BPD Holidays....over the hills we go!

[U.N. Owen]

Hi,

Does anyone else have issues with a BPD parent (mom for me) cancelling holidays right before they start? My mom does it almost every year, she comes up with some random excuse to get angry and cancels the meal/celebration right before the holiday. This year she didn't cancel Thanksgiving but she did get mad over my brother coming down (lives 4 hours away) on Saturday, not Friday like she wanted. She just kept getting angry and going on about how she never gets what she wants and just one time she wishes she could get it her way - the truth is we give her her way and put up with way more from her than we would from anyone else. 

Then there is Christmas where she usually has an exorbitant list of gifts totaling thousands of dollars and implies that I don't love her if I don't get her everything she wants - then she starts saying stuff like well "I will just get it as a gift to myself then". She likes to spend way too much on my brother and I and use it to guilt us into buying for her. This year my brother and his family exchanged Christmas gifts with her over Thanksgiving because they live so far away and she refuses to go up there for the holiday. After they left she got mad that all they got her was a $30 gift card and that shes sure they got my dad/his in-laws more than that. I know she will find an issue with her gift from me and that its not enough - if she found out I was getting my soon-to-be step mom a gift she would absolutely lose it. She got mad my dad found out she got my niece and nephew a computer for Christmas because she was convinced he was going to buy them something nicer to upstage her and they would like his gift better.

I used to love Christmas but the rollercoaster I have been on with her has honestly just made me dread the holidays every year because I know there will be a fight. Anyone else have the same holiday roller coaster experiences?

[Sappho11]

Yes. It's a pattern with pwBPD. (Compliments on the witty title, by the way. Some much needed levity.)

My best friend in high school was diagnosed with the disorder. Her birthday is a couple of days before mine. She would conveniently start arguments right after hers and before mine. Same with Christmas, it was like clockwork. Every year: I'd give her presents, she'd start arguing, then try to make up sometime in the new year.

Years later I was in a relationship with a BPD man. Same thing. Huge arguments on my birthday. If there was nothing to argue about, he'd fabricate stories to start dispute. Arguments for Christmas too. Sulking while we were celebrating together with his parents: three of us were happily chatting, and he'd refuse to join, no matter how hard everyone tried to include him. Afterwards, when we were alone, he'd berate me until four in the morning how I effectively "deserted him" and made him "look stupid" in front of his parents by talking so much. He discarded me a few days later, only to come back again two weeks later.

And exactly the same thing with my father. Celebrating his birthday: fine and dandy, he was up for that. Celebrating my birthday: Not a chance. He had me book a trip to come visit him, then cancelled at the last second. No apology; instead he blamed it on me. Same with Christmas. I was uninvited without reason. When I asked why, he came up with some bizarre tall tales, one worse than the other.

He also keeps written score of the times whenever he's been "wronged" by people in a sophisticated system of painstakingly catalogued Word files on his computer (he told me about this with great pride). He also keeps score of the gifts he has given to people so that he knows what they "owe" him. When I inquired whether he also kept track of gifts people have got for him, he flew into a rage.

All of the people above told me that they hate Christmas. My BPD ex and my father both didn't know why, but my high school friend once tried to explain: she thinks it's stupid that people get together and pretend to be nice to another, that it deeply annoys her because it makes her feel an outsider and even worse than usual.

Years later I read that this is a common theme in Cluster B disorders. Due to the severe impairment of empathy, sufferers cannot comprehend the genuine bond and warmth people share during those days. They often become acutely conscious of this deficiency when they realise they can't do certain things such as pick out an appropriate gift or enjoy someone else's happiness about it, and this stirs threatening feelings of inadequacy, causing narcissistic injury. Due to this inner turmoil, they act out. Or try to avoid the festivity in question completely.

[CC43]

They are unhappy when they see others are happy.

[Tangled mangled]

The title of this…

[Tangled mangled]

This Christmas I will be celebrating being free from the bondage of a toxic marriage to a BPD man and 2 years of no contact with my BPD mother.
No fear of having to give too much of myself to a bottomless pit of needs, no obligation to please someone who can never be happy or pleased, no guilt for doing the right things to keep myself sane!

Over the hills we go ! I do not miss anything about my disordered family!
I use to go into overdrive, trying so hard to please my family, and there was this expectation to put on a united front but at the expense of a few. Don’t let the FOG ruin the holidays, you deserve peace and sometimes the only keeping you away from it is yourself. Nothing is going to change with your bpd mother. If you refuse to fall for the trap she’s setting by not getting involved, she’s still going to be disordered, raging and toxic.

[zanyapple]

I’ve seen this happen with my uBPD mom. I remember her usual line was always, “it’s Christmas and you all always make me upset during Christmas!!!”

This also happens right before she comes to visit. I’m always the one to pay for her flights (it’s not cheap to travel from Asia all the way to the US), and days before, she always starts a fight. If everything is smooth, but she doesn’t hear from me for a couple days, she would then contact me only to say, “Are we still flying to visit you?” in a tone that implies I don’t want them here.

[Tangled mangled]

I’ve seen this happen with my uBPD mom. I remember her usual line was always, “it’s Christmas and you all always make me upset during Christmas!!!”

This also happens right before she comes to visit. I’m always the one to pay for her flights (it’s not cheap to travel from Asia all the way to the US), and days before, she always starts a fight. If everything is smooth, but she doesn’t hear from me for a couple days, she would then contact me only to say, “Are we still flying to visit you?” in a tone that implies I don’t want them here.


Zanyapple

I relate to this so much.

I too have to pay with an arm and a leg in flight tickets to have a relationship with my mum and other FOO, I refuse to give in to this demand. I haven’t spent a dime on them in 4 years and it feels really good. Take care of yourself and know deep down that you can keep yourself emotionally safe from their manipulation.

[zanyapple]

I relate to this so much.

I too have to pay with an arm and a leg in flight tickets to have a relationship with my mum and other FOO, I refuse to give in to this demand. I haven’t spent a dime on them in 4 years and it feels really good. Take care of yourself and know deep down that you can keep yourself emotionally safe from their manipulation.

Just curious - what does your BPD family member say/do?

[Tangled mangled]

Just curious - what does your BPD family member say/do?

Mine creates drama around her visit, making all sorts of passive aggressive statements when I complain about the expense and the fact that she will put me in debts by spending extravagantly when I am struggling financially. At one point when she arrived she even threatened going on hunger strike because I pointed out that a certain behaviour was hurting me. I’m not supposed to complain about my parents behaviour so when I do she gets angry and does the silent treatment in my own home.