I just returned from Christmas dinner with my family (we’re all in the same quarantine pod because they are elderly and I take supplies to them weekly, other than that my fiancée and I are quarantined at home completely).
The evening ended with my BPD relative throwing some of my stuff down the stairs while my 80-something old father was on the stairs. I was so worried something would hit him and knock him down to his death right in front of me. My BPD relative lives with my parents for free and tends to freak out and become emotionally and verbally abusing towards me as soon as there any level of distress because she has low distress tolerance. Everyone else in my family seems to be able to walk on eggshells around her and/or enable her. She tends to turn me into an emotional punching bag when she’s disregulated about other things and when I disagree in the slightest way.
Tonight’s outburst centered around the fact that I couldn’t go up the stairs to look at something she wanted me to look at. I tried to explain that I was in a car accident and can’t go up stairs without feeling back pain but she wasn’t listening and I think got triggered when I turned my back to the stairway and started to leave through the front door.
Usually when she screams and goes nuts I disassociate and come back to consciousness a couple hours later curled up in a room and crying but this time I didn’t didn’t probably because I was worried that I might have to catch my Dad in case one of the objects she was throwing down the stairs hit him. He was trying to get her to calm down which wasn’t working. Honestly more than half of my mom’s family has BPD and if it’s not one aunt ruining each holiday it’s another or else it’s the one with aggressive narcissistic personality disorder. I love my parents and wish I could visit them without the terror of my extended family but they’re like parasites who will always be feasting on the host until there’s nothing left. The pandemic as luckily made a few of them not be able to attend Christmas dinner but honestly there’s always at least one ruining everything and for some reason no one ever holds them accountable.
I’m the only one who acknowledges the madness of it all and for some reason I’m the only one who ever offers an apology of any sort for whatever role I played in the escalation of the inevitable drama. I only recently learned of the BPD label so I’m hear to learn as much as I can since it’s impossible to visit my Dad without navigating a BPD minefield of my mom’s relatives whose behaviors are both terrifying and confusing. I wish I could remember that they’re mentally ill and have a short fuse so it would at least not be so surprising each time but they’re so intelligent, strong, and sane 90% of the time that I forget that they’re a hair trigger away from acting completely nuts and blaming me for everything. They’re always 100% the victim in their version of the story and take no accountability for the verbal and emotional abuse they dish out so freely. Tonight was the first time it became physical. It’s not so much that I care about my stuff being thrown down the stairs and broken but the overall violence of it all just from not being willing to be pushed around to go up the stairs when I clearly said multiple times that my back can’t handle stairs right now. I wish I had just left instead of trying to reason with people who are just too mentally ill to be reasoned with. My poor Dad looked so worried being caught in the crossfire. Luckily none of the stuff hit him. Merry Christmas from my hopelessly dysfunctional family. It’s the perfect end to a completely horrible year that included a chronic migraine that has lasted 5.5 months (it’s my first migraine ever and the pain and light-sensitivity just won’t go away despite 14 different meds the neurologists have tried. As if I needed another headache from all the needless drama tonight. : / On the upside, it’s the first time I haven’t disassociated during one of their BPD meltdowns so that’s progress I suppose.
I feel for you every word I’ve just separated from a suspected bpd and I said yes to having dinner at my parents with my kids as soon as we arrived I saw that tension was in the air , my parents are both abusive verbally emotionally I’ve no idea what they are presume narc and bpd their relationship is horrendous married 40 years and non stop fighting. My mums dog was a bit giddy and was pestering a little and my dad went to instant anger shouting at the dog I saw my 2 kids jump and I was thinking why shout n my head but I just said its ok dad she will calm down in a min , he snapped at me she’s jumping all over everyone (no she wasn’t) and said my name in a tone like I was a naughty kid not a grown women in my 40. I said if the atmosphere will be like this we are going my mum proceeded to fake fill up and said she had spent hours preparing , she refuses help but then huffs and puffs causing horrendous atmosphere I have to sit at the table in a designated seat like I’m 5 with my children and wait for my parents to tell us to eat. Never ever again am I putting my self through this hell , my 13 year old said when we got in the car that my sister his aunt dodged a bullet with COVID restrictions
I’m sad that others are in similar situations but also relieved I’m not crazy. But I really do need to heal and put boundaries in place I cannot spend my life enabling this c**p
