She keeps roping me back in even after multi-year hiatus'

[shellbell]

I never thought I'd post in one of these forums but I'm honestly at the end of the rope that my BPD mother keeps perpetually reeling in for more tongue lashes and emotional torture.

But so you have some understanding, quick/not-so-quick backstory:

I am 30 years old, I am an only child, my parents were married (briefly separated for 3 months) until my dad committed suicide in 2001 when I was 15 years old. My mother used to be in therapy when I was very young and states she suffered from postpartum depression until I was in my preteens. Her immediate family states she has always "has been a little off," although this same family also does not acknowledge her or mental illness to the degree that is necessary to invoke any change. She is self-diagnosed w/ depression and "debilitating" ADD. She goes to free clinics in Florida (best mh care in the US, lol), and states her psychiatrist rx her 10mg of prozac every other day... .This is where I tell you I ironically became a therapist and work w/ the severely and persistently mentally ill in a crisis psychiatric setting. Her medication regime isn't even a logical lie and I know this to be fact, and while she is technically not diagnosed w/ BPD, and I can't technically diagnose friends or family, her BPD is unmistakable as well as some mild and occasional overlapping traits of NPD and HPD.  

I don't always remember her being quite so sick, what I do remember is a lot of depressive symptoms, until just before my dad passed. This is a whole other story in and of itself in which I question my mother's telling of the events leading to his suicide as I was not home but she was... .) The few traits I remember as a child was that my mom oscillated from friend to scary mom pretty frequently and was all too involved in "standing up" for me in regards to issues at school or other various extra-curricular activities. It was around the time that my parents separated and my dad moved out that she started raging on me instead and the symptoms started to become obvious. My mom has been quoted as saying things like: "You know... .I could have aborted you, but I loved you." "You didn't even like me when you we're 11 months old." "I was a sh*tty parent because you were a sh*tty kid." Or one of my favorite random texts of all time, "Just wanted to tell you that I love you, even though I am not perfect, nor are you." I really wish passive-aggressive PD was still a diagnosis, she fits the bill to a T.

My mom borders on low-high functioning. After my dad passed her life really took a nose dive. She remarried in 9 months to a blatant NPD w/ a hefty alcohol dependence problem and shortly thereafter my mother began drinking heavily as well and occasionally admits to having alcohol dependence herself. In those 9 months before my mom remarried I became her caretaker while she would leave for days and weeks at a time to spend w/ new men she met on the internet. 1 month after the marriage we left the home I grew up in and began moving frequently and all over the state. My mom and step-father used to have the CRAZIEST knock-down-drag-out fights. I watched my mom beat him senseless w/ a shower curtain rod once. Then they started to physically abuse me. My mom had really whaled on me w/ the wooden spoon when I was a kid, but my mom is very small, so once I became a teen that was bigger than her, it stopped. Once my step-dad came into the picture then she had muscle. He would hold me down while she would flick my face and taunt me to fight back. Once she started quickly speaking in various accents and then licked the side of my face. I don't know how to explain it, but I did end up having her arrested that day. Unfortunately my mom manipulated me into recanting my story. They didn't work the entire time I lived with them (off and on from ages 15-18), and I later found out they were living off the money my dad had left me for my college fund. Unfortunately I found out too late when I went to enroll in college. They abruptly left Florida for Washington state a week before I turned 17. I refused to go citing moving to a middle of no where town with those two w/ no family or peer support. I stayed in the house and continued to pay for it until they came back as quickly as they left 10 months later. To this day my mom still believes they had a right to that money to feed, cloth, and put a roof over my head. My mother is and always will be "the victim."

When they returned I had been working, had started college early, and raising myself for almost a year. Merely 2 months shy of my 18th birthday with full intentions of moving out, I lasted less then 30 days w/ them. I'm sure you get the picture by now so I'll spare you the details. I stayed w/ a friend until I got my own apt on my 18th birthday. Despite not having lived w/ my mother even in the same city since the age of 18, or the same state since the age of 22, she has always managed to weasel her way back in. At the age of 23, around Christmas time, just after having moved to New York, I had finally had it. She was intent on sabotaging anything good in my life. She hated my boyfriends for made up reasons, she hated my "lifestyle," I couldn't ever do anything right, nor could I ever be there for her in just the way she wanted. She hated me for missing my dad, calling him a "martyr" and hated anyone in the family I came close with. The idealize-devalue trait w/ her is strong and moment to moment I couldn't keep up anymore. I was emotionally drained and it was effecting my life. I saw her sabotaging her own life, she became increasingly withdrawn from family and cut off any and all ties to everyone who wasn't giving her something she needed (i.e. my grandmother, her mom, giving her a job). Since my funds finally ran out they have been living in a trailer since, my grandparents fired my drunk step-dad, and eventually retired and closed shop. My mom is was the only one apparently working for some time, but owns a small cleaning business, citing she is "incapable of working for other people."

