I need support to go low contact/no contact with my family.

[mgirl]

I need support to go low contact/no contact with my family. I have a hard time cutting contact with everyone.
My mother has un-diagnosed BPD.  She has done so much harm to me, insult me and abuse me both physical and mental when I lived with her. After I moved away she has been abusing me mentally. I am in no contact with her now for about 3 months, however she manipulates my ants and my brother into abusing me. She abuses me through them. I am no longer in contact with my brother also.
I am in low contact with my two ants, but every time I talk to them, I hear my mother abusing me through them. They talk to her and she manipulates them to abuse me.
The last conversation I had with one of my ants was that I am stupid that I am not on facebook anymore and that I am a very bad child for saying my mother has BPD after she sacrifices herself for me and gave birth to me, etc.
My family is romanian. In romanian culture it's a huge shame and taboo if someone has mental issues. It is not accepted and they will never accept it. I have a therapist who helps me though this.
My ants do not want to talk about BPD or my mother BPD and nor do they want to hear me. They think I am crazy that I do therapy and they insult me for it. I don't want to talk to them about this, however even if I call them like once a month they still manager to yell at me and abuse me. The funny part is that my mother abused them in the past as well and they completely forgot about that. Now all of the sudden they are best friends talking behind my back and throwing the blame at me.
I am on low contact with them but I am thinking of cutting contact all together. I am just having a very very hard time cutting contact with my entire family. I do have a loving husband and a child and a therapist and a couple of friends.
Please help.  What can I do to maintain sanity and stay away from my mother and her flying monkeys who abuse me for her.

[Turkish]

Hello mgirl,



It sounds like sharing your realization of BPD isn't going well, so I'd stop talking about it other than with your therapist and your primary family (spouse). This would be a first good step as the family is going to adjust to protect the dysfunctional dynamic.

Do you and your family live close to your mom and other family?

[gotbushels]

mgirl   

I join Turkish in supporting you with a welcome.

My mother has un-diagnosed BPD. 

Me too—a lot of us here have (or had) one person who we are close to who have serious issues. I appreciate it's difficult when that person is your biological mother.

She abuses me through them.

When someone seems to try to harm me through someone else—I think of the situation like Ursula from The Little Mermaid. This person is trying to use an ineffective means to make me feel bad about something—like a tentacle. Yes, Ursula was magical, and that's also what the person who is harming you is not. When you look at it, this person has no way of physically harming you. Between parents and children—there's often an unconscious feeling that approval=survival. When you get older—you may see this isn't actually true. If they don't approve of what you did in X situation, that doesn't mean you'll die. It feels to this way to many infants.

So as an adult—you can see you don't actually need her approval to live. When you accept that idea—the BP in your life seems to become more of an angry child than a threat to your survival. In my view, this makes the difficult person much easier to handle — you start to operate from a one-up position rather than the repressed one-down position that people like this try to put you in.

In your situation, if you've identified she's a manipulative person or undiagnosed BP—then I'd say use that to your advantage. For a BP, that doesn't mean you tell her she's a BP. It's known that retaliation by the uBP is a negative consequence of confronting them regarding it (partially because that person lacks the capacities to process personal deficiencies).

What it means is that you can know she has X disorder, and buttress whatever way you've learned to manage her—don't engage. So I agree with this aspect of what Turkish said—talking to her or your aunts about it won't be to your advantage. On a basic level, doing so engages her—it allows her to use things like trying to playing the victim, shaming, and intimidating you.

I hope you share how your story develops. Enjoy your weekend.

[Pilpel]

Mgirl,

If I understand right, you have been no contact with your mom for 3 months.  But your mom has some reach with you through her sisters.  Basically your aunts have been acting as your mom's flying monkeys, trying to pressure you to re-engage in a relationship that has been toxic and stressful for you.  So these are some questions:
1.  Do you want to cut contact with your aunts who are pressuring you?  
2.  Is there something that is keeping you in a relationship with your aunts?  Do you have a good relationship with them outside of them pressuring you about staying in a relationship with your mom?
3.  Have you tried to set boundaries with your aunts, and let them know that you don't want to talk about your mom?  If not, that might be a first step.  Like "I love you and I would like to be able to have a conversation with you, but these are things that I don't want to talk about."  Think about the boundaries that you need.  Like "I don't want to keep having the same negative conversations. I don't want to keep hearing people criticize me for my choices.  Etc."  And let your boundaries be known.  

I just went no contact with the BPD/NPD person in my life about 3 months ago, too.  After more than 10 years of trying to interact graciously.  And I don't regret it at all.  Sometimes after getting filled up with negativity over and over and over again, it's good to refocus your energy on good and positive things.  Don't let the negativity and drama rob you of the time and energy you could be spending on good things in your life --your kids, your husband, your friends.  If you need to distance yourself from the negativity in your life, do it.  Do what you need to do for yourself and your family.  

[mgirl]

hi, thank you all for the wonderful replies! This is a great forum! Thank you for the support! You guys said some great words of wisdom! You are correct in saying I should stop telling all of them about my mom's BPD. As a matter of fact, yesterday I went to a DBT workshop for families at the local DBT clinic. They told me the same thing. I have to stop telling them about the BPD since it is not working out for me. I do have  a big challenge that my culture does not accept mental illness and they consider this a taboo. But what can I do?
You are right. I did write an email to one of my ants  this week to tell her not to interfere between my mom and I and that I do not want to talk to them about my mom and that they should not agree to being manipulated by my mom against me. I told them that if they continue I will not call them anymore.
So now we will see what happens. If next time I call them and they yell at me again and they continue to pressuring me I will just say it is not ok to talk to me like this and I will call you next time.
I guess I have to establish boundaries with them also.
It is a very hard choice and isolating scenario to stop talking to your family, but when I think that I no longer want to be abused and charged with bad energy that affects me in my life, I rather not talk to any of them at all.
thank you so much again for the support. I will continue to post questions when I have to. Thank you again!

[mgirl]

When someone seems to try to harm me through someone else—I think of the situation like Ursula from The Little Mermaid. This person is trying to use an ineffective means to make me feel bad about something—like a tentacle. Yes, Ursula was magical, and that's also what the person who is harming you is not. When you look at it, this person has no way of physically harming you. Between parents and children—there's often an unconscious feeling that approval=survival. When you get older—you may see this isn't actually true. If they don't approve of what you did in X situation, that doesn't mean you'll die. It feels to this way to many infants.

So as an adult—you can see you don't actually need her approval to live. When you accept that idea—the BP in your life seems to become more of an angry child than a threat to your survival. In my view, this makes the difficult person much easier to handle — you start to operate from a one-up position rather than the repressed one-down position that people like this try to put you in.

This is amazing insight! Thank you so much! I have never read this before. I read lots of other stuff, but this is amazing. Thank you!

[zachira]

We are here to listen and support you as you decide what kind of contact to have with your family if any, and how to go about it. Know that there are many people on this site who have family members similar to yours and who have gone through many different stages of contact: from high contact without enough healthy boundaries to protect the self from becoming emotionally overwhelmed by cruel behaviors of family members, to establishing lower contact while implementing healthier boundaries, and sometimes to no contact which may or may not be permanent.
It seems that your biggest challenge right now may be to find ways to not be so overwhelmed emotionally by your family members' latest round of mean behaviors. Likely a first step will be establishing healthier boundaries with family members. Do read the educational materials on this site and the posts of other members who have similar challenges to yours with their family members.
Keep us posted on how you are doing and let us know how we can be the most helpful. Post here as often as you feel the need to share your feelings here which is a safe and healing place for many of us who have family members with BPD.

[mgirl]

Thank you so so much zachira!