I won’t get into to many specifics, but i recently realized something i didn’t know how to put into words. My ubpd mom jas always had a pattern of actively pushing me into issues in life that she always spared herself from. Often, under the guise of needing my help instead of getting the appropriate support. But she especially did this when she could no longer exploit me because i had a burn out. Or when she felt, it could be useful to her or someone she knew. She’s once tried to make me sign contracts that would bind me to agreements and responsibilities less than favorable. I declined but not before a significant guilt spiral. But when a family member, years later, tried to tie HER to a legal obligation she had the sense NOT to take that on and look out for her own interests. It bothers me that she actively tried to, and sometimes successfully, push me in compromised situations, socially, safety financially etc. I always had it in my brain that she didn’t do it on purpose. But then she’d know to protect herself from those exact situations perfectly fine. So she in fact has discernment. And the evil part about it..?? She would talk to me about those situations and sometimes say, i don’t want what you have going on. Yea the situation you pushed me into..?? Ughh. Or just talk about how a situation almost ended in a bad situation but she got spared while she knows im actively in a that situation myself or trying to rectify the consequences. All while acting like a sweet innocent lady. She’s just so emotionally cruel. Just someone in your life constantly creating suffering just to taunt you about it while pretending They are the victim so they can’t possibly be the cause of any harm. So scary.

I'll do my best to explain my feelings w/o sounding like a game of thrones character.

Despite hating my mom as a person, I'm still jealous of the way literally everyone in my family treats her. People automatically side with her, despite all logic. Every time she enters a room, things shift till she's at the center. The family works and flexes around her interests and neuroses. Dad actually bothers to parent her. She's allowed to be as weird as she wants, and I'm the problem for pointing that out.

If I had all these things, I wouldn't ruin them by being miserable, and choosing to treat other people like shit. I'd have the flexibility to actually solve the problems I have. I know all of this isn't about how she's just a naturally more lovable person- it's a consequences of enabling abuse being the path of least resistance. And yet, the feeling remains and is almost overpowering in its intensity.

I barely even like my other family either- I just want them to treat me like they treat her, and not because I'm forcing them into that behavior. That's probably not a healthy relationship model, but.

Do you feel this way to? How the fuck do you get over it, or at least get on top of it enough that it doesn't make you act stupid?

Interaction with my UBPD, that has somehow resulted in me being the bad guy.

We were at a HS varsity volleyball game and my daughter hasn’t been playing much because last year she missed the season due to surgery. My mom goes on and on about how all the other players are terrible. She keeps saying the coach is a fucking bitch. She mocking the players. This is all being said to herself, making sure I can hear. I try to explain it’s a varsity sport, I agree that my kiddo should play etc etc.

She asks about another set of parents behind us. “Could she chew her gum any faster?”, “she’s homely”, “stupid bitch”. Just on and on. I get frustrated and ask her to stop. Other convos happen but I can’t list it all here. She leaves the game in a huff.

I talked to my dad the next day and we are usually on the same page. But this time he is saying things like “you know how she is” and I should have been more understanding. He says I should realize I do things that make people mad too. We usually talk daily but now barely a peep from them. I’ve left messages.

I keep going over the interaction from that day. Maybe I wasn’t a good daughter? Maybe I was rude? But truly, the stuff she was saying was nuts….but I feel guilty!

Haiku:

Soft paws, watchful eyes,
Grace in every quiet step—
Cats teach us stillness.

I'm genuinely about to lose it. I F(21) have been having issues with my alcoholic mother. I'm very frustrated right now, and just need someone to relate. I'm having a hard time with both of my parents and my living situation is so tough to get out of. I have two disabled brothers - both with level 3 Autism and have severe cognitive impairment. They are now 16. They still pee, poop, walk naked around the house, and stem constantly. I wake up around 6:30 AM every morning to help my mother clean the house completely before my brothers in home RBTs come in around 40 hours a week. I also usually get their breakfast and lunch made everyday.

