uBPDMom - Fed Up Again

[Depression = 72% of members]

A few years back I went NC with my mother. She had been relying on me to be a go between for her to see my young niece (brother's daughter) while triangulating me with my drug addicted possibly uBPD brother, and placing stress on my relationship with my partner and it just became too much for me to deal with. Any requests for her to not do x or y were met with nothing but whining and guilt trips about how unreasonable and cruel I was being to her.

Since then things had been slowly repairing from NC to LC, and eventually she was coming out of town and spending the occasional night at our house. I feel constantly irritated whenever she's around and don't particularly enjoy these visits, but I feel badly for her, and my husband thought it was important for my niece to see her and I agreed. He also seemed to enjoy her presence until recently.

I am pregnant with my first child and my husband wanted to surprise my mother with the news. I was absolutely dreading telling her as I knew how she'd react - at best she'd be disinterested. He didn't believe me and called her at 8:30 am on Mother's Day to give her the news. Her main concern was that she had been sleeping. She didn't congratulate us really but mentioned about 3 times that the call had woken her up. He did call kind of early, but he was excited and genuinely thought she would be as well, especially to be surprised with the news on Mother's Day.

A few weeks later she was at our house and started asking some probing questions about the timing of the pregnancy, when I knew, when we decided to have a child - I know exactly what she was driving at. I had suggested to her that she and I take a trip overseas as she's never traveled anywhere in her life. I thought it would be nice for her. She'd gotten her first passport ever. She considered it a large expense (I think it was $75 CDN) and now feels that I "tricked" her into getting her passport with no intention of going on the trip, or that I should have considered our trip plans with the timing of pregnancy, or something. Nothing was firm and no tickets had been bought or anything. The truth is that I am 37 and we had no idea how long it might take to get pregnant, or if we might have problems, but I didn't feel I should have to explain myself to her. My husband asked me why she was asking all these weird questions and I just told him I didn't know, because I didn't want conflict between them. But she made the comment "well I guess we won't be going on that trip then" the day we told her the news.

She's been being kind of rude at our house as well. We bought new couches and decided we are not going to eat on them or put our feet on them. We told her this when she was over and she went on about how unreasonable and ridiculous this was, in front of my 6 year old niece. She kept "forgetting" and putting her feet on the couch. I didn't mind so much and just reminded her but husband is convinced she was doing this purposely. She also criticizes the way we discipline my niece, yet takes no active role in helping take care of her. She acts like a bystander and won't say or do a thing even if niece gets into something she shouldn't. Yet comments about how "strict" we are in front of niece - like when niece gets out of bed claiming to be thirsty for the third time in half an hour and we say no more water, it's bedtime. It's like she antagonizes us and niece started to pick up on it and complain about no feet on the couch etc.

Most recently we had some disagreement over email that was very minor. As is her style, she felt threatened by me having a differing opinion to hers and got nasty about it. I'm having my baby by c section and she's made it known she disagrees in the past. I made an attempt to explain why to her and she was semi-receptive but ultimately it's not any of her business as far as I'm concerned. Well she had to bring it up again and how I'm doing the "wrong" thing yet she's still being supportive (this support exists in her mind only) as some kind of reason that I should not disagree with her about a totally unrelated, trivial matter. I told her it's not her business, she hasn't been supportive, and that it upset me that she would bring it up knowing we disagree about it and it's an emotional issue for me, just to try to win an unrelated argument. This is just how she is, she needs to win at any cost.

In the end she accused me of twisting her words and "making" her wrong (something she frequently believes others do to her - not because they have opinions and feelings of their own, but because they're fixated on making HER have bad feelings, for - reasons?).

She's been so disinterested in my pregnancy which has really been contrasted with my husband's mother, who was overjoyed and cried at the news. She's been buying all kinds of stuff for the baby and wants to see pictures of my belly every week. Husband's mother may have uBPD as well or something from what he's told me about his childhood but she's very different from my mother, who is mainly disinterested and detached. I think my mother doesn't really know HOW to have relationships with others and I think she wants to be close to my niece but in many ways I see that she doesn't put in much effort. Much like how she didn't put in much effort when I was a child but thought that a close relationship would be inevitable because "children always love their mothers" no matter what.

