Reconciling my wellness and guilt with societal expectations

[Notwendy]

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.


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.

Actually, she has groomed friends and neighbors and also hired people off the records. I am glad she accepts licensed help- the issue is that, she seems to have a need for a large staff of "help" and she's running out of money. She has spent huge sums of money on her so called "help"- several "off the book" people who have ulterior motives and who also prey on her and take advantage of her.

In fact, she prefers unlicensed help because they don't hold her accountable to anything. They only want her money. They may do some other things for her like run errands but she can eat junk food for meals, not take her medicines, and do what she wants while the licensed people urge her to eat right, take her medicines and bathe.

She twists everything I say to her as if she's a victim or that we are OK with what she does. She reminded me that we told her to not worry about money and take care of herself. That's not exactly what we said. In the context of her brining up not spending it all, we told her to not worry about any kind of inheritance and to use the money she has for her own needs. She needs to be thinking about how she's spending her money.

She says everyone is forcing her to move to assisted living, they are forcing her to go to a strange place. I finally lost it with her. I am sure she's pleased that she could push my buttons but the message that we are trying to get through to her is that- she's going to go somewhere, her choice is that she either chooses it on her own while she still has some money left or she keeps borrowing against her home equity until she gets evicted and she's pretty close to that.

So then she says I didn't help her with any of this and I lost my cool, reminded her that we have tried many times and that she yells at me and calls me names and that it doesn't work to try to help her.

After the phone conversation there's the predictable call backs several times- where I don't answer and the voice mail messages in order- first the witch, how terrible I am to her, then the waif...I put my phone on airplane mode.

My mother is having some health issues mainly due to her poor diet, non compliance with medication and skin infections from refusing to bathe.


Methuen, it seems your mother is jeopardizing herself mostly in the medical sense. For my mother- she's recklessly draining her finances. She needs to go to assisted living both for her care and also to contain the expenses because she wants a troop of people serving her. She's been spending way more than her monthly income. She has drained her savings and there's no telling how much she has borrowed against her home.

So yes, I'm the monster who just yelled at my mother and it amounted to nothing as she just doesn't get it but also it's not right to be nice about what she's doing to herself.

It was traumatic for me to see her lying there under the blanket, a wisp of a thing.  


I get it Methuen, my mother looks so disheveled. She has a skin infection from not bathing. Yet, she somehow passes a mental competency exam. She's alone, mostly with people who don't give a hoot about her because she's driven everyone else away. She's had friends and neighbors who help her but some seem to have disappeared. I am so sad for her that this is the situation she's in. There are so many if only's. If only she would have cooperated with me, and any assisted living, I'd have helped, family would have helped, she'd have her choice of the best assisted living situations as she once could have afforded. Instead she insisted on being in control and continuing her self destructive behaviors. I told her that what she is doing is hurting her family. It's hard to watch her do this.

I don't know how you cope. I can't even manage a phone call with her, unless I say nothing and just listen, because if you say something back, she says "everyone is always interrupting me"

[Notwendy]

I rarely lose it with her but when I do, I am reminded of something I saw as a teen. My grandfather apparently was trying to talk some sense into her, I am not sure what it was about, and she was screaming back at him, like an out of control brat.

I was shocked because I couldn't imagine speaking like this to a parent, and I still, even if I lose it, don't shriek at her like this. But I am frustrated and get loud and that's obvious- and I recall her father was frustrated too.

And none of it sinks in. Her only recollection of any of this is that she was "yelled at, attacked" for no reason. She mentioned how I "yelled at her" when I found out about the home equity loan, with no connection that the reaction was out of concern for her. I don't just say or do these things out of the blue. I was shocked and worried because it meant she's gotten into financial trouble.

I also don't think her father just yelled at her. He never yelled at us. No doubt, he'd also had enough of her reckless and self destructive behavior and said something and she just got nasty and shrieked back.

[Methuen]

NW,

BPD seems to be such a cookie cutter disease.  I don't know where my incorrect idea came from that your mom accepted home care and didn't "use" friends like mine does.  Thanks for clarifying.  It actually makes much more sense to me that your mom does this as well.  They seem to have so much in common.

Your post has helped me.  I can be thankful for two things currently.  One is that so far, none of her friends are "using her" for her money.  They aren't preying on her.  She is skillful at picking friends who are good people, and self-sacrificing.  Anybody who is not self-sacrificing, she discards as a friend.  However I am a bit suspicious about this new and recent "private care aid", who recommended she ignore the doctor's orders, and not cover the wound.  I believe this is the same person who used to work for home care, but has gone private...  What I am doing here, is trying to find ways to feel gratitude.

Your mom is a spender.  This is one of the profiles for BPD, but that is not my mom.  She tries to use money with us to attach strings, but we don't go there, and never have since we got married (35 years). But that is very different from being a compulsive spender, to the point of catastrophic loss of funds needed for old age.  