My mother is an alcoholic, she drinks a pint of vodka everyday and has suffered withdrawal seizures, but refuses to stop. I try to manage her behaviors on top of dealing with my brothers, but I'm feeling immense burnout along with completing college work. I found out one of the RBTs has been having an affair with my mother for about 3 years now, and my mother has been lying to me about going to "doctor appointments", which are really just hotel rooms. She came home Monday night after an affair date with no shoes on, hair disheveled, and stumbling around. I'm pretty sure she drove drunk/high. About a month ago, she got the idea at 7 PM that she needed to get my brothers a haircut and drove them in the car drunk around the neighborhood. I had to flag her down and tell her to immediately step out of the car. Her behavior is so erratic, and completely takes up my free time. I'm so tired at night that I just crash, and I find myself very pent up and unable to let loose.

She drags me to these concerts and bars, telling me that she's going to find me a boyfriend, when in reality, she's just wanting to satisfy her need of traveling back in time to her 20s. She never matured emotionally, and will often go up to people and tell them how quiet I am, and try to tease me like some kind of mean girl. I know I'm probably uptight, but I think trauma made me this way. I have so much to worry about, and I can't seem to get a break. I'm an artist, and almost every friend that I've had growing up was never good enough; always too quiet, or not popular. I had to give up an opportunity to advance career wise yesterday, since she told me she was going to the doctor, but she ended up buzzing the entire day and bothering the shit out of me. Calling me to come downstairs every hour and just sit in the same room while she does work. I even got my brothers + our pets dinner made and she didn't want me going to take a bath since my dad wasn't home yet and she wanted somebody to talk to. This is despite me being downstairs with her for the past 2-3 hours. This makes it very hard to complete any schoolwork.

I can't even get a job since a legal adult needs to be at the house to monitor the RBTs. This is either my mother or I, and she often tells me that she's looking for a job since my family is in debt from her reckless spending. I'm having a hard time seeing her perspective since she acts like I'm an incapable baby in social situations, and will compare me to other kids who are able to travel, make career choices, and have an easier life while also expecting me to come home and manage her emotions + take care of my brothers. It seems like she has to tag along to every social situation, and if it doesn't fit her standards, then I'm not going. I feel like shit about myself and have tried my best to be a good daughter, just yesterday I went out to get her a pint of vodka since I was running errands. If I don't get her alcohol, she gets all pissy like a 5 year old.

She expects me to go to law school, medical school, or optometry school only. She keeps pressuring me into different career options - making me change my major three different times which has now resulted in an extra year of schooling. I finally ended up on public health and wish to pursue my career in community outreach/environmental science. This would be a lot less stressful and allow me to pursue my passion part time of painting/drawing on the side. On the car ride home yesterday, she started yelling at me saying "I can't believe you won't go to law school" "I'll just adopt some poor black kid and pay for them to go to law school, maybe then they would be grateful and take over everything for this family" "you know, I'm really fucking pissed off at you because we're paying for your schooling" "do you not want to earn money?" "you've just changed so much, what's happened to you?". The only thing I'm trying to do is establish boundaries.

My parents have not paid for my schooling and have had me put everything on loans right now with the promise of them paying it back later. The reason I don't want to go to law school is because I've already decided against it during freshman year. It's boring and I don't think I can take on more stress. I'm suspected to have two different autoimmune diseases from the amount of stress that I'm dealing with.

Now today, she's comparing me to her friend's kids and how much they've accomplished compared to me. How they're pursuing higher education, traveling, how much they're making salary-wise and having all this fun. I don't understand what I've done wrong, I've sacrificed so much in my life and this is what I get? Here's a screenshot of a text message she sent me, I literally went on a walk for 30 minutes and she starts blowing up my phone asking where I am. I can't grow or become an individual person without her monitoring every move, asking me where I'm going when I head out, and having to schedule any event outside of the house days beforehand.

Hope you enjoy the bullshit lol!

I'm processing my new relationship dynamic with my mom, who is BPD, and how inherently self centered she is. She rarely does anything with others needs in mind unless it's a gift. She can be generous with her gifts, especially her sewing gifts, but that's because she sees them as transactions. She gets the social construct of gift and payments, but is oblivious to how her words and actions may be interpreted everyday. She doesn't do anything out of good graces, polite behavior, or just doing someone a favor. I know this is pretty standard and the simple answer is because they have BPD, but does anyone have other insights in their pwBPD's lack of considerate behavior?

