Is this what it feels like to have boundaries?

[hotncold]

I recently had an experience with my father which really made me feel disgusted about him. I had decided to put off an expensive home project because my finances are very very shaky with the current pandemic. He volunteered that he would pay for the full project himself. I asked several times if that was really what he wanted to do, or if he would rather we split it. He insisted he would pay the full cost. The project went ahead. My father sent me 2/3rds of the money and then stopped. when i inquired whether he would send the rest he asked: do you really need it? I indicated my financial precariousness and the need to communicate clearly on finances so I could have predictability. He responded saying that I had only thanked him twice his help and wondered whether I was grateful for all that he had done for me. I was angry - because I had thanked him - and here he was trying to paint me as the usual "spoiled" and "ungrateful" child which was my assigned role with my uBPD mother. Rather than communicating my anger, I gave him what he wanted -   and expressed my gratitude. I felt like I was grovelling a bit, but I don't think I had any other options. This pacified him. Now he sends me frequent emails about what he does in his day to day. I respond with equally descriptive and factual emails. I don't tell him about anything that REALLY matters to me, about things that are difficult in my life, about things that are great. Just very dull messages that are factual. I feel as though this is the only way for me to protect myself. I also feel as though he thinks i "owe" him something because he helped me financially. Is this what boundaries feel like? You essentially shut yourself down from people who are toxic. You don't give them anything of yourself - you don't let them into your life really, but maintain very superficial relationships with them. Are boundaries "superficiality"? It makes me feel like I have to erase myself in order to be on good terms with my parents. I feel rather dirty somehow. I don't know why. I don't even want to have to communicate with them anymore. But I have to for a few reasons and I suppose this is the best that I can do. Any thoughts about this feeling that he thinks I "owe" him now?

[zachira]

You are unfortunately describing experiences with your family that many members who post here are familiar with when they try to set healthy boundaries. You have been very clear about your boundaries and your father has been fickle with his. You now know you cannot trust your father to stay true to his word and he will turn interactions with you into uncomfortable violations of your boundaries. It can feel very uncomfortable at first to set healthy boundaries with family members we cannot trust to be respectful and follow through on agreements. With time, you will likely get more comfortable with the boundaries you have set with your father, though there will likely always be some lingering sadness about not being able to have the kind of relationship you would like to have with him.

[missing NC]

While it's not applicable to my largely no contact situation, a reframing that really helped me conceptually in dealing with the realization that one can never have a truly authentic relationship with a person with BPD is to understand - as it was phrased to me - that one must have a "therapeutic" relationship with them.  I realize that translates to superficial in application, hotncold, but you may (or may not) find a "therapeutic" framework easier to adopt.  It helps to remember that their limbic system (emotional part of the brain) is that of a toddler.  So your relationship will reflect the imbalance between you in development and maturity.  I could not agree more with Zachira's last line.  It's not easy, but eventually the reframing in use of boundaries should get easier with time. 

[hotncold]

Thanks missingNC and zachira for your help and insight. I always thought that boundaries were about saying firmly what you want and what you need, and enforcing them or walking away. Saying no when you don't feel comfortable, etc. It requires a lot of honesty in that approach and I have spent so much time trying to make it work.

The approach I am now taking - after so many decades of trying to tell them who I am and what I wanted and what I thought was right - does feel dishonest and I'm not used to it at all. It's as though they always expected my rawest honesty and always took advantage of it. But I have concluded that not everyone deserves my "honesty". It is a gift and my parents used and abused me with it. They will no longer ever receive it from me. I'm just hoping that I can hold up and not get angry one day. I am actually really, really angry and how manipulative my father's behaviour is. He purposely provoked me - "do you need it?", put me in a humiliating situation where I had to "ask" for money, when i had actually never asked for it from him in the first place - and then when all I did was restate the agreement that we had reached, lashed out at me in a way that would again make me play that role of "spoiled, ungrateful" child. I am in this situation because I have recently lost my job because of the pandemic. Normally I am self sufficient. I actually have serious issues accepting help from people in my life which makes me very sad. Their disgusting behaviours have caused so much damage in the way I approach relationships as an adult. I am healing, but it is so, so, so much work, and whenever there is an interaction with my parents it's as though I relapse. My therapist has advised me to write notes down to myself that I have to read whenever I do interact with my parents because they constantly try to "reframe" the story to the one that suits them which essentially boils down to "there is something fundamentally wrong" with me... not them. I am and have always been the problem, the loser, the nothing. I have accomplished amazing things in my life, probably more than most in my family, and yet it is hard for me to remember that I have done them. My brain is wired to erase all of my accomplishments in life.