You are kind of where I am, but for a different reason.  I am conflicted about acknowledging that my mom is in complete control of her choices, and that I need to let her fail.  In my case, "letting her fail" means letting her struggle and suffer with living independently, which is what she is determined to do, and which includes her making choices which result in things such as higher risk for blindness, falling, heart disease, anxiety, lonliness, and infection.  Because she administers her own eye drops after cancelling home care (and presumably misses due to her Parkinson's and other reasons), this is likely the reason she reported she only has 10% vision left in the affected eye.  I have to let her suffer and struggle with these things and experience the natural consequences.  This might include her ulcer possibly getting infected.  The other option is to step in and intervene by taking care of her medical needs and being her private nurse.  Unfortunately, this means putting myself in the line of her fire for emotional abuse, and I can't do that because it brings harm to myself.  In your case, "letting her fail", means letting her burn through her savings and home equity, until she has no means left to pay for her own mounting care.  The natural consequence will be that she will probably have to eventually live in a care home which does not have the highest quality of care.  They can't be reasoned with.  Reasoning results in more abuse for us.  We are in the unenviable and very painful position of watching them destroy themselves.  

Isn't this a type of torture?

It feels like torture.  It's not even death by a thousand cuts.  It's pretty constant knifing.  This feeling is why I question whether it is morally right to "let them fail?"  However, I don't see what other choice we have if we want to also care for ourself.

This all circles back to the woman in your SLATE article.  She had to allow her mom to fail to save herself, save her family, and break the cycle.

It seems like the ultimate form of tough love, because it's not in our nature to let someone suffer, and especially not if that person is our mother. It's just crazy.

I don't know how you cope.

Thank you for this.  I'm not coping very well internally, although I do a decent job of masking it well.  As many of us do.  We get good at hiding the problem.  And when we break away as we do when we go LC or NC, people can't understand because it's so far outside of their realm of lived experience.  Our coping is a bit of a rollercoaster isn't it?  Coping ebbs and flows with the decision making and feelings and rages of our pwBPD, because their choices affect our lives closely.

But thank you so much for those 5 words.

And these:

So yes, I'm the monster who just yelled at my mother and it amounted to nothing as she just doesn't get it but also it's not right to be nice about what she's doing to herself.

This.  This!

I get this.  The problem is there is nothing we can do or say to shift their thinking to a healthier paradigm.  It's just hopeless to save them.  So all we can do I guess is try to save ourselves?  At their expense?

[Methuen]

Keep up the good work of dealing with feelings that often overwhelm you... In the last few months, I no longer feel guilty at all, and as one of my friends said, I am happier now... 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.

Thank you so much for sharing your experience, and for your encouragement.  You've been through all this already, and are in recovery, and coming out the other end of the tunnel.  You are right that getting relief from intensity of the overwhelming feelings is an important part of self-care and self-compassion.  

I speculate that relief may come easier once she passes, because the source of the triggers will be gone.  But I also speculate that there will be other things to deal with once that happens.  It's all just a ton of really hard work.  But you give me hope that it's possible.

 

Methuen, 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?

Yes my H has been very clear about this with her.  Example: "_______ (her name), you will never live with us.  That just isn't going to happen."  She had a big reaction to that which lasted a long time.  She gets 1 day a week (Weds) from my H.  Appointments on other days mean she has to find someone else to take her.  From me, she gets spontaneous visits when I feel it's safe, random presents (ice cream or meal gifts), and text replies when it's something I want to reply to.  I'm not willing to commit to a specific day/time per week, because if I am not feeling safe on that day/week because of her behavior, I don't want to have to explain why I'm not coming.  So from me it's random.  From H she gets his Wednesday.

[Notwendy]

We are in the unenviable and very painful position of watching them destroy themselves.  

Isn't this a type of torture?

It feels like torture.  It's not even death by a thousand cuts.  It's pretty constant knifing.  This feeling is why I question whether it is morally right to "let them fail?"  However, I don't see what other choice we have if we want to also care for ourself.

This all circles back to the woman in your SLATE article.  She had to allow her mom to fail to save herself, save her family, and break the cycle.

It seems like the ultimate form of tough love, because it's not in our nature to let someone suffer, and especially not if that person is our mother. It's just crazy.
 Thank you for this.  I'm not coping very well internally, although I do a decent job of masking it well.  As many of us do.  We get good at hiding the problem.  And when we break away as we do when we go LC or NC, people can't understand because it's so far outside of their realm of lived experience.  Our coping is a bit of a rollercoaster isn't it?  Coping ebbs and flows with the decision making and feelings and rages of our pwBPD, because their choices affect our lives closely.

But thank you so much for those 5 words.

And these:

This.  This!

I get this.  The problem is there is nothing we can do or say to shift their thinking to a healthier paradigm.  It's just hopeless to save them.  So all we can do I guess is try to save ourselves?  At their expense?

Your words are exactly how I feel. No, I am not coping well either. It feels like a form of torture to watch them self destruct and know we can't do anything about it (unless we become their 24/7 private nurse and they still will resist our help) and we can't get the message through to them that we feel this way because we do care about them.

My BPD mother brings up that I have not visited her much or helped her. I reminded her that I have tried several times and when I do, she gets angry at me, calls me names, and it just doesn't accomplish anything. Then she does this false apology which I know is meaningless to her because she can not see good intentions or attempts to help- she finds some way to be angry at me for something trivial and then she tells me how much I upset her.

If I tell her that this upsets me when she does that. So she says she's sorry then comes back with a list of how many times I upset her. She doesn't process any of it. It's all about how she feels with no idea how her behavior impacts anyone else.

Then she begins her "analyst" position- making the case that  am the one who is emotionally unstable and she's done nothing wrong. It's gaslighting.

But whatever, saying anything to her amounts to nothing as it doesn't get through to her.

