Reconciling my wellness and guilt with societal expectations

[Methuen]

I think we are all familiar with the pressure that comes with society's expectations to "take good care of one's mother" when she is old. “Honour thy mother and father” etc.   It is viewed as a duty, an expectation, and an act of honour and respect and love.  Some  move their mom/dad or MIL /FIL into the home to live with them. I have heard of others who visit mom every day to help with chores and care.  I know a few people who telephone their elderly mom or dad every day.  These are such normal loving things to do.  How blessed they are to have a mom they can do this for.

I feel like there are very strong societal and cultural expectations for adult children, to take care of aging parents.  This is not unreasonable.  I would love nothing more than to have a loving reciprocal mutual healthy relationship with my mom and bring her into my home in an "in-law suite".  That is a pipe dream.  While I would genuinely be thrilled to be able to do this, I can't fully even think what that would be like, apart from a living nightmare.  It is simply not an option to have her live with us. I have spent much of my life helping others through my work and career, volunteering, and otherwise caring about people, but sadly, I can’t seem to be able to do this for my own mother the way I would like to.

So, I think I put a lot of pressure on myself.  Between my own personal values of being caring and helpful, expectations I feel from friends, and societal values about "taking care of mom in her old age", I'm having a lot of internal conflict, because I can’t do this for my mom, and therefore can’t live up to anybody’s expectations including my own.

I’m a disappointment. And likely judged by others.

It must look like "why can she do what she does for other people, but not spend more time with her own mom?"  What is wrong with her? 

My 86 year old waif mom's needs are physically and emotionally intense. I will spare the details here as I have covered them in past threads and really don’t want to go through it again.

One of my best friends (bridesmaid 35 years ago) mentioned recently that "she tries to see her mom 3 times a week to help out".  Her mother is still cognitively sharp, involved in her community and volunteering, and drives independently 800 miles to visit her family.  Her mom is my mom’s age.  Our two moms have been good friends for 60+ years. It was like a punch in the gut when she said this out loud to me. My mom is as dependent as a child, but I can’t see her three times a week (although my H gives her the equivalent of one full day). It felt like she might be directing the comment at me, but she isn’t the kind of person who would do that.  This friend knows nothing about the dynamic.  It's invisible.  She had no way of knowing the effect her words could have on me – guilt and probably shame.  Our two families used to spend time together when we kids were growing up.  My mom was the life of the party when in a social atmosphere, so my friend has only positive memories of my mom.  Since we have all lived in the same town, she has only seen the Jekyl side of mom, never the Hyde.  The truth is a secret I bear, with the exception of H and T, and to some degree our adult children.

That's how it is with everyone in my small community. Very few people know my real mom. It’s like she has a split personality, and people only know one part of her – the part she lets them see.

I suppose I'm concerned about my image.  H tells me to not waste time considering what other people might think, because they have no way of knowing the truth.  But it's still hard for me, because I don't want to lose people's respect.

So my internal conflict is that I would like to do more for my mom now.  (I used to do SOO much prior to the last few years,  but the extra contact back then led to really intense verbal abuse from her, where no matter what I did it was never good enough, and frankly she burned me out of wanting to spend time with her because she was AWFUL.) That’s when I landed on this forum.  So I’m in the position where I can't do what my values would otherwise guide me to do because spending time around her makes me unwell - frustrated, angry, resentful, exhausted, basically a mental and emotional wreck.

To put some perspective to what I am feeling internally, I used to be very enmeshed with my mom.  I was an only child.  As a university student, young adult, and and very young mom, my mom and I were still pretty enmeshed.  It was after I got married and started to individuate that our relationship struggled.  Like many threads on the board have noted, I saw things with more clarity after I had my own kids.  And after my dad died, she became unmanageable. I presume that with him gone, I was next in line when she needed to dump her toxic feelings. With all I did for her, I saw clearly how unreasonable and irrational she was.  She raged at me often.  I now recall things dad would say in frustration and even exasperation, and occasionally he would say in a stern voice “that’s enough Jane”. It was effective.  I don’t think he was afraid of her, although there are enough stories to fill a book.

So, because I came out of retirement to give myself a natural boundary from her (my job makes me unavailable), I don't see her at all during the week.  Now I feel this intense duty to see her on the weekend. We used to be best friends.  She always relied on me.  I knew what she was thinking and what she wanted because it was how I survived to try to keep her happy.  I was always there for her.  Now I support her in the background (advocacy and banking and booking appointments), but my H does the heavy lifting with everything else.

I see her  on the weekend sometimes, but H always comes with me so I am not alone with her.  We had a visit at her house last weekend that went as well as it could.  So this morning I was squirming and wriggling with the obligation to go again today.  I didn’t want to go.  But I feel a really really intense but unhealthy obligation to see her every weekend.  She expects it.  H talked me into just making a phone call to check in with her (on speakerphone with him there).  It went well enough.

During the day, she is alone in her house.  She has been telling everyone she is lonely.  She grabs your arm when you are going out the door, and says in this pathetic voice, “Don’t go.  I’m so lonesome.”  Anytime H or I go there, she is asleep on her couch, regardless of the time of day.  Some of her friends seem to have stopped coming to visit. Meanwhile, last autumn, she cancelled the homecare visits (2X per day which were safety checks and to put eye drops in her eye).  Seeing her is truly pathetic, and painful.  It hurts me to see her like this, but it’s all her own choices. She refuses all help from home care. 

So how do I get past this intense sense of guilt, and duty and obligation to spend more time with my mother, when I really want to spend less?  I mean I care about people, and yes I care a lot about her, but...as we all well know, we just can't spend a lot of time around a BPD parent and not find ourself in the eye of the storm. It gets toxic in a flash, at the “turn”.

