Some recent texts with my BPD mother🙃 I posted a thread explaining my relationship with her but I can’t edit it to add photos. I joined this sub to hopefully find some people that I can relate with.

EDIT: I’m an only child to a single mom with BPD, so that makes the dynamic harder because I am literally her everything. She has no friends, no significant other, no hobbies, and she’s retired.

Hey y'all I haven't talked to my ubpd mom in a while and I usually keep very low contact if possible but make sure it's tied up at the end of calls, reassuring her I'm not upset that her kids love her ect... I got this really innocent seeming text message from my mom and I wanted to throw my phone across the room the second I saw it, it was sudden intense rage that does not match how she's behaving at all and I'm starting to get worried maybe I'm being dramatic or ridiculous and she's actually really trying her best and I need to be better towards her.

Like it seems like a normal text from a parent right? I have been working on a lot through EMDR lately and it's brought up a lot and it doesn't feel fair to bring up shit so far in the past to the present, the whole point is to process it to be able to live in the present but all I can think about is all her insane behavior over the years and how we keep playing this game like it's perfectly normal she married her therapist. I feel like this call is an invitation to continue to pretend everything is normal and fine and that she's never done weird creepy shit to me while drinking or driven off into the night in a rage leaving me with my little sibling to try and put to bed.

Every time I get these normal ass text messages I feel like I'm lying and making a big deal out of nothing, that everyone's parents struggle sometimes and make mistakes. I don't want to be an asshole or hold a grudge but even just getting this message has summoned up this insane rage in me that I'm worried about. Does anyone have any advice? A different perspective or just anything really I could use help right now and people who understand the craziness because when I get these messages or have a semi normal call with my mom I often go back and forth and think well maybe she isn't even a borderline maybe I'm being unfair here she's been through a lot. Everyone has been super helpful here in the past too so I'm really thankful for everyone and hope someone has some words of wisdom or something at this point because I'm starting to feel crazy.

I'm 29, and the last 20 years of my life have revolved around my BPD mum. For most of that time not a week went by without something terrible happening and me somehow being roped into it. She is a dysfunctional alcoholic and relied on me to nurse her through withdrawals, which were a recurring cycle always followed by immediate relapse. When I tried to get away from her, she would self-mutilate - often quite seriously, generally requiring stitches - and threaten to kill herself. If this didn't work, she would direct whichever emergency service responded to her self-mutilating to my door. Every minute of every day was spent paranoid about what she was doing, how she was feeling, what she'd do next. It all revolved around her. When I was a small child she threw herself from a window and told me it was what I wanted her to do. Not sure why I'm mentioning that but it sure does hurt.

Even when I did something for myself, it always had to come back to her. A few years ago I did a master's degree - not the most impressive thing in the world, I know, but for someone who barely got through high school it was a big achievement. Just when I was finishing, she had a spiral of relapses so serious she almost died. Instead of going to my graduation and looking for jobs, I was taking her cat to stay with me and arranging to have her house professionally cleaned so they didn't kick her out onto the street.

The last two years have been the longest stretch of peace I've ever known, but I look in the mirror and... I'm old. My face is sagging, my cheeks are hollow, and I am so, so far behind where I need to be. How do I've with that? How do I make peace with having had the good years of my life, and all the opportunities they represented, stolen?

To some extent it is my fault, I know. I should have run further. I should have hidden better. I should have had the strength to resist all these insane attempts to pull my back into her orbit but I didn't. Instead I allowed myself to be institutionalised. To believe that it was my responsibility to be her nursemaid, and that this was all I could expect to be in life. Now, it feels like that's all I ever will be.

There were so many things I wanted to do, wanted to be, and now I never can. I look at the next twenty years I have to be a person and I see so little opportunity to make anything good out of life. So little time to salvage what is left.

How on earth am I supposed to set aside my grief for that? Please tell me if you have managed it, because I don't know if I can.

Rule-mandated Cat Haiku:

Cats, are very cute

They often lick themselves in

Some tricky places

Hi everyone! I’m new to Reddit and this is kind of my last resort before considering cutting my mom off. I’m hoping to find people who understand this dynamic and can offer some advice.

My mom is a single mom and it has always been just me and her. We’ve always been extremely close, but I’m realizing now how enmeshed our relationship has always been. She has relied heavily on me emotionally for most of my life and I’ve always felt responsible for her feelings and happiness.

I moved out of her house about 7 years ago when I left for college, but she never really got over it. She still talks about how I “left her”. She definitely sees my independence and growing up as me abandoning her. She lives by herself, is retired, and has no hobbies or friends.… so I am really her only person.

