I have to hide my happiness from my mother

[Vanilla Sky]

I wonder if it happens to others here and how you deal with it.
I have to hide my happiness from my upbd/unpd mother, even small things. If  I am interacting with someone and know my mother is looking at us, my laugh will be quiet, I won't smile as much as I would if she was not there. When I talk to her I don't trust telling her that everything is fine with me, instead, I will "give her something"  like telling her I am getting a cold, have a water leak in my kitchen, having an issue with air conditioning. It is part of protecting myself when I give her meaningless information so we have something to talk about that is not a loaded subject that can trigger her and nothing she can use to blackmail me in the future, but it is more than that. It actually changes her mood if I tell her about something "bad" that happened to me, she seems happier than if I told her that I am pretty much happy and everything is fine.

[zachira]

How sad your mother cannot share in your happiness, though not out of character for a mother with BPD and NPD. A mother with BPD does not want her children to become separate individuals from her, and expects her children to feel and think as exactly as she does. I am wondering if your mother is chronically unhappy so she expects you to feel the way she does all the time. Also, a person that truly has BPD and/or NPD has a narcissistic core so they have to be first in everything and have no empathy. You are working hard on setting boundaries with your mother so you do not have to deal with so much distress about how she is going to respond. What kind of boundaries do you think it is important to have with her? My mother has BPD and NPD, and I have learned it is better to only have contact with her when other people are around that she wants to impress, and she will temporarily be nice to me in these situations. Do you think it is more difficult to get along with her because you are her daughter so she identifies more with you than a son?

[once removed]

what happens if she sees you laughing, being, or telling her youre happy?

[Vanilla Sky]

hi zachira!

Do you think it is more difficult to get along with her because you are her daughter so she identifies more with you than a son?

I am not sure about that. My brother is 6 years older than me and they didn't get along since I can remember. She kicked him out of the house when he was 18. I think it is a case of scapegoat and golden child, where my brother was the scapegoat. I don't know if maybe she picked me to be the golden child because I was the daughter. I am just learning about these terms, and when I see examples of what these terms mean it makes a lot of sense.

What kind of boundaries do you think it is important to have with her? My mother has BPD and NPD, and I have learned it is better to only have contact with her when other people are around that she wants to impress, and she will temporarily be nice to me in these situations. Do you think it is more difficult to get along with her because you are her daughter so she identifies more with you than a son?

I was doing that when we were LC for about 1 year (we are NC for 2 weeks now). I would usually have my husband to go with me whenever I went to my parent's house, or meet her in events with other people around. If I was going to see her by myself, usually visiting her at her house, I would not spend more than 1 hour there. If she called me, I would let her speaking (it was always a monologue) for 10 minutes and would tell her I needed to go back to work or answer the door. It was working fine, although she would still make comments like "why don't you come here more often? why didn't your husband came with you the last 2 times you where here", "your father and I are always alone".

When I think about boundaries... .at this moment I really can't think of anything. I am going through the discovery that she was and still is abusived, that I can't go back to the way things are. I definitely have a lot of work to do with finding my values, setting boundaries and holding to them. But right now I feel that I am just getting my head out of water.

[Vanilla Sky]

what happens if she sees you laughing, being, or telling her youre happy?

Good question. I hid my happiness from her for so long that I had to take a moment here to think about a circumstance when that happened. She wouldn't do anything right away or in front of other people. She would bring that up in a conversation weeks after saying things like "you have your friends, you are happy. I didn't have the opportunities you had. I am always alone". It feels like she wants me to feel guilty from simply being happy or being happy when she is not happy.
If I travel with friends, later on I will hear she saying that she never travels, then I ask why, and she immediately changes the subject. There is a lot of "poor me" coming from her.

[JNChell]

Hi, Vanilla Sky . You know, in some ways it can be viewed that you’re simply protecting your emotions from your mom. Have you read about boundaries here? They can be helpful in a controlled environment. I.e., under your control.  

It sounds like you have a lot in common with many members here. I was raised by a BPD mom and NPD dad. At least to the best of my understanding thus far. Regardless of the labels it wasn’t a healthy childhood. Like you, I’m currently processing it.

zachira has layed things out for you very well. I’m sorry that you’re going through this. I’m sorry that you’ve gone through this. We’re all here to support you. What is something that you’d like to see happen between you and your mom?

[once removed]

it sounds like you feel a heavy sense of obligation to hide your happiness because of your mothers expressed unhappiness and jealousy.

how do you feel in a happy moment? do you think about needing to hide it?

how do you feel when she says things like what you described?

