navigating vs no contact--share your strategies

[busybee1116]

I've decided to maintain contact with my uBPDm and uNPDf for a variety of reasons. I know a lot of people here go no contact and I understand we all have different families and needs. My parents aren't totally toxic. My mother is much more disordered. I love my dad and even though he's a jerk sometimes, our relationship is generally positive and I feel close to him. Maintaining a relationship with my uBPDm is the price of admission. She also has some good qualities and occasional good days, but she flips frequently, and often turns positive experiences or memories into bad ones. She's great at revising history. If it wasn't for my dad and fallout that would happen to other family members, I would go NC with her. My mother would also take out her anger at me for going NC on my dad and brother; I don't want them to deal with that. So I navigate my relationship with her. Which means manage. And I hate that I have to manage my relationship with her, but this is the way I protect myself. Things are so much better now. My strategies:

*email frequently, call occasionally. I realized that she got anxious when she heard nothing and would act out (or randomly show up!). Now I send about 2-3 emails a week and I call about once a month. These emails are SHORT (see below)

*BIFF has changed my life. https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=134124.0

Sometimes, emails are a single line and a picture of something blooming in my yard or a link to something I found online. I share very little personal information in these emails. I get BIFF emails in return most of the time. It is glorious. Meanwhile, my bro still sends her "normal" emails and he gets crazy novels in return.

*medium chill also changed my life https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=114204.0

*figuring out my values. This was THE hardest because I didn't really know who I was or what I wanted, I was too busy trying to make her happy and figure out what she needed to know what I needed. THEN I set boundaries.

*boundaries--the unexpected happened here--my parents moved 2k miles away when I finally set and maintained boundaries. I wasn't expecting that and it brought up confusing emotions. However, the physical distance/boundary has been great. I've also learned I need to live my own life whether she lives an hour away or states away.

*reading and rereading about the Karpman Drama Triangle https://bpdfamily.com/content/karpman-drama-triangle

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=108440.0

What are your tools/strategies if you are still in contact with your person with s personality disorder?

[unicorn2014]

I'm currently navigating a relationship with my dad while being ignore by my mom. Yesterday I tried to stand up for myself with my dad but then I backed down . I wish my mom would pay more attention to me but she's too self absorbed to care.

[Kwamina]

Hi busyebee1116

Thanks for starting this great thread!

Lately I have been really studying the resources about conflict dynamics (Karpman Triangle and F.O.G.). Tips such as not immediately reacting the moment a demand is made (you want to respond, not react), moving to the center of the Karpman Triangle and applying the Caring Triangle / Winning Triangle instead are things I have found very helpful. Also the material about ending the cycle of conflict by changing your own responses. Instead of automatically saying/doing Y after the other does X, I change my response, wait before responding or don't respond at all. What I like about these resources is that they help me approach my family-members and other people such as colleagues with strategic thinking in mind. I have a strategy now, long-term strategic goals in mind and am way more prepared than I was before.

The Strategic Parrot

[claudiaduffy]

When my uBPDm was still alive, I did much the same as you describe - find ways of staying in touch that didn't cost me too much emotionally, and make sure to keep them up. For me, this was making sure to occasionally post funny/pretty/interesting things to her Facebook wall, and to maintain an ongoing online Scrabble game with her. Keeping these contacts helped her to not feel totally abandoned even during weeks when I couldn't stomach an actual conversation with her.

[busybee1116]

When my uBPDm was still alive, I did much the same as you describe - find ways of staying in touch that didn't cost me too much emotionally, and make sure to keep them up. For me, this was making sure to occasionally post funny/pretty/interesting things to her Facebook wall, and to maintain an ongoing online Scrabble game with her. Keeping these contacts helped her to not feel totally abandoned even during weeks when I couldn't stomach an actual conversation with her.

Thank goodness she is not on FB--yet. Good ideas, though if she ever is! Thanks! I also figured out that she responds really positively to emoticons. I sprinkle them liberally now in my emails. A pretty card is appreciated more than a call so I do that for holidays like Easter and Mother's Day.  She likes tangible tokens.

[claudiaduffy]

Thank goodness she is not on FB--yet. Good ideas, though if she ever is! Thanks! I also figured out that she responds really positively to emoticons. I sprinkle them liberally now in my emails. A pretty card is appreciated more than a call so I do that for holidays like Easter and Mother's Day.  She likes tangible tokens.

Oh goodness, I would have LOVED for mine not to have been on FB. As it was, I kept my settings so that she couldn't see most of what was on my wall. Even so, there was an uncomfortable amount of her interfering in conversations that weren't about her, poking at me and my husband in unacceptably intimate ways in public, and other bothersome behaviors. The only reason I didn't block her entirely was that, even danger-riddled as it was, it was a preferable way of interacting than the long phone calls we used to have pre-FB. Relatively low-emotional-cost for the benefit of her feeling that I treated her like I treated other family and friends (I don't do phone calls with most people, either. Introvert realities. =) )