NC Update - Got an email from my uNPD/BPD mother

[aslowrealization]

Hello Occasional visitor/poster to these boards here...just recently started the journey into realization and healing but have already learned and grown a lot.

Things over the past few weeks have been mostly positive and peaceful in spite of some challenges and busy times in other areas of my life. I'm able to handle and cope with stress and strain in general a bit better these days...it doesn't settle into my bones as much. This could be growth, it could be age, it could be a bit of both!

For instance...today, about a month and a half into long-term NC (after an initial NC period of two months), I got an email from my uNPD/BPD mother. I've set her emails to go to spam but do check the folder every once in a while. Guess my gut was on to something as she'd written just this morning.

The tone of the email is very waif-ish. She uses Holy Week and the same spiritual "I've been having dreams" stuff she's used in the past as her excuse for violating my NC boundary. She tried to reclaim power over an area I am interested in by saying she dreamed about me doing something in it. She talks about praying for me that I'll "soon find the answers I'm looking for" as if I'm in a "lost" place right now and only need to see the light so I can go running back to her abuse.

The big news, though, is that it sounds like she's making concrete plans to move clear across country and live near my sib (the GC to my scapegoat). I don't know how concrete the plans really are at this point (or how much my sib is involved/really encouraging it), but they are part of the information that she's attempting to use to try and draw me back in. It's the same old me versus sib setup once again.

The whole thing has a tone of "I know you don't want me to but I'm going to talk at you anyway"...on the surface, it looks like a nice message but just underneath, there's so little respect in her words. It reminds me of how she used to just talk at me whenever I visited her, even when I was trying to work (and if I told her that, she'd sort of scoff in disbelief).

I suspect that she sent this because she just isn't feeling great right now, with the holiday week and hearing about all of her siblings' and friends' plans (especially the ones who have exciting events coming up soon). She made a comment about her family that is nearby being too busy with their own "issues"...because how dare they have their own lives and concerns.

Not planning to respond to this email. It's not bothering me but it is a little unnerving that she still feels like it's OK to disrespect my boundaries because she's feeling bad, and in such a "innocent lil me, i'm just a sad mother who wants to talk to her kid" way at that.

I do not regret NC. It's not always easy, but it's the only thing that's really allowed me to put a lot of this stuff in perspective.

In other news, I'm learning a bit about EMDR and trying to determine if it might be helpful in my case. Does anyone have any experience with it?

[Harri]

Hi there!  It is good to hear from you again.  I have been wondering how things are going.  It sounds like you have made strides at your end in terms of coping and accepting that your mom is who she is.  that is good news.

I think having the emails go to spam and checking them when you feel up to it is a great way to handle them.   You maintain your boundaries and protect yourself by doing this.  The chances of her respecting your request for no contact are, I think, very low.    That is okay.  You do not need her co-operation for your boundaries to work.

She talks about praying for me that I'll "soon find the answers I'm looking for" as if I'm in a "lost" place right now and only need to see the light so I can go running back to her abuse.

That would bother me.  My mom said similar and I knew her idea of praying for me had nothing to do with Gods will but rather her own.

I tried EMDR once long ago but did not find it helpful.  I did not buy into the whole premise though so that may have had a lot to do with it.  I am a bit hazy on the details too.  I know there are people here who have tried and and say it is very helpful.  Hopefully they will chime in.

In the meantime we have had a few discussion on this site about EMDR and here is a more recent one that took place on this board: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=328405.0

Check it out and see what you think.

[aslowrealization]

Hi Harri  

Nice to see you again too! Hope things are going well for you these days.

Thank you for posting the EMDR link and for sharing your own thoughts and experience with it...I took a look and it's helpful to hear from both folks who've found it beneficial and those who didn't so much. I think I may, at the very least, meet with a practitioner or two to talk more about it and see what their thoughts are, what they think of my situation, whether it would be a good fit, etc.

With the "praying for you" comments from my mother...it very much feels like catering to her audience, for lack of a better description. She isn't particularly religious herself but I've seen her put on the same sort of speech when talking to others as well - religious family members and friends.

The "dreams" stuff could be one of her ways of accessing untouchable (at least in her eyes) authority. Like you can't argue with someone's dream or vision or gut instinct or hunch about something. She sometimes uses it to evoke deceased relatives, particularly our grandmother...like when there's conflict in our extended family she might suggest that our grandmother is trying to tell her something pointing to some deep, unquestionable truth about the situation through dreams. At the same time, it positions her as this wise, neutral yet powerful, almost shaman-like character. And, in her mind, she can say "I'm not being controlling or making it about me...it's a spiritual thing." Sometimes I wonder if she's mimicking some behavior that my grandmother (who was a very deeply religious and spiritual person) used to do.

What really made my skin crawl in the email though...was the way she was talking about her plans to move near my sib...the language she used was like "sib thinks it would be best...sib and I have decided"...it sounded like the way someone talks about making a decision with their spouse. I do not and cannot fully know or understand the relationship between my mother and my sib but this spousal vibe is something I haven't seen her explicitly write or say before...and it's unnerving. If what I know of my family dynamics is true, she's manipulated my sib into thinking that her moving nearby is their idea...or is possibly just representing things as being much more firmly in place than they actually are at this point. Last time we talked, my sib expressed their own doubts about it to me and a comment my mother made in the email made it clear that there is still concern. She says it's about "being closer to family"...but, deep down, I get the sense that she's looking for something new to hold above the rest of her family's head, especially since she's very likely about to lose the unofficial "grandchild competition" with her younger sister (if she did move near my sib, she would be living in a very nice, to some very enviable part of the country). 

TL;DR: Her email displays what's possibly a lot of angst about her perceived loss of ties and status within her FOO that she's now directing towards my sib and me.

Thinking through and writing all of this out is helping me work through and name the unease I feel when I receive contact from my mother...so thank you to anyone who even read a part of it...I've read many, many things over the years that have helped me get to a place where I can name and recognize some of these things, so hopefully this will help someone else in their own journey towards healing and health