[zachira]

Methuen,
This might be helpful to investigate. We generally cannot process trauma unless our vagus nerve is engaged putting us in a calming state. If we are in a hyper state, we need to do something to calm down. If we are in a depressed state, we need to do something to wake up our body. We can be in a hyper state and depressed state at the same time. I find meditation very helpful in getting into a calm state so I can process the feelings which are making me anxious or depressed or both. Sometimes we are just too overwhelmed to deal with the feelings, and it makes sense just to shut them down, which is not the same as stuffing our feelings, because we are making a conscious decision not to deal with the feelings in the moment, and we know that we will have to deal with the feelings at another time, when we are able to do so. Human beings often need another human being to help them process trauma, to be a witness to their feelings, which is what makes therapy work. A good therapist will work on keeping the client's vagus nerve engaged so the client can process trauma, though it can take a long time to get a client to a place where they can process trauma, and some clients are too damaged to ever be able to process trauma, particularly those with personality disorders.

[Couscous]

Yes my H has been very clear about this with her.  Example: "_______ (her name), you will never live with us.  That just isn't going to happen."

So what I mean is to communicate your boundary on this, formally, in a sit-down meeting, where the three of you have a discussion about how she would like to proceed in light of the fact that you are not willing to be her full-time caretaker.

And although I do not think you have to commit to certain days of the week, (if you don’t feel up to going then your H could cover for you) but I do think she needs to know approximately how much assistance you and your H are willing to provide.

[Methuen]

Then she does this false apology which I know is meaningless to her because she can not see good intentions or attempts to help- she finds some way to be angry at me for something trivial and then she tells me how much I upset her.

If I tell her that this upsets me when she does that. So she says she's sorry then comes back with a list of how many times I upset her. She doesn't process any of it. It's all about how she feels with no idea how her behavior impacts anyone else.

Then she begins her "analyst" position- making the case that  am the one who is emotionally unstable and she's done nothing wrong. It's gaslighting.

But whatever, saying anything to her amounts to nothing as it doesn't get through to her.

Classic just classic.  I'm shaking my head at the "cookie cutter" syndrome: at how alike they are.  

I went for almost all of my life feeling so alone and lost in the forest - to suddenly discovering this forum and realizing there were other people sharing my lived experience.  I still can't believe how similar the traits are.  Yes - that's why it's in the DSM, but how could my father and I have gone our entire lives without knowing she had a syndrome or a PD?  I mean, why don't people know about this?  Couldn't more people be helped if there was more awareness?

Zachira,
I read up on the vagus nerve and the parasympathetic system.  That might explain a lot of things including my IBS.  At any rate, I've been using my meditation app regularly lately, and like you, I know it helps.  

If there's anyone out there who's not a believer or never tried meditation, I would recommend opening the mind to give it a try.  There are lots of apps, but mine was recommended by my T.  I've sort of used it in a step fashion - in fits and starts as I needed it.  I'm at the point now, where I acknowledge that using it routinely helps.  

[zachira]

Methuen,
Glad to hear meditation is helping and you already know about the vagus nerve. Like you I have to remind myself to do more meditation. You might google "Jon Cabot-Zinn" and possibly read his book: "Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness". His meditation progam is taught all over the world and has been around since the early 1980's.

[Notwendy]

but how could my father and I have gone our entire lives without knowing she had a syndrome or a PD?  I mean, why don't people know about this?  Couldn't more people be helped if there was more awareness?

I think our fathers did know something wasn't right, but BPD was not in the psychology books as far as I know until later. I don't know exactly- but one reason I think it wasn't known is because I tried to figure it out myself- as a teen- reading books about psychology. I knew something wasn't "normal" but all I could find in the books was the idea of a neurosis or psychosis. If someone was disconnected from reality- like seeing and hearing things that aren't there- they were in the psychotic group and anyone else who was anxious or depressed was in the neurosis group and there didn't seem to be the right group for the ones in between. I don't know if they came up with borderline to describe that. There were times my mother acted completely fine and then others where her moods and behaviors were more extreme than "neurosis".

I stopped reading these books when I got busy later and also my main reason to read them was out of wanting to know why my mother behaved like she does. I was not living at home and it wasn't something that I was focused on. I didn't find out about BPD until much later when the internet was available. There was someone in our community who was difficult to deal with and I looked up NPD to see if he fit that description. He did. But there was similarity to my mother so I kept reading and clicked on BPD and that fit better.

Surely our fathers also had access to internet and knew something. Before that though,   I think it was harder to find this information and I don't think it was there when they met our mothers. I know my mother had seen psychiatrists - but they may have given her other "diagnoses" before BPD, and therapy didn't seem to help her- so by then, maybe my father was confused by different opinions.

By the time there was internet, our fathers had been in this pattern with our mothers for years and I think had their part in it. My dad had to have had some strong denial going on to be able to compartmentalize her behavior, and also, I realize that she's very convincing at making the case that she's fine and the other person is not. She read the popular psychology books too and could label other people too. She has a way of "rewriting history" to the point that you really question yourself. I rarely confront her but when I do, she replies back with her version of it.

Also in their era, psychology seemed to be considered the new domain and I think my father believed that with the right approach, she'd be OK- as at times, she was OK- and she wasn't considered psychotic.

I understand the feeling of aloneness. Even if someone has siblings, they don't all experience the situation the same way. I grew up somehow feeling "different" and "less than" other girls my age. I had friends but somehow didn't feel connected. I think now it's because we were having different experiences. We may have shared things in common in school, but then we had the secrecy, and the shame, of what went on in ours.

