Do you send gifts on holidays?

[Depression = 72% of members]

Hello family,
Mother's Day just passed and Father's Day is coming around the corner. These are hard holidays for many of us I'm sure. My parents (uBPD mother and enabling / emotionally absent father) and I are in very limited contact after I decided to separate myself from the dysfunction. Because I won't come back begging for my mother's love, her "punishment" on me for my "rejection of the family" will continue until... .probably her death.

Then come these holidays. Out of some combination of guilt and obligation, I still send gifts every year. I hate sending them, and I hate doing nothing. Last year for my dad's birthday I sent him expensive coffee... .I discovered my mother had him immediately take the coffee to his workplace because "we don't drink that stuff at home" (they drink coffee 3x daily). I was very hurt that my thoughtful gift that was immediately rejected... .it was a symbol, I suppose, of my presence in their house which is not tolerated. Reject the gift, reject the giver.

I feel like a sucker for continually putting myself in positions where I know I will be rejected... .but my intense desire to be a "good daughter" and show my parents love overwhelms me with guilt. I also know if I don't send a gift, it will be more ammunition for my mother to claim I have rejected them. I can't win with them or with myself and I hate her and myself for feeling that way.

What do you do to cope?

[GreenGlit]

Hello family,
Mother's Day just passed and Father's Day is coming around the corner. These are hard holidays for many of us I'm sure. My parents (uBPD mother and enabling / emotionally absent father) and I are in very limited contact after I decided to separate myself from the dysfunction. Because I won't come back begging for my mother's love, her "punishment" on me for my "rejection of the family" will continue until... .probably her death.

Then come these holidays. Out of some combination of guilt and obligation, I still send gifts every year. I hate sending them, and I hate doing nothing. Last year for my dad's birthday I sent him expensive coffee... .I discovered my mother had him immediately take the coffee to his workplace because "we don't drink that stuff at home" (they drink coffee 3x daily). I was very hurt that my thoughtful gift that was immediately rejected... .it was a symbol, I suppose, of my presence in their house which is not tolerated. Reject the gift, reject the giver.

I feel like a sucker for continually putting myself in positions where I know I will be rejected... .but my intense desire to be a "good daughter" and show my parents love overwhelms me with guilt. I also know if I don't send a gift, it will be more ammunition for my mother to claim I have rejected them. I can't win with them or with myself and I hate her and myself for feeling that way.

What do you do to cope?

[Panda39]

Hi GreenGlit,

Gifts or no gifts don't make you a good or bad daughter.    You are a good daughter who has parents with issues. You're in the FOG (Fear, Obligation, Guilt) here... .Fear of being seen as a bad daughter, Obligated to purchase a gift because they are your parents, and made to feel Guilty if you don't.

Holidays and gifts are such loaded things when you have a BPD Parent both in the giving a receiving 

Your stuck in the middle of what you want to do and what you should do, a tough place to be.  I used to get there and just have a meltdown over my own conflicted feelings.  It has taken a while but when I get to that place now I do what I want (It is okay to do what you want  ) that is my default setting so the conflict is brief.  Why do I do what I want?  Because if I do something out of a sense of obligation, I don't enjoy it and I end up resenting it.

I know by seeing my SO's daughters deal with their uBPDmom what masters folks with BPD are at wielding guilt.  I wish they and you could see that it is used as a weapon against you and has nothing to do with you and has everything to do with who your mothers are. 

So using my method for conflicted situations... .I say don't send a gift.  If your sense of guilt it too great then maybe a compromise is to send a card.

Panda39

[Harri]

Hi.  Ugh... .gifts.  What did I do to cope?  Like Panda, I did what would make me feel okay with the situation.  Eventually that meant no card no gift but sometimes, before I reached the point of being okay with that, I went with a card.

If you can't please them, and no, you can't, then focus on you.

another gift idea if you really feel the need, is to make a donation to charity in the persons name.  I didn't think of that when my parents were alive but I did that with the people at work.  some in  my department were catty and actually complained and gossiped about whatever gift they were given.  Unbelievable!   I got tired of it and instead of giving them gifts, I picked a charity of my choice and made a donation.  No one complained that year and the next year, no gifts were exchanged between us as we began a tradition of adopting a family instead. 

I know it is not the same situation but a donation can work too, even if you don't tell your family what you chose, *you* will know.