So, have you struggled with this guilt?  I am in a small town where everybody knows everybody, so I worry about my reputation with people who know me, and with whom I’m friends.

I mean, this is my mother... the optics are bad.

So this internal dissonance is something I need to work on.  But I don’t seem to be making progress. 

I know in my head that what I’m doing is what I have to do to manage my own wellness.  But my heart is hurting. 

Anybody else struggle with any of this? 

How do I recover from the guilt?  Not meeting the expectations I speculate other have of me, or my own expectations of myself?

Mom appears to be deteriorating to the point where she could pass any time, or anytime in the next year.  The guilt keeps me awake at night.  So does the frustration, resentment, disappointments, helplessness at being able to change anything...

[zachira]

I struggled terribly with the guilt that I could not take care of my mother with BPD. Like you, many people in the small community where I was raised and my mother lived until she passed away thought highly of her and were totally unaware of how badly she treated her family behind closed doors.
This may or may not be helpful. In my experience, the more I have accepted that my family members are disordered and that I cannot do anything else despite the longing I have to treat them with love and generosity, the more I seem to atttract people that get it, and the more I just don't open up about it to the wrong people or don't feel as hurt when I notice people don't get my situation when they share how they get along with and care for their family members.  
Your situation is very heartbreaking because you are an only child, and you still live in the community you were raised in, and your mother has made it known that she feels neglected by you, even though there is no truth whatsoever to what she is telling people.
Could what you are going through be somewhat like how you gradually became aware of that there was something wrong with your mother and then learned about BPD? Do you now have some sort of special radar in which you now easily detect that certain people have BPD and more naturally set the healthy boundaries in place? You have come a long ways in accepting that you cannot be your mother's caretaker. Is a next step maybe not being bothered so much by how others might think about how you are interacting with your mother? What I have found so painful and challenging in dealing with my BPD mother and disordered family members that it is like peeling an onion. First I heal from something and than there is something new to heal from. Perhaps you are working on the next step towards being free of so many hurt feelings about your mother.

[Couscous]

I thought this was an interesting thread on the topic of how often to visit elderly parents. https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-should-adult-children-visit-elderly-parents/660065/55

I didn’t read till the very end, but it didn’t seem like anyone thought that once a week was too little.

[Turkish]

I dealt a little with this in my mom's small town/county, but I lived 2 hours away. Even so, I was cussed at by my mom's former frienemy neighbor and one lady who picked up my mom hitching was so apoplectic that she wanted to call local news agencies after seeing my mom's filthy hoard. The lady was slightly mollififed after I told her that APS was involved. The neighbor still thought I was a piece of   I'm sure. To this day, I hope I never run into the neighbor when we visit the county. She was even more upset that APS wouldn't tell her anything.

I do imagine that the optics may look bad in your small community. What do you think about sharing with your friend? A trickle, not a flood.

It sounds like guilt is hitting you from two different directions: how you view yourself, and how you view how you think others see you. The first is objective and the second only partially so.

[Couscous]

Just to clarify, your mother has the authority to cancel the home care even though are the one who has arranged it and have been paying for it?

Do you have adult daycare facilities in your town?

[Notwendy]

I can certainly relate to this, and in addition, when my mother somehow finds something "wrong" with when I try to help, it feels worse. She loves having people pay attention to her and feel special. I hosted a get together with her family a while back. The day of, she got angry at me, called me up about an hour before we were to go, and said she didn't feel like going. I felt so defeated at that and said "I think people are looking forward to seeing you and will be disappointed" - to which she verbally put me down after that.

I think that even if I were her servant, 24/7,  she'd somehow feel I didn't do enough.

I wish I could have helped my father more and I tried but being subjected to this kind of thing at some point, just emotionally pushed me. I also began to feel physical symptoms of stress. That concerned me. Meanwhile, my both my parents seemed angry. They just were not happy with anything I tried to do. I felt divided between wanting to help my father and the need to take care of my own children and felt I needed to limit the visits.

My mother's story is that I wasn't there for my father and when she's angry at me, she tells me that. My own boundary now is that I won't discuss that with her. I disengage if she starts that.

She has somehow thwarted all our attempts to assist. Or to her it's some kind of control thing or even a game. She has asked us to help her clear her house- only to change her mind when we come to do that. To discuss her "papers" and "finances" and when we accompany to the bank, she changes her mind. She says we are going to have a "family conference" with her home health care and then, decides she won't do it. She's agreed to look at assisted living places but changes her plans at the last minute.

Enough of this. I won't participate- not because I don't want to help her but because it's not possible- she won't allow it.

I see this as a continuum of the relationship with my mother a part of wishing we had a "normal" relationship with our mothers. All along we had moments like this- we'd be at a friend's house as kids and see their mothers and how they interact with their mothers and realize something is different and we didn't know exactly why but we wished our mommy was like that.

Like sleeping over at a friend's house and their mother would ask us what we want for breakfast. My mother didn't get up and cook. At some point we just got our own breakfast. Or one time, I got a stomach ache at a friend's house and her mother held a cool washcloth to my forehead and I realized my mother didn't do that. One of my friend's mothers made cookies with us. All these little things that mothers did as acts of caring for my friends- stood out to me. Is this what mothers are like?

Even the normal teen age pushing limits with parents. I know I did some of that but the reaction was so different. For some things, it seemed my parents didn't notice and sometimes they'd be furious at even the smallest things. And not even to mention the raging and other behavior that was a well kept secret in our home. I'd have no idea if other mothers did that or not as I was too afraid to say anything.

But I realize now that the main emotion I felt towards my mother was fear. I don't think my friends were afraid of their mothers.

