BPD mother

[Edrn226]

Im going to be a new mom in December, and my own mother just completely cut me out of her life. I grew up with my mom and always thought she was my best friend. She always held a steady job and supported me the best way that she could. My dad was in the picture too and they shared custody but she always called herself a single mom. When I started 8th grade, another one of her relationships failed and she moved us from Florida to Tennessee where we lived for 5 years, away from my dad and the rest of our family, so that she could be closer to her mother. That's when she changed. She couldn't hold a job, started talking to a man from Canada online and soon he started paying all her bills. That was almost 7 years ago. When I moved out on my own, she couldn't support herself and moved to Canada with this man. When she decided she wasn't happy there she moved to Tennessee with her dad. When she found out I was pregnant she convinced my fiancé and I to let her move in with us. She told us how she had changed and was ready to turn her life around. She gave me this huge guilt trip about keeping her grandchild from her. So of course we let her move in. She promised to help around the house so that I wouldn't have to do as much and could rest more. We agreed she wouldn't have to pay rent as long as she kept the house and cooked on sundays. I was excited. I thought maybe I could get my mom back. I was naive and gave her more credit than was due. Two days after she got here she made a doctors appointment to fill her prescriptions for pain meds, muscle relaxers, anti anxiety agents, etc. and I came home from work to find her passed out in a chair on our back deck. I got upset and we fought, I sent her to her room like a teenager or something. I wrote a 4 page letter explaining how hurt I was and why and making her promise to flush everything or else she would have to leave. The next day she told me she flushed everything but something wasn't right. I went through her room and it didn't take me long to find her stash. She flushed those too and I thought it was over. I thought we were just at a speed bump and had gotten over it. No reason to drag it out right? Wrong. A few days went by and I developed a rash due to my pregnancy. She took the opportunity to blame my fiancé who often hunts and spends a lot of time outside. She caught me when I was hormonal and vulnerable and gave me a huge lecture about how the best thing I need to do for my child is to leave him and get my own place with her. She told me about how that's what she did and it was the best decision she made. She spent hours telling me how awful my fiancé was and how awful I was for staying and putting my child in this "situation". I spent a day or so thinking about it and realized that she was wrong. My fiancé owns his home, - 3bed 2 bath home with a pool on the lake, he owns his own landscaping company. He has two children from a previous marriage which he loves and does everything he can for. He's a great, caring and loving father. He is my best friend and has been for 5 years. Of course we've had our issues but he loves me with his whole heart. He has never done wrong by me, even when I deserved it. I made the decision to stay with him and keep working on our relationship and nurturing our family. I did not alienate my mother in this process. I wanted her to be there. But she couldn't handle my decision. She was hateful and hurtful. She told me that I was doing wrong by my child. She told me I was putting her out and I didn't care about her anymore so she would be leaving. I asked her to stay and try and work this out so she could be here for her granddaughter. She refused and left for Tennessee two weeks ago. She changed her phone number and deleted me off social media. She told all her friends not to speak to me about her. I've tried reaching out to her but she has made it clear she wants nothing to do with me or my family. For so long it was just me and her, and she was my best friend, and now I'm just supposed to accept that she wants nothing to do with me? I don't feel that I did anything wrong. I tried so hard to work things out with her, I even went as far as trying to get her to go to counseling with me but she refused. I started reading about BPD and there were so many similarities in her behavior and what I read. It was almost relieving to put a name to the condition. She has never been officially diagnosed with BPD because she refuses evaluation. I don't know how to deal with people with this illness. Up until 1 week ago I had never heard of it. I know my mother is sick, and I want her to get better, but how do I help her when she won't even speak to me? I blame myself, even though I did everything I could to salvage our relationship. I live with this guilt that I somehow ran my own mother out of my life. I'm terrified that I'll do this to my own daughter when she's older. What if I have this disorder as well and I just don't know it yet? I just need to know that I'm not alone in this. Maybe there is hope for my mother and I? Or if there isn't, there has to be a way to live with that too right?

[Woolspinner2000]

Welcome Edrn226! 

Congrats on being a new mom! And welcome to our online family. 

I grew up with my mom and always thought she was my best friend.

My mom was an uBPD. She often said the same thing to me, so I understand. It is tough when the rug comes out from under you as it seems it did a few weeks ago, the reality that something is very much wrong. And then the feelings of blaming ourselves, and the guilt... .it is heartbreaking. Please understand that a borderline parent teaches their children these unhealthy ways to think and believe, by blaming us that their problems are really our fault. It is not true, however. As you mentioned:

I know my mother is sick, and I want her to get better, but how do I help her when she won't even speak to me? I blame myself, even though I did everything I could to salvage our relationship. I live with this guilt that I somehow ran my own mother out of my life.

It sounds like you are used to what we call FOG here. Here is a link that talks about it:
https://bpdfamily.com/content/emotional-blackmail-fear-obligation-and-guilt-fog

You are definitely in that shocked stage when you find out that so many of your concerns and feelings about your mom, that something wasn't right, are finally being validated.  To have the light go on, it is a relief! Keep reading and learning all you can. Take care of yourself first and foremost. You will not be able to change your mom, and it is clear that you love her and care for her very much. As you gain understanding, you will find opportunities to release yourself from the guilt you feel.

Looking forward to hearing more from you!

