Mother with uBPD calls in the middle of the night

[zanyapple]

I have a difficult mother with uBPD. I live overseas where the time zone is the complete reverse of where she is.

For some reason, she always has these mostly negative thoughts at night. Often times, she gets up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, and she would then call me. Typically, the topic is about negative events, most of which have never happened.

Any normal person who gets up in the middle of the night (either to go to the bathroom or for whatever reason), would look forward to going back to bed. People who have trouble going back to bed even worry about it, but they still do their best to fall back asleep.

But for her, it's like she purposely disrupts her sleep because her mind start wandering into dark places? I mean, what person in their right mind STARTS A PHONE CALL in the middle of the night? Who does that? You should only do that if it's for truly important matters - like if there's an emergency or someone died. If you inadvertently get up, your only goal is to go back to bed like any normal person?

[Riv3rW0lf]

I read on here once that some borderlines can erupt in nightly rages. They wake up at night and basically scream at everyone else in the household, like a dream set them off or something.

I don't recall ever experiencing that kind of night rage myself but maybe your mother is prone to this? Is she triggered when she calls you, or just looking to talk with you, assuming this time suits you best?

[zanyapple]

I read on here once that some borderlines can erupt in nightly rages. They wake up at night and basically scream at everyone else in the household, like a dream set them off or something.

I don't recall ever experiencing that kind of night rage myself but maybe your mother is prone to this? Is she triggered when she calls you, or just looking to talk with you, assuming this time suits you best?

@Riv3rW0lf She has done that to me and my dad many times - where a dream would set her off, and she will actually believe it! Many times, she has dreamt of either me or my dad turning our backs - which to her is a gesture that means "treachery." Then she will keep unpleasantly trying to get us to "divulge information" because we are apparently hiding something from her and her dream gave her this sign. What the...

When she calls me, many times it's about something negative. Like she had a bad dream or she thought of a conversation this morning that extremely worried her, or she came across some bad news on TV.

I mean, it's not an emergency. And even though our time zones are not always aligned, there's a sweet spot where it's not too late/early for either of us.

I guess my confusion is just - if it's not urgent, wouldn't you want to go back to bed? I mean, what person wants to purposely disrupt their sleep?

[Methuen]

I have a difficult mother with uBPD. I live overseas where the time zone is the complete reverse of where she is.

For some reason, she always has these mostly negative thoughts at night. Often times, she gets up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, and she would then call me. Typically, the topic is about negative events, most of which have never happened.

I think many people with BPD have trauma, and as a result, their sleep cycles are affected.  My uBPD is always up in the middle of the night.  She would work on a craft, or a letter, or start canning her peaches at 3:00am.  This has been her normal, throughout her entire life.

For us, it's not normal.  For them, it's completely normal.  pwBPD tend to think the world revolves around them, and in my experience with my mom, do not consider the needs of others (to sleep in the middle of the night) before their own needs.  It does not surprise me that your BPD mom calls you in the middle of the night.  pwBPD don't understand "boundaries" because they either have poor boundaries, or seem to have no boundaries at all.  

Can you put your phone on a "do not disturb" setting?  This is what I have done.  It works like a charm.  It's not your job to "fix" her negative thoughts in the middle of the night.

[livednlearned]

I have heard it called midnight frenzies.

Some of it may come from too much quiet, makes them feel alone which equals a sense of abandonment.

Do you pick up the phone when it happens?

[zanyapple]

Do you pick up the phone when it happens?

No, because I know it's only going to upset me. If it's important enough, she will call multiple times.

In the past, there's sometimes nothing to talk about that there's dead air. It's just so weird to me that someone is ok to waste some good night's rest just for a nonsensical phone call that could be postponed in the morning.

[zanyapple]

I think many people with BPD have trauma, and as a result, their sleep cycles are affected.  My uBPD is always up in the middle of the night.  She would work on a craft, or a letter, or start canning her peaches at 3:00am.  This has been her normal, throughout her entire life.

Can you put your phone on a "do not disturb" setting?  This is what I have done.  It works like a charm.  It's not your job to "fix" her negative thoughts in the middle of the night.

It must be nice to have the luxury to not have to report to work the next day that you can afford to be canning peaches at 3 AM. That's like winning the lottery right there where time doesn't even move, where you don't have to rush around.

Yes, DND is soo useful to me! I remember she would call me at 3AM my time. I have been in this country for over a decade. You would think by then she realizes that our time zones are different, but it looks like she doesn't.