I told her why I was upset she brought up the c section and it just fell on deaf ears. She's incapable of being wrong in her mind. She won't apologize and won't consider why it was hurtful. And in the end she essentially said if I was going to stop talking to her over it, that was fine since she won't say she did something wrong when she didn't (good ol' mom, always a martyr for what's right and true in the world). It was just the final straw in a long line of irritations. I wasn't even mad about it, but her response is just cold hearted. I'm sad now, I guess to know that her not being wrong is more important to her than a relationship with me and her new grandson. And over something really silly and trivial. And I don't know why, because she's so nasty and mean, but I feel bad for her.

[cleotokos]

A few years back I went NC with my mother. She had been relying on me to be a go between for her to see my young niece (brother's daughter) while triangulating me with my drug addicted possibly uBPD brother, and placing stress on my relationship with my partner and it just became too much for me to deal with. Any requests for her to not do x or y were met with nothing but whining and guilt trips about how unreasonable and cruel I was being to her.

Since then things had been slowly repairing from NC to LC, and eventually she was coming out of town and spending the occasional night at our house. I feel constantly irritated whenever she's around and don't particularly enjoy these visits, but I feel badly for her, and my husband thought it was important for my niece to see her and I agreed. He also seemed to enjoy her presence until recently.

I am pregnant with my first child and my husband wanted to surprise my mother with the news. I was absolutely dreading telling her as I knew how she'd react - at best she'd be disinterested. He didn't believe me and called her at 8:30 am on Mother's Day to give her the news. Her main concern was that she had been sleeping. She didn't congratulate us really but mentioned about 3 times that the call had woken her up. He did call kind of early, but he was excited and genuinely thought she would be as well, especially to be surprised with the news on Mother's Day.

A few weeks later she was at our house and started asking some probing questions about the timing of the pregnancy, when I knew, when we decided to have a child - I know exactly what she was driving at. I had suggested to her that she and I take a trip overseas as she's never traveled anywhere in her life. I thought it would be nice for her. She'd gotten her first passport ever. She considered it a large expense (I think it was $75 CDN) and now feels that I "tricked" her into getting her passport with no intention of going on the trip, or that I should have considered our trip plans with the timing of pregnancy, or something. Nothing was firm and no tickets had been bought or anything. The truth is that I am 37 and we had no idea how long it might take to get pregnant, or if we might have problems, but I didn't feel I should have to explain myself to her. My husband asked me why she was asking all these weird questions and I just told him I didn't know, because I didn't want conflict between them. But she made the comment "well I guess we won't be going on that trip then" the day we told her the news.

She's been being kind of rude at our house as well. We bought new couches and decided we are not going to eat on them or put our feet on them. We told her this when she was over and she went on about how unreasonable and ridiculous this was, in front of my 6 year old niece. She kept "forgetting" and putting her feet on the couch. I didn't mind so much and just reminded her but husband is convinced she was doing this purposely. She also criticizes the way we discipline my niece, yet takes no active role in helping take care of her. She acts like a bystander and won't say or do a thing even if niece gets into something she shouldn't. Yet comments about how "strict" we are in front of niece - like when niece gets out of bed claiming to be thirsty for the third time in half an hour and we say no more water, it's bedtime. It's like she antagonizes us and niece started to pick up on it and complain about no feet on the couch etc.

Most recently we had some disagreement over email that was very minor. As is her style, she felt threatened by me having a differing opinion to hers and got nasty about it. I'm having my baby by c section and she's made it known she disagrees in the past. I made an attempt to explain why to her and she was semi-receptive but ultimately it's not any of her business as far as I'm concerned. Well she had to bring it up again and how I'm doing the "wrong" thing yet she's still being supportive (this support exists in her mind only) as some kind of reason that I should not disagree with her about a totally unrelated, trivial matter. I told her it's not her business, she hasn't been supportive, and that it upset me that she would bring it up knowing we disagree about it and it's an emotional issue for me, just to try to win an unrelated argument. This is just how she is, she needs to win at any cost.

In the end she accused me of twisting her words and "making" her wrong (something she frequently believes others do to her - not because they have opinions and feelings of their own, but because they're fixated on making HER have bad feelings, for - reasons?).