[Vanilla Sky]

Hi JNChell! Thank you for your kind words and I am sorry to hear about what you have been through in your life. I agree with when you say I am protecting myself and my emotions from my uBPD/unpd mother by hiding my happiness from her. I was recently reading about the grey rock technique and it looks like I have been using this for a long time with her. It was amazing to find that this is an actual technique, has a name and all. I have also started to read about boundaries.

What is something that you’d like to see happen between you and your mom?

As many people here, for a long time I struggled with the idea that my mother could "get better". I believed with all my heart that if she went to see a psychiatrist and maybe could be medicated, or if she makes some friends, or maybe I could let her know a little bit more about my life so she doesn't feel isolated, maybe if I called her 3 times a week, maybe if I make something special for her birthday, or maybe if I make a lot of money she would be proud of me and love me, etc... etc...   Well, I have been trying all those things and it has cost me a LOT emotionally, and I can now see that nothing will make lasting changes to her behaviour unless she recognizes there is something wrong and is motivated to change that, which I know will never happen. These thoughts of "maybe if I just do this and that" still takes over my mind very frequently, so I have to keep reminding myself that she has a mental illness, and she was and is abusive and will not change no matter what I do.

So, I am much more realistic about what I want from this relationship: low contact, my boundaries being respected, and if I get to have children, that I can do what I need to do to have them respected by her and protect them from her abusive behaviours. Then I ask myself why do I want to keep this relationship in the first place since it is a one-way relationship? When I think about the reasons, they all seem to come from Fear (what if I cut contact with her and she does something to herself and I fell guilty about that?), Obligation (I am her daughter, she is over 60 and have some health issues) and lots of Guilt thoughts. I also don't feel strong enough to face the social consequences if I cut my own mother out of my life.

[zachira]

In response to JNChell's question and Vanilla Sky's response to this question: What is something you would like to see happen between you and your mom? So hard to accept that our mothers are not going to change.

[Vanilla Sky]

Hi once removed, thank you for taking the time to help me out here, I really appreciate  

I do feel a heavy sense of obligation indeed. I agree with JNChell that I am protecting myself by hiding my happiness from her, but there is more to that. It's like it's not right for me to be happy when I know she is not happy. When I think more about that I can understand where it comes from.
Every time something nice happened in my life, I would always hear how nice things don't happen to her and how unhappy she is, which made me want to "fix things" for her so she could be happy as I am. For example, when I got accepted to college, she didn't tell me she was happy for me, instead, I heard how she never had the chance to study. If I bought a nice dress for me, I would hear how she never had money to buy nice clothes when she was my age.

I don't feel the need to hide my happiness from anyone else but her. I actually laugh pretty loud, I like to post my happy moments on social media, I share my happy moments with my friends and my father. Although I can express my happiness when I am around other people, I always feel guilty for feeling happy.

[once removed]

have you ever told her you felt this way?

or otherwise, when she says things like below, how do you respond?

 

"you have your friends, you are happy. I didn't have the opportunities you had. I am always alone".

[Vanilla Sky]

hi once removed  

I really appreciate your questions. It makes me think about how both she and I behaved and that is part of the process I am going through right now - trying to remember things that happened and tell that to people that I trust to have some feedback outside my own judgements or guilt and obligation feelings.

So, I have never told my unpd/uBPD mother about how I hide my happiness from her. To be honest I just realized it recently.

When she said things like that "you have friends, I don't", I reacted differently over time. For many years what I did was tell her that I am not that happy as well, that I have good and bad moments. That I understand she didn't have many opportunities but a lot of people from her generation didn't have those opportunities as well. That she is not always alone, she has my father, she has the dogs, she talks to neighbours, that no one is surrounded by friends all the time. Then her mood suddenly gets better and she temporarily moves on. Around a couple of years ago, I started to feel tired and really had no energy for these conversations anymore. Then I started to be very brief, I just answered "Yeah, I understand" and try to end the conversation. As you can imagine, she would bring that subject again and again. More recently I started to answer her with questions. I'd I ask her "why don't you call someone from your church group and invite for a coffee" then the conversation would go on an on how she can't do those things because "the house is too big and I don't have time to clean it so I can't have guests". Or "why don't you schedule a visit to the doctor to see this issue you're so concerned about" and she would say "your father doesn't have time to drive me to the doctor" and I would say "why don't you call a cab" an so on... .and then she changes the subject.

