mom and diaper changes

[Depression = 72% of members]

My mom has NPD and BPD characteristics. After a long battle with PTSD, a suicide attempt, and a lot of therapy, I feel that I'm getting to a good place with regards to my own mental health. I am currently trying to figure out my boundaries with my mom.

She and I have a distant relationship. She was emotionally abusive (highly critical and would go out of her wait to start fights - trying to bait me into arguing or crying with taunts and lies). She was also would I would deem sexually inappropriate. She would not allow me to lock my door, would walk around naked, comment on my body, and expose me to other people (by opening my door when I was changing and there were guests, or opening dressing room doors). Even now, she tries to touch my breasts and comments lewdly about my body.

When I was pregnant last year, she was awful. She belittled me the entire time, had outbursts about made up occupancies, and mimicked my pregnancy symptoms in some type of weird competition with me. I stopped talking to her in my 3rd trimester and didn't resume speaking until my baby arrived. She has behaved a bit better, but I don't trust her.

That brings me to now. I was at her house and was in the middle of something so I asked her to take the baby to my husband, who was upstairs. My mom is not allowed alone with the baby. Come to find out, she took him upstairs and told my husband I wanted her to get the diapers. When my husband went to change him an hour or so later, he had on a backwards diaper, so we knew she changed him. She went and got him from my husband later on and said she was bringing him to me and changed him again. We saw bc his diaper was on backwards again. She knows how to change a diaper so I also found that very odd.

She had been asking to change him all day and we kept saying no, we'd do it. Under no circumstances do I want her changing my child. I don't even necessarily think that she would do anything inappropriate, but I cannot say for sure. She had no personal boundaries w me so I can't trust her w my kid. I feel horrible that I even trusted her to take him upstairs to his dad. I'm creeped out that she went out of her way to sneak and change him and feel like I should've known better. Being sneaky about it validates my concerns. I thought I saw her going out of her way to look at my son's private area when I was changing him, but thought I may have been exaggerating. I talked to my husband and he said he thought he noticed too.

I have decided that we won't be staying with her anymore. But I just feel so dumb and so worried.

[clover]

My mom has NPD and BPD characteristics. After a long battle with PTSD, a suicide attempt, and a lot of therapy, I feel that I'm getting to a good place with regards to my own mental health. I am currently trying to figure out my boundaries with my mom.

She and I have a distant relationship. She was emotionally abusive (highly critical and would go out of her wait to start fights - trying to bait me into arguing or crying with taunts and lies). She was also would I would deem sexually inappropriate. She would not allow me to lock my door, would walk around naked, comment on my body, and expose me to other people (by opening my door when I was changing and there were guests, or opening dressing room doors). Even now, she tries to touch my breasts and comments lewdly about my body.

When I was pregnant last year, she was awful. She belittled me the entire time, had outbursts about made up occupancies, and mimicked my pregnancy symptoms in some type of weird competition with me. I stopped talking to her in my 3rd trimester and didn't resume speaking until my baby arrived. She has behaved a bit better, but I don't trust her.

That brings me to now. I was at her house and was in the middle of something so I asked her to take the baby to my husband, who was upstairs. My mom is not allowed alone with the baby. Come to find out, she took him upstairs and told my husband I wanted her to get the diapers. When my husband went to change him an hour or so later, he had on a backwards diaper, so we knew she changed him. She went and got him from my husband later on and said she was bringing him to me and changed him again. We saw bc his diaper was on backwards again. She knows how to change a diaper so I also found that very odd.

She had been asking to change him all day and we kept saying no, we'd do it. Under no circumstances do I want her changing my child. I don't even necessarily think that she would do anything inappropriate, but I cannot say for sure. She had no personal boundaries w me so I can't trust her w my kid. I feel horrible that I even trusted her to take him upstairs to his dad. I'm creeped out that she went out of her way to sneak and change him and feel like I should've known better. Being sneaky about it validates my concerns. I thought I saw her going out of her way to look at my son's private area when I was changing him, but thought I may have been exaggerating. I talked to my husband and he said he thought he noticed too.

I have decided that we won't be staying with her anymore. But I just feel so dumb and so worried.

