BPB mother sends extravagant gift to my children

[Aisling1]

Hi all,


According to my therapist my mother probably has BPD. My childhood was extremely traumatic and unhappy. I was the middle child of 3 girl. My oldest was Golden Child and I was scapegoated for everything difficult in the family from a very young age. My mother would have these hours long "mommy dearest" style tirades that went on for hours once a week. The rest of the time I was ignored or treated with veiled disgust and hostility, punctuated by extremely extravagant gufts and demands for gratitude and shame over how I could he so awfultwhrn they give me such extravagant gifts. I could not figure out how to get any normal love or acceptance.

By adolescence I firmly believed that I was disgusting and there was something seriously wrong with me. Exhausted from the constant provocations and no-win situations I tried to kill myself multiple times.

At 35, with a loving husband, 2 kids under 4, and years and years of therapy, I have recovered from negative self-assesments, but still have episodes of being triggered, especially when things get close to affecting my kids.

I have prided myself on keeping a low-contact relationship with my parents for the past several years. They aren't all bad, and the good times can be really good! I realize that the good years of the past came at the expense of my little sister who took on the role of the scapegoat and lost her marriage as a result of my mothers mind games and psychological abuse.

Something happened one year ago that changed everything. It's complicated but tue GC showed up suddenly at an extended vacation she said she wasn't going to, and her husband suggested that I was molesting my neice in a closet and cursed at me about it infront of both our kids. After my 3yo daughter asked him about it later, asked him to be nice to me. My sister went around to all my aunts and uncles saying that I was psychologically abusing my daughter, coaching her to hurt others and using her as a pawn in my interpersonal dramas that stem from my mental illness.

I was tired, having a 4mo son and hadn't slept in months. My husband was losing his job and wasn't there bc he had to work. There was so much stress. And absolutely crushed that my aunts and uncles watched all this happen and no one stepped in to try to protect me. I used to love them and hold them in such high regard. But my sister and mother have spent this whole year turning people against me, suggesting horrible things about me and have been effevtive in cutting me off from my entire family. It has been exhausting for my family in the middle of a very difficult move and the losses of relationships and isolation has been devastating.

I have been trying to repair things with my parents for this year, if only to get them to stop turning the people I really care about against me, but they say they are not willing to see me untill I am privately paying for a DBT therapist and admit that I have Borderline Personality Disorder, which i guess is tantamount to me accept the scapegoating/whipping boy role.

I have a therapist. I always have one because growing up in this situation I have a lot of trouble knowing what is reality and what is not. People accuse you of things that never happened, twist events and ascribe motivations that aren't true, and say you are lying and/or insane when you try to discuss thins that they did that were not so nice. My therapist is focused on EMDR and she is great, and she is also within network, that all seems very reasonable to me. She is not willing to see my parents right now. Actually she strongly recommends no contact.

I have said that I am willing to engage in mediation with them if they what to enlist someone. But they wont do it because they say they need to set firm boundaries with me by demanding who I see, what specialty and that i pay for it, before they are willing to engage with me. (I know.

[Aisling1]

My post was too long!

To go on. My daughter is turning 4 this week and I invited my parents to the party, because they blocked me from xmas, easter, my dad's 70th bday hosted by my sister and the yearly extended family reunion. I didn't want to do the tit for tat and also didn't want to give them another bad thing to say.

Yesterday I got this huge package in the mail for my daughter with many many expensive gifts, preciously wrapped with a card going on and on about how much my mother misses my daughter and thinks of her everyday and wishes they could be together. She's 4 and doesn't read of course.

My instinct is to send the package back saying "Please no presents until we can be comfortable in each others presence". But hesitant to give them something to use aginst me now, or use against me in turning my daughter against me later.

I am concerned about having all these presents around and every time I see them, being reninded of the pain and rejection.

Has anyone been in a similar situation and have any advice?

Thank you so much for your time... .

[Donalith]

I don't have any advice as of yet but I do have some questions. I don't need the answers but it might help you to think about them:

Why does it feel like you are defining your "self" and your self-worth by the standards of other people?
What do YOU want for yourself and your children?
If your relatives didn't exist how would you live your life?
If you have an answer for that question, would why would the answer be different simply because you have relatives?