So fast forward to middle age, and my friends are stepping up to help their parents and I want to do that too. I want that "normal" relationship with my parents. We wanted it at age 8 and at 16, and now at middle age. So just as I looked at other mothers for an example of that, I looked at what my friends were doing and tried that too.

A friend of mine has been assisting her parents. Her father recently passed away. She lives at a distance and kept friends and family updated on social media. I am not close to the family but somehow felt emotional about this reading her posts. This was not over the top social media posts. It was the "normal". I felt empathy for her grief.  I also felt a bit like I was 8 again, or 16, and seeing the "normal" and realizing that my situation was different.

I posted an article written by a daughter of a mother with BPD. She had just had a baby and her mother was evicted. The expectation was "why don't you move your mother in with you" and she was torn between this expectation and bringing an abusive mentally ill woman into her home with an infant and realizing she couldn't keep the child safe if she did that. While my kids are not the same age, I could understand her need to shield a child from that behavior. She asked "what kind of monster lets her own mother be homeless" and then writes "I am that monster".

I think we are doing the best we can with our situations. I don't think we will ever feel comfortable with what we feel we need to do to balance our wish to help with our need to protect ourselves and our families from emotionally and verbally abusive behavior. Other people don't see that. Even as a kid, had my mother left marks and bruises, well that's evidence but she didn't.  But what we experience isn't seen by others. They only can see their own experience.

There was an elderly woman in our community that we visited. She was always pleasant with us. She had two daughters who lived out of state. We never met them. Maybe other people judged that. I didn't. Maybe they were uncaring daughters, or maybe there's more to the situation than we knew...

I think a part of our relationships with our parents is the longing for "normal" and to meet the societal expectations of "normal". I think we are also trying to balance this with the the situations we have.

[Couscous]

This is probably not going to sound like it makes much sense, but I'm actually wondering if strengthening your relationship with your H would be helpful right now. My reasoning for this is that the biggest problem with being enmeshed with a parent is that it prevents us from transferring our primary attachment bond from our parent to our spouse. We either remain attached to the parent, or we repeat the pattern of enmeshment and transfer that bond to one of our children. Just because we individuate doesn't mean we are not still emotionally attached. Perhaps it could be worth going away with your H for a romantic getaway.    

As far as your guilt is concerned, my guess that even if you had a wonderful relationship with your mother and visited her every single day, because of her separation anxiety and attachment wounds, she would still grab your arm telling you not to leave because she's so lonesome, and you would still feel guilty. Probably the only way for you to completely eradicate your guilt would be for you to re-enmesh with her, move her into your house and spend all of your waking hours with her, as if you were caring for a newborn. Even if she was in assisted living, I can easily imagine that she would still complain of loneliness and want you to visit daily, and you would probably still feel guilty! As long as you feel guilty, she has power over you, but I believe that you can overcome your propensity to feel so guilty. You may always feel a bit guilty, but I think with a bit of concerted effort, and maybe with the help of your T, the intensity of your feelings could be lessened and you won't feel so debilitated by them.  

Another aspect to this is that it really seems to me that, fundamentally, your mother is engaging in a power struggle with you over assisted living because she knows that that's what you want for her, and as such, her automatic reaction is to resist. If you are able to drop your end of the rope, so to speak, and work on not feeling guilty for not being willing to be a mother to 86 year old newborn baby, there is a possibility she may decide for herself that that's what she wants to do. My 5 year old has some PDA going on, and he will refuse to eat ice-cream if he thinks it's something I want him to do. Yet almost without exception, if I genuinely drop my agenda and say, for example, "OK, that's fine, you don't have to have a bath tonight", he will decide for himself to do what I would like him to do. Maybe your mother will respond the same way.

And as far as your friend is concerned, I hope that she visits her mother that frequently because she "selfishly" enjoys her mother's company and gets something out of the visit, and that she is not doing so altruistically to meet her mother's emotional needs, or because she can only feel like a good person only when she's being a martyr. We spend time with people because it meets our need for connection, and happily, due to the reciprocal nature of a non-codependent relationship, this also will meet the other person's need for connection. It's easy to see how this works in friendships. We don't spend time with our friends because we are such kind-hearted people who feel sorry for our friends and want to save them from their loneliness, and this is exactly how a healthy adult child/parent relationship is supposed to work too.

[Teabunny]

Methuen, yes this is a lifelong struggle to overcome guilt and my own self-judgement.

I observe most people to be more concerned with how they are caring for their parents and what others think of them rather than concerned about me not caring for my parents. Your friend may be stating how she visits her mother partly to ease her own guilt.

I've only encountered two people who outright told me I ought to care for my parents as they age. Neither were healthy mentally, and both were abused by their parents. One woman, my former employer, actually said, "My mother was horribly abusive to me, and I still took care of her, and you should do the same for your mother no matter how she treated you." On the basis that elder care should not be institutionalized. I quit that job and this was the right decision for me.

If your friend should ever say the same to you (and especially since your friend doesn't know the nature of your dysfunctional family) there is a good chance that friend may not be as close or as healthy as it appears. If we don't want to BE the friend that pushes a friend towards harm, why should we WANT friends that push us towards harm? Because childhood conditioning, that's probably why.

I'm an only child too, and will depend on non-relatives for my elder care. Same with raising children, it takes a village. If it's ok for non-children to care for me, it is ok for non-children to care for my parents, and it is ok for me to care for non-parent elders in my community (which I delight in doing regularly; these folks have been friends for years, like family actually). The judgements dry up quickly in this light of truth - I can't be lazy or selfish or shirking my duty if I am caring for seniors locally, it's the same love and help I would have given my own parents. I just choose not to move many miles away to care for abusive parents. It sounds like you're doing so much for others and already living your values this way.