[Avriel]

My uBPD sister also tends to behave in sexually inappropriate ways similar to the ones you mentioned with your mother. Not quite as bad, fortunately--the fact that she is my younger sister, rather than my mother, helps. I guess your mother was perhaps putting the diaper on backward so you would know she changed the baby, despite your wishes? It sounds like something my sister might do in one of her goofy/inappropriate moods.

Are you thinking of only meeting your mother in neutral locations, like a restaurant or a park, in the future? If you want to continue being in contact with her, neutral locations, particularly public ones, would offer fewer opportunities for her to be inappropriate in a sexual way. It's good that you've already tried to set a firm rule against her being alone with your child. Obviously she's going to try to push any boundaries you set, as she did in this instance, so I don't think you should blame yourself. You're thinking ahead to avoid future recurrences, which is the important thing.

[Turkish]

Hi clover,

This is concerning, and I'm glad you reached out to others here  

We have a couple of members here who experienced mdsa (mother daughter sexual abuse), and this is heartbreaking to hear that she may still be doing it to you.  It seems like your H is aware of your past given the agreement that your baby not be alone with her,  yes?

Gavin deBecker's book,  The Gift of Fear talks about trusting your gut when it comes to dangerous situations.  He also wrote a book for parents regarding keeping children safe.  

Protecting The Gift

Enforce these boundaries,  they are not "dumb." Trust your gut.  

Two years ago I had to report my ex-law 17 year old uncle of my then 2-3 year old daughter.  I felt dumb, guiltily,  and all sorts of emotions. I found out later that my ex had raised concerns to her mother and was rebuffed and guilted into no action.  Guilt is the poison which enables suffering and pain.

I'm not saying to report your mother,  as from what you describe there's nothing reportable. However,  make those boundaries rock solid for the sake of your baby son.  

And this brings us to you... .what can you do to make yourself safe?

I know that this is extremely triggering and brutal stuff to discuss.  We're all anonymous here, and we're all used to supporting each other through this tough stuff.  



Turkish

[Notwendy]

My mother has poor sexual boundaries as well. I didn't leave her alone with my children when they were little. I didn't worry about sexual inappropriateness, but I didn't trust her alone with them. Fortunately, she had little interest in hands on baby care.

Where she got inappropriate was not with touching but with sharing TMI and also asking invasive questions. When the kids got older, she began asking questions about dating and if they were interested in dating and that is when I started to help them to set boundaries with her. She seemed to see them as peers- wanting to go off with them and talk- so I told them to not be alone with her. I also told them they didn't have to share any personal information about their feelings or dating with her.

Trust your gut. Boundaries are important - for you and for your infant- who will grow up to be a teen and adult one day- and needs to be protected from this kind of thing. My children did see my parents- but always with some supervision- someone was there too- me, my husband or another relative.

When the kids got older, I had to have these boundaries. This made my mother angry. She has complained I "kept her from her grandkids" My father got angry at me too. ( he was her rescuer) but my job as a parent is to protect my children from emotional or physical harm. It's your job too- keep them safe from this kind of thing. Fortunately a diaper change has little emotional consequence to a baby at this time, but your mother does not respect physical boundaries. I would agree with you to not let her be alone with your baby.

[Harri]

Hi clover and welcome to the board!  

While your mother's behavior with you may be classified as inappropriate sexual behavior, it also meets the definition of mdsa (mother daughter sexual abuse) as mentioned by Turkish.  I mention this because so many of us who post on the coping and healing board as well as many of the SO's of people with BPD tend to think of what you described as less offensive than more obvious sexual abuse, especially within the context of motherhood and, only to a slightly lesser degree, in the context of female sexual abusers.  

Sexual abuse/ inappropriate behavior/ sexualized behavior==== ALL of it is damaging.  ALL of it is bad.  A 'study' has shown that 19% of incarcerated women diagnosed with BPD self-reported as having committed acts of sexual abuse.  mdsa is considered to be rare but over time more and more cases are being reported and the topic is being discussed more openly which seems to negate the supposed rarity of mdsa.  Sexual abuse by females is real and is far more prevalent than most people think.