[hotncold]

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[Methuen]

Hi hotncold,

For me, boundaries involved a shift in thinking.  A long time ago, I used to think boundaries were about setting lines in the sand about what the other person could and couldn't do.  But, as you know, we can't control what another person will or won't do.  They're gonna do what they darn well want to do, especially if it meets their needs (to be in control, to make themselves feel better by humiliating or hurting others etc etc).  "Boundaries" are actually for us, for our own physical, emotional, and/or financial safety.  We set OUR boundaries.  It is also up to us to hold our own boundaries.  We can't expect our bpd parent to hold our boundary, if we don't hold to it ourselves.  For example, one boundary we talk about a lot on this forum is around contact.  Sometimes we need space from our pwbpd for a while (because they have stressed us to the point we are falling apart), so we tell them we need some alone time, and ask them not to contact us.  So then they do what every child/teenager does, and they push that boundary.  The very next day, they phone or text us!  Repeatedly!  (This is called the "extinction burst".) So if we answer their phone or text, we are actually breaking our own boundary.  If we want them to learn our boundary, we need to role model our boundary, and not break it ourselves.  This may be difficult, and feel like tough love, but we're only doing it to protect ourselves, because we are falling apart, and because they have the emotional intelligence of a child and are treating us like   (raging, or humiliating or whatever tactic they are using which is hurting us).  The boundary is to protect ourselves.  That became my mantra.  And every time I felt bad or guilty about holding a boundary with my mom (eg not answering the text), I repeated my mantra.  Eventually, the pwbpd gets the message that we are holding our own boundary, and they stop the undesired behavior.  It's awful that we have to do this, but this is the only way I know to teach "boundaries".  I always say teaching a bpd boundaries is like teaching dogs and kids, and I say that gently and with kindness.  The emotional intelligence is about the same, because of the disease.  They can't help it.  It could even be argued it's not their fault, because the disease is often a product of childhood abuse.

So to answer your question, yes, holding our own boundaries can come with all kinds of complicated and negative feelings.  

To decide on our boundaries, it helps to know what your values are.

For example, when we were first married, my mom showed up with my dear dad at our rental home one day, and tried to give us a surprise $10,000 cheque.  We were in the process of purchasing a house, and she wanted to gift us the $10,000 to contribute to a down payment.  It wasn't an "offer" in the sense that we were given a choice about whether to accept it or not. There had been no discussion between her and us about it. It was expected we would accept it.  My dear husband, god bless him, gave her the cheque back and said he wanted to have the satisfaction on purchasing his first home under "our own steam", and he hoped she could accept that.  OMG, you cannot imagine the drama that caused, because to her it was a personal rejection of HER as a person.  She felt unloved for a very long time after that. She got depressed.  Blah blah blah.  Eventually eventually eventually eventually she got over it.  Had we accepted that money, there would have been strings attached for the rest of our lives, in all likelihood.  

It kinda sounds like maybe your dad is using the financing of your renovations to control you in some ways...does that resonate?  It kind of sounds like your dad feels that since he gave you a potful of money, you "owe" him in other ways.  Or am I way off base, and not quite connecting with your situation?

I also feel as though he thinks i "owe" him something because he helped me financially.

It is my belief that there are always strings attached with a BPD.  Always.  Large gifts are never just purely gifts in my experience.  A childhood memory I have is always hearing my dad asking my mom "why are there always strings attached"? The reading I have done about BPD supports this theory of mine.

The best thing that you can do is accept that this is the way it is with a BPD.  Forever.  We can't change them.  Most therapists can't change them.  Accepting this is called "radical acceptance".

Understanding the disease of BPD, made it easier for me to set boundaries with my uBPD mom.

