Yet another mother with BPD

[brinskies]

hi all, finally built up the courage to post on the forum for the first time.

I’m a mom in my late twenties with a beautiful baby girl & a great soon-to-be husband. We’ve been together over 4 years & have made a great life for ourselves.

Rewind to my childhood, I grew up with an uBPD mom who (sadly) decided to have 6 kids. 5/6 with the same father & myself (oldest) with an estranged ‘sperm donor’ as she referred to my entire life. I was conceived when my mother was only 18 & was abandoned by my biological father before I was even born. My mother recently (2 years ago) received her diagnosis of BPD, although she has yet to take it seriously. She uses it in fights as an ‘excuse’ for her actions, but doesn’t actually follow a therapist or actively seek to get better.

Ever since I was little girl (& as long as I could remember), I always had a rocky relationship with my mother. I was a very friendly child, had many friends & saw my friends with their mothers and knew that my mom was different. As I grew up, it became obvious to me that there was something wrong with her, but I was uneducated in personality disorders & couldn’t quite put a name to it.

Some of my mother’s ‘unmotherly’ tendencies were the following :

- severe gambling problem, which led to two bankruptcies in the family. She preferred to spend her money on herself & fuelling her addiction than making sure her children had adequate food, clothing, access to sports/leisure activities. As we got older, she went as far as taking our hard earned cash to fuel her own spending (asking for room & board at 15 years old, taking birthday/Christmas money to ‘spend’ on expenses such as dentist visits that a mother should already be paying for?’
- Verbally abusive to my siblings’ father, bringing him to cut off his own family in order to please her as they didn’t like her. They have not spoken or seen any of my siblings in nearly 10 years.
- Enjoys creating feuds among siblings & pinning them against each other.
- Using grandchildren (more recently, as myself & one of my siblings now have children) as reasons to be kept in our lives & works as a ‘do over’ for her since she was such a terrible parent.
- Manic verbally & physically abusive outbursts when she doesn’t get her way.
- Making every single conversation, fight, event about herself & her feelings, even if she has nothing to do with said event (example, a baby shower for a sibling was made out to be all about her as she didn’t approve of the guest list & threw a fit on the day of).
- Picked on by her directly as a child, as I was always very suspicious of my mom & didn’t buy into a lot of what she was selling. Because of this, I was often alienated & told by her that I was ‘selfish, ungrateful, brat’ etc.

I could really go on, but you get the point.

I always envied friends of mine & their relationships with their mothers. In the past, exes of mine were harder to leave because I became so attached to their mothers & couldn’t fathom the idea of letting that relationship go. Being a mother now, I often wonder how mine could have been so cruel to me. I look at my daughter & become emotional just thinking of someone hurting her feelings, I vow to not make her feel a tenth of how my mother has made me feel over the years.

My question is the following - a lot of my friends do not understand where I come from in me wanting to cut off my mother completely from my life. Some of them have been in my life for over 15 years, they’ve seen a very fake version of my mom & couldn’t imagine how she truly is behind closed doors. They’ve said I may regret cutting her off in the future & my daughter will one day have questions for me. As for myself & my partner, it’s an easy decision although I’m curious to get people in similar positions’ feedback on how this may of affected their families.

Is this true? Will I regret shielding my daughter from my BPD mother?

To say I’m exhausted is an understatement, I just want to do everything in my power to protect my child & family from this woman at all costs. I still have a lot of trauma to unpack from my childhood & the last thing I want is to have my daughter be caught up in my mother’s antics.

Thanks in advance for any & all input!

[Notwendy]

I am sorry you are having to deal with this, and many of us here are in a similar situation. I think there are pros and cons to either decision- keep or maintain contact. Each situation is unique and so each person makes the best decision for them.

I don't think there's regret in shielding our children from an abusive ( verbal, emotional, as well as physical) adult. Even if we do have contact, there needs to be boundaries for us and for children.

I also think a sense of regret is inevitable. We all wish we could have a good relationship with our parent, but if the parent is disordered, and abusive, we can not change them.

One thing for certain though- it would be regrettable to allow them to be abusive and manipulative to our children and that becomes the primary choice -to protect the children no matter how we manage the relationship with the family member with BPD.

Children may ask questions and yet, they don't understand the situation. Neither do friends and family who haven't interacted the same way as you have. Regardless, you and your partner are the ones who are responsible for acting in your child's best interest. It's your child and you can make the best decision for them.

[Channing]

Hello and welcome to the Board,

I have some commonalities with you including my family scapegoat status, our mothers behaved quite similarly and I also have one child. My child is a teenager and I would like to share with you some issues that have come up as cautions in dealing with the grandparent dynamic with this kind of grandmother.

It seems like my scapegoat status carried over from me to my son. My mother has always treated my son as somewhat "less than" her other grandkids. That changed when my mother and I became estranged and suddenly she began to focus on my son as a way to get to me. What I am saying is, be aware that your child can become a very convenient pawn in the event there is conflict between you and your mother. The more remote your child's relationship with her, the harder it is for her to do any real damage to your child's mental health.

My mother has done some very insulting and hurtful things to my child. Some of them have been done so casually that it is not until later that I realize how awful they were. As an example, we once traveled to spend Thanksgiving with her and when I asked her to help me plan the dinner, she looked at me and my son and said "Why bother, it's just you."

I am so used to being treated this way by her that I just carried on as if nothing had happened. But my son was hurt. I feel badly about exposing him to that. My point is that you never know when these kinds of interactions will come up. If your child spends time around your mother, she may end up treating your child the way she did you. I suggest an intensively managed low contact situation with firm boundaries with no babysitting and no vacations with grandma (my mother once suggested my son come and stay with her for a few weeks -- I felt like burning sage around the house just thinking about it). Good luck!

[WalkbyFaith]

Welcome to the board. I hope you find the support you are looking for here! Many of us, myself included, are in similar situations with our mothers. I also have one young child and just recently (about 2 or 3 weeks ago) cut off contact with my uBPD mom as well as my enabling dad and siblings.

I agree with what Notwendy said, there is no regret in protecting our children from negativity and abuse. Sadness maybe, about the lack of relationship and the way things should have been...but if we are setting boundaries to protect our children, that is what we are meant to do as parents. Others who don't know who our moms really are behind closed doors will not and cannot understand.

In my case, my uBPD mom is weirdly obsessed with my child. She has two other grandchildren older than him, but he's the first boy, and I also had several years of infertility before he came along, so maybe that's part of the reason? I don't know, but her "love" for him, in my opinion goes way beyond normal grandma love and crosses a line into almost-creepy obsession and smothering. Strange considering I am the scapegoat of the family!

Anyway, you and your partner will do what you feel is best for your family - don't let those who can't understand make you doubt what you know. However I will say if there is anyone in your life (maybe it's just here!) who could understand and give you wise advice, that can be really helpful in making these painful decisions.