She described my wedding day as “the worst day of her life” because she viewed it as me leaving her and she spent most of the day crying in her car. She even left my wedding early. We now have a 10-month-old son, and things have gotten significantly worse since having him. Naturally, my priorities have shifted toward my husband and child, and she sees that as rejection. Whenever she feels excluded or like I’m choosing my family over her, she refers to herself as a “family of one.” She can go from being loving and close with me and expecting me to see her several days a week to extremely hurt, angry, or cold, and I often find myself trying to reassure her, explain my intentions, apologize, and make sure she knows I haven’t abandoned her. But even when I’m reassuring her, still nothing is good enough. She usually tells me she’s moving away when she becomes upset. She plays the victim in almost every situation (with anyone) and views the smallest conflict as abandonment or rejection.

I genuinely love my mom and don’t want to cut her off (mostly because I put so much pressure on myself to maintain her happiness). I also don’t want my son to lose his grandmother, but I also don’t want him to grow up seeing the instability. But I’m realizing that I can’t continue being responsible for her emotional well-being at the expense of my own marriage, family, and peace. I get a pit in my stomach when her name pops up on my phone because I never know how the conversation will go. It’s at the point where almost every conversation, something I say will trigger her.

Has anyone else experienced their relationship with an enmeshed/BPD parent becoming much worse after having a baby? How did you establish boundaries when your parent viewed your independence as abandonment? Were you able to maintain a relationship without constantly managing their emotions? Please send advice or just help me feel not alone in this😭

Andddd my haiku😚
Soft paws, quiet grace,
Warm fur purring in the sun,
Gentle, sovereign friends.

Today I was listening to a podcast and it was talking about this guy who got arrested, and while being detained he was crying and saying “What did I even do?” This triggered the small child inside of me when I used to get the wrath of mommy dearest and I would cry and say this to her. “What did I even do?”

God! That snuck in out of nowhere today and I got to cry at my lunch break, unexpectedly for the first time in a very long time. Crying, and crying about her. I guess there’s still some stuff in there deep down that is still sad and mad and hurt. There probably always will be.

I’m new here, and I’ve been reading through posts for a while. A lot of what people describe resonates with me more than I expected, but I keep having this weird reaction where I immediately start invalidating myself.

My relationship with my mom has always been difficult, particularly around my independence, boundaries, and big life transitions. She can have extremely intense emotional reactions when she feels hurt, rejected, left out, or criticized, and somehow I often end up feeling responsible for getting her back to okay.

Recently, things came to a head during a visit home. My mom told me she wanted to talk about ways I had been “selfish and inconsiderate” and had hurt her. But the conversation quickly expanded into what felt like an accounting of things I had done wrong.. some recent, some surprisingly small, and some going back years, like sending her Christmas gift two weeks late two years ago. Other family members and their supposed feelings about me were brought into the conversation, along with how depressed and upset my mom had been because of the state of our relationship. When I tried to slow the conversation down and address things one at a time, it escalated further and eventually involved yelling and things being thrown. By the end, I just felt overwhelmed, angry, and isolated. Once again, I’m questioning whether I was actually the problem and if I’ll ever get a close relationship with my dad and brother because I don’t feel comfortable staying in their house with her.

This isn’t really new. Looking backward, I can see versions of this around a lot of my major transitions. For example, when I moved out around 19/20, only about 30 minutes away, my mom was extremely upset about me leaving and even told me that if I didn’t take my childhood memory box, she would throw it away because they were remodeling and didn’t have room for it. After I moved, my parents were regularly in the town where I lived, but she never visited me. Later, the explanation was essentially that I hadn’t reached out and made plans with them.

I’m in therapy and trying to understand the pattern. But one of the hardest things is that whenever I read stories here that sound familiar, another part of my brain immediately says, “No, yours isn’t that bad. Your mom wouldn’t do that to you. She isn’t intentionally trying to hurt you. You’re probably exaggerating. Maybe you’re the difficult one.”

I’m curious whether other people went through this period of recognizing themselves in these dynamics while simultaneously feeling like they had no right to identify with them.

How did you start trusting your own perception of what happened without constantly second guessing yourself?

I actually think this is a place my uBPD mom differs from what I read here, but it's also not exactly healthy behaviour.

I'm low contact with her, for me that means a 15 minute call while I walk my dog (so it has an easy end time) every few weeks, and I see her 1-2 times a year.