[Riv3rW0lf]

It must be nice to have the luxury to not have to report to work the next day that you can afford to be canning peaches at 3 AM. That's like winning the lottery right there where time doesn't even move, where you don't have to rush around.

I have a lot of sleep issues due to trauma... Most of us still report to work the next day, or have to wake up at 6am with our children, we are just very tired. ;)

I feel a lot of anger toward your mother. Which I get. I am also very angered and... Rageful actually, against my mother. And I just found out I also hold a lot of contempt for her, which is a side of me I hate.

If it is a big trigger for you to see she is calling during her night time, maybe there is something in your past to explain that anger, some unresolved trauma of your own that you might want to look into... We can find gadget and strategy to help out, but in the end, if you don't find the root cause of that triggering, it won't solve itself and she won't change.

[zanyapple]

If it is a big trigger for you to see she is calling during her night time, maybe there is something in your past to explain that anger, some unresolved trauma of your own that you might want to look into... We can find gadget and strategy to help out, but in the end, if you don't find the root cause of that triggering, it won't solve itself and she won't change.

I'm sorry for responding late to this. I think you're right. When I was in high school, she would wake either me or my dad up (whoever she's upset with) in the middle of the night. She believes that people get the most upset if they are woken up from their sleep, therefore, will give you their utmost attention. Typing this out now even makes me upset.

[Riv3rW0lf]

That must have been incredibly scary and stressful, being woken up to be screamed at and raged at... I am sorry you went through this.

How do you feel about sleep now? For yourself I mean? 

It's strange that she still calls you in the middle of her night, despite it being day for you

[Couscous]

You should only do that if it's for truly important matters - like if there's an emergency or someone died.

To your mother it FEELS like an emergency. For people with trauma/PTSD the middle of the night can be a very scary time. It sounds like the attach/cry for help trauma response but it doesn’t mean that you have to answer the phone as she needs to learn other ways to self-soothe. Perhaps you could send her links to some guided meditations on YouTube that she can to listen to when she can’t sleep, and then when she calls, send her a text reminding her to listen to them.

[zanyapple]

That must have been incredibly scary and stressful, being woken up to be screamed at and raged at... I am sorry you went through this.

How do you feel about sleep now? For yourself I mean? 

It's strange that she still calls you in the middle of her night, despite it being day for you

Around 10 years ago, she called me in the middle of the night for something non-urgent. This time, she wasn't raging. It was just something trivial she wanted to tell me about.

That night, I couldn't go back to sleep and did not sleep for 3 days straight. That was the one night that my sleeping patterns changed. I don't know what happened to me, but it's definitely psychological.

For many years, I battled what I thought was psychological insomnia. There were nights where I could not sleep, and I feared not being able to fall asleep, which led to more sleeplessness. I remember the very night this aspect of my life changed because this simply was not even something I would even think about before.

Fast forward to today, I have luckily no longer experienced this. What helped me was definitely acupuncture and just focusing my day to day on my family, daughter, and work. I tried many different ways to self-treat, and while I was skeptical of acupuncture in the beginning, I found that it was the most helpful for me.

I honestly don't know what happened to me before. She had called me in the middle of the night many times before to rage at me, but for this one night, it was just for something trivial. It was just that one night that triggered it all - and it resulted in many years of battling insomnia that didn't seem to have any root cause.

[zanyapple]

To your mother it FEELS like an emergency. For people with trauma/PTSD the middle of the night can be a very scary time. It sounds like the attach/cry for help trauma response but it doesn’t mean that you have to answer the phone as she needs to learn other ways to self-soothe. Perhaps you could send her links to some guided meditations on YouTube that she can to listen to when she can’t sleep, and then when she calls, send her a text reminding her to listen to them.

Thank you. As much as I want to understand it, I still don't - especially for people that are aware they have this. I'm lactose intolerant, so when I eat anything with dairy, I get a stomachache. So every time I get a stomachache after eating dairy, then I know exactly what to attribute that to.

Doesn't any mental illness work that way? So if you go nuts, knowing you have BPD, can't you just attribute it to that? Doesn't it just click? Like, "wait, I'm raging right now. I know I'm getting out of control. It's because of my BPD, so I should stop?"

[Notwendy]

Thank you. As much as I want to understand it, I still don't - especially for people that are aware they have this. I'm lactose intolerant, so when I eat anything with dairy, I get a stomachache. So every time I get a stomachache after eating dairy, then I know exactly what to attribute that to.

