Difficultly conversing with ubpd mother

[123sunshine123]

Long time lurker first time poster. Huge thanks to all who post here. It is very helpful to hear about and learn from all your experiences. I am a 56 year old female, in low contact with my 84 year old ubpd mother who lives independently, with my financial support. She  has no chronic conditions so she will likely live another 10 years. I learned about bpd about 20 years ago and have been periodically in therapy and have taken the family connections course. I work on boundaries and recovery from FOG daily. It's a HUGE struggle. I have never posted because the back story always seemed to long to post about. My history with my mom sounds a lot like all the posts here on this board.

Today I am here with a discrete question, looking for advice and what to say when the following situation comes up. Situation -  As she slows down and feels her age she fears death. She has deep regrets and sadness that she has no relationships. I am the last person standing. She has broken a record that we are not close and she has no intimacy (her word not mine) with me and she feels that I have prevented her from having a relationship with my three kids (young adults now in college, living at home with me). We live about 2 miles apart. I see her regularly and help her with many things.  Every single conversation with her she criticizes my lack of sharing with her. I have always felt like I am getting the third degree when she asks questions.  In the past before low contact I felt hurt when she would say something negative about something I thought was positive. She is extremely critical and thinks it's ok to judge and have her opinion and tell me her opinion all the time. Several years ago I was able to establish a boundary that I do not discuss parenting with her, but that does not stop her from bringing up the topic. When she does I end the conversation. Usually she will not change the topic and I have to leave or hang up. She is a fighter and likes to argue (she does not think it is arguing), and she does not notice that I am uncomfortable even when I tell her.

For the last year she has been repeating why am I so closed off and why won’t I share any information with her. I have told her that in the past when I share she has something negative to say about it and it hurts me and I do not like to then have that negative memory and association. She thinks that is thin skinned, and that I always have to be right and that I can't take hearing a different opinion. I have also told her that her negative opinions about everything and me and her criticism do not make me want to share things with her. She calls me boring and rude because I do not share. What I dread the most, I guess what hurts my feeling the most, is when I tell her something like “my daughter and I went kayaking” then at a later date she will say something snide like, “must be nice your daughter does things with you,” “you never would do anything with me.” And “tell me what it's like to have adult kids at home, you moved out and never came back so I never got to have adult kids at home.” All true statements, but all are meant to hurt my feelings, and they do. I live in fear and anxiety thinking about talking with her, seeing her number on my phone, and receiving a text from her.  She completely blames me for not loving her more, for interfering with her parenting of my younger sister (10 years diff). She blames me for interfering with her relationship with my kids. Partially true, in that I was careful but I have never restricted her access to them. I am sure that my low contact is a contributing factor, but so are her ubpd characteristics. I have told her to reach out to them directly and establish her own relationship, it's not my role to facilitate that for her. But she blows up when she hears that. In her heart she believes that I can in fact change her feelings if only I would  . . . fill in the blank, love her more, spend more time with her, give her a better material life etc. She has always been the victim. (She did in fact have a very terrible childhood).

I already limit my encounters with her and focus on the tasks at hand, but I feel between a rock and a hard place when she complains about her lack of intimacy with me and my kids. I tell her I am not her partner or spouse, and I am not a therapist. I have told her that I would only discuss parenting with her if it was in the presence of a therapist as discussion outside that we get nowhere. She says "f*&% therapy." I remind myself that I am an adult and allowed to decide what I will talk about and what I won’t. When she starts with the complaints about my past behavior (low contact, grey rock), I get stuck. I do not know what to say. I see she is hurt and she says she is hurt, but I do not want to change and open myself up to her negativity and criticism.

So I guess this is my question, what are some words to say that are brief, informative, friendly, and firm and will bring an end to hearing her complain about my lack of care for her and lack of intimacy with her and the hurt I have caused her in “keeping her from my kids”?  She is consistently mad at me for putting her in this position  (lonely, isolated, friendless, sad and angry).

So many times when I read this board I think to myself that really this all comes down to what is in my own head, that I have to accept that she will be hurt and mad, and that is the price I pay to protect myself and I have to be ok living with that knowledge. What do you all think?

[zachira]

There are really no words that you can say to your mother that will change her behaviors or what hurtful things she says to you. Keep in mind that the mean things she says to you are how she feels and have little to do with you. My mother who is deceased had BPD. The biggest challenge seems to be to differentiate our feelings from the hurtful comments our mother makes and not take what she says personally which is tremendously difficult and a long learning process, as we daughters of mothers with BPD are often enlisted since birth to be caretakers and take on the overwhelming feelings of our mother with BPD as if they were our own feelings. No matter what you decide to do, what boundaries you decide to set with your mother, having a mother with BPD is a life long sorrow that we grieve at different times and in different ways in the life cycle. Keep us posted on how you are doing and let us know how we can be the most helpful. There are many members on PSI who are daughters of a mother with BPD and have very similar heartbreaking ongoing experiences like you are having with your mother.

