Cut Off Yet Again

[Scarlet75]

Hello

I've been dealing with an undiagnosed adult son for the past 20 years, on and off. He cuts me off regularly and I'm sort of used to it, however now he has a 1 month old whom I can never see. I met her once.

He texted last night and said it was wrong for him to say I can't see my grand baby but right after that the conversation devolved to him being abusive, name calling, making up stuff he thinks I've said which I haven't, and finally him splitting and cutting me off.

I'm so exhausted from this. My husband and I are planning to relocate out of the country, for many reasons one of which is that when I'm asked I can say yes I have grandchildren! They live thousands of miles away back in the United States so we don't see them very often.

This is absolutely ridiculous. He refused to accept that he may have any sort of mental illness, let alone borderline. I feel really hopeless. The only thing keeping me going is my goal of leaving the country.

Does anyone ever recover from a situation like this or it's really just hopeless?

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[Pook075]

I was in that position with my BPD daughter for a number of years, and what finally changed was me realizing her mental illness and how to communicate with her.  It's been a long, difficult journey but we are now fairly close and have a good relationship.

What books have you read on BPD?  And how does the typical conflict unfold between you and your son?  Do you talk to your grandchild's mom at all (I'm unsure if your son is married or with the mom)?

[js friend]

Hi scarlet75,

The only thing that eventually worked for me was to have boundaries with my udd when we communicated. As soon there was even an inkling that she was going down that path again I would remind her that I would end the call if she continued(If she was in my home and became abusive I would also tell her to leave.)
 
Usually udd would often send a few abusive or offensive texts afterward but I made sure not to respond.

I looked after my 2gc from birth but felt like I walked a tightrope when it came to being in their lives. Whatever I did was NEVER good enough in udds eyes and I was "cut off" many, many times previously...... No texts or calls to say what I had supposedly done to offend.... just suddenly NC...with no regard to my gc's mental health.

Unfortunately we are now estranged and Iam past hope for a reconciliation. The 3rd gc I have never even met and Iam ok with that as it would just be too painful for me and gc to be ripped out of their lives again.


I wish you peace on your journey, Scarlet75 whatever you decide.

[Scarlet75]

Yes I've read all the books and done thousands of hours of research over the past 20 years, as well as worked in therapy both with my ES as well as by myself. I've had different boundaries in place over that time.

This is the 8th or 9th time I've been cut off.

I don"t care to tip toe around ways to talk to him any more. He just baits me until I snap if i'm engaging in that with him. It's not a long term solution for me to "learn" how to talk to him. That lasts a few conversations at most.

We've cycled back and forth between being in contact and not for a few decades. I assure you I've tried everything there is to try.

I just wondered if others have given up because I'm at that point now. It's been 20 years of this for me. I'm wondering if this is a life long commitment or can I just be done. I just disinterested him with bullet proof legal documents.

I wish he'd get diagnosed so we can work on moving forward but he is adamant that he can just medicate himself. He's currently addicted to Kratom, smokes weed daily, and uses psychedelic substances regularly. Oh also, "there's nothing wrong" with him according to him.

There's nothing I can do to change his mindset and he absolutely hates me right now so yeah. I think I'm done. I'm m moving forward to moving out of the country. I guess I'm grateful I got to hold my grand baby once.

[Pook075]

I don"t care to tip toe around ways to talk to him any more. He just baits me until I snap if i'm engaging in that with him. It's not a long term solution for me to "learn" how to talk to him. That lasts a few conversations at most.

Question- why do you let him bait you into anything?  If my BPD kid starts getting aggressive and accusing me of stuff, I'll listen for about 30 seconds maximum before saying something like, "I love you and I enjoy talking, but you're upset and I want to give you time to calm down."

Then I say goodbye and hang up.

Often, my kid calls me later that day and we'll have a normal discussion.  If she starts the blame game or aggression again, I'll try to side-step and ask why she's upset, what happened that day.  She'll tell me or she won't, but I still have that thirty second rule in place.  I'll give you two or three sentences to say whatever you want about me, but then I'm done and the conversation ends.

Does my kid still bait me?  Sure.  But I refuse to take the bait.  I know she's mentally ill and says terrible stuff when she's suffering.  That has nothing to do with me though and I do not accept abuse.  I'll try to help and if that doesn't work, I withdraw.

You see, you're thinking the only "fix" here is for your kid to stop being mentally ill.  That's not a realistic goal though.  The actual fix is learning to respond with love and compassion when possible, and then walking away when it's not. 

I sometimes go weeks or months without talking to my BPD daughter, but we are in a good place despite being more distant.  I don't agree with her lifestyle at all though, so I don't want to be besties and stay in the middle of her drama. 

