. Maybe you're schizophrenic."

I just took off. I grabbed my cell phone and walked out the door. Called my father and my first sentence was: "Please tell me she used to hit me every other day."

For a moment I doubted myself. I wondered am I crazy. Am I misremembering things. Because she's my mother... .and mothers know best. You kind of grow up knowing that mothers always know everything, right?

Also the whole "good days" makes it really hard for me to hate her or detach from her. I do remember all the good times and all the good things. And I still enjoy a good talk to her today. I just know it could turn at any moment... .and if it doesn't turn it could be used against me. If she would have just been all bad, I feel like I could turn my back. But funnily enough I think she tried really hard and failed. I think she comes from a very broken childhood herself and she tried... .she tried to do it better but there was too much rage and she couldn't control it. And she can't admit she's made the same mistakes and hence doesn't remember them. And that makes me feel bad for her.

I relate to this so much... .the way your mom used it against you when you tried to get help. Is there some kind of messed-up handbook out there - "How to be an emotionally abusive and manipulative mother and destroy your child's sense of safety, trust and self" - because so many of the experiences on this board are so similar!

Living with someone with BPD *does* make you question yourself; I identified with that too. The fact that you had to ask your dad to verify her abuse breaks my heart, because it IS so easy to wonder if maybe you are misinterpreting things.  In my case, I have never questioned the abuse - the number of times she physically abused us was too many for her to deny or any of us to forget (and often, the rest of the family and sometimes even my grandparents were witness to it, so it's not like anyone denies it) but what I have wondered about is the frequency of it.  I can remember certain episodes b/c of things that were *different* that time or things that stood out (for ex: I remember the first time I grabbed the belt she was beating me with and tried to yank it away from her - both because me fighting BACK was *different* and because the buckle cut my finger and I had a scar there for years). But because there were so many fights, I can't remember most of them. It's like if you eat the same bowl of cereal for breakfast every day and someone asks you describe what it tasted like on a specific date and you can't recall. Bad analogy, , but hopefully you get my point. I think also that it's probably human nature to want to minimize those memories anyway.

The book I just finished had a section on how BPD (and having chronic emotionally intense episodes) can affect the way a person's brain stores memories, which is interesting to me too - maybe there is some truth to it when my mom claims something didn't happen - maybe she really doesn't remember it.

[SunshinePuzzle]

Yep.  Everything you described is my mother to a T.  Walking on Eggshells and "no win" no matter what.  The example you gave about no one inviting her to go but if you had asked her she would have said no.  Classic BPD.  Don't worry about her never being formally diagnosed.  It wouldn't help anyway.  I thought I was doing the right thing about 4 years ago by approaching my mom with evidence that she has this and trying to get her help.  The reason I did this was because my mom does say she feels like something is wrong with her and she needs help.  So, I tried to help her.  It totally backfired.  The problem is when she sees a therapist, she tells HER version of what is going on, how she's the victim.  BPD is hard to diagnose and even harder to treat.  You almot would need a therapist to live with you and your family for months (without your mom knowing) for them to come to that conclusion.  Anyway, I'm sorry you have this in your life.  It is the single biggest thing that has affected my entire life.  I've been in therapy for years and it has definitely helped me understand that her craziness wasn't about me and that it is truly an illness.  It is VERY difficult to love someone with BPD because by the very nature of the disorder, they make it nearly impossible.  They almost want everyone to abandon them despite that being the one true thing that they fear more than anything.

keldubs, this is so true:  It is VERY difficult to love someone with BPD because by the very nature of the disorder, they make it nearly impossible.  They almost want everyone to abandon them despite that being the one true thing that they fear more than anything.

I just posted something similar in your thread actually. It blows my mind that they actively create the very reality they fear. My mom has always lived in a twisted reality in her own head - where everyone is against her and no one celebrates her true worth ... .her emotions are so big she can't contain them, and she lashes out at everyone around her, falsely accusing them of not loving her, not valuing her, not wanting to be around her, etc... .after years and years of this, decades of this - she has manifested that twisted reality from her head into the real world. Yeah, you're right - no one wants to be around you. I WONDER WHY.

Thank you for sharing your experience of talking with her about BPD.  I don't plan on bringing it up with my mom.  When we were kids, before the internet (ha), I actually looked up a lot of stuff about mental illness at the library.  I read as much as I could about bipolar disorder, because that was something I had heard of and some of it fit.  My sister and dad and I actually TALKED about this back then.  I remember asking my dad if he would talk to her about seeing someone or learning more about bipolar.  Of course she flipped out at the mere suggestion.  She will never see a therapist. Never. If by some grace of God we got her to go, I imagine she would do what you just described - play the victim, mask her behavior, manipulate the therapist.  She has no desire to get better because she doesn't think anything is wrong with her; it's everyone else.

Over the years, I abandoned trying to "figure out" what was wrong with her - but once in a while I would suggest therapy.  Especially if we were having a rare "close feeling" moment where she seemed to be asking me for help (realizing now, that's not what she was doing).  The last time this happened, last November, I went home to visit them and she predictably couldn't last three days without one of her huge blowout screaming/wailing/raging fits.  Afterwards, when she had moved into the weeping/victim stage of her tantrums, she was asking me "Why do you kids all love your Daddy more?" "You just come home to see him, not me!" etc. She has said these kinds of things my whole life, but for some reason I still fell for it and let myself hope for a second, that she wanted to speak rationally, that she wanted help. I told her we don't love Daddy more than her, but it IS easier to be around him, because we don't have these kinds of hurricane-fights with him. I told her how much therapy was helping me and that I thought she could benefit from talking about all of this with someone. I tried to make the suggestion more like ' we could all use therapy! ' so she didn't go on the defensive but it DOES NOT MATTER. She reacted like she always has - got angry because how dare I insult her that way (after just talking about myself being in therapy, how exactly would a person think I was insulting them by suggesting it? who knows).

Now that I have stumbled into learning about BPD (and it fits like a glove; so much more than Bipolar or even NPD did - the other things I have read about/considered over the years) - I am sure this is her. And I am sure that my sister and I both share BPD traits.  But I have no plans to talk about this with my mom.  Nothing good could come of it.