 
Wools

[Naughty Nibbler]

Welcome Edrn226:   

Congrats on the upcoming baby.  I'm so sorry about the latest events with your mom.  You don't need a diagnosis to deal more effectively with a person with BPD traits.  All of the communication skills you can learn here are tools to use in everyday life - with more normal people in the family, workplace, etc. 

Most of us have a few BPD traits.  BPD can be acquired via genetics, environmentally or both.  Until we learn better skills, it is easy to mimic what we have been used to.

It will be helpful for you to read about FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) and BOUNDARIES.  You shouldn't feel guilty about asserting a boundary with your mom in regard to your fiance

There are links to is a lot of helpful information to the upper right of this post.  The additional links below could, also, be helpful (click on the green words, or the green address):

FOG
BOUNDARIES

The additional links below, contain info. about validation.  Validation doesn't mean that you agree with someone's position.  You don't validate what is invalid, but you acknowledge someone's feelings.  More importantly, you don't want to invalidate. 

VALIDATION

VALIDATION - DON'T INVALIDATE

AVOID CIRCULAR ARGUMENTS

I'm so sorry that your mom may not be there, when you deliver the baby.  Another way to look at it is that it will likely be more peaceful for you, if your mom isn't living with you and adding stress.  You can look at you current situation as a break from your mom.  It can give you time to learn some communication skills.  Perhaps you will have an opportunity to get back in touch with your mom, with some new tools to use with her.

You can't change your mom.  It is very common that people who have BPD or exhibit strong traits of BPD won't get help.  What you can do is change the way that you interact and react.

Look over some of the lesson links. Take your time and don't feel overwhelmed.  A good place to start is with FOG and BOUNDARIES at the above links.  Check them out and let us know what you think.

[Edrn226]

It's been a while since I made this post, and honestly don't know if I'm doing this right to where anyone will see it or be able to respond to it... .
I honestly thought that if I took some time to process replies, read about the disorder more in depth, try to develop some communication skills, that maybe I would feel better. Maybe I'd be able to talk to my mom without going around in circles. Honestly, all I feel is overwhelmed. I've read the articles and posts people suggested. I read about FOG and validation and how to not invalidate. I read other people's posts who have a BPD mother. I don't feel any different. I don't feel like I understand more. I definitely don't feel less guilty.
I've been trying to come up with how to word things for when my mother came back into my life. Trying to form sentences that will make sense to her, that won't invalidate her, that she will understand. Tonight was the first phone call I've had with her in over a month, and it went horribly.

I'm frustrated. I'm hurt. I'm aggravated. I can't keep doing this. We just end up in the same argument over and over again and nothing gets accomplished. She hangs up on me and says things like "I don't need you in my life" or "I should have never reached out to you". How do I get through to her? How do I fix this never ending cycle of ineffective communication? If she's so quick to cut me out of her life, should I even keep trying? Is it even worth it, if that's not what she wants and all it's doing is hurting me, is it even worth it to keep this relationship hanging on by a thread?

[Woolspinner2000]

Welcome once again, Edrn226. 

I'm sorry that you are hurting and frustrated. I understand the overwhelmingness as you learn about BPD. Can you take a step back and just breathe? You don't have to fix it. I know you feel like you do and you want to, but you don't. Hang in there with me as I try to explain.

These feelings of blaming oneself-I get them. When my mom told me that she wanted to go and kill herself because of me, truly it wasn't my fault even though she said it was. I believed it was my fault though, for over 50 years. Each time I worked on trying to understand BPD and cope, I felt like my life became a bigger black hole all the time, exponentially getting larger and larger. With time though, even after the first few months, I began to escape the desperate panic and slowly, ever so slowly, I could try to handle one tiny thing at a time that took a lot of mental energy on my part to process and try to understand. Does this make any sense to you?

Something else I would like to share with you from my own experience is that when I left for college (14 hours away from home) for the first time, I think my mom felt like I was divorcing her. She said a lot of things that made me feel really guilty for wanting to get away from her, but I didn't want to end our relationship. We were quite close, very enmeshed. She was still my mom and always would be. Nonetheless, she clearly made known to me that I had left her with no one to talk with, and she was so lonely, and then she left my dad. I blamed myself. It took me a long time to work through that too. With the help of a T, I was finally able to navigate the troubled waters that had flooded over me emotionally.  Do you have a T to talk with who is familiar with BPD? It has been a lifesaver to me.

The cyclical/circular arguments are so tough when speaking to a pwBPD. One skill I tried that worked pretty well for me was to think of my uBPDm approaching me with all her anger and accusations, pushing and shoving to break down the 'metaphoric' gate that was around me. If I didn't try to hold the gates shut but just let her push them open, she found that there was no resistance from me, and that no fight was going to take place.  I tried it a few times and it worked fairly well. For those moments when I didn't pick up the battle she wanted to pick, it deflated her and let the wind out of her sails.

For example: Mom would say, "You don't want me to come to the wedding! You don't think I'm important enough!"
Me: "I'm sorry you feel that way, Mom. What can I do to help you feel wanted? What do you need to hear from me?" It would throw her off track a bit. I was able to validate her feeling badly. All I know is that it helped to slow down the arguments when I spoke with as much kindness as I could muster at that moment. She needed to feel heard. I didn't make any promises, just thanked her for letting me know how she felt.

Do these ideas confuse you more or are they somewhat helpful?
Please keep in touch as I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Wools