[123sunshine123]

It is so hard to accept that there are no words that will change her behavior. Why is it so hard? Because I posit, in other healthy relationships other people are responsive to feedback, and because they value the relationship, they modify their behavior based on feedback. This common response can never be expected from a person with ubpd. Their needs are so big and so immediate that there is no space for attending to anyone else's needs or differences.  This makes me angry. Anger I have learned is often second to other emotions such as hurt. It is very difficult to admit that what she says and how she behaves hurts me. Thank you for your comment Zachira “having a mother with BPD is a lifelong sorrow that we grieve at different times and in different ways in the life cycle.” I agree.

I find that during conversation I am at a loss in what to say in response to her negativity or criticism, in my effort to “not taking what she says personally” my reactive mind wants to rebut her with facts. But facts we have learned are not effective when dealing with feelings. I really REALLY struggle with validating her perspective when it is so opposite my outlook. Funny/not funny it feels like any sharing I do puts her in the same position as she rebuts my more positive outlook. Any debate drives her immediately to her broken record blame/victim story where her negativity is because she had no one to help her over the course of her life and she is negative because she has had a hard life, and I would be negative too if I had her life experiences. It’s more than a negative outlook, its deep neediness, desperation, anxiety and regret that can never be soothed or lessened.

I will work on a short statement that I can use when she asks why I won’t share and when she complains that I keep her from her grandkids that will communicate that I do not want to have a conversation about those topics because the conversation is not productive.  It’s so awkward to say “you know mom, this topic often causes us to argue because we think differently about it. Because we seem not to agree, I prefer not to get into it again.  Let’s change the subject.” If she can’t change the subject, then proceed to ending the conversation. It’s hard to have to say this over and over nearly daily. It’s hard bc of guilt. Guilt and obligation are what propels me to give in to her demands. She is relentless and it’s easier to do what she wants and to be quick about it to get her to shut up. She simply cannot stop obsessing and demanding and arguing until she gets her way. So, when I do end a conversation, she is not getting her way, and her anger starts to build. She thinks that a good daughter would be enmeshed, that would be her happy place. Nothing short of enmeshment would stop her demanding more intimacy. And until my last dying breath I believe that there is no amount of closeness that can ever fill her up (especially if she is not seeking therapy).

Thank you for letting me vent. I welcome all suggestions and feedback.

[zachira]

It is so powerful for you to have discovered that underneath the anger is often sadness. We can stay stuck in anger, and keep repeating the cycle of anger which does not bring about long term relief. Focusing on the sadness, grieving the losses can be very healing. I have had to learn how to cry deeply like people do in some cultures when a loved one dies which brings me relief and resolution. It is hard to heal when our mother with BPD is still alive and continues to abuse us with hurtful comments no matter how many kind generous things we do for her. Often we get stuck in the fear and anger, as we become less tolerant of the abuse and know that a new round of abuse is coming. You are not alone in feeling the need to help your mother and not go completely no contact. It is so painful when there seems to be no relief in sight from all the abuse. Keep us posted and keep working on ways to set boundaries that limit your contact with your mother. It is possible to be in her presence yet find ways to set boundaries that make her hurtful comments less impactful on your wellbeing both in the moment and long term. What do you do for self care?

[Notwendy]

Your relationship with your mother is similar to mine in the later years of her life. There was a time when I did share personal information with my BPD mother, assuming this was a normal thing to do, and not knowing about BPD. Looking back on what was "intimacy" with her was different than what we think of as a close relationship.

It may have appeared that the sharing was both ways, but for my BPD mother, learning personal information about me (and later my children as they got older) seemed more like information gathering to her. It gave her a sense of power to be in this position.

I realized later that BPD mother lied- a lot. I don't know how much of her "sharing" was actually true.

Conversations with her felt like interrogations. She would ask probing questions and also questions that seemed like "fishing" for information. She wanted to know all about the kids- normal for a grandmother but also it felt like she was using this for her own emotional gratification, more than I was comfortable with.

I also couldn't trust her to not share personal information with others.

So, we stopped sharing personal information in conversations with her- and also the kids did as well as they got older. She did sense this, and also claimed I was "keeping her from the grandchildren". There was another boundary I was concerned about and that was that BPD mother could also overshare and I didn't want the children to be put in a position of emotional caretaker for her.

I also noticed that the less I emotionally reacted to BPD mother, the more distant our relationship felt to me. I wondered if the feeling of emotional closeness with her was actually drama, and that as I worked on my own emotional reactions, less drama, it felt like less connection.

I did not live close to her but remained involved with her in her later years. It also seemed like she was critical of my attempts. Phone calls with her consisted mainly of her discussing her feelings, sadness, hurt feelings.

There really wasn't much to say to help her feelings- we can't control someone else's feelings. It is difficult to hear them but it may help to keep in mind that these aren't about you, even if she's directed them at you. I learned to not say anything that may resemble JADE, or feel like a criticism to her. It seemed that her own feelings were overwhelming to her.

BPD mother's emotional needs were huge and the need seemed impossible to "fill" up. I tried what I felt I could to help her while maintaining my own boundaries. It wasn't enough. But I don't know what could have been enough. I also felt it was not my children's responsibility to meet her emotional needs. I expected them to treat her with respect and they did, but they were not obligated to share their personal information with her.