My BPD Mum is apparently angry with me - i hate the guilt

[BigWideWorld]

Hi All

My mum is BPD without doubt although I could never get her doctors to listen to my concerns and diagnose her but she is absolutely everythig that every one posts on this forum and my brother and I have had it both barrels since our dad died 7 years ago.

I saw my mum a few weekends back before my birthday but only just because she loves cancelling us all off from visiting at the last minute and did it again for my birthday get together at her place with my aunt and brother which hurt a bit and then at the very last minute she called it back on again! I took my birthday presents to open on my birthday which was on a later date - I actually went away for my birthday so I opened them when I got back.

My mum is a person who will not ring any of us, she wonlt have a mobile phone so we can't stay in touch via text and whatsapp, I live 36 miles away from her so I can't just pop in here and there like my brother who lives in the same town as her can.

I sort of keep in touch with her via my auntie via my auntie's whatsapp, when I got back and opened my presents and immediately messaged my aunt to thank her for her presents and said how lovely my presents from mum where - they talk on the phone daily so I expected it to get passed on but I know my aunt has been getting fearful of my mums jealousy over her relationship with me so I am wondering if she is now nervous to mention any whatsapp communication with me to her and so never said anything.

My brother messaged me today to say that my mum is really angry with me and to exoect coldness if I ring - i get anxious about ringing my mum as it is because of her extreme moods. I feel like just sending her a xmas card and apologising for any accidental upset.

You know what really gets me is that she can make feel like such a bad person yet the way she treats us is appalling! She used to be physically violent and mentally abusive to us as kids and I never did anything to deserve it, she has put us through some horrendous times after our dad died with suicide threats, making up lies about him to try and shock us, causing rifts between her and my dad's side of the family, she even went through a phase of writing to me to disown me! And yet now I know i've accidentally made her mad I feel like the bad person!

I carry guilt that my brother sees her regularly because he can pop in being local to her, my auntie regularly calls and visits her and restrict it to spending a saturday with here every 3rd weekend - the thing is I see the toll she takes on my aunt and brother. Every time she goes through phases of being really cruel to my aunt every day that she's ring her, I end up spending a lot of time on whatsapp giving my aunt counselling to help her cope with what my mum puts her through. I don't want that for my life! Is it bad that I keep my distance to protect myself?

I  work full time, I am in the process of selling a house and buying another - my mum sits at home frittering money away on a shopping channel all week every week, she doesn't get that two weeks for me isn't like two weeks to her, time passes a lot quicker for me, I have a lot more to think about!

It's mentally exhausting having a BPD relative and you are just trapped because there's nothing you can do about their condition, they'll never change, someone in the family will be the object of hate every week in their head!

[Notwendy]

I am sorry for the loss of your father. My BPD mother's behavior escalated around the time of my father's passing. One thing that helped me was to see that this is projected emotions- her own feelings- and it isn't personal to you even if it feels hurtful.

I think it is common for family members of a pwBPD to somehow feel responsible for their feelings - and they also blame us for them too. In actuality- you know you aren't the reason for your mother's feelings- which also means you can't fix them- and I think you have realized that it's not possible to change how she feels.

The personal work on your end is to somehow be able to have some inner peace- even if she is angry at you. That is your work to do because- she's 30 minutes away from you- and there's no way for you to know how she's feeling at any one point. You are not responsible for how she feels but this is so habitual it's hard to not feel that way.

Personal counseling and CODA/ACA groups helped me with this. The best part about recognizing that these are our feelings is that- we can make personal change with our own feelings- even when we can't change someone else's.

Keep in mind that if your mother appears angry at you, it's likely a projection of her own feelings and not about you.

[BigWideWorld]

Hi NotWendy

It's not a great time of year for her moods either, she's never been a winter person as it is and 12th Nov was the anniversary of my dad's passing and yesterday (24th) is the anniversary of the funeral. Trouble is she moans all summer about the heat too so we are running out of seasons fer her to actually be happy!

She is such a conflict person and loves an argument and i'm not of that ilk so i tend to wnat to run the other way when she's like that. when she wrote to me to disown me I was actually relieved! but she'd fell out with the whole family at that point and I think it shocked her that no one ran to beg her forgiveness so she ended up on the phone to me in tears asking me to visit.

It's hard when I visit too because it will be a nice visit until my aunt and brother leave and then she starts calling hell out of them to me once they've gone - that's the other hard thing, rather than call me or something, she'd rather slag me off to the rest of the family!

I just don't have the confidence to ring her now, i'll send a xmas card and a letter with it to apologise for an accidental miscommunication because I thought my aunt was going to pass on my thanks for my birthday presents. They turn against people so quickly and easily don't they :-(

[zachira]

It is painful beyond words to have a parent who blames their children for how they feel inside. How do we stop taking on the overwhelming feelings of our disordered parents and own who we really are inside? The best advice my therapist ever gave me was when in the presence of a disordered person to focus on how I was feeling inside (instead of focusing on the other person). You are keeping your distance from your mother yet feeling guilty at times for not doing more. This is how many of us feel as we work to not let ourselves be guilted into doing more for our unappreciative mothers to the detriment of our own wellbeing.

[TelHill]

So sorry you are going through this. It's really not fair.

This seems to help me so I'm throwing it out.  I hear the voices of my bpd mother, my in denial dad and my gc, narcissistic sibling in my head when I take on their feelings. I feel the guilt and do what I think is genuinely appropriate in the situation. It's like exercising a muscle I have not ever used and it's beyond painful. The guilt is still there over time but the pain becomes manageable the more I do this.

[So Stressed]

It is comforting to read these posts and know that I am not alone. I relate to what every post said here.  I seem to be the scapegoat child and my BPD Mother and narcissistic sibling blame me for everything. Both of them project their horrible feelings onto me and they treat me like I am a bad person.  I am really quite a happy person on my own, but whenever I have to be in contact with my family, it seems to end badly.  I have done a lot of work to try to heal the traumas but it is still scary to have to communicate with them, especially with Mother.  I want so much for her to love and approve of me and it is not possible.

The advice about trying to separate and realize that the anger is their feelings and not mine is helpful, but when you are in it, it is not so easy to step back and be rational when no one else is rational.

I think that covid made this much worse than it was before.

[BigWideWorld]

I think that covid made this much worse than it was before.

My mum almost got excited by the drama of covid, it stopped her wallowing n her own self pity a lot but she loved been really dark and depressing to the rest of us about it and scaring us all to death that we were all going to end up on ventilator at some point - she really got off on being a doom monger.

And ever since really she has loved a being doom monger which has these days switched to being about wars and telling us the the UK will end up at war and my brother and my partner will be conscripted to fight even though we are 44 and 49 in age!