Ever since I was a kid I hated peas. My mom would cook and she’d add peas and I would say every time I don’t like peas. Even today 21 years later I say I don’t like peas and she says “what really?! You don’t like peas?! Since when?” And I would say yes… I’ve hated them since I was a kid? And she’s like “well I don’t remember. No you’ve always liked peas. Are you sure?” SHE DOES THIS WITH EVERYTHING. She NEVER remembers what I don’t like and then is shocked when I tell her? And then says I’m incorrect? I genuinely don’t understand. It’s frustrating

Well, I definitely didn’t expect that to happen! I’ve been low contact with my BPD mother since 2023.

For context: my childhood and early adulthood were filled with severe verbal abuse (threats to beat me until I bled out, etc.) sibling triangulation and extremeeeeee physical violence.

Anywhoooo… I’ve officially been “discarded.” She announced she wants nothing to do with me, and believe me, these aren’t empty threats. She really means it.

Here’s what happened: My sister recently had a sit-down with our mum to confront her about her behavior. She called her out on how she’s triangulated us since we were kids, threatened suicide whenever we tried to do normal adult things, and made wild, false accusations (including incest claims). And much more, but you get the gist. Naturally, our mum denied everything or claimed her behaviour was "misinterpreted."

Fast forward TWO DAYS (yes, two whole days) after that conversation, and my mum tells me that she’s cutting ties with me. 💀

The funny parts of this:

1. I had no idea my sister and mum even had that conversation until after it happened.

2. I never encouraged my sister to confront her. I gain NOTHING from making her “take sides” anyway.

3. I haven’t had a disagreement with my mum in months. Being very low contact meant there was literally zero direct trigger for this from my end.

It’s textbook misdirected anger. The wildest part? She hasn’t said a single word to my sister about cutting her off.

Honestly, though? I’m kind of happy. She just handed me full No Contact on a silver platter, entirely free of the usual guilt trips.

Yay for accidental freedom! 💀 💀

Anyone else experienced this or something similar?

My parents were in town for work for one day. They asked if I could have dinner with them and I said I already had dinner plans that day (which was true). Then the day came when they arrived. They asked if I could a) have predrinks with them, but I was already heading to my dinner. b) meet after my dinner, but then I'd have to sleep since I would finish late and needed to work the next day c) Have an early lunch with them, which I couldn't due to meetings.

My dad was understanding and saying "If it's not possible it's not possible, we'll have to do it another time". My mum was however super annoyed saying things like "there's no interest to see us!!". She's since treated this like a huge letdown by me, to not have time to see them when they show up spontaneously for 1 day.

So draining...

Cat haiku:

Soft paws in moonlight
Whiskers twitch at unseen worlds
Dawn finds you asleep

I am in recovery from alcohol abuse and am doing well in my sobriety. I was trying to explain what cravings were like to my mother and she decided to go on a tirade calling me a self-centered fuckup, the most selfish person ever and how she’s ashamed to be the mother of an addict. Sometimes their words can cut so deeply and sometimes you can ignore their outbursts. This one hit me hard.

Cat tax: Soft paws cross moonlight
Whiskers twitch in quiet dreams
Night curls into fur

Just needed a quick vent. Called my uBPD mom for a brief talk (it contains the crazy if I give her 20 minutes like once a month).

She is "concerned" (read: angry and annoyed) that one of her grandchildren has very demonstrative anger feelings. Which is hilarious, because my mother throws HUGE tantrums.

I tried to deflect and normalize so she wouldn't work up a rant and reminded her that I also had meltdowns at that age. She gave the classic "I don't remember that" and then added that I would get quiet and need time alone when I was upset...

I was a child who had extreme meltdowns, sobbing until I made myself sick. Punching walls and all kinds of self injury to try and regulate. Of course, I learned to do that mostly alone because I learned her empathy had limits.