Lastly, I try (with mixed success) to remember that my parents' relationship with my friends, or their caregivers, or anyone else, is between them and not me. So it's amazing and good that my parents can have happy, although distant & shallow, connections to one of my childhood best friends. I don't need to "correct" their relationship by telling my truth. Now, if their contact with my parents begins to poison my friendship with them, flying monkeys or otherwise, that's time to evaluate if its a healthy relationship between myself and them. Likewise, the elders I care for locally, I suspect have rocky relationships with their adult children - nothing to do with me. As long as these elders and friends treat me well - and that involves not "should-ing" on me - it's all good.

[Mommydoc]

I feel like there are very strong societal and cultural expectations for adult children, to take care of aging parents.  This is not unreasonable.

I think that is true Methuen. And I also think that you are a really great daughter.  But you can only do so much.  If anything, you have repeatedly gone above and beyond for your mother.  The problem is she can’t receive your love and caring.  She makes it impossible. She has created her circumstances, not you and you can hold yourself responsible. 

It must be hard to be in a small town and to feel judged at times.  I want to believe that your friend, was not judging you, particularly since you said she really hasn’t witnessed the dynamics.  Are you close enough to her, to share your story?  I find when I share my situation, people are very empathetic and sometimes even commiserate at some level, which makes me feel less alone. 

For me it is my sister and not my mom, who has BPD, but I still feel the same things you describe. That people think how dysfunctional we are as a family and don’t know what to think or judge me at some level. But I am learning to let go of the guilt and to let go of what people may think of it.  I believe we all have our stories, challenges and dysfunctions, we are all a work in progress and need to focus on our own growth and not worry about others… In terms of recovering from and letting go of the guilt, I think it comes down to self compassion.  I am huge fan of Kristen Neff, who is a leading researcher on Self Compassion… she defines it as mindfulness, common humanity and self kindness.  If you google her, there are several books, videos, etc on line you can access.  I recently finished the Yin and Yang of Self Compassion which broadens her work.  The yang component of self compassion, or “ fierce self compassion” focuses on self protection, providing for your own needs and motivating you to take actions to achieve your goals. 

[Turkish]

"But she's your mom!" I heard. I've never heard of or heard of that about dads. Maybe because males tee-off earlier by not taking care of themselves or being more obviously abusive  -holes.

[Notwendy]

"But she's your mom!" I heard. I've never heard of or heard of that about dads. Maybe because males tee-off earlier by not taking care of themselves or being more obviously abusive   -holes.

I think our cultural and societal expectations attribute different qualities to different parental roles and genders. They may not match reality- but these are long standing attributes in our culture/society. If we take a look at the Mother's Day and Father's Day cards, we can see these.

I can't even look at the Mother's Day cards. I feel sad reading them and don't feel they fit my situation. I don't send a card, I send flowers with just a "happy Mother's Day" on them.

But the mothers in the cards are the self sacrificing all loving and tender and giving mothers. Hence the term "she's your mother" implies these qualities. She did all this for you.

The fathers in the cards are also loving, giving, and equally important but in a different way. These are the strong supporters and protectors of the family, the role models of strength and courage. So the idea of them being at one point in need of care contradicts this strong image. I think this played a part with the difficulty of helping my father. I didn't perceive him as embracing only the cultural father attributes. He had to step into the roles of both parents with us. In relation to my mother though, he was her staunch protector and caretaker. So it was difficult for him to be in a position to need help.

I don't discuss my parents much- there's so much shame and fear about discussing my mother and doing so was not allowed. So I don't hear either term "she's your mother, or he's your father". One fear is that people would think "what a horrible thing to say about your mother" rather than try to understand. Sometimes I even see my husband wince if I am discussing her because it's not acceptable to speak of your mother that way. Cognitively, he understands the situation and is supportive of my choosing boundaries and distance. He feels the same about that. I have told him some things about my childhood but not all of it. Some, I don't even want to talk about. He's often shocked when I do. His mother is like the mother in the Mother's Day cards- probably too much as she leans towards co-dependency- but she's loving, and giving and caring. So emotionally, I don't think he can connect with another experience, but he can understand it.

I also think that the wish to help an aging parent is a natural extension of these relationships and if they are what we think of as "normal", most people do meet the societal expectations to do that. I also think there's some kind of balance with the parent's role to want what is best for their child. This is what I have observed.

Even if the aging parent is difficult in some way- that bond between parent and child has been formed for decades. One of my friend's mother has some memory loss. She reports that it seems frustrating to have to answer the same questions over and over again, but this isn't an abusive situation for her. The love and bond between them is larger than this. Another one mentioned her father's short temper in his elder years, but she realized this is not the whole of it. Difficult is not a problem. Abusive is different.

When my father got ill, emotionally, I was all in. I wanted to help him as much as possible. That wish wasn't built on any societal expectations but from the bond that was formed with the parent I perceived as having been a parent to me. The two matched- what I wanted to do and societal expectations were not at odds with each other.

I think for us with BPD mothers, that kind of bond was not the same and so there's still the wish to help but in addition, there's the cultural expectations. I think for many of us here- we have tried to fulfill these expectations because of our own values. We want to do what we feel is the right thing and we try. Then we find ourselves in a situation that our culture does not offer any understanding or support for.

[Riv3rW0lf]

When my father got ill, emotionally, I was all in. I wanted to help him as much as possible. That wish wasn't built on any societal expectations but from the bond that was formed with the parent I perceived as having been a parent to me. The two matched- what I wanted to do and societal expectations were not at odds with each other.

I think for us with BPD mothers, that kind of bond was not the same and so there's still the wish to help but in addition, there's the cultural expectations. I think for many of us here- we have tried to fulfill these expectations because of our own values. We want to do what we feel is the right thing and we try. Then we find ourselves in a situation that our culture does not offer any understanding or support for.