[Riv3rW0lf]

About BPD being hard to see from within... For me, I never ever considered she could have BPD or any other mental health diagnosis until I left the province for 6 years. It's when I came back that I saw the clash between how she behaves, and how other people around me behave.  

Seeing her regularly would keep me in my traumatized self, and the FOG of it, and as I was in survival mode, I simply couldn't free enough energy to look at her, as I was convinced I was the problem, while she had "solved" hers when she had stopped drinking.

I never considered she had a mental disorder, because she was a recovering alcoholic. So, for me, THIS was what was off with my mother and what I used to justify her behavior. I think a lot of pwBPD will develop addictions and then, we focus on the addictions as the problem, when in fact, they are the symptoms of something else.

[Notwendy]

About BPD being hard to see from within... For me, I never ever considered she could have BPD or any other mental health diagnosis until I left the province for 6 years. It's when I came back that I saw the clash between how she behaves, and how other people around me behave.  

Seeing her regularly would keep me in my traumatized self, and the FOG of it, and as I was in survival mode, I simply couldn't free enough energy to look at her, as I was convinced I was the problem, while she had "solved" hers when she had stopped drinking.

I never considered she had a mental disorder, because she was a recovering alcoholic. So, for me, THIS was what was off with my mother and what I used to justify her behavior. I think a lot of pwBPD will develop addictions and then, we focus on the addictions as the problem, when in fact, they are the symptoms of something else.

Yes, me too. My mother drank too and I thought what she had was alcoholism. She also blamed me for her issues. When I went off to college, I believed that she was fine and that my family was OK after that. I found out later that this wasn't true but I believed it.

I assumed that alcoholism was the reason, especially since I didn't find something in the psychology books that seemed to fit her besides that.  Finding BPD was an accident- and much later. I was looking for information on how to deal with another difficult person and happened on NPD, not another explanation for my mother's behaviors.

I think the alcohol addiction has been a form of "self medication" for my mother, and yet, it does compound the situation. What's been interesting being in 12 step groups is that recovered alcoholics come to CODA and ACA to then work on the issues that they felt they drank to escape. The dynamics in a family where there's alcoholism are similar to families where someone has BPD. It makes sense there's going to be both sometimes. I would guess that a lot of people with addictions also have other emotional/mental issues too.

[Notwendy]

I had an interesting thought after a recent conversation with my BPD mother where she mentioned giving away some sentimental items to either be tossed out or that she didn't know what to do with them ( even though we have had this conversation many times and her children have offered to take them and she refuses). I understand that brining this up and holding on to them may give her a sense of control or leverage.

But I had another thought. By bringing this up, she's also reminding me that I have not acted in the expected way an adult child "should" (by our cultural and social expectations) on her behalf, so why should she let me have them? If these are heirloom items, then they need to be kept in the family, so maybe she's reminding me that I have not acted as she expected towards her.

She's correct, I have not ( but not acknowledging that I have tried many times to do so without it being effective and she has a part in that) and so it may be that I should not have them.

For as long as she's held on to items, that she knows are sentimental, she's also insisted on keeping them and not allowing anyone else to have them. She mainly wants to know if we want them, but if we want them, she then refuses to give them to us.

Material things are not our main motivation. The relationship, or the hope of one has been our main wish, and it's not as if I haven't tried, many times, to provide an opportunity for that. Some of these items were important to my father. He enjoyed collecting things. The only relevance they have for me is that they were important to him. But now I think - if these were important to him, and he knew I wanted to also have them, then logically, he'd have made it possible to give them to me. He didn't. Maybe he'd have preferred that my mother discard them than for me to have them. Maybe she prefers that too.

Why do we want such items anyway if we don't plan on selling them? Because they have memories associated with them. I have some china from my grandmother. I don't need it or use it, I have my own dishes too. Why do I want these? Because they belonged to her.

I realize I don't really want the items my mother has held on to, because they don't have the same sentiment for me now. If my father didn't want me to have them, if my mother doesn't want me to have them, then what could they mean to me?

In another reality, I'd have brought my parents to a retirement/assisted living place closer to me. I'd have been involved more. I tried to do this. My father refused to consider it. Maybe in an odd way, he did that in a protective way. On the other hand, with my mother being his #1 concern, he was already angry at me and so perhaps didn't want this.

BPD mother is angry at me for not doing this. She's mentioned she wants to move closer to me to "see her grandkids" more often but my children don't live at home and are busy with their own lives.  My H has observed the emotional effect of visits with both my parents and sees that I am emotionally on edge, don't sleep well, during and after their visits for a while. My father was great though, he played with the kids, was engaged but BPD mother was different. At one point, Dad was different too, but to me, this was normal aging- I was more than happy to help him. I wanted to help him, but could not manage BPD mother's behavior.

So, it's possible I didn't meet Dad's expectations to be her emotional caretaker and also include my own children in meeting her needs. From this perspective, it's understandable why they'd want to "disown" me in their own way.

I've learned though that it's very difficult to have any boundaries with my mother and that distance is a boundary for me. I have considered her wishes, I have even gone to look at the assisted living facilities near me. She doesn't know that or the extent that I have considered it, wished I could do it, and then, after thinking about it, I feel a sense of distress at the idea. If visits are difficult, more contact would be.