She's been so disinterested in my pregnancy which has really been contrasted with my husband's mother, who was overjoyed and cried at the news. She's been buying all kinds of stuff for the baby and wants to see pictures of my belly every week. Husband's mother may have uBPD as well or something from what he's told me about his childhood but she's very different from my mother, who is mainly disinterested and detached. I think my mother doesn't really know HOW to have relationships with others and I think she wants to be close to my niece but in many ways I see that she doesn't put in much effort. Much like how she didn't put in much effort when I was a child but thought that a close relationship would be inevitable because "children always love their mothers" no matter what.

I told her why I was upset she brought up the c section and it just fell on deaf ears. She's incapable of being wrong in her mind. She won't apologize and won't consider why it was hurtful. And in the end she essentially said if I was going to stop talking to her over it, that was fine since she won't say she did something wrong when she didn't (good ol' mom, always a martyr for what's right and true in the world). It was just the final straw in a long line of irritations. I wasn't even mad about it, but her response is just cold hearted. I'm sad now, I guess to know that her not being wrong is more important to her than a relationship with me and her new grandson. And over something really silly and trivial. And I don't know why, because she's so nasty and mean, but I feel bad for her.

[Woolspinner2000]

Hi Cleotokos! 

Sounds like there is a lot going on in your life right now:  the pregnancy, caring for your niece, your mom and the FOG she projects, and on the list goes. Pregnancy alone causes stress! Congrats though on your upcoming little one.  It is a reason to celebrate.

I'm very sorry that your mom did not share in the joy that we all hope a mother would, that of supporting her daughter in the pregnancy and the extra care she needs. Some people can hardly believe it when we try to tell them that this really is how our BPDM acts. When one has a pwBPD, reality is much different for us, isn't it?

From a distance as I read your post, I observe that your mom is acting like a young child in many ways, even though she is the older adult. You've mentioned how she was upset over the trip possibly being cancelled, her observations that she knows best regarding the c section, disregarding your house rules about the couch... .Sadly for pwBPD, their emotional development stopped when they were very young, but they expect to be treated like an adult while not being able to function like one.

My uBPDm was so much like this too. It is good that you are trying to keep some boundaries for yourself. Do you have any long term thoughts as to how you plan to structure the relationship you have with your mom and the upcoming grandchild? What are you able to do in order to try and keep yourself healthy and reduce stress? Is your niece in your custody?

Wools

[cleotokos]

Hi wools, thanks for slogging through my post - it was a long one, lots of thoughts that have been floating around in my head.

I think you hit it when you said they stopped emotional development as a child. It can be very frustrating to deal with my mother because she demands a lot of care taking in many ways. She can be exhausting to have around.

My niece is in the care of her grandparents on the other side. Everyone in my family - my brother (her father), my mother and my father/stepmother seem to expect me to bring her to see them, though they don't explicitly say so (except my brother). I flat out refused for my brother (he has drug and mental health issues he refuses to properly deal with). None of them want to deal with her other side of the family and I don't really know why. They are perfectly nice people. My mom uses the excuse that she lives so far away and she doesn't have a car. Well, this is the result of her own life choices and not something for me to put a band aid on.

I don't know how I'm going to navigate with the new baby. My husband now is not very keen on having her around due to the incidents I described and a couple of others. I can't blame him! He says he can shut up and put up but it makes me feel stressed to know he is feeling that way. And I know he can't shut up for long, it's just not his personality. My niece does love her Nana, but my mom just won't see her unless I'm inviting them both to my house. I know she cares about her granddaughter so I don't get this.

Maybe I just need to take a break from seeing her. I'm only stressed and irritated while she's around.

[Kwamina]

Hi cleotokos

Congratulations on the upcoming baby! That is wonderful news

I think my mother doesn't really know HOW to have relationships with others and I think she wants to be close to my niece but in many ways I see that she doesn't put in much effort.

I think what you say here highlights a crucial aspect of BPD. People with this disorder often greatly struggle with relationships, especially the relationships with the people closest to them. It could very well be that she wants to be close to your niece, even though her behavior seems to indicate otherwise. People with BPD unfortunately might really struggle with expressing any love they have in a way that also feels loving to the other person. This is a sad reality of BPD, but the reality nonetheless. It can be very hard to accept this reality though because this has serious consequences for the type of relationship we can have with our BPD family-members.