I can report that a year later, my mom and I have what I would call a tenuous but currently stable relationship.  I have many boundaries now, and that is what lets me maintain a relationship with her.  

To answer your other question, I would call my relationship with my mom  superficial.  Like you, I don't tell her ANYTHING personal about myself, my life, or my relationships.  We talk about her (her favourite topic), her friends (her second favourite topic), the weather, occasional politics (only if it's something we agree on), inotherwords only neutral topics.  I tell her NOTHING personal, and only "facts" eg. "we are going on a road trip in August for 3 weeks".  Being the gatekeeper of my personal information is another boundary I have to keep myself safe, because if I tell her something personal, she will find a way to use it against me sometime down the road.  So, a superficial relationship?  Yes.  But it's SAFE to be superficial, and that brings relief compared to the stress I was living with before I started using the strategies I learned on this site.  I had to radically accept my mom for who she was, and to do this, I had to understand the disease.  That was my path.  We each have to find our own path.  What works for one person, may or may not work for another.

I don't know if my story answers your questions, or helps at all, but I thought I would share.

I do want to state that it CAN get better if we work at it, but WE are the ones that have to do all the work and the learning, because they aren't going to change.  

[hotncold]

Thank you Methuen,
Yes this is incredibly helpful. Unfortunately I am not in a financial situation where I can refuse the help of my parents so I cannot go no contact with them. I do not have a spouse (I've mostly dated people who I recently realized were incapable of empathy and compassion - mostly because this was familiar to me but as you know these turn out to be extremely painful relationships) so I need to maintain a good relationship with my family. It is the first time since I became an adult that I am financially dependent on them. But yes it is very complicated when there is uBpd.

 You have therefore very much answered my question. The discomfort we feel when setting f boundaries and that feeling of having a superficial relationship. I am cultivating it with all members of my family now and I am feeling safer. I no longer feel the need to vent about my family either. I am just left with this slightly nauseating feeling and some moments of profound anger but otherwise I dont want to spend energy on them anymore. I want to experience a better life than one that is perpetually entwined with them. And as you have confirmed superficial is evidently the best way to maintain contact with them. It felt strange and I never thought that this was a form of boundaries but I understand that it very much is and can be a very healthy way to enforce boundaries in toxic relationships. Thank you for this confirmation. 

[hotncold]

I only wish I had understood this earlier. I always felt that superficial was a negative thing.

[Methuen]

Glad it was helpful hotncold. 

I only wish I had understood this earlier.

You sound young enough to be YEARS ahead of me.  I didn't figure the BPD and coping strategies out until I was 57, so kudos to you!
 

I always felt that superficial was a negative thing.

Well...it's best to look at the glass half full, so to me it's better to nudge the compass a little and see superficial as being a SAFE thing rather than a negative thing.   

[hotncold]

:wee:Well...it's best to look at the glass half full, so to me it's better to nudge the compass a little and see superficial as being a SAFE thing rather than a negative thing.   

Thank you Methuen. These are all very kind words and very much appreciated. And yes... I will look at superficial in a very different light from now on.

[hotncold]

Glad it was helpful hotncold.   You sound young enough to be YEARS ahead of me.  I didn't figure the BPD and coping strategies out until I was 57, so kudos to you!

I had the luck - can we say? - of falling very, very, VERY hard for someone with BPD when I was 32.  It was a disaster but early on he announced to me he had BPD (I think he self diagnosed because he refused to speak to therapists - but I would say he fit pretty much every single characteristic in the DSM manual so pretty accurate). As I googled about BPD and read about the behaviours it turned my world completely upside down because I realized that behavior I had been conditioned to think was normal, was actually abuse. The person I thought I was crumbled away. It was perhaps one of the most painful periods of my life, and the beginning of a lot of work to extract myself from the dysfunctional web that is my family. That was eight years ago, and I now have a life with wonderful friendships, an occupation that I love, creative projects that are going somewhere and finally, perhaps a manageable relationship with my family. 

[Methuen]

The person I thought I was crumbled away. It was perhaps one of the most painful periods of my life, and the beginning of a lot of work to extract myself from the dysfunctional web that is my family.