[Turkish]

I don't know where I read it,  but a father once told his son,  "do the right thing.  You'll be punished for it,  but do it anyway." I kind of think like this,  but doing the right thing is far above people and their pettiness,  cruelty,  or cattiness like Harri's coworkers.

Gifts or no gifts don't make you a good or bad daughter

Write this on a post it and tape it to your forehead 

I'm assuming your dad told you that last year and that he might be kind of an enabler of your mother.  Nothing wrong with sending him coffee if he enjoyed it last year.  Your mother will reject it but that's her problem,  yes?

[Notwendy]

Mother's Day cards are difficult because I don't relate to a lot of what is said in them. Instead- I send flowers.

When I send a gift - I do it for me. Like Turkish said- "do the right thing" and for me, that's the right thing to do. I do it without any expectation of the response. Once they are hers, she can enjoy them or throw them out- but if I feel ok with sending them and feel it's the right thing to do- then I do.

By me- I mean my values. I do try to give gifts a person would enjoy. Also according to my budget. I can manage sending flowers but would send a card ( one with appropriate wording) if I could not.

I get your frustration. I have bought things for my father that my mother has thrown out. But I know I tried.

It's how you feel. If you feel right doing it - then send a modest gift. If you are feeling angry and resentful then consider what you feel is the best thing to do.

[GreenGlit]

Thank you so much for the insightful replies. I do feel like I will be punished no matter what I choose, and that at the end of the day I DO resent sending gifts if I do it because I'm in the FOG and doing it out of obligation.

Thank you for the reminder that I'm a good daughter regardless of the gifts. It is an easy thing to forget being raised in a family that focused spending money on each other as our "language of love." It is a mindset I've been trying to break free of over the past few years.

What I find difficult is that I am someone who is generous with my friends and enjoys giving gifts, and it feels "not myself" to not send a gift... .at the same time, I feel like I really want to know whether they enjoy and use the gift - I think mostly because I want to know if my gift was rejected (a.k.a. if they keep the gift, maybe they didn't reject me, and maybe they love me). It's a sad loop I find myself in seeking my parent's love... .which always ends up being disappointing. Perhaps this is where I need to reevaluate my feelings. If I feel like I WANT to send a gift, I should do it more for myself and need to accept that maybe they will throw it away. I will think more strongly about sending a card or maybe something that is perishable like flowers... .
Thanks again for the encouragement.

[Notwendy]

Greenglit, I did a lot of work on co-dependency. This doesn't mean you are co-dependent but when we grow up with a BPD parent we take on some co-dependent behaviors as a part of our role in the family- we are cued in to our disordered parent's feelings and either make meaning of them, or feel we need to do something to make them feel a certain way.

We really don't have much control over someone else's feelings or choices, or behaviors. Certainly, we should not go out of our way to do mean and hurtful things to people, but people still can choose how to feel- whether they like a gift or not. We try to give a gift the person will enjoy, but we can't guarantee or control that they will.

It is important that we honor who we are. If we enjoy giving gifts and it feels natural to do so, then not giving one might go against who were are. However, if we really don't want to give a gift and we do- just to keep the peace, that is also going against who were are.

Resentment is a useful feeling. I learned to use resentment as a sign that I had slipped into co-dependent behavior- I did something I really didn't want to do in order to control someone else's feelings. We always do some things we may not want to do. Maybe we don't feel like cleaning the house, or going to work one day, or studying but we choose to do it because it has value to us. But doing something we don't want to do to manage someone else will cause us to feel resentment. Once aware of this we still have a choice- to do it anyway ( with full awareness) or to stop doing it.

So I am going to point out something you said that may be helpful:

What I find difficult is that I am someone who is generous with my friends and enjoys giving gifts, and it feels "not myself" to not send a gift... .at the same time, I feel like I really want to know whether they enjoy and use the gift - I think mostly because I want to know if my gift was rejected (a.k.a. if they keep the gift, maybe they didn't reject me, and maybe they love me)


It is the second part that may be causing the resentment. You are giving the gift with an expectation of a certain result- how they are feeling. Will this gift make them love you? You can't make someone love you. If you give the gift and don't get the result you want, you feel upset.

To avoid this, you can choose to not give a gift, but is this honoring your true nature? If it is, don't send the gift, but if you feel badly for not giving one , then honor who you are and send the gift without expectation of their response.

For me, I send the gift because I feel better doing that. I have no idea what they do with it. I choose something modest, like flowers or a fresh fruit basket. I know my mother likes fruit, so it is a safe bet.