I appreciate any insights on this.

[Harri]

Hi Vanilla Sky.

When she said things like that "you have friends, I don't", I reacted differently over time.

  I think we have all tried to respond with sympathy, logic and reason when having this sort of conversation with people.  What might work better is validating your mom's feelings rather than trying to rationalize them.

Validation can be tricky because we do not want to validate what is invalid.  At the same time, when talking with anyone and especially with highly sensitive people, what we intuitively say (using logic etc) can come across as invalidating even though that is not our intention.
Validating your moms feelings may work better in terms of letting her know you hear her, can relate and helping her to self soothe.

Using validation to validate her feelings would look something like this:
Mom: "you have friends, I don't"
Vanilla Sky:  That sounds really difficult.  I don't like it when I feel all alone.

Or something like that.

Thoughts?  Suggestions from anyone?

[Harri]

I'm sorry.  I forgot to give you this link on validation.  See what you think and if you can try to apply validation techniques to your situation.

Communication Skills - Don't Be Invalidating

[zachira]

I don't think you will ever be able to understand the why of how a mother with a BPD/NPD behaves because her behaviors are so irrational. Especially with the same sex child, this is difficult, because she expects you to have the same feelings she does. Mirroring of another's feelings is not healthy in certain situations. For example, if a person is angry and tries to make another angry so he/she does not have to deal with his/her anger.The question is: Do you want to validate her feelings? Maybe you do and maybe you don't, or maybe you have mixed feelings and don't know what you want to do. I personally am tired of trying to validate my mother's feelings. She is supposed to be there for me, and give me unconditional love. I am the daughter and it has been very damaging psychologically for me to play a reverse role with her. I now give her short answers to her questions and limit the time spent talking as the toxic dialog never changes no matter what I do. I used to intently listen to my mother, and try to make her happy with no changes in her behaviors, as my self esteem sunk lower and lower. Learning about validating feelings through using the tools on this site, can be helpful in keeping the peace, and they won't likely help you to get the validation you deserve from your mother if this is what you are seeking. What are your goals in your relationship with your mother? Whatever the goals, it is important that making changes is about what is best for you, and not have any expectations that your mother will likely make any significant changes in the ways she behaves that are so hurtful for you.

[Star0009]

My sister and I were just talking about this this morning. Our BPD mom would try to ruin it if she saw us happy. The more we share unhappy events she feeds off the drama and tries to smother to come strait in her emeshment  or overreact or if its really bad say we are making it up like when someone stalked me to her house and I called the police and many other things or if someone is being mean to us she will take their side even if you are just telling her a story about a bad day at work and she doesn't know them. Basically she wants to control me and keep me down with her and looks for a reaction if its positive or negative anything to stir up emotions and drama. I can't be real with her and in person she is constantly starting fights and looking for things to fight with me with or expressions on my face so she can say I'm siding with whoever else is with us she is trying to fight with if I just smile at them or something. There is no real relationship but trying to not let her get to you and yes fake it and stay calm and watch what she can use against you if you seem too happy. I totally understand.

[once removed]

what do you think would happen if you laid out (carefully) how it makes you feel when she does this?

[Vanilla Sky]

hi Harri , thank you for replying here. After reading the link you recommended, I have no doubts I've been invalidating my mother's emotions very frequently. Although my close friends tell me that I am a good listener and empathetic person, I act differently with my mother. For any "issues" she brings me I   will try to rationalize and resolve things. Validation can be very tricky indeed. I feel so manipulated by her at times that it's not easy for me to know if what she is telling me is authentic or if she has some agenda with me. Let me give a real example: she was diagnosed with skin cancer, nothing serious, she was ok after a simple surgery to remove the damaged part of the skin. She knows she needs to use sunblock, but she doesn't use it. The doctors tell her about sunblock all the time, and she just doesn't use it. She then tells me how afraid she is to find new spots on her skin and how it could get more serious. I ask if she is using sunblock, she doesn't respond my question and keeps going on and on the "poor me" speech.

I might have been unconsciously invalidating her so I don't give her  any space for potential victimization.  Does that make sense? I think a big challenge for me with validation is to recognize if it's time to validate or time to just move the subject or something else.

[sparrowfarfrom home]

Vanilla Sky,

I totally get get what you're saying. And I feel for you, but you sound centered and ready to understand. Great qualities!

 I'm the middle (scapegoat), younger sister was the dutiful protege, and my older brother was the happy golden child.