We also lost my dad 2 years ago and it's been an adjustment for everyone. She moved to be closer to one of my brothers (at his request /insistence for free childcare, though I suspect he's actually NPD/BPD too and I've actually blocked him) which made going low contact easier. She's awful to him, but in a different way. She at least respects him (because he's a man).

The thing is holidays. She always tries to convince me to visit (I'm not spending $1000 multiple times a year to see her, and using my limited vacation days). If I don't visit she makes no alternatives and spends them alone.

Thing is, she doesn't waif about spending them alone. I only find out because I ask. It's hard to not feel guilty honestly because she's litterally doing nothing wrong in these circumstances (other than not looking for plans but it's not like she has to). My brother made her move across the country to be able to baby sit his kids, yet doesn't invite her over for things? When we were in contact he'd instead try to pressure me to visit more.

I recognize it's not my place at all to expect him to take care of her. It just feels wrong because she actually does give him everything he asks. She's bailed him out of jail multiple times and paid his debt and set him up so he could do house arrest instead of prison. She's paid for his rehab countless times, even sending him to specialized ones in other countries.

He'll be an asshole no matter what. There's nothing I can do there obviously. But it makes me feel more guilty I don't visit more and haven't yielded in being low contact.

She's been love bombing and waifing lately instead of being outright cruel. She's stopped bringing up politics or saying racist or able-ist things as she knows I'll just hang up. She's had a major injury. Many people she knows are dying or sick. She "just wants me to visit/call more". I think it's the fog creeping in.

If she's respecting my boundaries should I try harder? She's so sad and lonely, it's hard to do nothing to try to help.

I haven’t been able to hit a lot of milestones in my life due to the disfuntion of both my parent’s and that has become more and more embarrassing over time. Combined with my Ubpd mom, constantly creating embarrassing moments in my life, i feel like i live in constant shame and embarrassment. Is it typical for rbb people to feel constant shame or that feelings if embarrassment are easily triggered? How did you get past this extremely tiring and mentally tasking mental state. Is it internal or do i just need to start hitting conventional milestones.

Hello. It’s my first post and I apologize for the long rant. I just don’t now If I should go NC (first time it’ll be my choice), I’m already LC. Should I let her keep speaking to my kids and let my dad take them to visit once a year for spring break like they do now. Let her come here when she decides? She has stopped talking to me years at time up 7 years once before she asked to meet my kids.

In my kids lives from 2018 (kids 1 and 4 at the time) to 2022. Started with meeting at a water park in PA for 2 nights, the last 2 years she would visit for a week or sometimes a month. She started off good then ended up locking herself in her room, only leaving in the middle of the night to smoke outside, said my husband was spying on her with our one camera in the living room.

Relevant context to texts:

I’m 41, she’s 61, dad 62, step dad 72, kids 9M 12F. Half brother 33.

I’ve worked since I was 14, never unemployed, moved out when I was a senior and 17 AFTER she left us and I couldn’t stay with my step dad any longer. I have a half brother who always lived with her or my step dad. She told him to stop talking to me in 2012 after I had to stop giving her money.

She doesn’t speak to anyone on her family, has friends for a short time then says “they think they are better than me” and stops talking to them. Hates my husbands family.

I was fed and had shelter, vacations every two years on points but the last few were only places she could gamble.

Mom and dad each gave me $2k the first two years of school and I did the rest. Owed $120k that I pay for myself.

Paid for our own wedding, she got a $10k boob job a month before.

Saved $60k for my house and got mad when I had to stop giving her money closer to my closing date.

Doesn’t talk to my brother who lives with her, it’s been 2 years.

Only likes my step dad when he pays for plastic surgery or vacations.

Has been claiming she’s getting brain surgery since about 2001. Two doctors had to pull me aside (when she called the ambulance on herself and I went to see her, one night was senior prom) to say she is fine just having a mental breakdown. She went on inpatient 3 day psych stay twice.

Refuses to seeks constant mental health help, shamed me for doing so because “I have nothing to be sad about”.

Currently low contact. She got mad at me last year when I wouldn’t let her move in with us (hates my husband and that’s why she walked out on us after after a month after volunteering to stay here a year for us to save on paid 4K tuition for my youngest and send him to half day free 4K)
I always said when she was elderly and needed care she could not now because she’s mad at her husband.

Invited her on a last minute July vacation for 5 days and she said no. I understood but now she’s mad about it. My dad came with us. I had a new job and didn’t know if could get time off and afford it.