So much turbulence, and pain, and as you said "work" to sort through this stuff and navigate these relationships right?

Glad to hear you have a T.  Many of us on this forum have or have had a T.  Super helpful support right? (once we find the right match for us!).

That was eight years ago, and I now have a life with wonderful friendships, an occupation that I love, creative projects that are going somewhere and finally, perhaps a manageable relationship with my family.

Keep plugging away at it.  Learning is lifelong anyways, and I figure with a BPD relationship in the mix, the learning is amplified a lot! Congrats on sorting through so much of it, and finding your way to a better place!

[alphabeta]

Hi Methuen,

I like the advice you posted:

To answer your other question, I would call my relationship with my mom  superficial.  Like you, I don't tell her ANYTHING personal about myself, my life, or my relationships.  We talk about her (her favourite topic), her friends (her second favourite topic), the weather, occasional politics (only if it's something we agree on), inotherwords only neutral topics.  I tell her NOTHING personal, and only "facts" eg. "we are going on a road trip in August for 3 weeks".  

I'd just like to add that it's advisable not to say to your relative w/BPD that you want to have a superficial relationship with them. 

I made the mistake of doing so, and it resulted in my mother threatening to commit suicide and later blaming me for being so cold.

[Goldcrest]

The approach I am now taking - after so many decades of trying to tell them who I am and what I wanted and what I thought was right - does feel dishonest and I'm not used to it at all. It's as though they always expected my rawest honesty and always took advantage of it. But I have concluded that not everyone deserves my "honesty". It is a gift and my parents used and abused me with it. They will no longer ever receive it from me. I'm just hoping that I can hold up and not get angry one day. I am actually really, really angry and how manipulative my father's behaviour is. He purposely provoked me - "do you need it?", put me in a humiliating situation where I had to "ask" for money, when i had actually never asked for it from him in the first place - and then when all I did was restate the agreement that we had reached, lashed out at me in a way that would again make me play that role of "spoiled, ungrateful" child. I am in this situation because I have recently lost my job because of the pandemic. Normally I am self sufficient. I actually have serious issues accepting help from people in my life which makes me very sad. Their disgusting behaviours have caused so much damage in the way I approach relationships as an adult. I am healing, but it is so, so, so much work, and whenever there is an interaction with my parents it's as though I relapse. My therapist has advised me to write notes down to myself that I have to read whenever I do interact with my parents because they constantly try to "reframe" the story to the one that suits them which essentially boils down to "there is something fundamentally wrong" with me... not them. I am and have always been the problem, the loser, the nothing. I have accomplished amazing things in my life, probably more than most in my family, and yet it is hard for me to remember that I have done them. My brain is wired to erase all of my accomplishments in life.

Hi Hotncold, I can really relate to what you have said here. Similar realisations (and also having allowed my parents to help me financially now backfiring) have left me feeling very flat emotionally. I am struggling to not let it cloud my whole life because it feels like in order to protect myself against them and their view of me being a grasping, selfish and difficult child, I have to hide away inside myself. And the shapeshifting to fit their version of things is suffocating. I just wanted to thank you for what you have written because it helped me today when I was feeling alone. This is what I love about the forum is that you can see a community of people struggling with similar horrendous parents. 

[zachira]

I think all of us who have abusive family members struggle with having to be superficial with these types of people when we long so deeply for a genuine caring loving connection with them. Giving up ever being seen for who we are by the parents who are supposed to love us unconditionally is terribly painful, yet as we accept this often times we realize just how many wonderful people there are who are empathetic, kind, and can be part of creating the kind of family we have always wanted to have.

[livednlearned]

I always thought that boundaries were about saying firmly what you want and what you need, and enforcing them or walking away. Saying no when you don't feel comfortable, etc. It requires a lot of honesty in that approach and I have spent so much time trying to make it work

I find in relationships with disordered family members that minimizing the target is most effective. Big boundary, small target. The more I say about the boundary, the bigger the target. The less I say, the smaller the target. Having a small target meant I required less effort to protect my boundary.

And I've learned to seek emotional nourishment and authentic relationships elsewhere.