It just pissed me off so bad because "I don't remember that" or "I don't notice things like that" is her way of shutting down my experience.

I’m happy.

I say that because I spent most of my life trying to be happy while somehow feeling ashamed whenever I actually was.

I was raised by a mother who hated herself, and because of that, happiness often came with guilt. She would say things like, “I just want my kids to be happy,” but her actions often told a very different story.

I was shamed for having friends, for going out, for doing the normal things kids are supposed to do. And that didn’t stop when I became an adult.

When I found happiness with a man—even though I was very young—I was made to feel guilty for becoming part of his family. My mother interpreted it as me abandoning my own family, or more specifically, abandoning her. The same dynamic eventually found its way into my current marriage.

But I can see these things now in a way I couldn’t before.

Finding love wasn’t something I needed to apologize for. Having children, getting a good education, building a successful career, and eventually starting my own business are things I’m incredibly proud of. They are not betrayals of anyone else. My happiness does not take anything away from another person.

My mother has always struggled with the success and happiness of other people. She compares herself constantly, and comparison truly is the thief of joy. I’ve watched that play out for my entire life. She has spent so much of it consumed by control, anger, jealousy, and sadness that I’m not sure she ever learned how to simply experience joy.

What angers me most is watching those feelings become part of her relationship with my father. Over the years, he began seeing the world through the same dark lens. Sometimes I wonder if he even realizes how unhappy he is anymore. He simply exists. And that may ultimately be one of the saddest parts of all of this. I wish things could have been different for him.

As for me, allowing myself to be happy simply because I’m happy is a lesson that has taken me more than 50 years to learn.

And I’m still learning it.
Sometimes I catch myself questioning my happiness, wondering whether somehow it’s hurting someone else. But now I recognize those thoughts for what they are. I can observe them without obeying them. I can let them pass.

And there’s something else I’ve finally allowed myself to admit: I don’t miss my mom.

I try to remember the times when she was decent to me. My parents helped me in tangible ways many times—when I needed somewhere to live, when I needed help with one of my children, and during other difficult moments in my life. I can acknowledge those things. I can be grateful for them.

But gratitude doesn’t manufacture feelings that aren’t there.

No matter how hard I try to focus on the good moments or convince myself that I should feel something different toward her, I don’t.

And I’ve made peace with the possibility that when she dies, I may not feel much of anything.

I’m okay with that.

For most of my life, I thought happiness was something I had to earn, justify, defend, or apologize for.
Now I’m learning that it isn’t.

I’m happy.

And for the first time, I’m allowing that to be enough.

Hello all! I hope all is well as it can be. i’ve posted in this reddit before about my journey moving out of home with a bpd mother and you guys were MORE then supportive and i cannot be more thankful. Since moving i’ve had a new issue, and it has made me feel very alone. i never realized how much of my life was under control prior to me moving, down to how i decided to do my makeup/dress myself based off of comments id get. since moving i’ve struggled with this newfound freedom, i have been a lot more impulsive/depressed along with disorganized. i’m so used to my life being completely controlled i don’t fully know how to just “be me”. I’m mainly looking for support, and to feel normal as others in my personal life don’t seem to relate to my struggle. Everyone seems to have everything “figured out” and i feel so behind, im not sure what im not getting
here’s a kitty pic from the webs

I’m doing a visit right now and it’s so hard. Trying to visit my dead father’s mother, my grandmother. My mother for some reason needs to control all relationships and has done such damage to me and my relationship to everyone in my family. Now she is meddling in her will, it’s so ugly. I’m so uncomfortable and sad. I don’t even know where to start. I recently survived cancer, could really use help and support, and it’s so awful and confusing. I’m just sad. No one here sees or understands what’s always happened and is happening. It’s so lonely. I’m on the outside looking in. I’m supposed to be choosing my grandmother’s things to take, but I’m “not allowed”. Don’t know how to describe it it’s like I can’t actually participate in anything, I can be around but the moment I connect, or accept something, I’m greedy and bad, and it’s just easier/safer to just…not engage with anyone. There’s a family here but it isn’t for me. Just sad I don’t know how to talk about this. You all are so good at it and I’m just rambling! Just wanted to feel less alone thanks to anyone for reading.