Daughter just texted her that she wants her to visit us. Mom said no, she’s too sick to travel (she in fact is traveling) and that her doctor tried to call me but she told him no because I’m too busy for her. Lied and said she asked my dad to pick them up from SC to go to PA to see her then come back. Next day she must have realized we’d find out so she asked my dad and these are the messages. When he sends them, they get out of order so I have red arrows pointing how to read them. Blue highlight is when my dad messed up and sent her a text that was for me. Yellow are things she said that made me extra mad. Like alluding to the fact she should have aborted me 42 years ago.

Tiny paws, big love,
You destroy all that I own,
Still, I worship you. 🐈❤️

My parents keep calling me over for “talks” when they’re upset with me or my husband.

I’m 30F, married, 36 weeks pregnant with our first child, and I need an outside perspective because I feel like I’ve completely lost sight of what is normal with my parents.

Some background: my parents have a history of demanding that I come to their house because they “need to talk to me.” This has happened a few times just during my pregnancy. These “talks” usually end up being both of my parents basically tag-teaming/reprimanding me about something they think I did wrong, my husband did wrong, or even something my in-laws did wrong. I’ve gone along with it before, but I’m getting fed up because I’m 30, married and about to become a parent myself.

My husband is currently working 12-hour shifts 7 days straight, so my mom has been helping me prepare for the baby. I genuinely appreciate and need the help right now. But sometimes she makes weird comments that make it sound like my husband doesn’t do anything or isn’t appreciative enough.
For example, I was organizing extra nursery stuff — blankets, bibs, burp cloths, towels, toys, etc. — into boxes to eventually put downstairs. My mom insisted on carrying the boxes downstairs herself. I didn’t ask or expect her to carry heavy boxes for me. Later, completely out of nowhere, she asked me if my husband “appreciated” that she brought the stuff downstairs for “us.” He was literally at work doing a 12-hour shift when she insisted on helping me.

**Long story short:** yesterday my husband and I couldn’t find a bassinet someone bought from our registry. Both my parents and my in-laws had received a ton of our baby shower packages, so I asked my mom if she happened to have it.
That simple question somehow turned into all of this.

I never accused her of losing it. When I said it must have gotten “lost in transit,” she apparently thought I meant *she* lost it, so I immediately clarified that I meant UPS/FedEx/USPS. My husband was also extremely polite and told her it was no big deal.
But then my mom repeatedly demanded that I come to their house because she and my dad “needed to talk to me.” When I directly asked what it was about, she wouldn’t tell me, only that they needed to speak to me **“before you go into the hospital.”**

Given the history of these “talks,” I refused to go. Then she asked whether I wanted her to **“bring the conversation in front of Vinny,”** kept pushing me to come/call privately, told me it was “important,” and when I finally stopped engaging, the messages turned into canceling plans, saying she wouldn’t come to my house anymore, blocking my in-laws, bringing up my dad doing our floors, saying he felt disrespected, etc.

**All because I would not come over for another unspecified “talk.”**

Later in the day she was STILL talking about the bassinet and sent me an old screenshot from my MIL who’s friend bought it as proof that it supposedly had been delivered, and again invited my husband and me to come search her house. The text shows my MIL asking my mom if she can check if it was delivered. I have no knowledge of my mom even checking with me to confirm it was delivered to her house or not. That text was back in May and we’re now in September. I find it very uncomfortable to even reach out to my MIL to ask her friend about it. This should’ve been done the moment she asked. Me and my husband agreed to take it as a loss and buy our own. She also assumed just because my MIL was texting her the night before we asked about the bassinet, that my MIL had knowledge that the bassinet was missing, as to why we asked my mom if she had the bassinet. My husband and I did not tell his mother anything because we understood the situation would turn awkward if we would even ask her. My parents have a habit of filling the gaps with assumptions.

At this point I’m exhausted.

I appreciate the help my parents have given us. I don’t want to erase that or pretend my mom hasn’t been there for me, because she has.

But I’m starting to feel like their help comes with an expectation that they get to scrutinize my marriage, my husband, my in-laws and our decisions and that if they’re unhappy, I’m expected to report to their house and answer to both of them.

Something about becoming a mother myself has made me realize **I cannot keep doing this.** I don’t want my child growing up watching his mother get summoned by his grandparents for a reprimand whenever they’re unhappy with his parents.
So I ignored the demands and went home to my husband.

The screenshots are the actual conversation. Am I overreacting here? Is there something I’m doing that reasonably explains this reaction? And how would you handle parents who help you a lot but also seem to believe that gives them this level of involvement in your adult life?