Do you feel like you have been able to truly come to terms with the reality of your mother having BPD and what this means for the relationship you are able to have with her?

Do you feel like you have been able to let go of the consistently loving fantasy mother she unfortunately never was and accept the BPD mother who she is in reality?

I hope you are able to stay stress free as you await the arrival of cleotobaby

The Board Parrot

[Rock Chick]

1st off congratulations on your bundle of joy/baby. I'm so sorry your mom does not share the same joys and happiness about the pregnancy and having a grandchild come into this world that other family members have expressed and you and your husband feel. A lot of the comments you have made and others made here sounds exactly like my bf's mother who is severely BPD (amongst other stuff). Although her views on babies is different most times and she cant wait til my bf and I have kids. Which is strange because when her other son is over with his kids she doesnt want to help take care of his kids and will get annoyed upset etc with his kids and they are all between 1 to 3 yrs old.

Any requests for her to not do x or y were met with nothing but whining and guilt trips about how unreasonable and cruel I was being to her. Her main concern was that she had been sleeping. She didn't congratulate us really but mentioned about 3 times that the call had woken her up. A few weeks later she was at our house and started asking some probing questions... .But she made the comment "well I guess we won't be going on that trip then" the day we told her the news... .

The way you described her saying that you tricked her into a passport and stuff is exactly how "Suzie" speaks about things. Oh you tricked me into getting new shoes even though it was her choice and we just suggested where she might go to find new shoes. After all her shoes were ragged looking and top and bottom of shoes had separated and if rains water would get in. She too considers anything over 15 or 20 US dollars on shoes to be TOO much and she rather get 15 dollar pair of shoes every 2 months than spend like 30 to 60 and have the shoes last 1 to 5 yrs and would be more comfortable and help her pain. Even when you add up her expenses for shoes for yr and show her and even if she says oh wow thats alot she dont want to pay that then a few days later or few weeks later she is back to saying more than 15 or 20 is too much and she acts pissy stubborn and childish etc.

You def. dont have to explain anything to her nor answer her probing questions. "Suzie" does this all the time and when you tell her your not gonna answer she gets offended, upset, acts childish, etc. She thinks because she is my bf's mother and an "adult" she is entitled to know everyones business esp. my bf's business. She also thinks her wants, needs, views etc are more important than anything else even more important than when her son was seriously hurt and when I needed to go to ER etc. Her trip to gas station to get a cup of soda and a cigar and her son taking her was more important. Its just sad.

Your mom putting her feet on your new sofa despite you telling her that nobody is to and then her saying she "forgot" time after time is so like "Suzie". Thats one her common excuses for her behavior etc. She also criticizes her other sons way of raising his kids and criticizes my bf's and I's relationship, what we do and our lives etc.

More and more I read your post it sounds more and more like your talking about "Suzie" even though your not. She too will even with minor trivial things feel threatened by us having views different than her and she gets nasty raging angry childish and plays the victim. Even with stuff like if we tell her no we dont have money to get her a soda and we won't get her soda she will get nasty, feel threatened, think we are abusive meanies, think we are attacking her, not being fair, she gets angry, raging, abusive (mentally emotionally etc), gets childish, etc. Seems very typical BPD with twisting words "Suzie" does this all the time and so spot on re: "(something she frequently believes others do to her - not because they have opinions and feelings of their own, but because they're fixated on making HER have bad feelings, for - reasons?)". How do you handle it cleotokos? It's hard for us. Thank you for sharing what you have gone threw. Its nice to know others are going threw similar things. Hugs.

[cleotokos]

Hi Kwamina and Rock Chick, thank you for your responses and for your congratulations. I've been out of town for a bit and not had time to reply.

Kwamina,

Do you feel like you have been able to truly come to terms with the reality of your mother having BPD and what this means for the relationship you are able to have with her?