For me, saying more was also tied to a yearning for them to change. Maybe if I said it the right way, they would finally accept me and provide the emotional support I was seeking from them. It was kind of a bid that they repeatedly ignored. I felt good about what I was saying and I felt bad about their response.

Your parents may be terrified of emotional intimacy so the very thing you seek is what they are least capable of providing. They're afraid.

Maybe that's why setting limits with them feels superficial.

You have a rich emotional inner life that you are constantly nourishing. You're looking for ways to sustain and grow this beautiful garden. Ideally, your parents would delight in this, and they would be shoulder to shoulder with you in this labor of love.

Instead, any invitation to participate in this fruitful life makes them scared, so they lash out and defend themselves against intimacy, something they can't see or name. They end up targeting where it's coming from, which is you.

Your capacity for emotional intimacy is beyond what they are capable of. Meeting them at their level feels like a betrayal of sorts because you've grown past that point and it no longer feels authentic.

I am curious whether your father will pursue greater connection with you the less you share with him. And if you share something of yourself with them in kind, if they will retreat or maybe lash out.

I am actually really, really angry and how manipulative my father's behaviour is.

Money really complicates things in our type of dysfunctional relationships. In my family, money is practically the same thing as an emotion.

Perhaps your father offered the money precisely because you didn't ask for it. And then when you had to ask for the final third, you had to be punished.

This is how money works in my family, and I notice it's how intimacy works, too. Intimacy for them is not anything like what I have cultivated in my own life. But it is for them -- they are wired to seek connection and I am the person in the family most capable of being genuine, so they advance and retreat, advance and retreat.

[Methuen]

I can personally affirm some of LnL's thoughts here.

I am curious whether your father will pursue greater connection with you the less you share with him.

This completely articulates my experience with my mom.  I initially had to take a 3 week road trip (my "excuse" for NC), and when I returned from that, I stayed really LC for several months.  That was also when I changed how I interacted with her and started using SET, validating questions, and NOT JADEing and so on.  To this day, I am LC with her, but I've never articulated that with her.  I've never told her I can't see her more than 2X per week, as I always knew that would be counterproductive, and probably boomerang back to hurt me as much as her.  As an aside to LnL, is this part of what you meant by having a smaller target LnL?  At any rate, now that I have less contact with uBPD mom, and NEVER discuss anything personal, we are managing a relationship.
It's seems crazy, but it works for me.  Like LnL said, less intimacy.  She was SOO horrid when she was injured and I was "nursing" her 4-5 hours a day.  After trying to help her through that, I kind of fell apart because of her treatment of me.  She was NOT appreciative of ANYTHING, but instead BLAMED me for all her pain (she had fallen under her fruit tree when she was home alone)!  So I really believe in what LnL is saying here.  

Your capacity for emotional intimacy is beyond what they are capable of. Meeting them at their level feels like a betrayal of sorts because you've grown past that point and it no longer feels authentic.

This is the key:  "meet them where they're at".  In the beginning it felt less than authentic, but once I had "radically accepted" my mom, it stopped feeling inauthentic.  Now it just feels like "I'm meeting her where she's at" (walking in her lane, instead of mine).  It seems to be working for her (because we seem to be getting along at the moment- shocking!), and it's "safe" for me.  

[livednlearned]

I've never told her I can't see her more than 2X per week, as I always knew that would be counterproductive, and probably boomerang back to hurt me as much as her

Exactly.

Some of my smallest boundaries are also embedded in conversations. What I will and won't engage in when we talk, when I will or will not ask follow up questions, what information I won't offer, and what information I won't share if asked.

I had to pay attention to what was happening in conversation and sort of categorize the different moves so I could better identify them when they happen.

My mom, it turns out, can talk for hours about nothing. The urge to connect is there but she can't quite handle what she's seeking. I kind of throttle everything down so there's a connection without turning up any intimacy dials.

[Methuen]

My mom, it turns out, can talk for hours about nothing.

This made me laugh.  So can mine.  I used to demurely use reflective listening - back when I was busy trying to still be the perfect daughter.  Now, I listen reflectively for what feels right, and then I have to go take my groceries home, or get to an appt.  Small targets!    If I didn’t, I don’t know if she would ever stop talking about nothing!