So yes, I can relate to this inability to come to some way to both meet societal and cultural expectations, which align with what I wish I could be doing along with the reality that my attempts to do this have led to conflict, refusal, and verbal and emotional abuse on her part and have been ineffective.

[Methuen]

So yes, I can relate to this inability to come to some way to both meet societal and cultural expectations, which align with what I wish I could be doing along with the reality that my attempts to do this have led to conflict, refusal, and verbal and emotional abuse on her part and have been ineffective.

It is difficult, and causes chronic churning in me daily. It’s exacerbated when acquaintances who know my mom much better than they know me, see me up town and ask (with furrowed brow and concern in their voice) “how is your mom doing “?   It’s a trigger that takes a chunk out of me every time.

I haven’t been able to resolve this reaction of mine.

[Notwendy]

It is difficult, and causes chronic churning in me daily. It’s exacerbated when acquaintances who know my mom much better than they know me, see me up town and ask (with furrowed brow and concern in their voice) “how is your mom doing “?   It’s a trigger that takes a chunk out of me every time.

I haven’t been able to resolve this reaction of mine.

I may not have the contact with other people that you do, but I still feel that mix of being expected to help out more and also knowing from having tried to do that,  that my mother would exploit it and also somehow sabotage the attempts.

It's difficult to think others are judging you, but they don't know the whole of it.

[zachira]

I have found that as I have started to heal that there are a plenty of people who don't easily buy into judging others, that they have enough healthy differentiation to see people as separate evolving individuals and don't buy so easily into cultural/cult stereotyping. In other words, the healthier a person is, the more they are able to use their critical thinking skills, to adapt to changing scenarios, to learn new things and to have healthy relationships. The more dysfunctional a person is, the more they buy into polarized thinking, and quickly judging other people negatively or putting other people on a pedestal so they don't have to deal with their inner distressful emotional state of the moment. It seems that one of the biggest complaints on here about the dysfunctional people in our lives is that they don't have any empathy and constantly use black and white thinking when interacting with people. You are either for them or against them depending on whether you meet their expectations in the moment. From my experiences, a key healthy boundary to have, is to distance myself quickly from people with black and white thinking, and/or no capacity for real empathy.

[Couscous]

It is difficult, and causes chronic churning in me daily. It’s exacerbated when acquaintances who know my mom much better than they know me, see me up town and ask (with furrowed brow and concern in their voice) “how is your mom doing “?   It’s a trigger that takes a chunk out of me every time.

I haven’t been able to resolve this reaction of mine.

It’s actually possible that they might not be judging you. They might just be concerned about your mom.

[Methuen]

It’s actually possible that they might not be judging you. They might just be concerned about your mom.

Both are true.  Some are concerned about mom (but don't take action to visit or help her), and others are judgemental (I haven't shared the details of the conversation or their body language).

Whether they are or aren't isn't really the issue at all.  The issue is my reaction to these conversations.  My brain is programmed to be judged by my mother.  I seem to have the same involuntary (autonomic) reaction from these acquaintances.

[Couscous]

Whether they are or aren't isn't really the issue at all.  The issue is my reaction to these conversations.  My brain is programmed to be judged by my mother.  I seem to have the same involuntary (autonomic) reaction from these acquaintances.

I agree with you on that. Do you have any strategies for calming your nervous system so that it can begin to learn that it's no longer a life or death emergency to be judged?

[Methuen]

I agree with you on that. Do you have any strategies for calming your nervous system so that it can begin to learn that it's no longer a life or death emergency to be judged?

Yes I do.  It's a process of continued application of them.  At the end of the day, there are just a LOT of people in this town that know both myself and my mom.  And it's just an eternal frustration that I keep being faced with the same question.  In the moment I handle it well, but it's the after effects that grate and eat away at me, as my mom's behavior and health just continues to worsen, and people look at me to "fix" the problem.  The problem (my mom) is unfixable. Enter societal expectations vs my actual lived experience with her, which society has no flipping clue about.  So I can do all the healthy eating, physical activity, meditation, self-care, self compassion, breathing, in the world, and at the end of the day because mom's physical conditions keep requiring support and become more intense and more frequent, it's like this darn gerbil wheel is spinning faster and faster, as people continue to look to me to support her better.  The precariousness and vulnerability of her independent living is obvious.  But until she falls and breaks something that can't heal, the precariousness and vulnerability continues to escalate and just get worse.  It's very frustrating because I am faced with these encounters often in this small town. And to borrow another phrase from Zachira, I can't hide under a rock.

[Couscous]

Yes I do.  It's a process of continued application of them.  At the end of the day, there are just a LOT of people in this town that know both myself and my mom.  And it's just an eternal frustration that I keep being faced with the same question.  In the moment I handle it well, but it's the after effects that grate and eat away at me,

It sounds like you might be ruminating after the fact, and if so, your thoughts will re-trigger you. Cortisol has a half-life about about 60 minutes, so unless you run into your mother's friends several times a day you should be able to recover completely from an activating event with1-2 hours. If it's taking you considerably longer to return to baseline then paying attention to your thought patterns after these encounters could be worth considering.

[Notwendy]

What my mother is doing looks "against our culture norms" as well. She needs to be in assisted living but wants to live independently with hired help. People wonder - why don't you move near your children" so just like on my end, I see my friends moving their parents nearby, her friends wonder why she isn't doing this.

