Hi todayistheday,
Sounds like you have a lovely relationship with your nephew
The two of you have created a nice tradition with this annual dinner and movie. Has your nephew ever explicitly expressed how he feels about your mother?
The behavior of a BPD parent can at times be frustrating indeed. Did your mother say anything else in that e-mail?
BPD is a difficult disorder and the behavior of our BPD family-members can certainly be quite tough to deal with. An important thing for us to keep in mind is that many of the members posting here are dealing with BPD relatives who do not acknowledge their problems and/or refuse to seek help. This sets them apart from the people with BPD that actually do acknowledge their issues and make concerted efforts to work on better managing their difficult thoughts and emotions. Unfortunately for many of us posting here, the reality is that our BPD relatives are not always able or willing to acknowledge their problems and are not committed to working on them. You could say that as a result we often only witness one part of the BPD reality on these boards. However, not all people with BPD behave the same way and some are actually working very hard to improve their situation.
Funny you ask about the email. The subject line was "thanks". And a one-liner thanking me for something that I did so long ago I had forgotten about it.
Then two paragraphs about her scheduled procedure.
I've told my story here a few times.
Mom has not been officially diagnosed. I went to a therapist to get advice on how to deal with a situation -- basically having to play referee which I thought was unfair, but I was "there" for my Dad. I expected the therapist to tell me that it was his problem and he had to deal with it. Instead, she hypothesized that Mom had BPD and gave me the Eggshells and Borderline Mother books to read. I only told this lady about one situation, not about the history or anything. It was like the authors of those books followed me around and wrote my life story! Many details match.
Mom does think everyone around her is crazy and defective. She had me in to see a psychiatrist over my "behavior problems" when I was in elementary school. She had me convinced that there was something wrong with me, although I didn't know what. The things that I did were not that different from other kids. I went back to the therapist and told her what things I got in trouble over and she also said that they were normal things for a child my age and that the punishments were abusive. Which I sort of always thought all along.
All that my nephew has said about my Mom is that she's always on my Dad's case about something. Since he's an Aspie (diagnosed), it's hard to tell what is going on inside of him. He is very sweet. Mom says he is hard to get along with and has anger issues. I will ask my sister about that. He's always fine around me. The only slightly negative things that I see in him are that he is very set in his ways about some things and he knows. Everything that he does goes with being a young male (25 yo) and with being Aspie on top of it, which drops his mental age back further.
I was the scapegoat child until I left home. Now I'm golden. Sister isn't exactly the scapegoat either. She's not as gold as we were growing up. My Dad is now the scapegoat. The older they both get (he is 80), the worse she gets and the less equipped he is to handle her.