So at the age of 23 I cut my mom off with full support from my now husband. She didn't text back then, but if she called I ignored them. For 3 straight years I held tight. Around the time that I was about to get married I let her back in hoping that she would at least want to be part of that. It's no surprise she didn't. But over the course of the following months what she did want was for my husband and I to kick out a roommate we had renting from us so she could abruptly move in and leave her still alcoholic NPD husband. This happened numerous times, her calling and sobbing to let her move in and every time I told her we don't have the space. And let's be honest, we can't even have a phone conversation and you want to move in with me? Her response every time was that I must not love her enough to help/care for her. When I told her that wasn't the case her switch would flip and she would abash, insult, and put me down. I cut her off again within only a few months and this time for about 2 years.

Until last year, mid-summer my grandmother, our "go-between," told me my mom was "doing much better." Side note: my grandmother is an "everything is coming up roses" kind of woman. I love her dearly but she refuses to believe a child she birthed could be such a cruel, manipulative, vindictive, individual. When my mom rages, she rarely does it on her, and when she does, my grandmother just uses the exit strategy or completely ignores it. So I decided to let her in. She texted me on my birthday last year, "happy birthday... ." Unfortunately, I had a 2 month old nephew that had just passed from SIDS and the funeral was on my birthday. I texted her back the next day after things had calmed down explaining that I was sorry I hadn't got back sooner and briefly explained the situation. She never responded... .Ever. Nothing. [TO BE CONTINUED]... .

[shellbell]

I think it's important to note here that she absolutely abhors that I have a good marriage and have a really incredible extended family, particularly that I am very close with my in-laws. That was the most I heard from her that year. Until now.

My husband and I went down to Florida for a friends wedding a few months back, my grandmother wishing to put up her picket fence up asked if she could invite my mother over for dinner while we were there. I said it was up to my grandmother but doubted my mom would come. She didn't, and I still didn't hear a word from her until my birthday about 3 weeks ago. She sent me a card, she didn't write anything, just "mom." I unblocked her number from my phone, I texted her and said thank you for the card and that was it. Only a matter of days later she called. It's all been downhill from there. After a lot of years of therapy to deal w/ this woman's cruel and unusual behavior and to also heal myself I've become better in dealing w/ her in her rages which, proved useful over the last few weeks. I want to say here that my nickname for my mom is "The Button Pusher." She will bring up the sorest of subjects to get me to fight w/ her. The first conversation we talked very superficially, weather, life, but it was awkward and we could sense it. She said she wanted a relationship w/ me again. I told her I was going into this VERY slowly and cautiously but she didn't like that. I told her why we hadn't talked in so long and she was furious w/ me for being upset that she hadn't responded about my nephew's sudden and unexpected death. I mean she could have literally said ANYTHING. She kept casually insisting as if it were absolutely no big to do that she "just didn't have anything to say." My mistake was that I said, "any human would have said something, anything." She started screaming that I was referring to her as "inhuman." I told her I had to go, and like always she has to hang up first and said, "no, I have to go!"

Two days later she randomly texts me, "What do you like to do?" What... .? I decided, ok, I'm going to have this ridiculous banter and just go with it. It was again, superficial, but it appeared this was the way to have a conversation. She would send me photos of her animals and I would return. Then she calls me again about a week ago to tell me she "read an article, but grandma told me not to call you about it." Here we go... .It was about a social worker getting stabbed by a patient on an inpatient psych unit in Florida. Her concern is always so incredibly fake, how other's don't see right through it I've never understood. But I obliged and said thank you for her concern but that I was safe. She wanted me to need her, to feel so indebted to her that she cares. When I didn't bend over backwards in horror that yes, this kind of thing does unfortunately happen from time to time, she became irate again. I was able to successfully squash the topic and move on. Then she asked how I got along w/ grandma so well but not her. I explained that grandma and I have a lot of different world views and when we disagree we just don't broach the subject. My mom too believes she does not "push buttons." My mom's favorite button push are my chosen diet restrictions or my political beliefs. She didn't get it, and quickly the conversation decompensated again when she brought up politics. I told her I wasn't going to have this conversation and she pulled her hang up first move.