Her main reason is, that if she did, she'd be in assisted living nearby.  She can not move in with her children and she knows that, actually doesn't really want that either.

She has the situation she prefers with private care, but it's expensive. Also, her care is compromised due to her not being cooperative with home helpers and engaging in drama with them. They either quit or she paints them black and finds someone else.

Since BPD affects the most intimate of relationships the most, BPD mother can be charming in public, but being a home health helper is a close relationship- people are there for hours at a time, helping her with her daily tasks, and so become the closer relationship where there's drama.

Methuen, I agree, it's got to be worse when you live in the same area and have the constant reminder from others of your mother's situation and they do not understand. I don't know if this helps but even if your mother accepted household help- their role is more intimate than with an acquaintance and there's drama which affects their ability to help.

I think the bottom line for us is that, we see our mother's care compromised and it's not what we want for them, and it's against societal expectations, and we wish it could be better for them.

[Methuen]

People wonder - why don't you move near your children"

This speaks a thousand words.  I speculate that "people" wouldn't say this to her unless she gave them reason to.  By this I mean that it's possible she may be a drain on them too, and they may be trying to "remove the problem" away from themselves perhaps when they make this suggestion.  It's just a thought - maybe that is not what is happening.

I agree, it's got to be worse when you live in the same area and have the constant reminder from others of your mother's situation and they do not understand.

Thanks for understanding NW.  This is helpful and means a lot.

I think the bottom line for us is that, we see our mother's care compromised and it's not what we want for them, and it's against societal expectations, and we wish it could be better for them.

Exactly. 

[Notwendy]

This speaks a thousand words.  I speculate that "people" wouldn't say this to her unless she gave them reason to.  By this I mean that it's possible she may be a drain on them too, and they may be trying to "remove the problem" away from themselves perhaps when they make this suggestion. 
 

I do think there was the expectation on the part of my mother's family that I would do the "normal" thing and bring my mother closer to me and be more involved and when I decided I won't do that, they were angry and bewildered. I also suspected that they had more of an idea of what was going on with her than they let on- and that they didn't want to do that but I don't know for certain.

Recently though, some of them have begun to catch on ( a bit)  to her behavior and they are concerned about her situation. They have stepped in to help a bit, which we do appreciate. I think they are beginning to see that this is more complicated than they imagined. However, they are still approaching this in a "normal" way - because that is what they know.

They are starting the discussion with her about moving to assisted living in her area. She is sweet as all get go with them, and cooperative because this is how she relates to them. We have no idea if she will act on their advice or not. So of course, they are asking us kids about the logistics of this- like- if she moves, how would we like to sell the house, or help with her belongings. What they don't comprehend is that- we don't have any say in this. They may have thought that we have refused to help with this- the reality is- she won't allow us to. This is her house, these are her belongings and she will not let us do anything with them.

When my H's parents moved out of their large home, they made a list of which child/grandchild got what, according to what people wanted. They designated the child who lived closest to them to assist with selling the house- because it was most convenient for that child to do this. With consulting with everyone, the house was sold and the money deposited in an account to cover the parents expenses. This wasn't without some family drama- all families probably have some, but it all seemed so "normal" according to societal expectations.

Maybe my mother's relatives will be more effective at influencing my mother than her children are. I hope so. I also know that they also may come up against resistance and drama on her part but we appreciate that they are trying to assist. I have been honest with these questions - without speaking poorly of her- when they ask about selling the house, I reply- we have no say in this, and that we have no say in what she does with her belongings.

Along with societal expectations are societal norms. When adult children are expected to take on a greater role with helping their parents, it's also assumed the parents have some cooperative arrangement with their adult children and have allowed the children enough permission to actually be effective while not having to give up their autonomy either. It's a sort of respectful balance. When people expect the first part, they also assume the rest of it.

[So Stressed]

Methuen, I related to everything that you said.  I know that my Mom tells her neighbours and friends and my sibling that I do nothing for her and she plays the martyr. I think that everyone feels really sorry for her that she has such a loser daughter who doesn't help her.  But, I am there once (and often twice) a week taking her to the doctor, dentist, various other appointments, shopping, lunch, and whatever else she wants. I take her to my home sometimes for a day or two, although I have really cut back on that because she doesn't appreciate it and is not nice to me, so I figure why have her in my home if she is so unappreciative anyway?  And, I call her every day to make sure she is okay. 

As I have mentioned, I am away right now...for the last several years, I have spent my winters south, and it was not my intention to stop doing that, but my Mom and sibling just about went off the deep end last year when I made plans to go away.  They were both so angry that I would be so selfish as to leave my elderly mother and go away for the winter.  I never said that I was going to stop doing that, and they assumed that it was my responsibility to stay home and care for Mom. I did try to put some care in place for Mom, but she said she wasn't going to have it because it would make me feel better, and she wasn't going to contribute to that. 

So, this year, she agreed to some home care, and the care aid came last week and Mom is upset because she felt that the aid was trying to take over her life. This is what she accuses me of.  I am not sure what she wants...I don't do enough, but what I do is "trying to take over her life."  I think someone in this discussion referred to being a slave, and that seems to be what Mom wants...someone to abuse and order around to meet her demands.

I feel that it is not in her best interest to be without home care while I am away, but it is her choice if she decides to discontinue it.  She is threatening to do that, and she probably will.  Then, she will try to pressure me to go home earlier because she is all alone.