Yes.

When my father had his heart attack two years ago, I was stuck in another province and I remember feeling this urge to be near him, to help him and his wife with their house and chores. I physically couldn't because of the pandemic, but I emotionally wanted to.

When my mother is sick or hurt herself, the contrary happens, I will feel obligated to help even though emotionally I feel scared and repulsed by the proximity my help will create in my relationship with her. And I think this state is a direct result of the traumatized little girl I once was. Even though my adult self could technically manage her, my body "kept the score", and I have physical reactions of fear and anxiety when my BPD mother is around. This makes it incredibly hard to help someone, even if one wants to.

My father wasn't perfect. Parents don't need to be perfect. My father was safe, and he valued our relationship, and he still does. When I visit him, I genuinely want to, it's never out of obligation. And there is never any emotional pressure to do so coming from him.

It does go against what society expects, but most safe and healthy people I have met so far haven't judged me on being no contact. But maybe it is because she is not yet old and frail. I am also lucky in that I have brothers, I am not an only child.

It's a very complicated and challenging situation to be in, Methuen, to be the only daughter of an aging abusive parent, and I think it is normal for you to oscillate once in a while, and to feel this guilt, this obligation, both born out of societal expectations and from the little girl inside you who were raised in FOG all her life.

Would it help to ask yourself what YOU would do if it was your children? As a mother, would you have rejected health care and chose to be even more of a burden to everyone around? Or would you have seeked professional support to free them of the emotional load of having to care for aging parents? Chances are they would still be near you, because you were a safe mother... But flipping it around, and looking at who you are as a mother VS what your mother was and is might help release the guilt?

She is also not holding her end of the bargain, she is not helping you help her like a loving mother would.

[Couscous]

Guilt is experienced when you break a rule. In this case, it’s not breaking society’s rules that is causing guilt; it’s breaking the enmeshed family rule that states that you must self-sacrifice for your parents and devote your life to caretaking them. Western society does not demand that you care for an elderly parent yourself and move them into your home, or demand that you visit multiple times a week.

PwBPD have a right to self-determination, just like everyone else. If they are determined to self-destruct in order to fulfill their tragic life-script, there is nothing that we, or anybody, can do to stop them. But they do not have the right to destroy their kids (or siblings) in the process.

I really believe that we all have the ability to “reprogram” ourselves so that an unhappy parent (or sibling) doesn’t feel like such a life-threatening emergency. Yes, we can feel sad that our loved one is suffering, but we can chose to not suffer along with them. This is where defining our own sense of self as separate from our mothers/FOO comes in. Part of that is figuring out what our values really are, because I can all but guarantee you that “kind-heartedness” is a value that was imposed upon us by our FOO.

I thought this was a really good article about this topic:  https://www.kcresolve.com/blog/building-a-secure-attachment-with-yourself

[zachira]

Methuen,
I am trying to think what might be helpful. The guilt trip laid on us by others or we lay on ourselves when we don't take care of our mothers in the ways others think we should can be hard to overcome. Hardly anybody believed that my mother was a different person in private, and I mostly kept my mouth shut about how I felt about her.
I am thinking that mothers with BPD and/or NPD teach their chosen child/children to have extreme empathy for them. There is a big difference between empathy and compassion. With empathy we feel what the other person is feeling in our bodies and minds. With compassion, we are sad or joyful (whatever the appropriate emotion is) about how the other person feels, yet we maintain our individuality while caring about the other person without taking on their feelings and responsibilities.
Do let us know how you are doing, when you have a moment.

[Methuen]

I don't know how I could manage without you all, and this forum.

I reached out because I am struggling, and I just want to say that each and every reply hit an important mark for me and made a difference.  Thank you for your thoughtful, helpful, and caring replies.

I've read through them a number of times, and will keep coming back to do so some again and again, because they are a big part of what is sustaining me right now.

So the latest is that mom has developed an ulcer behind one knee.  Her doctor prescribed an ointment, which she needs to cover with a bandaid.  H bought her the bandaids and brought her the ointment from the pharmacy, and then stayed to make sure she knew what to do.  She can't open the bandaid because she can't see the paper ends to open.  She doesn't have the fine motor skills to do it.  When she finally got it open, she got her fingers on the sticky part.  Then when she stuck her leg out she of course couldn't reach around to the back of her knee.  She also can't see where the sore is because she isn't flexible enough.  Her shaking from her Parkinson's is so bad, she has almost no chance of sticking it on the correct area. If she sticks the sticky part on the section that is healing, she will rip the skin the next time she changes the bandaid.  H said today she didn't even know she had "missed" the area completely.  The Dr told her at the appointment that she needs to change it twice a day.  After her struggling to do it at home afterwards, H said to her "you can't do this".  She replied "I'm not getting home care again".  Then she passed him the phone to call one of her friends.  He replied "I'm not doing this.  Part of you living independently is being able to do things on your own.  You need to make this call."  At that point, he got up and took his leave and kindly said goodbye.  

I suppose she will try to get her friends to do it. They are all in their 70's and 80's, and have their own problems.  I pray they say no.  They will either be annoyed with us for not doing it for her, or if they are smart, they will be starting to see the real problem.

She is so sick.  And I can't help her.  

She needs nursing care for all her problems from what we can see. 

Thank you all for your supportive replies.  They are exactly what I am needing to hear right now.

[Notwendy]

The nurse coordinator said something to me a while back that stood out as it's rare to hear.

We were talking about what would happen if my mother had to go to assisted living (which she'd not do voluntarily but if it was something that had to be done) and how she might afford it. BPD mother has not revealed the details of her finances with me but has discussed in general with this person and we have a ball park idea and so can estimate that.