She called me last night, sobbing her same old story about leaving her NPD husband. She said he doesn't understand her "debilitating ADD," and that she isn't functioning at work. I know too well my mom is manic the majority of the time but I had the inkling that maybe she was taking amphetamines and could be the cause of the mania and rages. She told me she was still just on her (doesn't make any sense and isn't a real prescription) prozac 10mg every other day from her PCP. I asked her why she didn't go see a psychiatrist, she said she didn't have money. I asked her why she didn't get medicaid. She told me she makes "too much." I told her they had sliding scale. She told me she makes a whopping $72k a year by herself and that my step dad makes the equivalent. I know this is a total fabrication as my family has told me how destitute they are. I asked her why she didn't just buy healthcare in the marketplace and she snarled about "not buying that f*cking obamacare bullsh*t." I said ok, well you make enough and have very low living expenses (they live in a trailer and drive a 20 yr old car), that it would likely be possible to pay for the visits herself because her health is important. After ignoring the obamacare comment, she was displeased w/ the fact that I didn't jump and fight. So then she oscillates to the feel bad for me card again and begins to sob that her "ADD is so bad she couldn't possibly concentrate enough to get on the internet or make a phone call to buy her own health insurance." I responded in the most empathetic tone I could muster, "Mom, I understand you're having tough symptoms, but if it is really that bad, how can you go to work or have this conversation with me?" So she snidely says, "I can't wait for Trump to become president." OK MOM... .We get it. I said I'd had enough and I was going to go, this time she was intent on fighting and said, "I make more money than you and I'm a small business owner! How bout that! So much for your president!" (Mind you Obama isn't necessarily my president, she just trying to find the thing that sets me off), but that's besides the point. I said I was really done and of course once she realized she hadn't "won" she pulled the hang up first move.

I thought I'd get a few day reprieve but she texted me while I was sleeping which is unfortunately her new go to if I refuse to fight verbally... .Text #1: "You just don't understand but that's ok... .love you anyway!" And when I didn't respond, she follows up w/ text #2: "The Trump rocks and so does meat!" (I'm vegan and my mom is famous for lauding over a bison burger and chewing w/ her mouth open acting like she's having an orgasm exclaiming over and over how good her burger is directly to my face. An additional side note, I have no qualms w/ people who eat meat in front of me). I sent my mom a response this morning: "What is wrong with you? This is why I don't talk to you. You're a button pusher and you love to argue. You want to talk to me and you want to have a relationship but at every change you get you pick a fight for absolutely no reason. You want all this sympathy, but how am I supposed to empathize with someone who is so purposefully nasty?" She hasn't responded and won't for another few weeks, she'll call and pretend like nothing happened. I sent my friend a screen shot of that text and this friend knows a significant history about my relationship w/ my mom. She had the best most accurate description of how my mom behaves, "She's like an elementary school yard bully that pulls your pigtails." It really is true. I feel like I have an oppositional 12 yr old child for a mother.

I'm at a crossroads. I know I just made quite the case for walking away. But I have this guilty fear that since my mom has pushed everyone so far away that she is going to die alone in a state run nursing home one day and I will never know. My grandparents aren't going to be around that much longer, and my mother's siblings have absolutely nothing to do with my her. My step-father, albeit younger, will likely die much before her based on conversations I've heard him have with doctors about the condition of his liver. Has she guilted me once in for all to taking care of her? To be her one remaining punching bag for the rest of our lives? [TO BE CONTINUED]

[shellbell]

My husband and I are planning to try to have children next year and that is both exciting and terrifying. I want them to have that grandmother in the picture, but I am terrified to let her scar them the way she has me. Every therapist I've had has dx me w/ PTSD and after finally having some healing, I don't want this to unravel again. It doesn't matter that I am a therapist, I can't deal w/ my own roller coaster of guilt and shame w/ this woman. I've tried every avenue to get her real help, but as every one working w/ a borderline knows, insight is half the battle. She refuses to acknowledge anything beyond this self diagnosed depression and ADD and as you all guessed, whatever is her problem must be every one else's. (I know you are but what am I).

I'm at my wits end. Any advice from an adult child that goes through these roller coasters of contact/no contact please help... .

[ViaCrusis1689]

My husband and I are planning to try to have children next year and that is both exciting and terrifying. I want them to have that grandmother in the picture, but I am terrified to let her scar them the way she has me. Every therapist I've had has dx me w/ PTSD and after finally having some healing, I don't want this to unravel again. It doesn't matter that I am a therapist, I can't deal w/ my own roller coaster of guilt and shame w/ this woman. I've tried every avenue to get her real help, but as every one working w/ a borderline knows, insight is half the battle. She refuses to acknowledge anything beyond this self diagnosed depression and ADD and as you all guessed, whatever is her problem must be every one else's. (I know you are but what am I).