I think I mostly have. I mourned the loss of the "consistently loving fantasy mother she unfortunately never was" you mention several years back. It was very hard for me at that time. It was during the time I went NC with her. I came to a realization what a drain on me she was and that at that time, I was not getting anything out of the relationship. I needed things from her that she couldn't give due to her BPD, which is one thing, but she was also expecting me to give up things in my own life, mainly for the sake of her "feelings" (my sense of safety, my relationship with my partner, my sense of freedom, among other things). At some point I just had enough. I had a lot of therapy with a wonderful therapist at that time and feel like I healed a lot. But I do still struggle with how to have a relationship with her, where to draw my boundaries, and at this point it feels a little like things may be sliding backwards. Many times she has tried to bust my boundaries through this whole process but we had gotten to a point where I was mostly comfortable with how things were. I feel like her most recent visit and our disagreement over email have been an attempt to bust boundaries again, or for her to test the waters for how far she can push us and get away with it. Truth be told this has probably been going on in tiny ways for a while and it's only been my husband bringing it to my attention that woke me up. And despite me making it very, very clear on multiple occasions that 1. I don't want to be responsible for her seeing my niece and 2. I don't want her to say things in front of my niece that make it seem like them seeing each other is dependent on me, she has conveniently "forgotten" this was important to me. Because it's not important to her, so why should it be to me? I'm being completely unreasonable, after all.

Rock Chick, "Susie" sounds like my mother in many ways. My mother is very focused on money and being "thrifty". She has been poor all my life, despite her being raised in a middle class family, and views this as a bizarre source of morality. Truth be told, she is just cheap. She buys junk, poor quality products, and doesn't see if she would spend just a *little* more money she would have something much better, that would last, look nice, etc. If we complained as children, oh goodness, we'd never hear the end of the wailing about her being a poor single mother. To her, being a single mother on welfare automatically meant she was a "good" person. It's hard for me to explain her thinking. But since we've grown up, she has inherited some sizeable sums of money from older relatives who passed on, and a home that she owns outright, but she still takes the same attitude: spending money is bad, especially if someone else "MADE" you spend money - they are a very bad person, and probably used trickery! My husband wanted to help her out with her bathroom floor that needed replacement (he owns a small construction business), he told me to tell her he would do it for the cost of materials only. She's certainly not rich and she is retired and he wanted to be nice, as he would do the same for his own mother. I told him I didn't think that was a great idea and he should offer her a really good deal if he wanted to help, but not materials only. His time is worth money and I didn't think he anticipated the hell he'd have to deal with from her, and would regret it. No doubt she would try to imply he was scamming her no matter what he charged. When I offered his services to her, she acted like she was a rich lady lording over a bunch of contractors vying for her business, and that he would have to give her a competitive quote and all this BS. For a tiny, tiny restoration job. She was incapable of seeing that he wanted to help her because that is just not her mindset when money is involved. Everyone is trying to get something from her, in her mind. I ended up telling her he couldn't do it after all as he ended up busy with other work.

Rock Chick, I've been thinking about the whole "forgetting" thing as well. She has used this as an excuse for all kinds of things all my life. And you know I must admit that I used to "forget" a lot of things I shouldn't have. And people called me out on it, and I realized that it really was because I didn't believe other people's requests were all that important or I didn't agree with their requests. I learned to make an effort to remember things that are important to others, whether I thought they were silly or not. Fleas I suppose. It's very hard for me to deal with her on this because she's trained me that I can't get mad at her for forgetting things, because she just can't help it. And something so small as putting her feet on the couch seems crazy to be upset over. Yet my (almost) 6 year old niece remembered just fine and not once did she put her feet on the couch. Hubby pointed this out to uBPDmom to which she retorted "well, I'm not as scared of you as she is!" He was very hurt by this as my niece absolutely adores him. To me, I don't think she meant that in a cruel way. But I recognize that my "normal" is way, way off. Your husband's "normal" is probably off too - at some point children of BPD's realize some things are not "normal", but we live a very long time thinking all kinds of weird stuff really is normal. And as a 37 year old woman I still struggle with decipehring what is normal vs. what is abusive or boundary-crossing.