Regardless of how you choose to label your experience while growing up and even now when she tries to touch you, your gut is telling you that your mother can not be trusted, not with you and not with your child.  Listen to your gut.  It is not steering your wrong.

You are not dumb for letting your mother carry him upstairs.  Who would ever think she would disrespect your parental wishes by sneakily changing his diaper?  Who would think that even allowing her to be alone with your son for mere minutes would be enough time to violate your trust?  Now you know better and I am sure you will be more more strict regarding what she can do with him.   Not staying with her is a great decision.  

Your instincts are good on this issue.  I am sure you will continue to protect your son.  I wish for you that someone had protected you in the same way.  I was sexually abused by my mother in more severe ways, but I also experienced the so called lesser degree of sexual abuse from her.  Again, all of it is damaging and can really mess with your head.  Good for you for getting help and healing.

I hope I did not push you away by coming on too strong and talking about mdsa.  It is an ugly topic for sure and tests so many peoples ideas regarding sexual abuse, motherhood and family.

I am glad you posted and hope to read more of your posts.  

Be well.

[clover]

Thank you all for your replies.

It is reassuring to hear that my concerns about her actions are not exaggerated. I have been so conditioned to accept her behavior that I often wonder if I am overreacting or being cruel. I will trust my gut when it comes to her interactions with my children.

I see how she interacts with the other children in my family (cruel, belittling, asking probing questions, but passive aggressive enough to claim deniability - I've called her out and she's tried to project her behavior onto me) and it makes me angry for them and concerned for my own children. I definitely do not want my children to feel the effects of my mom's abuse. All of the dysfunction has to end with me.

Of all of the things that she has done throughout my life, the sexual abuse things are the hardest for me to wrap my head around. I am so uncomfortable around her - I don't even want to sit next to her and I hate for her to hug or touch me. Before having my son, I'd cry at the idea of her ever being with them alone or changing/dressing them. I just cannot take any chances with her. I try to spend less time with her but not so much less that she would know that that's what she is doing, because I fear then that she would be even more sneaky at the times that we are around. But I suppose that we are already at that point, so I cannot worry about her reactions. I just need to worry about the kids.

Thanks again for your kind responses.

[Harri]

Hi again clover. 

Accepting the unacceptable from our disordered parents seems almost inevitable when we are raised in such chaos and those unacceptable behaviors become our norm.

Again, I think you are right to not trust your mother with your children.  Oh, and congrats on the soon to arrive little one!  Your mother has proven to be unworthy of your trust. 

How would you feel about speaking up and calling her on her behavior when she talks to or treats one of the kids in an abusive way? 

As far as your own kids, you do not owe her any explanation as to why you do not have her provide childcare or diaper changes (or move in with you---> I read your other thread).  Simply say No.    No explanation is needed.  Not one.  You could tell her directly that you do not trust her (not sure if she is the violent type or if you want to take this route) or you can make excuses (works for some people here.  with my mother I had to be direct and hard-lined).

If you ever want to talk more about the sexual abuse, this is a good and supportive place to do so.  I have found people to be very supportive and understanding and interested in helping me figure out how to process things.  I am also in therapy, but I can tell you that you can do quite a bit of healing by posting here as well. 

Take good care.

[clover]

Thank you, Harri.

I do not feel comfortable confronting her about the diaper changing. I have tried to be honest with her in the past about behaviors that make me uncomfortable, but she views any disagreement/boundary as a challenge. I think that she sensed (from us repeatedly saying no) that DH and I did not want her to change him, and that is why she snuck to do so. She knows that I do not like to be hugged or touched (by her), but still attempts to touch me every time I see her. Her excuse is that I let DH touch me, which... .I don't even have enough time to unpack the levels of disgusting and messed up that is. I feel that keeping my children physically distant at all times from her is the safest way to protect them.

I am comfortable confronting her when she says something rude to them. I will not tolerate it. She speaks rudely to younger children in my family, and I have called her out. She responds by deflecting, lying, or blowing up. I am thinking about this a lot - I am wary of my children being around her because I think that she will take every chance that she gets to ask our children probing questions and make sarcastic remarks towards them.