She was being relatively civil to me until yesterday when I called, and she was angry at everything...and, threatening to discontinue the home care.  I was not able to bring myself to call her today because I just didn't feel like dealing with her and the threats to discontinue home care.  I am starting to be able to detach a little after reading others' posts...it just seems irresponsible for an elderly person to be without care, but she won't have it, and I don't think I should be held prisoner in the last years of my life.  My sibling takes no responsibility...also thinks it is my responsibility to take care of Mom.

[Notwendy]

So, this year, she agreed to some home care, and the care aid came last week and Mom is upset because she felt that the aid was trying to take over her life. This is what she accuses me of.  I am not sure what she wants...I don't do enough, but what I do is "trying to take over her life."  I think someone in this discussion referred to being a slave, and that seems to be what Mom wants...someone to abuse and order around to meet her demands.

I discovered something interesting about my mother when I made a suggestion and she reacted strongly. It wasn't even telling her what to do. It was sharing what I wished I had done. She was having some work done in her house and I suggested covering the bookshelf- because I had forgotten to do that when I had work done and construction material gets on things. I didn't expect the response-

"How dare you tell me to climb up that bookshelf!" as if I had just ordered her to do something dangerous.

Well, it wasn't the most accurate suggestion as I didn't mean she had to do it herself, and it wasn't an order and surely I didn't expect her to climb a bookshelf. She could have asked the workmen to do it. I didn't even say "you need to cover that bookshelf" I think it was more like "It would be a good idea if you covered it" or something like that but it was so innocuous a statement, I wasn't even thinking about it.

So I made an off the cuff statement and somehow she processed it as me ordering her to do something dangerous to herself.

I learned in 12 steps to avoid the word "you" and use "I" instead. Saying something like "I wish I had covered the bookshelf in my house" may not have elicited that response. While this may seem like advice to walk on eggshells- it's not- the purpose is to remind us to focus on our feelings, not the other person, by looking at "I" but it also seems to be less provoking.

I also learned that giving someone advice when they didn't ask for it doesn't come across well to people. I realized we do this a lot with BPD mother- because we've taken on the adult role with her. To her - this implies she's not competent. I have heard her react to things like this before- she gets angry.

I think this is one reason she reacts this way to home health. They are sincerely trying to help her, but if they remind her to take her medicine, or try to assist her in the bath, this somehow gets processed as them "taking over" and "telling her what to do" and she reacts like she did when I mentioned the bookshelf.

I think this is one reason the only acceptable situation with her is for her to tell people what to do and for them to be docile and compliant. I also think there's a narcissistic component to this- it seems like she likes feeling superior. When she's angry, she can be insulting.

[zachira]

Methuen,
My situation with my family though different from yours with your mother in many ways does have some similarities in that I have regular contact with people who support the toxic narrative of the large extended family and the flying monkeys in the community that I am the problem. I am wondering if it is possible for you to limit your contact with certain people who seem to be judging your situation with your mother or change how you interact with them in similar ways to how you protect yourself from your mother's projections onto you. I empathize with you in how terrible it feels to feel judged by people who have no idea just how hard you have tried to help your mother and have no idea that you have really no control over how your mother blames you for how she feels inside. 

[Couscous]

I have discovered a new childhood trauma blog today that has some brilliant articles that really get to the heart of things, and this one on external validation is very pertinent to this discussion:

When you are a small child whose whole existence and well-being depends on others, it is vital not to feel rejected because for a child rejection equals existential death. And since as children we are constantly hurt and rejected in many overt and highly subtle ways, a lot of us grow up into wounded and self-less adults whose self-perception is skewed or blurry, to the degree to which we haven’t resolved it.

If we never explore or even recognize this phenomenon, we are doomed to be dependent on other people’s opinions, judgments, and perceptions of us—which makes us prone to being manipulated, and potentially being manipulative ourselves.

For many, it means the following: if someone thinks what you prefer them to think about you, then everything’s great; and if someone thinks something bad about you, then things are really bad. In other words, you are defined by others—and if they perceive you as flawed (accurately or inaccurately), then you feel horrified.

https://blog.selfarcheology.com/2021/02/validation-self-esteem.html

[Turkish]

When you are a small child whose whole existence and well-being depends on others, it is vital not to feel rejected because for a child rejection equals existential death.

That is so me. When my mom adopted me at 2.3 years of age, I'd been through bio parents, her own adoptive parents, and foster care. Then due to my genetic condition and looking differently than my peers, I was ostracized and bullied I can remember well from 5 onwards. As such, I never feel the same like I can be happy, have a wedding, be a part of a normal family function like i see people doing, at least not without faking it.  And i wonder how much of that i took from my Lost Sheep orphaned mother. Survival? Rescuing others 

My mom made a life out of rescuing waifs.

Sorry if that's a bit of a hijack. Maybe it would be a good new thread.

[Methuen]

I have been honest with these questions - without speaking poorly of her- when they ask about selling the house, I reply- we have no say in this, and that we have no say in what she does with her belongings.

Along with societal expectations are societal norms. When adult children are expected to take on a greater role with helping their parents, it's also assumed the parents have some cooperative arrangement with their adult children and have allowed the children enough permission to actually be effective while not having to give up their autonomy either. It's a sort of respectful balance. When people expect the first part, they also assume the rest of it.

I would expect these relatives to eventually ask you what you mean when you tell them "you have no say in what she does with her belongings".  Your mom's behavior is so outside the norm, that your relatives are unlikely to see through what you are really saying, unless they know her in the same ways you do.