[Rock Chick]

"Suzie" thinks she was the most amazing good mother ever from the time my bf and his siblings were born threw til they turned 18 and were adults especially. Even now she thinks she is a good good mother. She is not though. Other than she doesnt physically beat the crap out of them and doesnt like stab them with a knife type stuff. She is verbally, mentally and emotionally abusive for sure. On a scale from 1 to 10 with 10 being most abusive. I'd say she varies each day from somewhere between a 7 to 10. A monday she could be a 7, a Tuesday she could be a 10 and a wednesday she could be a 8. She did alright with 3 of the 4 kids she had when they were brought home from hospital to about 1 or 2 after that it was downhill for sure. Heck the first so many months to a year she wanted nothing to do with her other son. My bf and his dad had to raise my bf's brother. She thinks she was a good mother cuz she took my bf to the amusement park and dropped him off at mall to see a movie here and there when he was school age. She neglects to say is how she was away from home alot playing bingo at bingo halls, drinking, spending her then husbands money and her husbands works money on alcohol, stealing things and other stuff etc. My bf had to raise his siblings esp. once he got to about the age of 12 yrs old. His dad was in the service and working trying to keep a roof over there heads, food on the table and clothes on their back etc. "Suzie" has no problem spending other ppls money, borrow other ppls money (that most the time she never pays back), etc to get things she wants and is not thrifty with most things other than stuff she actually needs like shoes, clothes without holes, soap, deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste, etc. She expects my bf to buy her everything like a boyfriend, spouse or parent would/should/etc. I am thinking to a point this is because of BPD making someone be all emotional enmeshed and parentify/spousalfy thing. As well as the entitlementness from regressing to child, comorbids (npd/covert n, hpd, dpd). She thinks she is going to be told when her father passes and that she will get money etc from his will. But if her family really is like she has said etc I highly doubt they will tell her when he passes or if they do it will be well after. She thinks they will pay for her to fly to florida for funeral too and again I highly doubt this. I also think either will has been changed so she isnt in it or even if she is still in it she wont get what she says she will knowing how her siblings etc are. I think because "Suzie" is all about herself nothing else is important to her and no other person is at all or much. I think she knows this to a point and just uses the "I forgot" to cover this up so ppl wont see how she truly is and there for she doesnt have to feel shame guilt like she is bad etc. or acknowledge this or whatnot. I cant think of proper words for what I am trying to say.

And as a 37 year old woman I still struggle with deciphering what is normal vs. what is abusive or boundary-crossing.

I hear ya. I'm a 35 yr old woman and It can be hard at times and a struggle to decipher and know differences between these 3 things. I think sometimes knowing what is abusive/is abuse is probably the hardest to figure out because some things seem normal to someone who grew up with a BPD/pd parent (or other family member/friend/etc). I think with time though esp. when we have someone good come into our lives esp one that is more mentally healthy than our mentally ill parents it helps shine the light on things and we can begin to heal and realize what is normal what is not what is abuse what is not what is boundary crossing etc.

[cleotokos]

Rock Chick, they all seem fixated on being seen as a "good mother", don't they? With my uBPDmom, she wants people to say it to her - my dad, me and my brother, etc. She doesn't want to actually DO the things that make one a "good mother", she wants to tell us of all the things she's supposedly done for us (mainly consisting of "trying" and other vague things) and have us say "you're right, you were the most wonderful mother!"

My brother has drug and mental health issues as I mentioned. My mother for years has been enabling him in many ways - allowing him to stay with her, giving him money, telling him that his violating of others' boundaries is perfectly OK and that other people are wrong for having expectations of him, helping him hide the fact that he's stopped taking medication from his psychiatrist - all in the hopes that he will magically become healed, turn around and say "mom, you stood by me when nobody else would. You're such a good mother!" It's as transparent as cellophane, what she wants out of the situation. Despite the fact that he's IN the situation he's in largely because of her verbally and emotionally abusive NPD partner who hated my brother since he was just a toddler. There's nothing you can do to fix allowing such a person to abuse your child.

Seems like she finally had it with my brother as she wrote me and my father a long, martyry email about how "nobody else is willing" to help him and she's done with it (she sat back for MANY years while others tried to help my brother, yet now wants to act like SHE has put in the effort that nobody else would).

It's endlessly frustrating. I know she knows she wasn't the best mother, and I know she feels it. But instead of acknowledging that she didn't always make the right choice for us, dealing with it emotionally and moving on towards the future, she believes the solution is to convince others she was a "good mother", often through aggressive means. I guess they figure if others believe it, then they will believe it too?