[Scarlet75]

Question- why do you let him bait you into anything? 

It's tough to get away, he is extremely sneaky and manipulative with placing rude sparky offensive and obnoxious comments in between normal conversation so you don't notice it right away. He thinks its a game or a joke. On my end of things when he does this I'm usually just stupidly glad we are talking.

I also get 500 word essay texts at 3am which are disturbing just because someone is flashing my phone at that time and if I'm in the right stage of sleep it wakes me up and I immediately panic thinking something is horribly wrong with someone in my family. These are essays about all my wrong doing from his childhood which in those cases where I've felt I was actually wrong, I've apologized for sincerely, dozens of times.

Unfortunately my situation doesn't have nice little packaged answers. I cant just read a book or walk on some more eggshells.

[CC43]

There's nothing I can do to change his mindset and he absolutely hates me right now so yeah.

Hi Scarlet,

Wow, you've been dealing with this for over two decades, it's no wonder you're absolutely fed up!  I'm sure you want the best for your son and grandchild, but he is incredibly stubborn in clinging to his victim narrative and using his tactics of blame-raging at you.  Unfortunately, that's typical for untreated BPD. 

You are absolutely right, you cannot change his very negative mindset--only he can do that.  I bet you've tried to be understanding, apologetic and forgiving, and yet he insists in indulging in his temper tantrums and hurling his hatred your way.   If he's doing this, I'd say that (i) he's really stressed out, (ii) emotionally, he feels out of control, and (iii) he has nobody else to rage at in his life, probably because he's alienated everyone else already.  You are his last resort, and yet, he still hasn't learned that hurling hatred your way doesn't solve any problems or make his life any better.  But maybe he lets off some steam in the moment, and he indulges in his episodes, because it makes him feel a little better to blame YOU, as he simply doesn't care about the consequence of hurting you.  In fact, given his victim mindset, he likely thinks you DESERVE such horrible treatment.

At this stage in your life as a grandparent, it's no wonder you're absolutely fed up with it.  And yet it's nevertheless painful, because he's your son, and you would like a relationship with your grandchild.  Alas, there's little you can do, except hope for the best and protect yourself from further misery as best you can.

Look, I know the conventional wisdom is to try to validate feelings, and not the distorted facts or outright lies your kid is telling you (in order to deflect blame and avoid taking responsibility for his life and his choices).  Yet, when he is raging mad and texting hurtful essays at 3am, he is dysregulated and unable to listen to anything you have to say, even though he desperately wants your attention (and to punish you for ancient, perceived transgressions), because why else would he send a text in the middle of the night?  So my advice is, do not engage when he is being mean and acting dysregulated.  In my opinion, replying to the text serves to dignify the text, which is probably the opposite of what you want to do.  Treat those texts like spam, because they are spam--designed to get you to click or respond to something that is not in your best interest.  If I were you, I'd turn off the phone completely at night, or keep it in a drawer or another room entirely, where you'd hear a telephone ring, but not text notifications.  And when he's raging, give him an adult time out, meaning time and space to cool off.  You don't need to tell him you're doing this, just do it, by not responding to a text or by hanging up the phone (I've got to go now, bye).  My advice is, do not interrupt his time outs!  He will decide when he's ready to re-engage in a civil way.  In the meantime, you can enjoy some relative peace.  If you pretend you never saw those mean texts, then he can pretend he never sent them.  That's not such a bad outcome in my opinion.

I guess my take on this is that rage-hating at you is a deflection of your son's stress, doubts and insecurities.  Maybe he's not doing very well at work, or he's unhappy with the relationship with his wife / girlfriend, or he's irritated about how hard he has to work to earn money, or maybe he feels insecure and inferior in some way.  Rather than deal with his issues, he dredges up ancient grievances, probably from childhood, and rages at you, as an attempt to DISTRACT from his current issues and at the same time, BLAME you for all his woes.  He's unleashing his frustrations onto you.  Does that sound about right?  If it does, it's because I've seen similar behavior from the pwBPD in my life.  If I try to respond with empathy, and ask what's going on in her life that makes her feel so sad/hateful/stressed/vengeful, she refuses to talk about it (because that would be too painful)--she refuses to address any real, current issue.  Rather, she will quickly pivot to her preferred, ancient grievances, which are irrelevant and impossible to change--the same old issues she's dredged up dozens of times, but with each re-telling, magnifying and distorting the picture while getting herself into a hysterical hissy fit.  The thing is, NOBODY feels better after the hissy fit, and her problems fester.  So in my experience, I think it's better not to engage at all, because instead of rehashing the same old negative memories, she gets more time to calm down.  I'll try to wait patiently and then try to address the issues of the day, in very small doses, when she's not hysterical.  You see, she's easily overwhelmed by adult life, and she doesn't really know how to address adult problems, and trying to do that while having an angry fit doesn't get anyone anywhere.  Only when she's calm is it possible to try to take baby steps in the right direction.  The thing is, sometimes that means days, weeks or months of waiting.