Along with societal expectations are societal norms. When adult children are expected to take on a greater role with helping their parents, it's also assumed the parents have some cooperative arrangement with their adult children and have allowed the children enough permission to actually be effective while not having to give up their autonomy either. It's a sort of respectful balance. When people expect the first part, they also assume the rest of it.

And there's the catch - the assumption that the parents have a cooperative arrangement which allows for the children to be effective helpers/support. Wouldn't that be nice...

I know that my Mom tells her neighbours and friends and my sibling that I do nothing for her and she plays the martyr. I think that everyone feels really sorry for her that she has such a loser daughter who doesn't help her.  But, I am there once (and often twice) a week taking her to the doctor, dentist, various other appointments, shopping, lunch, and whatever else she wants. I take her to my home sometimes for a day or two.

I am hoping that your mom has neighbours with eyes who can see your vehicle at your mom's, (or you in the building if it's an apartment) and possibly connect the dots that your actions (all your work at your mom's) doesn't line up with what your mom tells them (that you aren't there).  

So Stressed, I can relate to so much of what your mom said about the home care.  My mom can't stand having them in her home space.  They come in to help with her eye drops (I have met them all and they are so kind and nice) and so they ask her to lie down.  She sees this as controlling, rather than helping her to keep her eyesight.  So she fired them, and now she only has 10% vision left in that eye.  But it's because the eye drops are no good, not because the drops are running down the side of her face instead of getting into her eye (she has Parkinson's).

 

I think someone in this discussion referred to being a slave, and that seems to be what Mom wants...someone to abuse and order around to meet her demands.

Yes exactly.  And the thing is, they feel entitled to this because in some twisted way, they think they sacrificed everything to raise us (except we actually parented them even as children), and so "now that they really need us in their old age", we owe them, which includes accepting being ordered around like a slave and being yelled at, and oh yes...and liking it And if they don't get that attention they want, it somehow means we don't love them. At least that's how my mom's thinking goes...

SoStressed, I am so happy for you that you have gone south.  Be sure to stay south for the full duration of your planned stay!

NotWendy,

I discovered something interesting about my mother when I made a suggestion and she reacted strongly. It wasn't even telling her what to do. It was sharing what I wished I had done. She was having some work done in her house and I suggested covering the bookshelf- because I had forgotten to do that when I had work done and construction material gets on things. I didn't expect the response-

"How dare you tell me to climb up that bookshelf!" as if I had just ordered her to do something dangerous.

Could this be PDA - pathological demand avoidance?  I'm convinced my mom has this too - it was suggested to me by a nurse.  You could try googling it and see if it fits.  For my mom, anything can become a demand - even going to an appointment is a demand upon her - and any demand stresses her out.  For example, receiving home care help felt like a "demand" to her.  They come on an agreed schedule, but then she wants to change the schedule and says they come at the wrong times. Truthfully, she doesn't want them in her house.  Somehow it's a demand on her space and time, even though they are helping her.

Like you NW, I'm a huge believer in using "I statements".  It's helpful in every relationship, but especially the high conflict ones. It doesn't solve the problem of a personality disorder, but it could play a small role in possibly avoiding some conflict some of the time...which is a tool worth using.

Couscous - I believe my mother is defined by others. She's never had a sense of self.  At her core, she feels unlovable and unwanted, but this mostly comes out when she's dysregulating.  She had a personality that needed to be the center of attention when she was younger and around people. She kept conversation around what she wanted, or she would say outlandish things that would make her friends howl with laughter, and this attention "filled her up".  She always bought the clothes that a friend had, or ordered from the menu what we ordered, or got the exact same new kitchen someone else had. Her validation of what was worth having, came from others, not from within herself if that makes sense.  If one of her friends moved tomorrow into assisted living, I guarantee that her attitude would change, and suddenly assisted living would be acceptable.  It's just that she doesn't want to be seen as needing assisted living, because no one she knows lives there, and she believes that if she moved there "nobody would come visit her".  She has repeatedly stated this as a reason for not going there.  But if somebody she liked moved there, those other thoughts would be forgotten, and suddenly it would be acceptable.

I definitely believe my mom felt rejected as a child.  Her father drilled it into her that she was not worth anything (her siblings as well).  I could only speculate that this is one reason why she felt unworthy and invisible.  So she learned strategies to make herself visible and feel worthy from external forces.  I really don't know.  I don't spend too much time understanding it any more.  I just try to focus on maintaining as low contact as I can in a community that knows both of us.

I think there's a difference between being defined by others, and simply caring about one's own reputation in a community.  If we didn't care about how others saw us, we would probably be too wrapped up in our own ego. I can think of certain world leaders who don't care what other's think of their actions when their actions hurt other people. It's probably a spectrum - like everything else.

I probably need to follow my own advice to SoStressed, and give people who know mom and/or her situation, the chance to connect the dots with their own eyes   Part of my problem is probably that I share some of society's expectations (caring for elderly parents), and so to some degree I feel like a failure, despite having gone above and beyond (until I burned out because no matter how much I did it was never enough and after dad died I got manipulated and yelled at and fed up with her twisted thinking and narcissistic ways). It just sucks, and we wish it wasn't so.

SoStressed, I hope you are somewhere warm with a smile on your face, and calmness in your soul.  Make every moment of that count.  You deserve it!