The conclusion is that there are some that are affordable to her and good, but probably don't fit her preference. It is reassuring that she can meet her needs, and meet them well. This is reassuring to me. I would not want to see her in a situation where she might be mistreated.

I mentioned that my H and I are not far from retirement ourselves and that my father left her financially comfortable but if she's gone through it recklessly, we do not wish to jeopardize our own retirement for her wants and so she'd have to choose within her means. I was relieved to know she could afford something that would meet her needs if she needed that, even if it would not be her preference.

To which the nurse replied "it's OK for you to look out for yourself financially too".

I was floored. Expecting to hear, "but she's your mother..." This person has worked with my mother for a while now and has witnessed her behavior.

Rarely have I met anyone who gave me that much grace.

At some point, a relationship with adult children becomes more of a partnership than one as parent as authority, and to have an effective partnership requires giving them the information they need to be effective. It also requires mutual trust. If you lie to your children, withhold information, then they can't trust you. It's possible she doesn't trust me either.

[Notwendy]

The need for assisted living is even clearer. BPD mother continues to drain her savings and extend the loan to pay for home care that she can't afford, and she doesn't cooperate with them. Yet, still, she passes the basic mental competency assessments. I guess we have personal autonomy with these things.

She has this pattern of asking us to come go through her personal papers with her. When we try, she gets upset with us. So now, she says her family doesn't care about her and won't help her. It's not that we don't care or won't help. It's that she won't let us.

So she asks me again "it would help if you came over and went through the papers with me". Golden Child sibling just tried that and had no success. I understand this is possibly some fear of abandonment thing with her- to ask us to help, then not let us, so she can ask again, but it's been over done.

I thought she'd be OK with the money Dad left her but if she's taken on a lot of debt, the loan payment will cut into that and make an assisted living less affordable to her. What she needs to do is to move, and sell (what is left of) the house to pay for that. I don't even know what is left in the house in terms of equity.

I told the nurse coordinator that it would be in her best interest to sell the house, then have one of those companies that do estate sales sell the furniture and other items and use the money to pay for her expenses.

Although I felt relieved that her funds were adequate, I didn't know she had taken on even more debt and I just found that out. If she's done that, she's drained most or all of the money that Dad left.

This is what we were afraid of, and why we tried to intervene to prevent. It's hard to put into words what the feelings are. I am sad for her, and also angry that she did this to herself, that she'd be so reckless and self destructive to go through what was a very comfortable financial support left to her.

[Mommydoc]

Methuen, thank you for the update. I am glad the support from the from the forum  is sustaining.  Your post is so heartbreaking.  I wish her physician or a social worker would intervene.  I hear so much pain in your last post and will continue to have you in my thoughts and prayers. 

to which the nurse replied "it's OK for you to look out for yourself financially too". I was floored. Expecting to hear, "but she's your mother..." This person has worked with my mother for a while now and has witnessed her behavior. Rarely have I met anyone who gave me that much grace

Notwendy, thank you sharing that.  It is a message to all of us, that it is OK to care for ourselves, financially or otherwise.   My dad ( who didnt have BPD) did the same thing with “the papers” over and over.  It was very frustrating at the time, but when he was finally able to let me go through them only a couple months before he died, it was heartbreaking.  Everything was a mess, so many folders and piles. It was evident he was really trying to organize everything and yet he couldn’t.  He was cognitively high functioning, so I didn’t put it together until he was so sick, he couldn’t physically do the bills.  I am not sure if this is the case with your mother, but I think there must have been a lot of shame associated with needing help.   I am glad you were reassured that your mom could afford assisted living, if/when it comes to this.  The period when they “pass” cognitive assessments, but are beginning to slip is really a hard place to be as a family member.  I feel for both of you. 

Hoping you will both be kind to yourselves and recognize that so much of this is not in your control.   It must be hard.

[Notwendy]

My dad ( who didnt have BPD) did the same thing with “the papers” over and over.  It was very frustrating at the time, but when he was finally able to let me go through them only a couple months before he died, it was heartbreaking.  Everything was a mess, so many folders and piles. It was evident he was really trying to organize everything and yet he couldn’t.  He was cognitively high functioning, so I didn’t put it together until he was so sick, he couldn’t physically do the bills.  I am not sure if this is the case with your mother, but I think there must have been a lot of shame associated with needing help.   I am glad you were reassured that your mom could afford assisted living, if/when it comes to this.  The period when they “pass” cognitive assessments, but are beginning to slip is really a hard place to be as a family member.  

I also saw this with my father, and it was different from what my mother is doing. He also had some cognitive decline and masked it well- for a while. That had to be a difficult loss for him- he was a very intelligent man. However, he could ask for help from us with his "papers"- the problem was that my BPD mother exerted total control like she does now. My kids were older at the time and mature enough to be able to sort things like bills, and records, and keepsakes. He'd have appreciated our help. We tried once to do it all together with him. BPD mother sat nearby to us, screaming at us the entire time.

If you go through anything of hers, she demands to be shown every paper. You have to sit there while she "permits" you to pick up each one, and then she has to also look at it. While this sounds like OCD behavior- she doesn't have OCD. She doesn't have her own control behaviors such as putting things in order or hand washing, it's more about having complete control over everything we do when we are in her house. She has to be there telling you what to do.

These "help with paper" sessions aren't productive and after a short while, she gets angry. Or we come to help and when we get there, she changes her mind and doesn't want to do it.

To me, this feels like dealing with a three year old- that stage where they try to control everything- they might tantrum over wearing a blue shirt instead of a red one. They might direct you as to what order they want you to put their clothes on first and that they are the ones who have to push the button on the elevator. Things like that.  From the parent perspective, these little decisions are trivial but to the toddler, it's asserting control over their world. We know it's a normal stage that the toddler outgrows.

