uBPD mom (72) codependent with uNPD golden child alcoholic brother (36).
I caved after 5 years of NC with brother.
He used to be very abusive. Mom (and NDad when alive) would enable him. Some of the most severe episodes, resulting in me having to leave my mom's on foot in the middle of the night, were about small threats to his entitlement (ex: I was buying pizza, he picked all of the toppings and went for a nap. One of the toppings was unavailable so, afraid to wake him, we picked what we thought was the closest alternative. When he woke, he went into a rage. This escalated until it was no longer safe for me to stay.)
Mother has been insisting that he's changed, things weren't the way I saw them, and plus... .it's really how I choose to feel about the
past that's the problem. She's also been running an aggressive smear campaign. It seems to be the general consensus that I'm being childish
.
My husband, my 4 month old, and I attempted to stay the weekend at my mom's while my brother was there.
By 11am the next day my husband was desperately trying to negotiate getting out of there.
My brother was raging at my mom about every little thing, making everyone an audience to his grandiose delusions, criticizing and complaining about people who don't give him what he wants (ex: girls who won't be his girlfriend), and making misogynistic comments. You got the vibe that if you didn't just nod your head and agree, he'd go into a rage. He didn't abuse me this time per se but, after observing him, I feel it's just a matter of time.
My mother was fawning all over him, reinforcing his reality, anticipating and granting his every desire, and most importantly she lost all interest in her grandson and his well being (ex: sabotaging our sleep deprived baby by slamming things around while he was napping but tiptoeing around when my brother was napping)
It's very stressful being around my brother because he dominates the whole environment, it's exhausting being an audience to his delusions and attitudes of entitlement, and we can't say no to the episode of the twilight zone because there's this quivering hostility just beneath the surface.
It's very stressful being around my mother when my brother's there because she fuels it and develops tunnel vision for him. She loses all regard for anyone else in the house and the need for everyone to cater to my brother meant we were finding it impossible to properly care for our baby. As it was, there was NO help with the baby ("Nana's" never even picked him up because he's "too fragile", but we had to leave so that
we could take care of our baby.
1. I feel stupid for still not realizing my Mom's a liar after 38 years of her lies (I didn't get into the lies in this post)
2. I feel angry about the smear campaign when it seems pretty clear that what I've been saying all along was and is still true.
3. I feel foolish for thinking my brother would have changed when I knew that was very unlikely.
4. I don't know what to say to my mother... .I mean... .I don't want to enable the enabler and just say everything was fine. At the same time... .I don't want to waste my energy telling her things she won't listen to or trying to get her to change.
5. I need to set boundaries to protect our mental health, our baby, our nice happy little family.
6. I don't know what boundaries to set!
If you've gotten through this long post... .thanks for listening
If you have any advice... .or even a similar story, I'd love to hear from you.
Take care everyone