I just remember joining in with a family discussion, with my father telling a joke or something like that,  with me laughing out loud and she would snap at me and take me out of my happy place.  She would come down on me like a ton of bricks.

It was definitely a pattern, so much so that I learned not to show happiness around her.  She would take my happiness away when she saw it.

I left home and once in a phone conversation I was happily  telling her how many wonderful friends I had, and she said, " They're not really your friends,  they don't know you like we do".

Btw, I've had these wonderful friends for 26 years now,

Keep up the good work. You are seeing things correctly. 

[Vanilla Sky]

hi zachira, it feels like we have been friends for a long time and you know me very well. I relate a lot with everything you post, thank you so much.

The question is: Do you want to validate her feelings? Maybe you do and maybe you don't, or maybe you have mixed feelings and don't know what you want to do.

I want to validate her feelings when they are real. I definitely don't want to validate the invalid and let her manipulate me. But being honest, my main concern right now is to protect myself from the damage she causes to my life, my relationship with my husband with our relationship with my family in law. I was naive for too long about what she does. At some point, when and if we reconnect (NC for over a month now), validate her feelings might help me keep the peace.

Learning about validating feelings through using the tools on this site, can be helpful in keeping the peace, and they won't likely help you to get the validation you deserve from your mother if this is what you are seeking. What are your goals in your relationship with your mother?

I understand that I can't make her happy, but I have to come to the point where I BELIEVE in that. If I accept and believe deep inside that I can't make her happy and that it is not my duty, then validating her feelings will not be a burden for me because I will do that to keep the peace, I will do that for myself, and she feeling good about being validated is secondary.

[Harri]

I act differently with my mother.

  That is understandable.  Not only is the nature of the relationship different with the parent child dynamic, there is the history of abuse and disrespect too.

Validation can be very tricky indeed. I feel so manipulated by her at times that it's not easy for me to know if what she is telling me is authentic or if she has some agenda with me.

In general, I try to assume that what they are saying is exactly what they mean and feel in that very moment.  That helps me with my perspective and in setting my boundaries rather than reacting in anger which only hurts me and makes things worse in the moment.  I try to remember that pwBPD generally are acting in a highly dysregulated emotional state and as such they are not *consciously* contemplating how to manipulate or play a game with me.  Deliberate behaviors like that may come into play in some situations but for the most part they are acting from a place of trying to make their own feelings go away.

I am offering this perspective here because in your Introduce Yourself post, your stated goal is to have a more healthy relationship but with limited contact.  I am wondering if this perspective may help you achieve that goal and make it easier to validate and if you can't validate (which is hard to do sometimes) at least stop invalidating her. 

The tools we talk about here can sometimes help the person with BPD but are mostly, at least on this board, talked about because they help us manage our emotions and reduce the fallout from conflict so that we are not so damaged.  It is not about stuffing feelings though.  It is more about management and self-protection which is going to be very important with your goal of LC.  It is also about building confidence in our self so that we can respond and know that we have skills to handle things differently now.  It is about taking the power away from our pwBPD to press our buttons which they can do so well because chances are, they are the ones who gave us those sensitive buttons. 

Make sense?

So if you can't find something to validate, at least stop invalidating.  Validation is not about mirroring their feelings or taking them on yourself.  nor is it about appeasing them.  Those are signs of poor differentiation.   With validation you acknowledge their feelings while staying separate.

The doctors tell her about sunblock all the time, and she just doesn't use it. She then tells me how afraid she is to find new spots on her skin and how it could get more serious. I ask if she is using sunblock, she doesn't respond my question and keeps going on and on the "poor me" speech.

Ugh.  that is so frustrating not to mention annoying.  My mom used to do that.  Laid around for years saying she was sick and I was the cause but never once went to a doctor about any of it.   In this instance I would say I would be scared too.  When you are ready I know you will do what you need to do (or something like that) and just let it go.
 

I might have been unconsciously invalidating her so I don't give her  any space for potential victimization.  Does that make sense? I think a big challenge for me with validation is to recognize if it's time to validate or time to just move the subject or something else.

It makes sense and I have been there and still do it on occasion (not with my mother tho... .she is dead )  Not everything can be validated nor is it always appropriate.  Changing the subject is one strategy.  So is using a techniques like SET. Again, it is about managing us and our emotions and making things easier for us to handle.

 

If I accept and believe deep inside that I can't make her happy and that it is not my duty, then validating her feelings will not be a burden for me because I will do that to keep the peace, I will do that for myself, and she feeling good about being validated is secondary.

