70th birthday craziness

[Lyrebird]

It was my uBPD mother's 70th birthday a couple of days ago and I am in BIG trouble for not organizing a birthday celebration for her (yeah right).

Dad is quite ill with MS and Parkinsons and is unable to walk properly (and therefore can't really go to a restaurant etc). But she sees his illness as a lack of will power on his part, and blames him for ruining her quality of life and stopping her from going out and having fun (she has plenty of fun - just not with him).

She avoided questions from me about what shed like to do so I ended up texting her a few days before her birthday and suggested we do something at their home - that I'd bring food, champagne and cake. She said she was busy - they were going out with friends. I called dad to sort out another time. He said that he was taking her out to dinner - he'd be ok - and that I should not come. I felt a bit hurt, but thought - ok if that's what they want.

An hour later I thought - this doesn't seem right. So i phoned back to talk to mum - no answer on landline or cell phone - I left message. The next day I called three times- straight to voicemail. That night I called again - TWICE. I left a long voicemail saying I was concerned about her and to please call. No response. I also texted again. The next day i called again - no response. BY THEN of course it was the morning of her birthday ... .I called to say 'happy birthday'.  She picked up this time. 

At first she pretended not to recognise my voice, then started speaking in her Voldemort voice - all breathy, and barely holding it together - quite scary. She was SEETHING! Saying I should have spoken to HER to organise something. Why did i only speak my FATHER "... .whose brain isn't functioning properly." (it's functioning better than hers) She said "... .people in MYYY circle consider a 70th birthday to be very important" and that "... .maybe YOU'LL understand when you're MYYY age"  She'd obviously been sulking for the past three days (and torturing Dad) . After about 20 mins of listening I snapped and told her to 'come off it', that i failed to see what else I could have done. That she was emotionally manipulating me (oops - mistake!). She started crying saying she's SOO sorry the phone call "... .has degenerated into THIS... ." (Read - 'I'm so sorry you're such an awful person" etc etc.  Oh My God. I couldn't believe it. I started receiving very long (drunken?) texts from her saying she had ended up doing NOTHING for her birthday and that I (me!) am obviously a very angry person etc etc. Then said she was still available to babysit for me next Wednesday as arranged. ----- What the heck?       

Of course I don't want her babysitting my kids right now! To get out of it I want to pretend that my husband doesn't actually want to go to the party after all, so we don't need a  babysitter anymore. 'Lovely lovely everything's normal tra la la'. But she is going to go ballistic and accuse me of "keeping her grandchildren from her" What do I do? :-(

[Basenji]

Of course I don't want her babysitting my kids right now! To get out of it I want to pretend that my husband doesn't actually want to go to the party after all, so we don't need a  babysitter anymore. 'Lovely lovely everything's normal tra la la'. But she is going to go ballistic and accuse me of "keeping her grandchildren from her" What do I do? :-(

In my experience, my borderline mother can switch on or switch off literally as fast as flipping a switch. Ranting and raving and creating great drama and then acting as if nothing has happened moments later. The rants target certain people at certain times. This can be very hard to deal with, so long as you expect reactions which are normal and reasonable! Whatever you do may be seen as wrong! There will always be an ever higher hoop to jump through! The borderline will ruthlessly exploit any sense of guilt on your part and always seek to be the centre of attention! The child of the borderline becomes psychologically and emotionally enmeshed. In my case it was quite a shock when I realised how much I had been entangled by the game play!

It is obvious that one cannot and should not seek to satisfy all the demands of a borderline person, rather draw some sensible boundaries that work for you to manage the relationship and respect that you are entitled to a healthy relationship with yourself, your husband and your children.

You might ponder whether there is a pattern in her behaviour and cross check against the excellent resources on this website. I am sorry to hear that your father has some health issues: you may or may not find that your mother is responding to a shift in the focus of attention away from her onto your father and children.

I never had kids, if I had, my mother would have only been allowed very limited / supervised access to them if any (others on this blog may have real life experience to share on that topic) to avoid any risk of psychological or emotional harm! I could see that there was a risk that mother would seek to satisfy her adult emotional needs through her interactions with her grandchildren (as she had done with me when I was a child = emotional incest) or seek to undermine my relationship with them to get more attention from me (or them) (as she has attempted with several of my girlfriends until I got wise to it all!). Such a risk is heightened when there is a loss of a partner or fear of separation (my father left home when I was 8 years old).

Of course, my experiences and strategies may have no relevance to your situation (and others here might have alternative ways of looking at the situation) - suffice to say I tend to rethink setting / reviewing / resetting the boundaries around my relationship when these situations come up! I learned not to feel bad about putting myself first!

Oh yeah - I'm still in trouble about my university graduation day in 1984 and am regularly told how hurtful I was for some completely unreasonable perception that the day as all about her and not me! The point is, you just can't afford to have an emotional response when faced with such unreasonable responses and accusations!


 

[Notwendy]

This post could have been written by me when my father was ill.

For me, the best explanation for the situation is the drama (Karpman ) Triangle. My mother is victim- always, with my father in the role of rescuer. These roles are so pervasive for them, that anything that altered them would be disruptive. When he was well, my father was her caretaker in every way- her driver, went grocery shopping, her emotional caretaker. My mother had literally nothing that was her responsibility in the home. My father made his own meals, cleaned up, did his own laundry, and worked to support her. When we were younger, he hired sitters and household help.

