Telhill
I wish you and I could have a coffee together or be walking partners.
I am about to write words of emotional support here. As I think you know, I am dealing similar problems (uBPD mom, aged, frail, needy emotionally and physically, multiple complex health ailments, and me an only child living 7 min away. I too am petite (4'10") and couldn't possibly catch her from falling - which she is prone to). My mom had a CAT scan on her brain before Christmas, but we haven't got the results yet. I already know that's going to bring on a crisis, because 5 years ago after a mini-stroke, a CT scan showed there were binswangers. They won't have improved in 5 yrs. Like you, I am struggling to find my way out of FOG. Unlike you, I am very fortunate to have a supportive analytical husband to bounce ideas off of. I really wish I could share his analytical brain with you. You have been through so much, and it would be so helpful to be able to support one another
in person. I'm pretty sure he would support you too.
After that I'm moving back to my home. It's been long overdue
Good you recognize that
Their long-range plan for care is for me, a slim petite woman, to care for them. I have told them no. I told them I will do pt care with my golden child brother (my only sibling) but will not do this alone. I cannot handle two people.
Good for you. We have told my mother she can't move in with us (she keeps harassing us for that), because we can't care for her, or meet her physical needs. I tried caring for her last October and after dedicating myself to her for 4 weeks (after she sustained fractures from a fall), and she raged at me. I fell apart. So then I got community supports put in place to do what I had been doing. As it turned out, those supports coincided with her finally starting to heal, so she cancelled them all. During all this, she also was assessed and met criteria for assisted living, which she declined. Since then I have been somewhat LC, and just keeping contacts and caring jobs on a simple superficial level. I have come to accept that if she wants to live on her own, she has to find other ways to have her needs met other than just using me and my husband for ALL her chores as well as me for her emotional punching bag.
My point in all this is to encourage you WHOLEHEARTED that when the FOG starts to come down around you, to remember my story and be reminded that you ARE DOING THE RIGHT THING by moving back to your own home. You need to live your life, and they need to live theirs. Maybe when BPD isn't involved, an inlaw suite or co-habitation can work in some families, but we already know it can't work in our particular situations. My mom would poison any kind of life my husband and I tried to have. She can't help herself. Boundaries are hard enough outside of 4 walls, but boundaries inside of 4 walls would be constant conflict. Not a good idea.
I would lose my mind, and need to be admitted.
So, I am saying you are absolutely doing the right thing by moving back to your own home.
Think of it this way. By doing so, you are showing them
you have the confidence they are capable of living on their own. They make not like it. But they WILL figure it out. They are still able. We all figure things out, when we HAVE to. If they need extra support, they can hire nighbours, ask friends, pay for community care.
Has anyone who planned to care for their elderly bpd parent just bailed out and never returned? How bad was the extinction burst and how did you handle it?
I thought about bailing before I got a T, and found this board. I was thinking about it all day every day, like it was the only answer I could see. Since then, I have worked a lot on myself to begin to "detach" and learn to separate my feelings from my mom's, learn strategies etc etc. For the moment, I am holding steady emotionally, and not thinking about bailing on a daily basis.
But I know what's coming with mom's health; it's visible and audible to anyone with eyes and ears. Everyone who knows her can see it. It's going to be an
epic crisis when she finally has to either go into assisted living or complex care. So I have had multiple conversations with both my family Dr, and mom's case worker for our local health authority. I have support in both places, insofar as they have both told me it is not my place to have my mother come live with me. They have both told me it will probably take a medical crisis for her to finally go into a care facility. They have both told me they support that.
By extension, since they told me those things, I feel the same principles apply to anyone with a BPD parent who is having these struggles, including you. When they told me that, it validated my concerns and emotions a little, to know that the professionals were telling me I needed to live my own life. Based on their advice, I am hoping you can feel it's ok for you to do the same.
The practical side of telling your parents your plans is going to be difficult and scary. Can you arrange to have someone there with you such as a friend there when that conversation happens? Doing this around the time your home was broken into is a logical time to have the conversation. You need to go look after your home.
My parents told me a few days ago they want me to sign over my house to my young niece in exchange for her caring for me in my old age.
This is so crazy it doesn't even deserve a response. If they think a house should be signed over to her, maybe they can sign theirs over to her. Probably better not to suggest that though
I'm feeling for you Telhill. I really am. I have my H. You don't. I wish I could share my H's analytical conversations with you. I really do. I am hoping you have a friend or someone local and tangible who you can lean on.
Of course, we are all here for you.
Get on with your life! You go Telhill!
