My eldest child asked me how I felt about mom visiting. I was honest in a child friendly way. I was not enjoying her. I didn't expect I would feel the way I did with her coming. I was happy with interacting with her for a bit but then it got to be intrusive and I was ready for her to go . DS said he really enjoyed her visit and wants to see her more. I would be ok to never see her again (didn't tell DS that) but I told him I understand and it's ok to love her but my job is to protect him and I will do the best I can to get him visits with her.
This stuff is just awful. I am very sad.
Hi PinkPanther
I hope you are feeling a bit better today.
Managing the relationships between our BPD parent and children is extenuating. It is a lot.
I understand perfectly what you mean by noticing things only a child of a BPD can notice. Even when she is on her best behavior, I remain shaken by the very presence of my BPD mother. I've come to realize it doesn't have so much to do with her, than it has to do with little Riverworlf being in high alert to prevent the next outburst. Sometimes this outburst never come, because BPD mother is "ok", but her very presence, even when she is calm (as calm as a BPD can be) makes it very hard to relax.
So...be gentle with yourself. Your reaction and feelings are so very normal.
As for your children... I also get it. My BPD mother is great with her young grandchildren. It's not the same grandmother as the mother she was to me, that's for sure. Points to you for seeing through the great grandmother facade though because as the grandchildren gets older, problems still arise.
My niece and nephew are teenagers now, and they are still demanded for visits over weekend at her house, they must have sleep over there. She prefers one of them to the other, and told him his parents loved him less than his sister. She told me my niece was a bully in school just prior to her arrival, as if to sway my mind about my niece, who is a great girl, honestly, very polite and kind. The triangulation and wedging, while they seemingly don't exist when the grandchildren are young, will peak their ugly head over time, as they grow and individuate themselves. When they were young though, the triangulation and wedging still happened, my sister in law was the ultimate ennemy of my BPD mother.
My daughter also loved her BPD grandmother... She hasn't seen her in two years and still talks about her. I thought she'd have forgotten her by now. Something about the biological bond, I imagine. Also, my BPD mother is VERY INTENSE with her young grandchildren, she will monopolize them entirely. To every adult in the room, the dysfunction is clear, but to the child, this is pure attention and connection. She also never raged against her grandchildren, that I can tell. She will rage at me at the end of her moment with them though. I am the stress outlet.
It is hard to explain our children you are right... I told my daughter we wouldn't be seeing her grandma for a while because she screams too much. To which my daughter replied : but she is nice with me. This conversation was very hard to have, I still feel bad when my daughter talks about her BPD grandmother. Yesterday she mentioned it again, and I told her I'd tell her more when she is a bit older, and that we would be going to see her other grandparents this weekend. It took her thought away.
I also always felt like the bad guy when my mother was around. I now think this was me picking up on my mother's jealousy of my bond with my children. She wanted all the attention. Whenever my daughter would come to me for a hug, trying to get away from BPD grandma, BPD grandma would have none of it and double up her intensity to make the game more intense, trying to steer her away from me. It was very dysfunctional.
I also distinctly remember her almost throwing my baby boy to me, because he was crying to be in my arms. She had a lot more trouble getting him to calm down than my daughter. She had been rocking him while I was showering and when I came back, my son was extending his arms toward me, wanting to come in my arms. The face she had, I will always remember. She threw him in my arms with such disdain. She was jealous of my bond with him, of how she simply could not compete with a mother.
Everyone that is healthy knows this is normal. A child and her/his mother. I mean. How can one even be jealous and try to compete with that? My BPD mother does, and doesn't accept defeat without a fight. And so I was the bad guy.
I don't know if this will resonate, or help you... But know I get it. And you are not the problem. I don't have much advice to give you other than : breathe, get back to yourself, take a little break from her until you settle back to ground zero maybe.
It's ok to be sad. It's a relationship we might spend our life grieving. And it's ok. Self-care and self-compassion.