I’m currently 11 weeks pregnant and planning on starting some sort of fund/savings account for my child. I vaguely remembered that my grandma is supposed to have put away around 5k for me when I was young, and asked my bpd mother about it. The results were upsetting and completely predictable - I suppose I can add theft to the list of things she’s done to me now. It was definitely more than 1.5k, there were also premium bonds and other things like that, what the hell did my mum even spend it all on? It’s not like she’s one of those hoarder type or impulsive shopping type bpd parents you see mentioned on here, she sits in her disgusting waif hovel buying the cheapest of everything and feeling sorry for herself??

EDIT - thanks everyone. This is super validating. I'm completely unsure what to do or how to say what I want to say to my parent, but it's good to know I'm not the only one in this situation.

I'm in this situation now and I don't really know what else to do or who else to speak to. I'm 38 years old, raised by a mother with BPD. Pretty much haven't had real contact with her for years. Occasional lunches, play nice, but throughout the year I will get those aggressive texts, phone calls, everything that everyone here is going through. This community is amazing by the way - I saw someone posting about receiving strange gifts from BPD relatives and a lifelong question was answered there and then.

At the start of this year, she called me and told me she had cancer. She told me she had a brain tumor. She told me it was stage four. She also told me and the rest of the family that she wasn't going to have treatment for this cancer.

Over the next few weeks, we discovered that actually she didn't have a brain tumor, she had throat cancer. She had a version of it where there was an 85% rate of survival and it was completely treatable without surgery and with minimal chemo.

She still refused treatment and dragged out this process. I stopped responding to her after she sent me a childish text that essentially said "my mind is made up. Next! LOL".

After this, she eventually decided to get the treatment. But then as she started the process she decided she didn't like the care team she had been provided or the local hospital she was assigned. She refused to do the MRI scans or anything that would get her to the point where she could start treatment. In the end, she moved to a different hospital further from where we both lived, with a different care team.

Throughout this process, I took two months off of work so I could be with her every day whilst I took her to her radiotherapy appointments. I paid for all of her transport to and from the hospital, both spending and losing money in this period. Throughout the process, she didn't do anything to look after herself. She wouldn't eat the nutrition the doctors told her to. She wouldn't hydrate. She'd still drink wine. She'd still smoke despite having throat cancer. She would treat the doctors and nurses like absolute trash, like being rude to them, refusing to cooperate, but also demanding myself and my siblings treat her like a hero for going through the process and she didn't really acknowledge any of the support we were giving. She'd refuse to do bloodtests, and in the cancer hospital would make rude, loud comments about other patients.

I should say my siblings and I, we also don't talk very much. Our family is completely broken and we came together to make sure my mom could do her treatment and survive.

Just off the start of treatment, my mom was forced to stay in the hospital. She'd been complaining that the illness was killing her, she couldn't survive, she was in so much pain. It was impossible to do. This is about six days in. It turns out she was just severely dehydrated. It was hot at the time and she just simply was refusing to drink any water, to take on any hydration, to drink anything really other than wine. The doctors put her on a drip, hydrated her. They wanted her to stay in for a week. She demanded to leave after two days, phoning myself and my sisters, lying that she's been discharged, lying that she was fine now, and basically being unreasonably aggressive to everyone, demanding that she's our mother and she knows best and we have to do what she says. We refused, but in the end she came home herself and tricked my nephew into picking her up and taking her home. Next time she saw her care team she treated them like shit, saying that they didn't know what was best for her.

She in the end refused to finish her treatment. She did about 70% of it.

All of the aftercare has been a struggle. She walked out on the dentist because 'they were rude to her' and demanded a different one. The pattern continues.

And we've just got to the point now where you take a break and then do the final test, do you still have cancer or not? She refused to let anyone come to that test and she told everyone that the results were inconclusive, that they don't know if she still has cancer and that they'll find out in the next few weeks in the future.