In the meantime, I'd say, go ahead and live your best life.  You deserve that.

[Scarlet75]

...in my experience, I think it's better not to engage at all, because instead of rehashing the same old negative memories, she gets more time to calm down. 

I agree in theory but in practice I'm always wanting to defend the parts he gets totally wrong and that ends up being a marathon of texts lasting several days and nights of him arguing back. I 100% feel like silence in the face of his exaggerated false accusations can be taken as my agreement with them. I also have realized that he doesn't want a relationship with me. He wants a punching bag.

I appreciate your response though. I probably should've sought out this forum 15 years ago when I would've done anything to fix the relationship. I'm at a place now where I've come to the conclusion that I've done enough.

[CC43]

Hi there,

I think I know where you’re coming from. For me, to JADE—justify, argue, defend and explain—is a natural impulse. After all, when your loved one with BPD is accusing you of being narcissistic, selfish, disrespectful, lazy, manipulative and cruel, it’s natural to want to defend yourself and try to set the record straight, especially after all you’ve done for them!  The accusations are sometimes so outrageous that they’d seem silly, if they weren’t coming from someone you love.  To JADE is to try to impose logic on the situation, which is how most people try to resolve problems. But your son is all emotion in those moments of dysregulation—he won’t respond well to logic. He’ll likely only get angrier, because to JADE riles him up.

Then one day I realized, the pwBPD is just projecting. All those accusations are really what he hates about himself, not me. He is so consumed by his self-hatred that everything he experiences is seen through that distorted, highly negative lens. And he has a lifetime of details he can dredge up to “prove” it, in his warped conception of the world. Anything to blame me for his woes, even if it means he has to lie.

My advice would be to step back and maybe look for projections in your son’s accusations and insults. Then you might see what’s really bugging him. Maybe he feels like a failure, and so he accuses you of not supporting hm enough. Maybe he feels juvenile and accuses you of being condescending. Maybe he feels unloved and accuses you of not being there for him. Maybe he feels powerless and accuses you of being too controlling. Maybe you wouldn’t feel as much need to defend yourself, if you read between the lines of his hate texts, and you accepted that it’s not possible to make him feel better about himself (a core issue for him) by JADEing. Does that make any sense?

I know it’s hard not to take his beatings personally, you’re his mom!  But I bet that deep down, your son doesn’t mean any of the terrible things he’s said. He just can’t control his ill feelings because of BPD. Emotionally, he might be at the level of a young teen, and yet he has to cope in an adult’s world, as a new father no less. He must be suffering right now. I’m sorry that you’re the one he decides to take out his frustrations on. In a way, that shows he still needs you desperately. And yes, he’ll try to cut you off to inflict pain. Preventing you from seeing your grandchild is a common BPD tactic to inflict pain and exert control.  It’s sad but it’s not your fault.

[Scarlet75]

if you read between the lines of his hate texts, and you accepted that it’s not possible to make him feel better about himself (a core issue for him) by JADEing. Does that make any sense?

[/quote

Yes, it does. I recently just figured out that he was projecting all these accusations. ]

[Pook075]

I also get 500 word essay texts at 3am which are disturbing just because someone is flashing my phone at that time and if I'm in the right stage of sleep it wakes me up and I immediately panic thinking something is horribly wrong with someone in my family.

I had that same issue and for years, my phone went into do not disturb mode at 11 PM.  At first, I was worried "what if something happened", but calls from a few other family members would still come through normally in case of emergency.

I completely understand what you're saying about your son being vulgar, aggressive, etc.  It took me over a decade to learn not to fight back or defend myself.  It's so unfair, I completely understand.  But until you put up boundaries by saying that "you're not going to speak to me that way", it's only going to get worse over time.  I now do that lovingly, without blame, and just say that we can talk later.

My kid hasn't "gone off on me" for about a year and a half now.  And it was another year before the last time she really lost it.  So I've been told off once in the past 2.5 years, and it was only because she was in crisis due to something else entirely.

As I said, it took such a long time to get to this point.  Most of the changes were on my end though; learning not to fight back and realizing that the anger comes from disordered thinking.  It had nothing at all to do with me, the problems were due to mental illness and that deserves compassion.  It's so hard not to take it personally but I finally got there, and I finally found peace with my BPD kid as well.

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders