Bf's BPD mom wants me to go inpatient and fixates on my sleep patterns/fatigue

[squirrellykate]

Hi I am relatively new here. I live with my 25-year-old boyfriend, his BPD mom, and his other brother who is nineteen. I am 25. I go into her BPD behavior in a lot more detail in my initial post, but I would appreciate advice on her weirdly fixating on my sleep patterns.

I have bipolar disorder, which primarily manifests in depressive episodes. Only rarely do I have mania. I have never gone inpatient for this, as I have never been suicidal or self-harming. I was just diagnosed properly with bipolar last year and very recently began treatment with lithium, for which I am currently barely in therapeutic range and am still slowly going up.

When my lithium dosage is increased, it makes me extremely fatigued. Extremely. I cannot safely drive a car and easily sleep eighteen hours a day. I need help showering. This lasts for about two weeks before subsiding rapidly and after that I was sleeping exactly eight until this past week. This caused a lot of grief this past month because I usually am consistent in helping his mom around the house and such, and I couldn't do it because of the fatigue. She took it personally, even though she knew exactly what the issue was.

Anyway, this is generally the pattern more or less with me and mental health medications. They make me fatigued and cause me to sleep more. I've been on several over the year or so that I have been here and almost all of them started this way. She doesn't like it and makes a fuss over it every time. She has thyroid issues and when her levels go up she gets fatigued, but she loves to talk about how she can push through it and be functional, and doesn't understand why I can't.

I would estimate she's been hospitalized fifteen to twenty times over the course of her life. She has a thousand pink foot tubs from mental hospitals all over the state that she just uses around her house. Only last fall did they catch the BPD. They have generally just said complex grief causing severe depression, but I know she's also had what strongly resembles mania. Her mantra is, "If you aren't functional, you need to go inpatient." So whenever she feels she isn't functional, inpatient she goes.

She had my boyfriend involuntarily committed at fifteen, some months after he found his dad's body, because he told her he was too depressed to get out of bed. He wasn't suicidal or self-harming, but according to her rules he needed to go inpatient. He was forcibly drug from the home by the police. She blames him for making her make that choice to this day. (Some mental gymnastics, let me tell you... .)

When I started the lithium and I was first dealing with the fatigue, she would trot out her mantra and tell me I needed to go inpatient. She said this multiple times. My therapist was horrified, because I am not functional directly as the result of medication changes, not my mental state, and neither she nor my psychiatrist have ever felt inpatient would benefit me. They both felt it could make my situation worse. I have mentioned this to her, but she disagrees. (It seems like every experience she's ever had with inpatient has been godawful, from the many experiences she discusses, so why would she ever push that on someone else?)

Prior to the lithium, she's asked my boyfriend before about my sleeping and why I sleep so much, and today she asked again. She told him she noticed I was sleeping more and wanted to know why that was. I had a depressive episode all last week and now I've got the flu, so of course I'm sleeping more. Prior to this I was doing much better. I sense another inpatient "talk" is coming.

Her own child, the brother, has a far worse sleep schedule than me and she never says a word to him. He's up all night and sleeps all day. He has clinical depression but refuses to see a psychiatrist and get his meds regulated, and she doesn't bring it up to him. Meanwhile, I'm not even her child and I am actively in psychiatric care pursuing treatment and doing whatever I can to get better, and *I* am the one she fixates on?

I see my psychiatrist next week and I am going to ask for my dosage to be upped. It's the best thing for me, but I know it's probably going to fatigue me again and I don't want to deal with his mother about it.

What doesn't help is my boyfriend himself feels that he shouldn't be "in the middle" and refuses to get involved in matters between the two of us, which I feel is kind of wrong, given that it's his mother and I'm his girlfriend. Generally, when it comes to matters related to his mother, I don't feel supported, but given all that she's put him through I can hardly say I'm surprised.

[HappyChappy]

Hi Squirrellykate, 
 
I can see why this would be very frustrating for you, but a BPD fear abandonment above all else. So it’s common for them to scare away partners or friends of their children, so possibly that’s what this is about.  They tend to focus on your weakness or fears, so clearly you health is her target.

A BPD also often believes they know better, so here again as frustrating as it is for your BPD to dismiss you medical professionals, she may well be just trying to frustrate you. The interesting thing here is your BPD has admitted to the label and wilfully gone to inpatients. A BPD typically does not admit to anything that isn’t considered good, so maybe her way of normalising her inpatient needs is to encourage everyone around her to do the same. A bit like smokers encouraging others to come with them for a cigarette.  Does any of this sound sensible ?

But I’m pleased you are aware you need to take medical advice for medical things. Lythium as I’m sure you know, can be dangerous if the level gets too high, so ensure you follow medical instructions there and not a BPD.

With the support from your boyfriend, speaking as the son of a BPD, a BPD does not change and to take a BPD to task just creates confrontation. After 18 years of that, all those that live with a BPD will have been worn down, and keen to avoid confrontation. So don’t take it personal.  Are you planning to stay with his mom long ? If you are, then the best thing you can do is to set a boundary of not discussing your health, it’s personal. There are sections on this forum about setting boundaries. But expect your BPD to find some other way to wind you up. There are techniques on this forum, like S.E.T. that help get the best out of a BPD. Welcome to the forum. So what are your long term plans here ? Can you wait this out ?

[squirrellykate]

Hi HappyChappy

Thank you for the reply! I'm a little confused about some of the things you said, so I would appreciate it if you clarified. I am still struggling to understand the BPD mind and how it works. I'm also very interested on your perspective as the son of a BPD parent.

What confuses me about how she's acting is, if she wanted to scare me away, she could've just not let me move in to begin with. And yet she did, fairly willingly. We had a few initial hiccups, like she didn't want me to share a bed with her son at first (she's extremely Catholic) because of (she claimed) an experience with her own mother when she was thirteen where her mother caught her kissing a boy. (We're both in our mid-twenties.) Either way I was happy to sleep wherever she put me.

Recently, she had issues because I was too fatigued to help her much with the kitchen. She knew why I was fatigued (lithium) but she took it personally and she ultimately brought home a list of guidelines for a family meeting she hoped to have, which has not happened. She now claimed she wanted us to pay $3 per load of laundry, give her more money for house cleaning, and stuff like that. Throughout the entire document, I referred to exclusively as "Girlfriend" and my actual name was not used once. I have been concerned on multiple occasions when she acts up that she will kick me out, but my boyfriend is convinced she needs the rent I pay to survive each month and she wouldn't do that.

I can see what you mean about her normalizing her inpatient needs by trying to make everyone around her go inpatient. That makes a lot of sense. My therapist said she has seen many people use repeated inpatient stays as a crutch, a sort of break from the mundane realities of life that are causing them stress and anxiety, instead of outright tackling what's causing them stress and anxiety.

She hasn't admitted to the label of BPD, even though they diagnosed her with it at her last inpatient treatment. She has admitted to complex grief and depression. I think she perceives it in some way as almost noble or loyal that she is still so attached to the memory of her husband ten years on.

As far as my boyfriend is concerned, he is definitely keen to avoid confrontation. He doesn't tell me things that are bothering him related to me because he doesn't want a fight. And these have been things that aren't worth getting angry over. We are starting couples therapy this week, because he's a great guy, but he has so many issues. He can't identify his own emotions or verbalize affection. He minimalizes or ignores others' needs and doesn't recognize his own needs. I discovered that he can't even identify emotional bids (https://www.gottman.com/blog/an-introduction-to-emotional-bids-and-trust/). I feel like these are all the direct result of how she's treated him. My boyfriend looks exactly like his dad and I seriously suspect that's contributed to emotional incest. Ultimately, even if we can't work as a couple, we're great friends (which is what our relationship has devolved down to since I moved in), and we need to communicate better to even live together as friends.

As someone with a BPD parent, what do you think the best approaches would be to support my boyfriend?

Hopefully, ideally, a condo will come on the market that is the right price soon. That's all we are waiting on. That's been my boyfriend's plan for about a year now, but he wouldn't move before because without his rent his mother would lose the house. She'd been planning on selling the house last year, but now she's decided to put it off for two more years. She pared down some bills so it's more or less affordable without my boyfriend paying rent. She doesn't ask for any rent from her other son and he doesn't do chores, so my boyfriend and I are are the only people contributing.

Sorry this is long! I don't want to miss anything that could be important. I am also working on SET but I am still very bad at it. I am not discrediting it or saying it doesn't work, but to me that approach sounds patronizing, so I'm struggling with making it not sound forced.

Thank you! Kate

[HappyChappy]

Hi Squirrellykate,

This symbol  indicates I'm quoting your post.

  if she wanted to scare me away, she could've just not let me move in to begin with.

A BPD can not manipulate unless she knows you well enough, by allowing you to move in, it allowed her to gather the information she needed. Their lies are normally hidden behind a thread of truth, she will be saying “when you lived with me... .” before distorted stories, given time.

It also allows her to control the relationship more, for example this way she knows you two aren’t sleeping together. A BPD works by repeating things daily, this also allows for the repetition. They also care deeply about what the crowd thinks, so saying no would paint her bad, which they don’t want. You said she was BPD, so it would be odd had she gone the other way.
 
She hasn't admitted to the label of BPD

OK that’s normal for a  BPD, they won’t admit to any negative behaviour or labels, they see themselves as superior to those around them.

  She is Catholic, so we can't sleep together.

  BPD love cloaks of respectability. My BPD also claimed she was devout Catholic, but as early as 12 I knew the bible better than she did. She would miss quoting all the time. I also noted she never went to church unless people knew, the minute we stopped going, she did . All her Bible quotes were about honouring your mother or doing things for mothers or feeling guilt so you had to confess stuff.

  As someone with a BPD parent, what do you think the best approaches would be to support my boyfriend?

Avoiding confrontation is common among children of a BPD. You say your boyfriend has been badly effected by his BPDm. I was unable to heal until I left home, and even when I was at home I spent most my free time out of the house at friends. So the best support could be to look to move out.  Also accepting that you are both unlikely to change a BPD of that age. Many find the validation and techniques on this forum a great help also.

A BPD will chip away at your self e steam on a daily basis. For example, one son pays rent the other doesn't. The reason she will keep attacking your fatigue is she knows you can't do anything about it. She knows its your week spot, and a BPD is a predator that will automatically go for your week spots every time they get an opportunity. Over time this will drag you both down. So do lots of things to build both of your self esteems back up. But you say your boyfriend has been looking to move out for a while, so just support that important move. Does any of this help ? I would encourage you boyfriend to this site, as the validation, also the feeling of being part of a group, a family, can be powerful support.