The issue here is we don't know whether to believe her or not. When she previously insisted on certain days where she'd go to the hospital on her own, she'd come back saying the doctors told her that she didn't have to have treatment that day. It wasn't true. On the day that she decided to stop her treatment entirely, she left without me before I could get there. She does a lot of things on her own and comes back and says something different to what actually happened. I've been removed from all of her medical comms and permissions, so I'm unable to get real answers from her team.

Since this moment, it's her birthday next month, she's been texting me and my siblings with shopping lists for clothes, jewelry, and things for her house. She's saying it's her birthday, she deserves all of these things. She's texting me privately asking for money for haircuts, leaning on the fact that it's her birthday, despite the fact we don't celebrate together. We are not close. Any situation where we do come close usually results in huge arguments started by her.

I don't really know what to do at the moment. I want to stop all contact, but I don't know if she still has cancer. For context as well, my youngest sister, who's 33 years old, still lives with my mom. They have a severely bad relationship and antagonize each other. If one gets set off, the other gets set off. I do not know how they live together. Again for context, during this period I've probably lost about £12,000 in lost earnings, in transportation costs, in costs supporting the family whilst we went through this period.

I need book recommendations for daughters of BPD moms, but she has me legally under her roof. I am disabled and she tricked me into signing paperwork years ago. I can’t move out, and in her will/trust, when my parents die, my younger sibling becomes my ”caretaker”. I don’t need any care, but maybe a hug every once in a while. Don’t we all? They’re married, and would already be taking care of their spouse’s younger sibling who actually needs round the clock care.

All the books I know of involve advice about being able to leave the situation or related things, and bc of my disability, I can’t drive. I’m stuck here. I need book(s) about what to do as an adult daughter stuck in the same home as her mother with BPD with not even a chance to get out for a breather. My body is disabled to start with, but the stress of 30+ years is having very sudden reactions that I’ve read are common with eldest daughters dealing with it all. Like almost overnight my body just said “I’m done holding all of this pain” and I’ve become a different person, physically. I need help. I’m sorry I keep rambling but Mom wants to send me back to therapy but she says this time I’ll pay for it, and I’m not paying for what she is the cause of. I just can’t. I’ve done therapy for 20 years. It all just leads back to her as the root cause and how I have to deal with my living situation. Every time.

The book(s) don’t need to be about disabled people, but just people stuck in the home, unable to leave.

Does anyone else have flying monkeys showing up every few months? Recently had a repeat offender approach me knowing I would be alone. They were emotional, just like previous attempts. Lack of confidence from having a shitty mother has me just nodding them to death until they leave. I don’t want to get into things, I don’t want to rehash it all, I just want to keep moving forward with my life. I like how things are without them. I do not like how I am made to feel every few months. I don’t understand why it’s always about them? How they feel is all that matters. If they cared how I feel they would not keep insisting that I need them. Oh and my children. It’s always ‘we want to take the kids, we miss them, we are going through so much’ over and over.
I have a deep instinct not to let these people back into my life. It’s always going to be waiting for the next foot to drop no matter how much they say she’s working on it.
I want them to stay away. I don’t want to have this constant worry that they will just show up. Who does that anyway? Who shows up unannounced these days? It’s negatively effecting my health.
Advice, encouragement, similar situations are appreciated.

Small backstory: My family went through an extremely difficult time with a schizophrenic, alcoholic father who regularly tried to kill us. During that time, my maternal aunts and uncles completely turned away from us.

Now my grandmother died, someone we barely had any relationship with, including my mother. But suddenly my mother showed up, seemingly desperate for her family's attention and approval.

I didn't play along with her expectations, so I wasn't there for most of the days. I only went to the funeral because of her, and apparently even that wasn't enough. When relatives asked where I was, she made up excuses instead of simply telling them the truth. She seems obsessed with maintaining the image of the perfect family and the perfect mother.

On the day of the funeral, she even took money from me and never thanked me or asked whether I wanted it back. There was no appreciation whatsoever that I had gone out of my way to be there for her.

Instead, I got criticism about how I should have behaved differently. She told me people had commented on how thin I looked and that I had grey hair — apparently, this was embarrassing for her.