Doesn't any mental illness work that way? So if you go nuts, knowing you have BPD, can't you just attribute it to that? Doesn't it just click? Like, "wait, I'm raging right now. I know I'm getting out of control. It's because of my BPD, so I should stop?"

I think everyone on this board would wish for that! There'd be no need for this board if it were possible. This is the difficulty of BPD: projection and denial. They don't see their uncomfortable feelings as coming from them. They see it as something external doing it to them. It's this inability that makes it so hard for them to see their own BPD.

There are some people with BPD who are motivated to work at this in therapy. I don't know what percentage that is. I have read that it's difficult for therapists to work with- as it takes someone willing to accept feedback on their own behavior and feelings for therapy to work well.

It would be as if you drank some milk, then felt discomfort- instead of thinking "this is from you drinking milk" you blamed it on your husband and then raged at him for buying the milk and somehow by doing that, it caused your issue. His likely response would be " but you drank it- I didn't make you drink it" and then you'd be even more upset, rage at him more, and then decide it's all the cow's fault.

The problem with this thinking is that, if you don't make the connection between your own action: drinking milk and feeling distress, that learning doesn't take place.

[zanyapple]

It would be as if you drank some milk, then felt discomfort- instead of thinking "this is from you drinking milk" you blamed it on your husband and then raged at him for buying the milk and somehow by doing that, it caused your issue. His likely response would be " but you drank it- I didn't make you drink it" and then you'd be even more upset, rage at him more, and then decide it's all the cow's fault.

Thank you, Notwendy, for very clearly explaining it to me. I actually laughed at this so much! Thank you for the good laugh! It's very accurate and helped me realize how BPDs think. Although it doesn't make sense to me in a way that my logical brain wouldn't even approach a problem that way, I can see it from their perspective. It's seem very crazy and definitely not normal.

I'm sure they've tried this before, but wouldn't a sign, like maybe a post-it or something, maybe help in reminding them?

[livednlearned]

Doesn't any mental illness work that way? So if you go nuts, knowing you have BPD, can't you just attribute it to that? Doesn't it just click? Like, "wait, I'm raging right now. I know I'm getting out of control. It's because of my BPD, so I should stop?"

I think a lot of the disorder that we deal with flows from BPD black/white thinking, which is almost like switching between disordered states that aren't entirely connected, making it difficult to acknowledge the presence of gray, which is where non-BPD live.

Black and white thinking: my favorite person left the room = she is bad therefore I am bad.
Grey: my favorite person left the room = that makes me mad/scared but I know she loves me.

It's also possible for pwBPD to feel that someone left (she isn't texting me), so the abandonment isn't necessarily triggered externally.

The book In Search of the Real Self by James Masterson describes the development of the healthy self and juxtaposes it with the development of a disordered self. There are age-appropriate psychological developmental stages that pwBPD don't necessarily accomplish, which is why your mom may look and behave like an adult while having emotions and low frustration tolerance (and impulsivity) like a toddler.

She may be unable to manage the sheer intensity of her feelings because she lacks the psychological scaffolding to pull off those more advanced skills.

I think part of the problem, too, is that it's abnormal to treat a parent or any grown adult like a child, especially when you are the child. My sibling's BPD became much worse in adolescence, at exactly the same time he was being given greater responsibilities, under the assumption he was developing in age-appropriate ways. But he wasn't.

If we had applied boundary setting to him like we would to any toddler, I don't think he would've been able to terrorize our family in the same way. My parents essentially protected the bad behaviors and taught me to do the same, which I did, and then repeated that pattern by marrying a man who was arguably worse.

Validation has always come from people outside the family. They see the behaviors and call it like it is. Once I was convinced that this perspective was healthy, not just for me but also for pwBPD, it became easier to treat the behaviors rather than try to reason with the person.

[Couscous]

The book In Search of the Real Self by James Masterson describes the development of the healthy self and juxtaposes it with the development of a disordered self.

And the worst part about this is that we as the children of such parents have also not developed a healthy self. Fortunately with therapy and 12 Step groups we can heal the damage.

[livednlearned]

And the worst part about this is that we as the children of such parents have also not developed a healthy self. Fortunately with therapy and 12 Step groups we can heal the damage.

So true, Couscous. I used to say I was raised by wolves, but really, I was raised by children. As a young adult, I was still a child.

I married someone with BPD, probably because taking care of an emotional toddler was what I was trained to do. I associated it with family.