Maybe It's Me...?

[Pale Shelter]

I feel like I'm going to lose my mind. Is it me? Is she right?

Maybe I'm "expecting just a little bit too much from the wounded".

Bpd mother is obviously suffering from intense mental illness. Life has doled out the consequences in excess. And here I am still ruminating about how she can't do "normal" mother things. Am I just as bad as her or worse because I don't have bpd and I'm still beating my head against that same wall angry that I get her to reciprocate or act as a healthy mother? It is its own kind of crazy to hope for healthy behavior from an unhealthy person; from someone who is basically emotionally disabled. Am I being an emotional ableist?

I just don't know how to include her in my life and behave in a healthy way toward her. I wanna be able to practice radical acceptance but I feel like she's just getting away with "it" and I am the one who has to hide my true feelings and tamp everything down cause I am definitely not allowed to be angry or resentful. But I am. I'm really really really angry and it's not going away with time or therapy or Buddhist podcasts or nature walks or bubble baths. I am so so angry and without a place to let it out, it's turning into depression.

Tia for your advice, support, honest opinions, wisdom, humor... anything you have to give.

[khibomsis]

Hey Pale Shelter, I am sorry you are going through this. Life with a BPD mother is hard and can feel like it is never ending. The way I coped was by deciding what a good daughter should do, i.e. what I needed to do for her that would leave me feeling OK in my values. Then I did that, no more, no less, for over twenty years. When she died I grieved, but it was more manageable than if I had gotten sucked into her narcissism. My enmeshed older sibling (golden child) has not recovered yet, it's been four years. So what I am saying is that LC, medium chill, gray rock, these are all things that will protect you in the long run. That is why they matter.

The grief over the mother I never had got much worse after her death, surprisingly. I guess because hope never dies. She did morph into a sweet old lady after Dad died, there was no one there to codependently protect her from the consequences of her actions. But it was too late for me, I could not trust her, too many years of PTSD took its toll, and we ended LC as we had done for years.

I am saying this because rage turned inwards can indeed morph into depression and that is dangerous for you. So maybe it helps to figure out why the rage and what it is about. You have had a mixed experience with therapists, are you in therapy now? Maybe it will not help you get rid of the rage, but at least to identify it and make sure you protect yourself.

No, you are not being ableist, you have every right to expect a human response. It is you yourself you are hurting, because the fact is your mother will never be able to provide it. Taking care of yourself means validating your dissappointment. Every time. You will never get what you need from her. With time I learnt that self-love is an infinite resource. Somebody somewhere must have modeled enough love for you to get by. Lean on it.
 

[Riv3rW0lf]

I can only talk from my own experience, and everyone is different and have to come up with solutions that work for them, but hopefully, it will provide you with a bit of peace to know that you are not alone, and that you are not the problem.

For a very long time, I had to swallow my anger, and for a very long time, I indeed turned it inward and was depressed. I was depressed for so very long, that I had a really no idea that I even was depressed. That was just life for me.

It took me a long time to figure out my mother was BPD, it took me having my children. That's when I noticed, how ... truly uneasy I felt when she was around them. Me, I was used to it, but becoming a mother had this effect on me that I felt the urge to protect them from her somehow, without knowing why...

And with the processing, the dreaming, the observing my thought, I finally found it : the pure rage. So much anger. Years of swallowed anger, untamed, that I hadn't dealt with.

These days, when you read online on BPD, I find them often painted as victims, like they have it worst than all of us and I will be blunt : I do not buy into this. Yes, they have a PD, but like my therapist put it : we have a real right to be angry at them. He has treated BPD that were willing to be in therapy and take responsibility for their illness. Our mothers did not and THIS, for me, was the piece I needed to be able to feel all the anger toward my mother. To this day, she still does not accept responsibility for what she has done, not without needing me to carry part of the blame. And you know what? A four years old being screamed at for hours by a mother that is unleashing all her rage on her does not carry any blame. I was her victim. I am now PTSD from her rages. As a child, I tried to attach myself to her, as all children strive to do, attach themself to their parent: she is the one that failed at being a safe enough mother.

She stopped drinking. Sure. But she didn't stop the abuse, nor tried serious therapy to understand herself and keep her rage in check. When she did stop drinking, I was already 10, and it was well after the worst had happened, so it was too little too late : the damages were done. And then her lack of responsibility, her saying : I stopped drinking so it is all good now ! Well no, it is not. I have my own healing to do and I have a right to it.

