RJ2018
 Offline
What is your sexual orientation: Straight
Who in your life has "personality" issues: Parent
Posts: 25
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« on: November 27, 2020, 01:41:59 PM » |
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Hello...
(I apologize in advance for the length. I really started off intending to make this no longer than a paragraph or two. I even cut out a significant portion of backstory (I cut from here and pasted it into a notepad app, to pull back up in case anyone is interested)! And yet still... So please, bear with me...)
So, this is my first time posting in a few years. I was last here and posted a few times back in 2018. Here's the latest...
Such a lonnnnnnnng backstory, but very long story short, I've for some years now suspected that my mom suffers from BPD. As far as I know, and very likely, she isn't diagnosed.
After what seemed like months of seemingly unprecedented progress -- for both her and our relationship -- about a month and a half ago, she got into a verbal altercation with my brother which I'm almost certain was mostly her fault. He'd been staying with her for a while and was soon moving back to his own place (as in literally within a few days), and she knew this. Conveniently, the altercation happens and she makes him leave without getting many of his things. She made it seem like it was temporary (we're thinking a few hours..or a day at the most), long enough for them to both "cool off" and then he could come back to retrieve them. A month and a half later, she still hasn't let him get those things.. including his wallet with his ID, debit/credit cards, the only TV he owns, AND his bed (which she's been sleeping on since she basically stole it a few years ago after a very similar incident..with her bed having been in storage this whole time -- I know. Madness).
I was furious about this, especially as my brother has been going through his own issues this year and trying to get himself and his life back on track, and my mom has known this. She started off claiming to support him through this... but then she goes and does this, right when he's trying to go back out on his own and had been doing pretty well up until then.
Anyway, that caused a major rift between her and I, and I couldn't let it go or have things be normal between us until she made that right. She still hasn't made it right, but what's more... in her feeling like I should've "taken her side" or just "not let that affect her and my relationship," she's gone back to saying the most horrible, irrational, and cruel things. So it's now been about more than just her treatment of my brother... but again also her treatment of me.
JUST earlier this week, she randomly sent me a text calling me a "dumb ass" and cussing me out in all kinds of other ways after an altercation between her and another family member, where the other family member referenced her (my mom's) seeming mental illness and our troubled relationship over the years -- information she suggested came from me.. which is technically true, but it was only a few times, and the last time was earlier this year. But of course all my mom focused on was her already paranoia that everyone is always talking bad about her and is basically out to get her.). My mom pretty much said to not deal with any of her side of the family and instead worry more about having a relationship with my dad's side. And all of this littered with all caps and the most colorful language possible. She also posted several long rants on Facebook, essentially insulting and cussing out that entire side of the family (and even specifically tagging that one she'd just got into it with), referencing (for the 597268491947th time to anyone who will listen) all of the family members she's lost over the years, and accusing everyone of being fake and also stupid for believing everything they hear.
*Literally* the next day, she sent what appeared to be forwarded texts she sent to my brother asking for money ($200) to pay her internet bill..saying she needs it for her job, and she needs her job to keep where she lives. She of course now throws in his face the several months he'd stayed with her earlier this year and had adamantly INSISTED she didn't want or need anything from him during that period, even after multiple times he'd insisted (in addition to doing things like buying groceries for the house), instead wanting him to just focus on getting better mentally and not worrying about feeling pressured to get another job (which he'd loss earlier this year) or having to pay rent anytime soon before doing so. She knows he still isn't working and yet is like "I let you stay in my home for three months rent-free. And I now need that $200 you wanted to give me then." AND still hasn't even given him/let him get his things INCLUDING HIS WALLET WITH HIS ID AND BANK CARDS!
I guess he ignored the message and so she followed up with several berating and belittling him for ignoring and not being willing to help her. Then she sent some messages, I guess to each of us, basically threatening to end her life. Even threw in a few pictures of a gun and a bullet. And she told us to "live with it".
We've been through quite a few suicide threats from her over the years (a few times even getting the police involved), and after everything we've been through related to that and her in general...we just both ignored even those messages. And I blocked her, for the first time since early this year, again.
With all of this, including her "dumb ass" and other such messages to me, as well as Thanksgiving, my birthday, and Christmas coming up -- all which I had been GREATLY looking forward to finally being able to spend with her for the first time in many years after we'd been doing so well for a lot of this year.. and now knowing it'll instead be another lonely, depressing, frustrating holiday season without her..I kind of had my own major emotional breakdown that night. It was really bad -- so much that I called two of my closest, longtime friends on three-way, which I haven't done with them in over a decade. And they know I'm not usually much of a phone person in general. Thank God, they helped talk me off of the metaphorical (and truthfully in some ways, almost literal) cliff. The general gist from both of them is that it's time I stop worrying about my mom, brother, and anyone else. I need to really start prioritizing and focusing on me. Making me whole again. Determining some new norms for being happy and okay without my mom consistently in my life, and especially through the holidays. And also to try my best to be indifferent to my mom when she's like this, since I know I can't ever see cutting her off indefinitely. Everything they said I felt was true, and it certainly helped...BIG time.
So, back to my mom...
Needless to say, she's still alive. And today, a few days later, she's called me a few times from her house phone (which I forgot to block) and left multiple voice messages which I haven't listened to. I'm able to go into the settings of my phone to access blocked messages if/when I choose, so I went ahead and looked to see what exactly she's talking about -- esp in case she's maybe calmed down and is again talking more reasonably. Or, if not, as a reminder to keep her blocked and go a longer time without looking at the messages.
So I see that she's sent a few messages with a picture of one of her aunts who apparently just passed away last night. This was the last of my mom's living aunts, and she thought very highly of her, although they didn't speak or visit regularly. She lived in, and her funeral services will be in, another state. My mom is basically now expressing how devastated she is at the loss and how she would really like to be able to attend my great aunt's services, so she's essentially asking us to help her (financially) go.
Sigh.
A very small part of me wants to reach out and console her... and help her to be able to go. Most of me just wants to pretend I didn't learn that, just let her deal with and figure it all out on her own, and get back to focusing on me, as my friends advised.
Thoughts?
(And thank you so much for making it this far. ❤)
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