I'm at my wits end. Any advice from an adult child that goes through these roller coasters of contact/no contact please help... .

Welcome  !

I am not no contact with my uBPDm (long story, I still live at home, because of a disability), but from what you write, I would not let your future children to have contact with her. She does not respect boundaries, and nothing indicates she would respect any boundaries you would set for her regarding your children.

You write that you were dx'd with PTSD, and have worked through this with a therapist. I think you need to protect your own well-being and consider going full no-contact. I know you feel guilty, but you have done everything you possibly can, and nothing has improved. Going NC may very well be your only option to stop the cycle.

I wish I had more advice for you. I wish you the best!

[Dinah]

Hi,

As I was reading your thread, I noted many parallels we share in our stories about our mothers. I'm sorry you are having to go through this much pain.

I cut off contact with my mother nearly three years ago, and although she has also tried to "rope me back in" time and time again, I never give in. I don't have much of a family after she caused them to distance from us both during my childhood, but the few who are in my life entirely support my decision. They have adopted their own no- or low-contact policies with her. For me, the guilt subsides after I wait a while after I don't respond to her contact attempts and see the nasty side of her personality in her histrionics, threats and lies. The last time I ignored her emails, she lost it and called up my grandmother, told her I was a soulless "it" who she despised and would never contact again, and just kept on and on (like you, my grandmother is her single enabler in the family who is in complete denial about the profundity of her mental illness). She also insisted I was jealous of her. Not even a week later, she sends me another email acting like nothing happened.

Therapists have told me they suspect I have C-PTSD because of my adverse childhood experiences. I have no siblings, and for years she subjected me to neglect and abuse that my body has yet to entirely forget. She gives me panic attacks, and I have anxiety issues that express themselves in almost every context of my life. I've been thankful to the professionals who have assured me that I made the right decision to let her go.

Even down to the gestures of sending you strange, obscure articles to scare you an entice a needy emotional response, I understand you and your situation. I have always felt like a need-gratifying object to her, never a feeling, thinking human with her own needs and desires. I don't feel like she has a capacity for empathy, and she tends toward the sociopathic at times. It would be absolutely toxic for me to re-enter the relationship, and it would be only for her, because she can offer me absolutely nothing. This is what I continuously tell myself whenever this question comes up.

I just turned 23, and although I still have many personal issues to work though, I feel like I have made tremendous progress since I became a willingly parent-less child. I hope to get my master's in social work in the next two years and do work similar to yours. While my life has featured kinds of pain many cannot relate to, I'm thankful for it in a way, because my mother taught me the importance of creating concrete, faultless boundaries that even those who share your blood cannot breach.

[shellbell]

I'm thankful for it in a way, because my mother taught me the importance of creating concrete, faultless boundaries that even those who share your blood cannot breach.

For 23 you are quite insightful and well written, you will make a great social worker. I too did my 2 year MSW. I unfortunately regret it at times realizing how much my mother had an impact on me in indirect ways, including my chosen career. But your final statement helps and hit the nail on the head.

Before I fully realized how much damage my mother had caused, I frequently found myself in relationships, particularly with women who emulated my mother's behaviors. Subconsciously I thought maybe I could vicariously repair the problematic relationship with her through others. It also suggests that I never truly knew what a healthy relaionship with other females should look like. I have been lucky in more recent years to gain that insight and cut out those chosen relationships that were toxic to me and trade them for healthy ones that have proven to be invaluable corrective experiences for me.

I wish I had your insight at 23. But I'm not harping on it. Just moving forward as best as I can. The false hope she gives when she rears her ugly head bad into my life is no easy feat to tackle, but I'm learning how to better deal with her tirades instead of retaliating back to the button pushes she so wishes for me to give into.

Thank you again for your words. It is comforting knowing others out there can also identify with and overcome that irrepribable damage that their pwBPD has caused.

[SoSoSoTired]

10mg of Prozac every other day is not a therapeutic dosage.  If she is manic, she shouldn't be on Prozac.

You also posted that she has been withdrawn at times.  Your mom might be bipolar.

[shellbell]

10mg of Prozac every other day is not a therapeutic dosage.  If she is manic, she shouldn't be on Prozac.

You also posted that she has been withdrawn at times.  Your mom might be bipolar.

I work in psychiatry and am aware her rx regime is not therapeutically recommended. I have tried to talk to her about it but she swears this is what her pcp has advised her to do and refuses to discuss it any further. I do believe that she has bipolar as well as BPD, which is relatively common.

In her mind, depression is a socially acceptable diagnosis so she won't admit that something else could be wrong, aside from her new self diagnosis of "debilitating" ADD. Also another relatively socially acceptable illness (in her mind).