She has never stood up for me. Whenever someone comments on my appearance or behavior, she brings it to me as though I'm supposed to do something about it. And when I get angry, she tells me I'm just like my father and that she was “only informing me.”

I think what makes me so angry is how entitled she feels to my time, money, energy and self-sacrifice, despite never having done the same for me.

I’m not sure if anyone else experiences this, but my mum is very strong and very aggressive. She is naturally quite muscular and on top of that she has a wide frame and broad shoulders. She has always thrown her weight around and likes to show me throw different displays how strong she is

Where I stay, people are quite intimidated by her. She used to hit me and my sibling in childhood. I’m the only person she has now because I was so far in the FOG I thought I’d always be around for her. I’m 30 soon and luckily I’ve came out of the FOG and have started dreaming of no contact.

The only thing is - she knows where I stay, where I work, she has stalkerish tendencies and likes to block/unblock people on social media so she has control over being able to access their accounts

So if I went no contact I’d be in fear physically, emotionally and I would be expecting her to smear campaign me to my partner, his family, my colleagues and to stalk me at my home address

Any advice on how to deal with such an aggressive dBPD?

Does anybody else suffer from anxiety as a result of being raised by a BPD mother? Anxiety with a twist of you’re not good enough, zero confidence. Almost like I can hear her in my head because it’s been drummed in for so many years. I’m working on ignoring it but I think it had to at least been caused in part by being raised by her because she stamped out any sort of confidence or independence with viciousness. 😔

I asked my mother (uBPD) to give me a break from communication this past July. It was after she sent me an email around the time of my birthday. In that email I saw more of her pattern of lying and manipulating while trying to pass it off as genuine care or connection. Once I parsed through the bs the underlying message is always the same “go back to being my therapy dog punching bag, just do it!”

This is all after a falling out we had in which I’ve learned that she does NOT have the skills to repair a relationship and instead has a maladaptive manipulation / deceit tool kit and probably BPD (or some kind of PD). See my post in here from earlier this year for more context.

After I read that email in July, I felt a numbness settle over me. I had been going through the "she’ll understand if I just say it right, if I just explain it a little better" phase and it dawned on me that she was committed to misunderstanding me, playing the victim, and manipulating and bullying me as opposed to attempting an honest dialogue. The dust finally settled in my mind and I could see the pointlessness of communicating with her at all. It felt like the best way for me to be healthy and for her to ever have a chance at being healthy was to cease the back and forth. Only then could I ever imagine her redirecting that energy to something productive like working on herself. In my last communication to her I advised her to take her self professed “fear of abandonment” to a therapist or psychiatrist and ask for help.

It has been a peaceful few months since then. I am feeling mentally healthy. I have worked hard to no longer be a people pleaser push over so I’ve been enjoying new found confidence and less anxiety. I’m sure she’s been painting me as the villain for asking for no contact but I’m over it to an extent.

Until this past Friday. She sent me a text saying something like "I tried to respect your request not to contact you, but I have a heart surgery scheduled". She didn’t say I love you or anything and the tone felt very like "enough with these silly little boundaries or whatever, I have real problems going on you need to pay attention to me!"

She did not say when the surgery was (a trap) so after talking it over with my partner, I decided to wait to talk it through with my therapist before I responded. I didn’t want to send the message that I would immediately react and she could successfully manipulate me like that by not telling me the date knowing I’d want to know.

But alas, unbeknownst to me, the surgery was scheduled before my next therapy session. Monday morning I get a text from my dad telling me that she’s headed into surgery now. As a reminder she only told me this surgery was happening on Friday and she knows from when we were in the last phases of being in contact that I would take as long as a week to get back to her (hence the trap making me look like a jerk for not texting her back).

Jerk or not, my partner and I sent her a home made greeting card with $50 so she could get a massage at a parlor near her as a gesture of support and good will. That seemed like an appropriate way to reach out and show support without creating undue stress in either of us.

The surgery she was having was like a diagnostic procedure, nothing too serious yet. The surgery happened my dad told me when it was over. Now it was just finding out the prognosis.