It's true that we don't grow up in a vaccuum (sometimes it feels more like a vortex) and our past has shaped our present. It doesn't have to shape our future.

[SilverNight]

Hey Aisling1!

So my grandma (who we suspect has BPD or something like it) used to do the same thing with sending extravagant gifts to us kids. As far as I know, my parents never said anything to my grandma about them, neither denying or acknowledging we received them. We would either donate the presents or keep them if they weren't going to remind us too much of her. This was just my experience, though, and I am but a young 20-something. This is just my suggestion.
Also, with the building borders thing, one book that's really helped me build my own borders is this book called Surviving a Borderline Parent: How to Heal Your Childhood Wounds & Build Trust, Boundaries, and Self-Esteem by Kimberlee Roth and Freda B Friedman. I think it might help you as well. 

[Fie]

Welcome !

I am very sorry to hear that your upbringing was so difficult. I am also sorry to hear that you still are experiencing trouble with your parents. It never ends, does it ?
I am in a sitution that is a bit similar as yours.

I am 38. My mum is BPD, my dad probably NPD. My sis probably BPD, and on it goes ;-)
I am incredibly lucky to have a great kid, she's 9.

I am NC with my parents. I stopped going to family functions, because I was sick of being shunned and ignored. The only time my parents wanted to see me and my child was at those special occasions (Christmas, birthdays, etc). I guess they wanted to keep up appearances, posting pictures on fb and so. For the rest of the year, we didn't exist. They also didn't want to visit us, even upon being invited. So after years and years I finally decided I couldn’t do it anymore, going to their things. I have felt guilty for that (very), but not anymore. And actually the initial reason I first stopped going was that they never wanted to come see us, it was always the other way around (‘we lived too far’ – we live at one hour drive).

Some time after that,  I discovered my mum has BPD and I told my sister about it. Unfortunately my sister retold everything to my mum  :-(.

After that, everything went even more downhill. They started to ignore me even more, and started to isolate me even more also (my mother has always kind of done it. She hated it when I had friends and she hated that I had a good relationship with my grandmother. She prevented sleepovers at one point. I thought my grandma had rejected me. I only found out the real reason right before she died, last year). They have even contacted the father of my child (we are not together), telling him they are not allowed to see their grandkid (not true) and asking him if they can see her through him.

I have asked my parents to not spread lies, and I have confirmed to them that they can see their grandchild. I have told them they can contact me for that, not the father of my kid. They have been ignoring my wish.
I have never understood why my parents suddenly 'pop up' now and then, to make a claim about wanting to see my child, and then drop her for the rest of the year. I used to get so tremendously sad about it. I wanted to give my daughter a family ! For years I have tried to give her that, asking my parents to visit us, etc. It never worked.

Now ... .I gave up. And I think even that it's better for my kid that she doesn't see them. If my parents treat me in a mean way, why would it be any different with their granddaughter ?

We are trained to put our BPD's needs firsts. To think about them - not about ourselves. And in our society, there is such a big emphasis on family. But what about our children ? Do we really want they'd be treated the way we were ? Also I think, for me it was important to give up hope. I had to accept that my parents were not capable of showing me love. They never have, throughout my whole childhood. Why would they suddenly change ? Why would they suddenly love me for the adult I am now, if they are not even able to love me as my innocent child version of myself ?

For years, I tried to explain everything to my child. Grandma is not well 100%, it's not your fault, there is something not wired correctly, etc. I am still behind that approach, in that children, even if they are really young, should understand that certain behavior is 'off'. For me when I was young, black was white and white was black. You know how it is with BPD. I will never allow that to happen with my kid. Black is black, and white is white. Grandma displays BPD behavior ? It should be pointed out that this kind of behavior is not normal, and not acceptable. I will not have my child think that it's fine, or even that it's her fault. 
 But I have stopped to over-explain. I realize now I did that because I felt guilty.
I so much understand your situation with the toys your parents sent your child.