When you mention shame to admit to not being able to do something, I think this may be the original reason my mother took on the "ordering sergeant" persona with us. While her cognitive level is high- emotionally, her tolerance for doing things she doesn't want to do is much younger. Three year olds will tantrum when frustrated- and she does too. But rather than admit to this, she would order us around and we were afraid of her.

When Dad passed away, she had a large amount of money to do what she wanted with. If you could imagine an oppositional three year old in charge, this is what it looks like, but she still has the cognition of an adult and can pass a mental competency screen.

Ironically, her age has "normalized" the need for assistance as elderly people often need that, but she's always needed that. The problem is that she's in charge of the people who are helping her and if they assert themselves over something she needs to do- like eat a nutritious meal, or establish a routine, she fires them.

[zachira]

Notwendy,
You might find interesting to google Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder which is very different from OCD.

[Notwendy]

Interesting Zachira- here are the tendencies:

A person with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) may:

Be preoccupied with and insist on details, rules, lists, order and organization.

Only in certain areas. She mostly has no routine - eats whatever, whenever, sleeps whenever. She isn't organized. Her control applies to others, not herself.

Have perfectionism that interferes with completing tasks.- no, it's usually anxiety that interferes.

Have excessive devotion to work and productivity. This results in neglecting hobbies and spending less time with loved ones.- she has not had a job, she doesn't do housework, almost 100% of her time is doing what she wants to do with no structure.

Have excessive doubt and indecisiveness- yes, but it's insecurity.

Use extreme caution to avoid what they perceive to be failure- yes, she seems hesitant to do things as she doesn't feel competent so she orders people to do them for her.

Be rigid and stubborn in their beliefs and ways of doing things- yes.

Be unwilling to compromise- yes.

Be unwilling to throw out broken or worthless objects, even if they have no sentimental value. No, she throws out everything, even things we want to keep.

Have difficulty working with others or delegating tasks unless they agree to do things exactly as the person wants.- oh gosh, yes.

Frequently become overly fixated on a single idea, task or belief.- not really she seems scattered.
Perceive everything as “black or white” (dichotomous thinking)- yes, and this also is with BPD.

Have difficulty coping with criticism- yes another trait of PD's too.

Over-focus on flaws in other people- I don't think she's overfocused but everything is someone else's fault.

I think there's a lot of overlap in the traits of PD's. I still think the one she fits the most is BPD but she also has some of these and with NPD. I wonder if at one point, everything will be under the category of "PD"- as it's so varied but one of them fits the most. Her closest "fit" is BPD still.

[Mommydoc]

If you could imagine an oppositional three year old in charge, this is what it looks like, but she still has the cognition of an adult and can pass a mental competency screen.

That definitely conjures up an image! And it’s not good.

I found your comment about your mom firing people interesting. I wonder if pwBPD tend to “fire people” more frequently than others, when they exert themselves or don’t meet their unrealistic expectations. It is a pattern with my sister for sure… because everything is always someone else’s fault.

[Notwendy]

Mommydoc- It's not good, it's a nightmare to observe. Finally, some members of her FOO have been concerned too. They have been "flying monkeys" in the past, but seeing what she's doing now has alarmed them to the point that they are concerned too. They want to speak to her about their concerns. This may not go well with her, but watching her do this and not saying anything is difficult too.

Projection makes it someone else's fault and this is part of BPD. I am not surprised your sister does it too. If someone is an employee and the boss speaks to them in a way they don't like, they might also quit.

What has been interesting is that my BPD mother gets into the same kind of drama with her home health helpers that she does with her family members after a while. She can hold it together in social situations but these helpers are with her for hours at a time and for weeks and so they become familiar with each other and that can lead to drama. If they try to get her to comply, she doesn't cooperate. Either they get frustrated and quit, or they say something and she fires them. She's dismissed several home care agencies in her area when she is displeased with the workers. She will be OK with a new one for a while but at one point they will do something wrong and she will paint them black. Sometimes it's minor- like they got the wrong item on the grocery list she gave them to get for her. But that might be the one thing that does it for her. She eventually finds something she's not pleased with about all of them.

[zachira]

Notwendy,
Interesting analysis of your mother and OCPD behaviors.
Most people who have mental illness, often have symptoms of more than one, and often meet the diagnosis criteria for several.
I agree with you that personality disorders may at some point become more lumped together into fewer categories. It is possible to meet the criteria for more than one personality disorder.
What is important here, is to have a complete perspective on what all the limitations are with your mother, which you have.

[Notwendy]

Thanks Zachira-

We are not trained therapists, and so can't officially make a diagnosis but considering we have spent much more time with our family members than any therapist would spend with a client- we could be "experts" in understanding that one person and their mental health condition.

A therapist's learning is much broader- they study all of them, how to diagnose, how to treat. I know I don't have that range of knowledge. If asked about another disorder, I'd probably not know nearly as much as a therapist.

But I think we here know our family members well and having studied their issues, I think we have acquired a lot of information about that.

[Couscous]

Notwendy, do you think your mother would agree to a family counseling session?

[Notwendy]

I haven't asked about counseling. We have had family sessions with her care team- one to discuss assisted living but she didn't follow through with the plans to consider one. As to counseling- from her history, she's had a lot of therapy- but it didn't seem effective due to her projecting her issues and rejecting any ideas there may be something going on with her. It's other people who are the problem as far as she is concerned.

Any suggestion that she's in need of mental health usually results in her dissociating. So we've not considered counseling from that perspective. However, we are considering a family meeting to discuss her need for assisted living again.

