uBPD Mom being Martyr over Hurrican Matthew. Ready to throw hands up

[todayistheday]

The past few months have been a roller-coaster.
I had problems with a manager at work. Those problems, thankfully are almost over. She is going to be removed from management, after 4 years of H3xx.  uBPD MOM has been aware of situation. I am the scapegoat child, so whenever I talked to Mom about it, she found a way to point finger at me. I knew better.  16 years of a great manager then this one.

So think things are finally going well and my husband developed a serious medical condition.  It's being handled, they are zeroing in on the fix for it.  He has an excellent specialist looking at it from all angles.  He and I are both getting through it fine emotionally.  We know it's serious now, we have faith that it will get better in the coming months.  In contrast, when anything happens with my Dad (who she seems to hate), she goes into a tailspin and makes it all about her.  When he's sick, I have to go run interference to keep her from mistreating him.  She thinks I'm there to help her, but not so, I am there for him.   Back to our situation, it's more serious than anything either of my parents has been through. Husband and I are handling it without falling apart.

Now Hurricane Matthew comes.  Mom lives about 100 miles away.  When it came here, it was very rainy and scary windy.  We had water in the basement, some branches out of trees and lost power for 15 hours and cable before that.  There was some flooding in some parts of our city, that had no effect on us. I put it all into perspective. If you have seen the news, you know that's small potatoes. Even compared with the health  issues, small potatoes.  Many people have lost everything.  People are having to be rescued from flood areas.  The people in the Caribbean have it even worse.  We threw away some meat and dressings, mopped out the basement, picked up branches and we're good to go. 
I knew it wasn't bad where Mom was because when I told her how bad the winds were, she said it wasn't bad there.  She never minimizes anything.  Today, she calls to ask if we got power back.  I told her yes.  Of course, having to throw stuff away was my fault because we should have run our portable generator.  (We couldn't  set it up while it was still storming, and we didn't lose all that much anyway.)

Then on to HER troubles.  Oh, it got real bad here.  Rain was beating into the house under the door. She had to keep towels around it all night. Now she has a water stain and she's "just sick about it".  Also, she lives in a city that is going to flood.  Like us, the flood area is not her part of the city.  She doesn't know how to prepare.  She was complaining about things you could not get during the flood.  Including diapers.  She is 75 years old and doesn't use DEPENDS, so what's that to her?  I told her to go out and get anything she needs that won't be available before she needs it again.  She is physically healthy, she can even go to another town for it.  Then back to the water stain.  On and on about how she is "just sick about it."

I am sorry, but even my minor problems were a bigger deal than a little water stain.  What about all of the people who are having to be rescued from floodwater?  Who have trees through roofs?  Who have no insurance, little money and no place to go?

After all the years of abuse I have taken from her, I am just about fed up hearing her complain about something so insignificant.


Yes, she is a martyr and a perfectionist. Which is part of why she and I never got along. I got plenty of beatings for being imperfect. 

I don't want to hear about that water stain for the next six months, and every time another storm is approaching. 

I sent my Dad a "condolence" email for having the stain and having to hear about it. 

It feels better just to say it all.  Lots of writing to complain about Mom complaining about a water stain.  I know most of your problems are greater than that.  Mine in general are too. This is like a final straw that makes me want to just say "I give up".  If not for Dad, I would have given up years ago.

Thanks for reading.

[Naughty Nibbler]

Hi todayistheday:   

I'm so sorry you are having a tough time.  Sometimes, it just seems that Murphy's Law is in play. 

I hope the fix works for your husband's medical problem.  Stress at work and stress at home can be very overwhelming.  I'm glad you survived the storm, without much problem.  Sounds like it may be tougher to survive your mom.

Has your mom had any therapy?  In her eyes, probably nothing wrong with her, right?  Oh, if you could just make it go away by getting her a throw rug to put on top of the stain.  Probably never find a throw rug that meets her standards.

What are you doing to take care of yourself and manage stress? 

[todayistheday]

Hi todayistheday:   



Has your mom had any therapy?  In her eyes, probably nothing wrong with her, right?  Oh, if you could just make it go away by getting her a throw rug to put on top of the stain.  Probably never find a throw rug that meets her standards.

What are you doing to take care of yourself and manage stress? 

1)  No, Mom has never had therapy, per se.  We were in family therapy one time when I was a kid.  Of  course, everything was MY fault, and I even got yelled at by her about how we were having to see a psych because of me.  She got mad at some of the things the therapist said about letting certain things slide.  Things like B's in school and a wrinkle in the beds when not made perfectly.  And that was the end of that.  My Dad shared that they were also in marriage therapy one time, she got mad and left that after a couple sessions as well.    Dad and I have had therapy over how to deal with her.