I have been practicing what to say when she inevitably asks to move in with me and my family, but you are right: "no" is enough of an answer. I find it very hard to converse with her because she lies and gaslights even with the smallest things. There is no way to have a conversation with her that's based in reality. All conversations are her trying to manipulate a situation to her benefit and based on her presumptions about how evil and unappreciative I am.

[LittleBlueTruck]

Clover, your story is so eerily similar to mine that my hairs stood on end. Down to the backwards diapers! I unfortunately did not figure out how sick my mom is until after she moved in and was our childcare for about a year.

She never touched me inappropriately (in fact, never touches me, maybe an awkward hug once per year). But her sexuality was hugely and inappropriately in my face my whole childhood. She discussed her sex life, had very loud sex with different men, discussed sex scenes in movies... .it was extremely traumatic for me. I am so sorry about the touching and the exposing you. How creepy and abusive.

We never really figured out what was up with putting on the clothes and diapers backwards with my kids. Trying to goad us into mentioning it so she could accuse us of attacking her? I honestly don't know. And my mom has also been bad to my neices and nephews. I have had to come to my nephews defense when he was like 3 or 4 after my mom was ascribing motivations to him he couldn't possibly have. She is moving out of my house next week. We asked her to leave after we intercepted a lot of manipulative behavior towards my 2.5 year old and bragged to us about how she held him down while he kicked and screamed after he wouldn't nap. I still can't really think about that without shutting down or crying.

She sounds exhausting and awful. I truly feel your pain. Down to the weirdly mimicking your pregnancy symptoms! Same. Exact same.

[clover]

Wow, LittleBlueTruck - so many similarities! I am so sorry that you have had to deal with this.

My mom ascribes outlandish motives to children, too. She maintains that children are not to be believed over adults and has accused children of lying or being manipulative to degrees that they are incapable of. To me, it's a cover for her abusive behavior. She also told me that I accused a family member of sexually abusing me (she told me this in front of my DH as we were leaving to celebrate our anniversary, while smiling) - I don't think I ever said this, and if I did WHY did she not do something abut it? And she believes another family member is lying about horrific abuse they suffered as a child. I think she would put my children in danger and then lie about it.

It's all just so, so creepy. I have a hard time dealing with it, but since my son was born I feel this panic and strong gut feeling to keep my children as physically far away from her as possible, and to always be a boundary between them and her.

You bring up an interesting point about the goading. That is plausible. DH and I both were like "... .this is backwards." to her when we saw the diaper change, and she did it again. If she was innocently changing him, she (1) wouldn't have snuck and done it and (2) wouldn't have snuck to change him AGAIN and put the diaper on backwards again. At best, it was a power play (to show she doesn't have to listen to us), but that's still bad enough.

We already have quite low contact with her, but as I feared, it just makes her try harder to get he dysfunction in when we are around.

[LittleBlueTruck]

Clover,

I'm so impressed that you're listening to your gut and drawing the boundaries that you are. I can tell you that the guilt of excluding a toxic parent is nothing compared to the guilt of realizing they harmed your child.  That one is really gnawing at me. But you come across really strong in your writing and centered and it sounds like you have done a lot of work getting into a good mental place - good for you.

*** Everything below is sharing my personal experience because my mom moves out in two days and I'm feeling all the feels right now and apparently needed to talk it out - but if you don't have mental bandwidth to read on, there is no pressure to do so and I apologize for hijacking your thread!***

Not to perseverate on the backwards diapers, but this was such a daily frustration for us that I have to again say how bizarre it is to hear it from you too! The first time it happened, I didn't really think much of it at all.  Thought, oh, it's been awhile since she's changed diapers.  We used a mix of disposable and cloth diapers. Whenever she put on a disposable diaper, it was on backwards, way too loose, or she would velcro it to a really bizarre place on the diapers. Constant leaks and blowouts as a result.  With the cloth diapers, she told me that they were way too restrictive on the kids and so she would button one single button, wayyyyy too loose, so they would slide down and cause leaks and really bad rash and chafing.  It also ended up tearing the buttons off most of those diapers (which are expensive) because it was too much pressure on just one button (Thanks for bearing with me while I obnoxiously explain my mother's diapering practices in excruciating detail).  If I told her, she would just stare at me or smile blankly and never, ever change her way of doing it.