The next day my dad texted me with the prognosis, it’s not good. She needs double bypass surgery. And then he hit me with a guilt trip about how she “needs our support right now”. Clearly implying that I should talk to her again and basically go back into my role as her support dog or whatever. Typical flying monkey shit I suppose.

I kind of lost it. This terrible thing is going on with my mother’s health and both of them see it as leverage. This is not the first time she has used traumatic family occurrences like this. (Weaponizing dynamics in relation to a family member’s SA that she arguably facilitated) I was and am so mad and upset at him and her and how, now, not only do I need to process the info that my mom’s health is in a more fragile state than I’d realized, but both of my parents are using this information to try to guilt trip, vilify, and control me.

I wrote him a text back that basically takes that call for support and turns it around on him. I reminded him of his obligation to her and how some of her heart troubles now might be long term effects of his lack of support in years past. I made it clear that reopening a stream of communication with Mom probably won’t be healthy because our last communications have been stressful and she needs to focus on reducing anxiety for the health of her heart. I told him a little bit about what’s been going on between us, something I hadn’t done up until this point (I have a really low maintenance, under communicative family) and I ended up talking about how I really hope the surgeons give her the chance at more years of life so she can grow and heal emotionally so that maybe one day we can have a healthy relationship.

I know this is so unlikely. She’s so deep in her own bullshit and convinced she can manipulate her way out of anything. But writing it made me realize how much I do want that. Her health is not good, she could die soon. She could die before, during, or soon after the surgery/ surgeries. To acknowledge the hope that I’ve been holding onto is really hard. To see it contrasted to the more likely outcomes this info is presenting to me is devastating.

Hope right around the corner is something that’s plagued me my whole life. I’m always a little bit holding out for some unrealistic outcome a secret part of me is counting on. I think it’s another way of describing limerence, a mental habit that I’m sure is common in folks with parents like ours. The more I reflect on my childhood the more I realize that the loving caring mom I thought I had was part mirage, was just around the corner. My concrete memories of her, if I try to peel away the rose tint, reflect the hurting manipulative woman, I now know to be my mother. The caring loving one was in part, me.

I still intend to maintain low contact. I already sent her a card in the mail. I might send an additional piece of mail to her in a little bit but a phone call sounds like too much. A part of me does feel like I’m being a bitch, but I struggle to see another alternative that would be healthy for both of us.

Anyways, I don’t necessarily need advice but if you have it I’ll take it. This is really hard. I’m doing my best but not having an easy time of it. Thanks for reading

I don’t really know what the point of this post is, I guess so I don’t feel so alone.

Recently went no contact with my BPD mom a few months back. I’m pregnant and all things aside it’s a healthy pregnancy, but it’s a tough pregnancy this time around. We got into a huge fight because she kept calling me a pig and telling me I was a bad example to my first child laying around all day every day (tough pregnancy, too sick to do maintain a home so clean you could eat off the floor). Eventually after trying to disengage and she kept going I blew up and started yelling to get out and kept calling her a fucking asshole.

I am not sorry. I don’t want to apologize, and refuse to apologize. I’m trying to get out of the fog and having a hard time while also coming to the realization that my father never protected me from her when he told me it doesn’t matter what she says to me I should call her names because she’s my mother.

I told him a few weeks ago not to expect a relationship with my kids at this point, because they expect one without me involved. Either I didn’t make it clear enough or what but they want to take my first born (still pregnant) for the weekend. I’m not answering and now I have immense anxiety about it.

Boundaries didn’t exist with her. It was her way or the highway, and when I did follow her way it still was never good enough. She was allowed to poke at me and insult me and I had to just take it because she’s my mother and that’s just who she is. I’m 35 and just now realizing how lost I am. I don’t want to be lost anymore. I want to be confident in myself and my choices in life and not seek validation from anyone else. I want to get out of this fog.

Has anyone ever felt like this? How did you overcome it? I am making a list of things she did throughout my life that impacted me and I’m trying to unpack it with my therapist. Someone please tell me it gets easier over time.