2)  Thanks for your concern. We are OK.  We are handling the "stress" quite well.  We can look to the future and look at it all in the big scheme of things.  His condition would be life-threatening if left alone.  We are 99% sure it's treatable as long as we follow doctor's orders.  We both have faith in the doctor he is seeing. For that reason, our stress is nearly zero.  My husband described it as a "bump in the road", which it is. 

Did I learn to chill after seeing my Mom freak out over everything?  Or is it just my nature?  And is that why I'm the scapegoat child?  That we will never know.

Having developed the "chill" attitude is what helps me deal with her most of the time.  I only get upset when she hurts my Dad or someone else.  When it's me she's after, I roll my eyes and ignore it.  And since she no longer gets a reaction out of me, it's not me as much as it used to be.

As far as the rest of it goes, Mom's freaking out over little things is minor compared with other things that my family has to put up with from her.  It's just so typical of her. 

I just roll my eyes at her finding a stain on the wall to be the end of the world.  Her solution is that the interior of her house has to be repainted, but it will be hard for her to find someone to do it after the storm. 

When I drove to work today, I came across 2 places with trees down across the road and power lines and the residents had no power yet and one flooded bridge.   And she's worried about a stain on her wall and not being able to go shopping when and where she wants due to floods on the other side of town.  It's all about her, isn't it?  We all have to feel sorry for her, don't we? 

I was wondering how many other people experience the same martyrdom and in what ways.

[Notwendy]

My mother is also a perfectionist about her home and the things in it. Ironically, she has always had household help- so she doesn't clean it.

Things like a spot on the couch are the end of the world. Once my kids, when little, put their feet on the couch, got a little spot on it that was easily cleaned. She had such a fit, I told her I wouldn't bring the kids back if she did that again. Now, older kids know not to put feet on the couch. The kids were little- it was an accident.

My mother still tells the story about how, as a toddler, I threw up on her carpet! Of course, that was something I must have plotted. ( sarcasm here). The real story was probably that, like most kids, I probably had a stomach ache and threw up. Kids do that sometime, but not on purpose.

When my father passed away, I was distraught. Not one time did I hear my mother express concern for her kids. We aren't young- we are middle age. It was all about her being a widow. Yes, I understand that is traumatic, but not a word of empathy from her or her FOO to us.

I don't look to my mother for empathy. People who are so unhappy themselves are caught up in their own thoughts, they don't have room to be empathetic. So, if I don't expect it, I don't resent her. Actually, I have empathy for her- how sad to be in so much inner pain like that. The issue is her, not external things. She just sees external events- like vomiting on her carpet, or the kids putting feet on the couch- as people hurting her- rather than look at the issue as her hurt.

I would be cautious about consoling your father. Read about the drama- Karpman triangle. I too had a similar relationship with my father. But it was me being on the triangle with him. I also wanted to have a sort of bond with him over his situation. I saw him as a victim of her. Yet the roles can change on this triangle like musical chairs. I also perceived myself as a victim of her behavior- in a similar way that you feel she isn't fair to you. Then, hoping Daddy would defend me- or try to bond with him as a victim as well- to try to feel some connection or to feel better about it.

Drama can backfire. I don't know about your situation, but I didn't realize that mom saw these e mails. She also listened in on our phone calls. But the triangle can shift. If my mother felt criticized by me, she would take victim role, I would be persecutor, and Dad would jump in to rescue her- against me. Dad may have been able to function both ways, collaborate with me( as he sometimes did) and with her. But inevitably his bond was stronger with her.

It took a while for me to see him as more complex than my mother's victim. He chose her and also his behavior with her. That aspect- codependency- was also something I struggled with. I have empathy for him too.

Keep learning- the lessons here on this board help. I still have a relationship with my mother. I don't look to her for things she can't give me in a relationship, but without resentment. And--- I try to stay clear of triangles. You can too.

And with best wishes to you and your H for his full recovery. Take care of yourselves. 

[isilme]

I just want to say good to hear the storm affected you less drastically than it could have and kudos for working with your H to deal with the medical issues. 

This is a good place to write where people will not just dismiss what you're saying.  If you've not met BPD, it's kinda hard to believe or fathom.

Your mom's minor crisis will ALWAYS trump your major ones.  It's how she is wired, and there is little you can do about it except determine how much you let it affect you.  I know that's pretty hard to do, and had to go NC myself because I could not deal with my mom's FOG (fear, guilt, and obligation) tactics to make me feel bad about situations she causes and for not moving back in with her and giving up my own life to "raise" her again (she is my 70-year-old wayward teenage daughter).  And she is an identity thief, so it all combines to a bunch I could not handle. 

I think my half brother stated it best regarding our BPD father - "I will take what good I can get out of him and not expect anything more he can't/won't give." 


I'm sorry your dad is still in a position for her to hurt him.