I'm not even sure how to post an intro for this.
Recently in therapy, my therapist clued me into the book SWOE after some deep-diving around my mother. It's continued to ring quite true and I'm not even done with the book yet.
Unfortunately, I didn't start I until after I had had this last visit to my mom (she lives in another state), to try to help her with some difficult things she is going through and dealing with of late. On the last day of the visit she had a terrifying tantrum. These aren't new to me, but I've not been living under her roof for a long time now and I've also been out of state for some time too. She's always been volatile.
I have my own issues with anxiety and depression that I'm working on. Although, while the tantrum was in effect I remained the calm "adult", later that night I had a panic attack that sent me lying on the floor curled behind the bed and afraid to breathe too loud for fear she would hear me, even though the tantrum was long over.
I feel guilty even writing here. There's a part of me that is always trying to protect her.
There's a part of me that is also angry and hurt for having to grow up this way and all the issues it caused me. Sometimes she sees that and how she was/is, not that it's something we ever talk about too directly or that she can fully own up to... .but most of the time, as her childhood was so abusive, no one else is allowed any space to have any real issues.
I have one sibling. I have never wanted children. I never wanted to put a child through what I went through. That thought became galvanized in me from early on.
Now my brother will be welcoming his first child, her first grandchild, into the world in October. I was surprised to find myself very much excited to be an aunt. He still lives close to our mom. We are both in our late 30s.
Neither of us came out of our childhood unscathed. I didn't begin to learn what a nBPD relationship was like until I met my wife. I thought everything was anger, volatility, mind games, hypervigilance, and terror over abandonment.
To her credit, my mom has in the past sought therapy, and did make some changes. But now, she's alone, she has medical issues, and she's become fixated on her eventual death. Suicide ideation comes up as well. I've tried to help but I know I can't make the choice of getting help for her.
In all honesty, I don't want her around this incoming child. I don't know if I'm hyperinflating this fear based on a recent experience and I don't even know how I might approach my brother and his SO about it. Then, there the consideration of if I did and she found out, she'd likely go berserk on me.
Well, that ended up being longer than I thought. I don't know what I'm looking for here other than wanting to feel like I'm not alone or hope that I'm not crazy.
If you've made it this far, thanks for reading.
And thanks to everyone that's made places like this a reality for people to go to.