She still has the choice to consider it or not, but at least we have told her our concerns. There's not much more we can do.

 

[Methuen]

I'm thankful for you that your mom accepts home care support.  I suppose a part of the reason for that is that her carers do things that she either doesn't want to do, or can't do, so it's a help to her. You and your sister don't live close enough (TG) for her to FOG you to do these things. It's interesting to me that she hasn't groomed "friends" to do these things for her, as this is what my mom does.  She preys on kind people to do these things for her.  She's willing to pay them.  So she pays her friends, the ones that are willing to take the money.  Some of them just do it to be helpful, or probably because they can't say no to her requests/demands without feeling too guilty.

When my mom saw her physician about the wound at the back of her knee last week and he diagnosed it as an ulcer and prescribed a treatment, my H was with her the first treatment to see "if" she was capable of doing it herself.  She is not.  She can't see well enough to open the bandaid, she gets her fingers stuck over the sticky part, she isn't flexible enough to see the back of her knee or where to put it, and if she "guesses" and gets the bandaid in the wrong place (ie gets the sticky part on the wound), she risks making the wound worse and even getting infected.  Yesterday when we were visiting her, she said that "probably already happened".  uhuh

We don't ask questions as we all know where that conversation would lead.

She refuses home care.

Instead, she has arranged for a private care aide (used to work for home care but refused to get vaccinated during lockdowns).  But the care aide only comes "when she is available", and mom has to arrange for "friends" to do the cleaning and dressing the other times.  Yesterday the care aide was there at noon.  She telephoned us with mom present {speculating at mom's behest} to tell us she was concerned because the wound was weeping more, and was changing colour (more white in the middle).  She wanted to leave it uncovered after applying the antibiotic treatment.  The doctor's orders were to cover the wound after applying the treatment.  I assume this is to keep the ointment in place, and to "protect the wound".  For example while we were visiting yesterday, my mom was sitting in her chair with her legs crossed.  My H said to her " _______, is crossing your legs like that a good idea for your ulcer"?  She immediately uncrossed them, but we observed her lack of awareness, and also were shocked that it didn't hurt her.  The wound is almost 3/4 " diameter, and is an ulcer with no skin on it.  It's completely raw red, and looks disgusting.

So the care aide argued against the doctor's orders that the wound should be left uncovered, and wanted us to agree to that.  She spoke for mom.  We did not agree.  We asked for pictures to  be sent to us, and emailed them off to her doctor with the situation, and asked for advice.

Meanwhile, the care aide also tells us she doesn't work weekends.  Mom has friends lined up to do the shifts she can't except for Sunday morning.  Then she waits for us to reply with the offer.

God bless my H.  He speaks up and says that MIL has stated that she can find her own people to do this care, and he re-iterated that if she needs more help, we can arrange home care.

There was another long pause at the other end.  No doubt with lots of judgement.  The silence finally ended when H restated that mom can try calling a friend, and let us know if she needs us to help organize some home care.

Boundaries right?

I can imagine the thoughts that were chasing each other in mother's brain for the rest of the day. She will likely have been practicing what she will say to us. I anticipate another upcoming rage.  I would love to be wrong.

I also saw T yesterday.  She told me my trauma brain has been activated, and that there's a lot of nasty chemicals being pumped through my body because of it.

We didn't get past the importance of sustained deep breaths to counter my trauma brain to stop this (which I already know and practice) before the time ran out.

I still hadn't recovered from spending 8 hours in the emergency room with her after Christmas because of an apparent heart attack (which turned out to be angina and not a heart attack).  H and I were somewhat surprised when she was able to hop out of the emerg bed and trundle off to the bathroom with her walker to demonstrate she could do that to the emerg staff (since she lives independently) before they would discharge her.  The nurse went into the BR with her.  She passed the test.  It is noteable though, that in the 8 hours she was in emerg, she needed a bedpan.  It was traumatic for me to see her lying there under the blanket, a wisp of a thing.  My MIL looked similar in her sickbed at her end of life before she died.

My mom is not at end of life.  I suspect it's all waif.  Her father lived until he was 98 (he is probably the reason she is BPD).  Her sisters either lived or are currently well into their 90's.  She's the second last baby at 86.  She's a fighter, and proud of it.

And I, am feeling stuck.  The only thing I can do, is hold my boundaries, protect myself as much as possible (which I feel like I'm not doing a good job of because I feel terrible), and let her fail on her own terms.  "Letting her fail" just feels wrong.  Like the woman in the article from SLATE that NW posted a few weeks ago, I feel like a monster.

[zachira]

Methuen,
Keep up the good work of dealing with feelings that often overwhelm you. When I went LC and NC with most of my relatives and the flying monkeys gradually over several years, I had many long periods of being depressed. In the last few months, I no longer feel guilty at all, and as one of my friends said, I am happier now. I still got abused by many of them, as they always make me the problem. It seems the best way to deal with your feelings is to keep working on them while finding ways to give yourself some temporary relief from the feelings when you are overwhelmed. The grieving of being abused by your own family members especially your own mother is a long process. You will get to the point where you don't feel guilty about how you are dealing with your mother and will no longer be the reservoir for the feelings she dumps on you. I still care about many of my family members and the other disordered people around them; I take on their emotional baggage less and less, and am more of my own person as time goes on. You will someday notice that you are feeling better, and over time will feel better and better because you have the courage to face how you are feeling and to find ways to feel better and to relieve yourself of the guilt of not being able to take care of your mother because of who she is and how she treats you.

[Couscous]

Menthuen, by any chance have you and your H had a family meeting with your mom where you have let her know that moving into your home is not going to be an option, but that you are willing to commit to assisting her X number of hours per week, so that she can plan accordingly?