Does what I wrote above help in any way?

Having appropriate expectations is always important that is why I put the focus on you. 

Changing our beliefs happens *after* we have changed our behaviors.

[Vanilla Sky]

hi Harri

.
In general, I try to assume that what they are saying is exactly what they mean and feel in that very moment.  That helps me with my perspective and in setting my boundaries rather than reacting in anger which only hurts me and makes things worse in the moment.  I try to remember that pwBPD generally are acting in a highly dysregulated emotional state and as such they are not *consciously* contemplating how to manipulate or play a game with me.  Deliberate behaviors like that may come into play in some situations but for the most part they are acting from a place of trying to make their own feelings go away.

I talked to my T about how hard it is trying to identify if it is my mother or the disorder speaking.
My T said that based on my mother's age (over 60), the fact that she is still very abusive emotionally and physically to my father, emotionally abusive to me, and doesn't seem to have any empathy for us, I will not be able to see my mother separate from the disorder. It was hard to hear that. It felt like I lost my mother to the disorder. I am trying to be positive about it, learn with it and let go the expectation that my mother and I could have moments when the disorder is not around - it is there, it was always there and will always be. I am learning that I should keep my expectations low and use my energy to keep and reinforce my boundaries instead of trying to find the mother behind the disorder.

The tools we talk about here can sometimes help the person with BPD but are mostly, at least on this board, talked about because they help us manage our emotions and reduce the fallout from conflict so that we are not so damaged.  It is not about stuffing feelings though.  It is more about management and self-protection which is going to be very important with your goal of LC.  It is also about building confidence in our self so that we can respond and know that we have skills to handle things differently now.  It is about taking the power away from our pwBPD to press our buttons which they can do so well because chances are, they are the ones who gave us those sensitive buttons.  

That makes a lot of sense to me. My mother used to come to me every time she thought my father was cheating on her, she even seems paranoid about it. I was 32 and I couldn't take it anymore. So she calls me saying I have to find out if my father is cheating on her with someone he has on facebook, I said "Sorry , I will not do that anymore". It escalated pretty bad. After a long silent treatment, we were talking again. She again calls me saying my father is cheating on her, same old thing... I told her "Sorry , I will not do that anymore, this is between you too, this is something the couple has to deal with not the kids". I didn't let her violate that boundary the way I could. What happens now is that things got worse to my father because I won't be "resolving" things between them. When she thinks he is cheating on her she makes his life a living hell, instead of mine. Now I can see that she didn't change her behaviour, it is me not allowing those things in my life anymore. Someone else is taking her craziness, not me, at least on that subject.

So if you can't find something to validate, at least stop invalidating.  Validation is not about mirroring their feelings or taking them on yourself.  nor is it about appeasing them.  Those are signs of poor differentiation.   With validation you acknowledge their feelings while staying separate.

Do you recommend any articles or books about differentiation?

Changing our beliefs happens *after* we have changed our behaviors.

I was going the other way around and started to feel stuck.

I read yesterday on "Mothers who can't love" by Susan Forward: "Change the behaviour and the feelings will catch up".

Thank you so much Harry.

[Harri]

I will not be able to see my mother separate from the disorder. It was hard to hear that. It felt like I lost my mother to the disorder.

This does hurt.  It is painful and it is a hard truth to embrace.  Give yourself a chance to grieve this and don't be surprised if grieving happens in layers over time, years even.

I am learning that I should keep my expectations low and use my energy to keep and reinforce my boundaries instead of trying to find the mother behind the disorder.

I think having appropriate expectations about your moms capabilities and using your energy on yourself is excellent.  There is no mom and disordered mom.  PDs are pervasive and as such they are always present... .the degree may vary however. 

Now I can see that she didn't change her behaviour, it is me not allowing those things in my life anymore.

Exactly and excellent work!  You can build off of this    Had you already read about the Karpman Drama Triangle and reducing conflict?

Articles on self-differentiation: 
Codependency and Codependent Relationships 

Dealing with Enmeshment and Codependence

The Bowen Center

Let's talk about them if you want.  Self-differentiation is a critical concept for us to understand and a goal for healing.

[Vanilla Sky]

hi Star0009 and sparrowfarfrom home I wanted to thank you for your replies, they mean a lot to me.

Harri I've read about the Karpman Drama Triangle but at that time I was very new in the discovery of my mother's disorder, I will definitely look into that again, thank you for the links.