She abused me as a child and abandoned me as a teenager, and now, as an adult and mother of two, she expects me to treat her like the best of grandmothers  and to give her unrestricted access to my children, the two most precious people I know, while keeping a right for herself to blame me for her pain and the state of our relationship? Huh, huh, not happening.

I am no contact with her right now.

I found her texts, her arrogance of telling me how sad she was, how ungrateful I was for everything she did for me, how she missed her grandchildren, they generated SO much anger, I just had to cut contact to heal.

I sent her a letter. I called her out. I let her know just what it is that she did to me that I couldn't let go just yet. I told her she was the only one to blame for the state of our relationship because I TRIED. My damnedest, I tried. But it is just never enough for her and I was exhausted, and angry and I just cannot afford to be this angry when I have my children to care for full time.

I cut ties. And I have been feeling increasingly better ever since. It just gave me the space I needed to process all this anger, to understand it and to allow myself some overdue self-compassion, without her constantly trying to get my attention back on her.

No contact has its own set is challenges. But for me, I do think it was the only way forward.

You have every rights to be angry. Self-compassion is key. Listen to your inner child and validate the anger. Write letters (send them, or don't, but write them) to your mother, call her out. Unleash yourself...you need to process it. I've just processed some of my own anger writing all this, I gave it a voice... Give a voice to your anger and welcome it. Anger is protection. Anger is assertiveness. As long as you are not hurting anyone, you have a right to it. They have extinguished our anger, keeping us from learning how to use it... Now is the time to contact your assertive anger to protect your self.

And your anger needs to be redirected to its rightful place. Children are real victims. They are. You were a child. You were a victim. And as an adult, your responsibility is toward the hurt child you were, not toward your mother. Take care of your inner child, they were left alone for too long and they need us now...

[Pale Shelter]

Thank you Khibomsis and Riv3rW0lf for your responses. You both shared some excellent advice. I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to read my post, validate my concerns, and offer insight into how you have coped. I appreciate it so much. Just feeling "seen" feels like I've been underwater and I finally had a breath of air. I'm not perfect or very skilled at navigating this bpd relationship w her but getting what feels like permission to stop beating myself up is everything to me right now. Thank you both from the bottom of my heart!

[Notwendy]

Anger is a normal emotion. I think it's taken on a negative concept because of how a person might react when they are angry- but feeling angry is not something "wrong". None of our feelings are "wrong". Our feelings are there to inform us about our environment or a situation. If you were walking in the woods and saw a bear, feeling fear would help protect you.

We get angry when we feel someone, or something, is harmful.

We can't control our feelings, but we can control our behavior. We can be angry at someone, but we should not then go attack them for instance.

So how to deal with anger at a BPD mother?

For one, in our family, BPD mother was not ever to be blamed for anything and so anger at her was not allowed.

In addition, expressing anger at her is like peeing into the wind. It just comes back at you, and it doesn't impact her at all. She dissociates and then rages/projects it back. It's completely useless to be angry at her. I have (rarely) yelled at her, and while it may have felt justified in the moment, it's not been useful.

Self care would determine the best way to respond to anger is to avoid situations that make you angry, even if it means reducing contact with her and having someone to talk to like a therapist. Physical activity helps. Go somewhere alone and punch a pillow and scream if you have to.

What has helped me is to have no expectations of her. Zero. One source of disappointment is expecting them to be different. However, we don't have to accept abusive behavior either.

Another thing that has helped is along the line of your Buddhist podcasts. Spirituality is described in different forms and we all have our own choice of what we call a Higher Power, Karma, God. When it seems your mother is "getting away with it", in the grand scheme of things, we don't determine that for someone else. Our job is to take care of our own actions and ethics. We can protect our own selves, families, and possessions. The best we can do is live according to our own ethics.

[khibomsis]

You are welcome Pale Shelter! It gets easier with time. NBPD mothers have consumed us emotionally, it is rare that we get a chance to reconstitute ourselves with what is left after trauma. What does self-care look like for you?
Riv3rWolf, you have come so far since you started on these boards 
Notwendy, you gave sage advice as usual. I remember coming here so shattered and these days feeling long moments of happiness. It is through refusing to give the drama energy, and keeping as much as I needed for myself. Not getting sucked in is the key