But you know what ? You are the mum of your kid. You love her, and you have her best interest at heart. That is not something that necessarily can be said from her grandparents. You have a choice. This choice can be anything. You can sent back the gift, with or without explanation. But you can even make it easier, not communicate at all, so you will not be on the drama triangle. (very interesting : https://bpdfamily.com/content/karpman-drama-triangle). It’s always great to have less drama for us children of BPD. Every opportunity to have less drama is a winning game  
You can give your kid the gift, with or without telling her it’s from her grandparents. But if you already know that this will make you uncomfortable (and I think I would feel the same way !) you could also give it away to someone else, to a second hand shop, etc. Yes, your parents might enquire about it later. And again there, it might come as a surprise to you, but …. You do not owe them any explanation. You can calmly state that it would have caused you uncomfortable feelings, and leave it to that. (That’s something I had to learn: that I do not owe anyone an explanation if I don’t want to give any. My mum has trained me to answer all of her (often privacy invading) questions, and I am still learning that I have the right to remain silent . I have also seen that it can de-escalate a situation also. Some theory behind it : https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=139972.0)
As for the note that was with the gift : my parents do similar things. I am a very honest person, so up till now I have always passed such messages through to my daughter. But I have seen that this is not in her best interest. How on earth do you explain to a child that her grandparents tell her they love her, but their behavior shows something else ? I have difficulty understanding it myself. The only thing I can think of, is that they want control over me through her. They are using her.

I cannot tell you what to do with the note. But I can tell you where it would end, if my parents had sent one : in the garbage.

Please keep posting. A lot of people here understand your story because they have lived similar things. You are not alone.

xx

[Notwendy]

If only to get them to stop turning people I care about against me--


I wish I could do this, but I have no control over what my BPD mother chooses to tell people about me and if they choose to believe her. She succeeded in alienating most of her family from me and also my father.

I grieved these relationships not just from her doings but the idea that they chose to believe her. This was their choice and so I had to accept that.

She has painted me black and has some strange idea that she can have a relationship with my children independent of how she treats me. I also fully believe that if she could rally them to her camp against me she would do that- and she has tried to do that. She even tried that with my husband, taking him aside to tell him "secrets" about me. One thing she likes to do is tell people a secret about me and then tell them not to tell me. This reminds me of grade school children doing this.

Fortunately my children are older and understand BPD. They are in a similar situation as I am- wish to behave respectfully to my mother but not be close to her. She maintains that I am "keeping her from her grandchildren" and so will text/call them ( they have their own phones) . If she didn't have their numbers, she asks around till she gets them and so she has them anyway. Fortunately they have good boundaries. I did keep a boundary between her and them when they were younger, because she did try to take them off one on one with her to rally them to her against me.

I don't want any gifts from her and she hasn't given me anything in decades, even as long as I can recall. I don't know if she bought me presents as a kid or my father did. However, she sends extravagant checks to the kids. I wish she didn't, but it is her choice to do so. Since they are saving for things like college - they accept them. In the grand scheme of things it isn't a problem for a grandparent to send a gift to a grandchild if this was a normal situation. However, the background is the ulterior motive- she is trying to solicit them as her allies. Fortunately it isn't going to work.

It's your choice what to do with your children and the gifts. For me, I had to have boundaries between them and my mother until I felt they were mature enough to understand her situation and have their own boundaries with her.

[Panda39]

I see this with my SO's uBPDxw and her daughters... .we all know that these kinds of gifts come with tons of strings attached and involve all kinds of games.

My SO's uBPDxw promised D16 a much desired Tablet, the first question always is will mom actually get what she is promising   There is always about a 75:25 chance that it's all just lip service.  But she actually did get the Tablet showed up to give it to D16 and instead gave it to D20.  D20 took it not knowing that it was promised to D16. So of course D16 is crushed and the Tablet is now coming between the two of them.  It should be noted that D20 was and is very low to no contact with her mom... .so mom was trying to bribe D20.

So no matter how you look at it the Tablet was toxic.  So dad and the girls sat down an talked about it and they decided to return it. They did what was good for the two of them, put their relationship before "things" and they stepped of the drama triangle that mom had gotten started. I was really proud of them!

Panda39

[Notwendy]

My mother dangles things in front of my children and if they show interest, there are strings attached. They have learned not to buy into this. I understand that this behavior comes from her own fear of abandonment and her desperate wish to have her grandchildren like her, but this has the opposite effect on them. They don't like it and it bothers them.