I don't think their relationship was easy, but after this pattern had been set for decades, my father's illness was a huge disruption as he was not able to do these things anymore. My mother, being accustomed to victim role, truly saw herself as some kind of victim of being treated cruelly. To me, it looked like he treated her like royalty. But like your mother, she perceived his inability to do these things as purposefully hurting her in some way.

Here is where I was very enmeshed in the drama, and if you will forgive me for saying you are as well- because it takes one to see it. I didn't know any better. Being raised with parents like ours, we don't see it any differently. Since we don't have BPD, we see our ailing fathers as they are, and as victims of our mothers who are being insensitive. There really are few true victims in this drama- most adults have choices- however, children and the elderly who are ill are potential true victims. As caring adult children- we see this,  but our mothers do not.

We had almost the exact same birthday scene with a big event planned and Dad was too sick to be able to deal with it. So we kids stepped in to rescue dad and nixed the plans and instead planned to do something at the home. Well, you can imagine the scene. Mom held it together when company was there but before and after was ranting and raging, throwing the party food in the trash ( even though it was still good). The sad part is that while we attempted to rescue Dad, the result was that he endured hours of verbal abuse. Not knowing the triangle, we tried to figure out what could we have done wrong. We paid for everything, made the arrangements, cleaned up. Mom didn't need to do anything but enjoy the company.

We disrupted the roles in the family by being Dad's rescuers, and also helping out as caretakers. This displaced mother's role of "Victim" with all of us being her emotional caretakers. It took this focus off her and on to Dad. But the major "sin" was stepping in as rescuer to dad. This also disrupted his role of rescuer, and upset the dynamics between them.

Mom's BPD behavior escalated during his illness. I didn't understand these dynamics and then decided to place boundaries on her. Yes, I heard the "you are keeping me from the grandkids". This shifted me into the role of "persecutor". Mom was victim, painted me black to  :)ad and her FOO. So, Dad did what he did best. He stepped in to rescue her- from me- and raged at me. When he died, I didn't know if I was disowned or not. Mom had written me out of the will, wouldn't let me have access to any mementos. I didn't want material things, but some things were sentimental to me. I didn't know if this was Dad's idea or hers, but it was devastating at the time, and Dad isn't here to tell his side of things.

Now, of course according to Mom, nothing happened, she's written me back in to the will and there is no discussion of it.

I do not have regrets that I set boundaries on my mother, but had I known about the triangle, I would have not taken this kind of behavior as personally and not been so reactive about it. I may also have considered the timing. That Dad would step in as her rescuer was inevitable. But I didn't imagine he'd take it as far as disowning me, to keep her happy. I may have curtailed my rescuing behavior with him- let the party go as planned, not stepped into the issues between them as much, because, with their roles being as fixed as they are, stepping in would inevitably place me as persecutor. Or the whole thing might have gone as it went, because I did step in where his health was concerned, and notified his health care team about my mother as I thought it was affecting his care. That was unforgivable.

So- what are you doing? I think you can see yourself as rescuer in this party situation, with Mom getting angry. Then, your decision about her not babysitting may be justified, but it is a reaction to her behavior. You will step on the triangle as persecutor. Guess who is likely to step in to rescue your mother? Your father.

If the pattern has been that your mother is a regular babysitter, and you trust her ( I didn't leave my kids with my mother- she was too volatile) , then it might be best not to change this for now. However, you may want to consider the future. My mother was less of a danger to my kids when they were little than when they were older and she tried to triangulate us by painting me black to them. She also has poor boundaries and began to treat them as peers and also emotional caretakers to her. If you need to set boundaries, consider how to do this, but not as a reaction but a proactive stance.

Pick your battles- when to step in- if Dad is in danger- and when to just leave the dynamics as they are. They existed before you were born, and are pervasive with your parents.

Learn about the triangle.

Be good to yourself. It's hard to watch your father be sick like that. Things might get crazy in your family, but this is a stress on all families. PwBPD don't do well under stress, and it can exacerbate their behaviors. Get counseling if you need support. Try to find some good times with your father if you can, and if things get crazy, try not to take it personally.

[Lyrebird]

Thank you so much for your thoughtful replies Basenii and Notwendy! 

You are both spot on. I have been thinking a lot about what you have said and reading what I can about enmeshment and the triangle. I am certainly enmeshed – no doubt about it. And the triangle is getting worn out with the all the use it is getting! I’m an only child – so our whole family dynamic was one of triangulation. This made for a lot of drama that was really pretty traumatic to have to grow up with.

You are right of course about working out our boundaries re her babysitting our kids. In the last couple of years she just seems to have been so much BETTER. I wanted to think she had turned a corner. I think she has been seeing some sort of therapist and there hasn’t been a meltdown or tantrum for ages. But you are quite right Notwendy, when the kids get older, they (especially my son I think) will be at risk of inappropriate stuff and I can VERY easily see her trying to turn him against me. My husband has been concerned about it before –so there are actually signs already.

I ended up making an excuse about not needing babysitting last week. I was as nice and told her I hope she’s feeling better and apologised for the late reply. I got a short polite message back. So far so good.

The sh*t will hit the fan soon though. She’ll either send a long horrible email or get dad to “talk to me. “  No idea what I will do then, but I’m happy having a break right now.

She does suffer and I do feel sorry for her that she has so many unpleasant emotions – it must be awful. But she ruined great swathes of my life and I need to protect my family now.

Again – thanks for the great advice and thoughts. And Notwendy - amazing that our birthday experiences were so similar!