Okay, so obviously, I've thought about this a lot.  Like, hours of time devoted to backwards diapers.  It made no sense to me when I was thinking about my mom's behavior through a BPD lens but some theories that I entertained that make more sense through a NPD lens.  And of COURSE, it isn't *really* about the diapers, they are just symptomatic of larger issues.  Diaper theories:

1) She is incapable of having a bad idea.  Once she has it in her head that she has designed a more ingenious way of using some common thing, she gets stuck on it and does not compute information that suggests her way is inferior.  So, so many examples of things like this in my life.  She'll repurpose something in our house to make it "work better" and everyone but her can see that it actually ruins the thing for its original purpose and absolutely isn't working better.  But, she is too in love with her own ideas to see it any different.

2) She actually does not listen to 98% of what I say other than to scrutinize it for opportunities to re-characterize what I'm saying as an attack on her or evidence of my bad character.  In a rare, refreshingly candid moment a few months ago, I was trying to remind her of something I said and she shrugged and said "it might look like I'm listening but I actually don't pay attention to anything you say." It hurt for a hot minute, I won't lie.  But it was also an ah-ha moment. She just could not care less about what I talk about but likes to regularly accuse me of purposefully excluding her from key information and never telling her anything.  Twitch.

3) As I previously mentioned, I also think it's something that seems innocuous and sort of charmingly oopsie daisy but she does it over and over and over again hoping I'll lose my temper and snap at her about it and then she gets to shuffle to a family member, look down at her feet and say that I scream at her if she incorrectly diapers my children in the course of her indentured servitude to us. 

Okay, I just want to acknowledge that the worst part about having someone in your life who engages in emotional abuse on this level is that it triggers in the victim some pretty crazy over-analyzation! I realize how crazy the above seems.  My husband thought I was a little crazy until she lived with us for two years.  Now he thinks I down play her mental illness and that it is actually way worse.

One last thing.  What you said about your mom purposely undermining children.  My spidey sense went nuts with that and I think you're absolutely right that it sounds like she's setting herself up to be in a place of plausible deniability.  How emotionally invalidating and that must have been HELL to grow up with.  My mom's behavior is distinguishable from that.  She invalidates children and ascribes hidden evil motivations but ONLY to the extent that it is directed at her (as in, the small child is making her, the grown woman, a victim) or that it affirms some point she's trying to make.  For example, she was staunchly anti-daycare (yet simultaneously resented the bejesus out of watching my kids) so she now characterizes my toddler's VERY normal toddler behavior as evil and abusive behavior he learned at daycare.  Otherwise, children are perpetual victims of the other adults in their lives (never her; she is the stalwart and self-diagnosed protector of all innocent children). But if the behavior is not directed at her or at another child, then the child is just a poor innocent victim and all the adults abuse the child.

I used to believe my mom was traumatized from her own childhood and was desperate to save and help all kids even when they didn't need it. But her accusations of abuse are actually super harmful to the child.  When I was a child, she used to sit me down and coach me for hours about how my dad abused me, my teachers, my aunts and uncles, you named it.  I still occasionally slip into a victim narrative (go figure) but can mostly consciously think through the situation to determine if I really am being mistreated or if I'm just sleepwalking through that narrative. She lost the privilege to be alone in a room with my son when I heard her saying to him that "mommy doesn't want grandma anymore and is sending her away."  My son is 2.5.  Even if this was an accurate summary of the situation and my mom was a victim to me being some horrible monster, who lays that at the feet of a 2.5 year old? She has lived with four different family members over the last 10 years, all of whom have children.  She has accused the parents in each household of abusing their children.  In the last place she was living, she accused a child of molesting his sister and the parents took the sister to a doctor and psychologist (zero evidence supported that it had occurred and both children denied it ever happened).  Can you imagine how harmful that was to those children? 

I'll stop writing, this is so much to dump out.  I'm just lost in my past and my stupid mom issues these days as she prepares to leave and feeling LESS able to cope than before when there was no end in sight. Again, I apologize for hijacking this and making it all about me. It just feels good to write it out and get it out of my head!