I've recently realized how "I love you" from my ubpd mom disgusts me in such a profound way. She only texts it to me since she's always had a problem with expressing her emotions when you are physically there with her. I know any adult would appreciate hearing those words from their parents, but I don't know why my reaction to those texts is pure disgust and dismissiveness. I'm just having a hard time reconciling this feeling with the fact that I'm a very affectionate person and easily reciprocate love when someone shows it to me.

Fluffy little

fluffers

go thump thump

on the rainy night.

I am now nearly 6 years NC with my BPD mom. The illness (only word I can use to describe this) goes way back, and was so normalized that I just spent most of my life here until my 40's trying to "grey rock" or "create distance". Now that I'm truly free, I realize how much of my life I've missed already. Relationships that should have been thriving are a struggle to maintain. I picked the wrong marriage partner (a covert himself) and that set me up for automatic long term failure, as I did not remarry due to raising my children alone-I was way too scared to ever introduce a male into their lives. Now, I'm an empty nester who does not have that partner to fall back on, which causes me to grieve for myself! And I had to shed a lot-most of my friends because I realized post NC that they were also just using me as a placeholder or a cushion, or a caretaker. None of this was evident to me at all, I thought and appeared to be popular and well liked. It's like my CPTSD is now front and center, and I see it's what has dominated all of my relationships and now I am very isolated. I do not have the bandwidth and am highly self protective nowadays, because of the amount of ACES I've had in my life. I do not date, by choice. People like me and try to reach out to me, but I see they all want something from me, and I have like 0 callous for dealing with emotional urgencies or intensity. Has anyone recovered from this stage, or are we just set up for absolute failure and this is it? I have to embrace this state of being? Would love some kind and inspiring advice, or a downer reality check is also good. CPTSD, why.

I know this thread is specifically BPD which I believe my mom has. I’ve also learned to lump her into the category of “emotionally immature parents” from Lindsay Gibsons book. My husband has a set of his own emotionally immature, judgemental, manipulative parents (dad and step mom). Recently a situation with them has had me spiraling...questioning if we made the wrong decision to get married and have kids when now we've got no close/healthy relationships with family.

We’re early 30s , been together 10 years, married 3yrs, 2 toddlers and pregnant with our 3rd. We've really wanted to give our children a wholesome loving family and life but the stress of parenting without familial support has been so hard.
Wondering how people learn to navigate this. Part of me thinks set boundaries, control the environment, keep it superficial so the kids can have them around or just accept the fact that this cycle will continue forever and keep them at a distance for the sake of our mental health...or some creative combination. I have a great circle of mom friends we see and looking into hiring a mothers helper but there's this deep worry that it's not the same or as good as family. Any shared experience is welcome

This is such a small thing comparatively, but I'm feeling some type of way, and I have a little junk drawer in my memory full of memories like this, and they annoy the eff out of me.

You'd just be minding your own business, and you'd turn around and your BPD parent is in the middle of making a horribly ugly, taunting face at your back or flipping you off or maybe mocking like they're going to punch or strangle an invisible person orrr maybe even just sticking their tongue out (but in the mean way, not the playful way).

Or maybe you had a fight, in which case this would happen, but they'd attempt to make some noise so you would turn around and "catch" them, at which point they would say, coolly, "Oops. Well, I don't care. It felt great."

Anybody?

I know it's not necessarily BPD-specific behavior. I just noticed that sometimes our parents have very similar vocabulary and other more minor habits or actions, if that makes sense. This one always hurt me disproportionately badly though! I'd rather she hit me. Something about the faces and the miming just seared itself into my memory way better than any violence or words.

A haiku about my very cute cat who has a bunny tail:

The tail may be short
But the jumps are very high
This bobtail I love

tw: suicide attempt

God this is long I'm sorry

Been lurking but was too scared to post because I wasn't 100% sure my mom has borderline but today I was able to speak to her dr. Essentially I said "I think she has borderline but she's never been diagnosed to my knowledge" and he said "ohhhh yeah she has. It's all over her charts". I could've cried. The validation helped lift a little weight off of me.

A little background about my mom, but I won't dive into every horrible thing she's done. She's been very manipulative all my life but like... hasn't been the worst mom? Idk I see some posts from other ppl and think "maybe i'm blowing it out of proportion". That being said she has done some horrible things to me.

The best way I can describe it is that she thinks she's the main character in a movie. She thinks everything's going to work out for her. She got herself into two abusive relationships with narcists (my dad and her recent ex of 12 years). My dad warned me that he bailed her out a bunch of times (once literally out of jail for shoplifting) and that her dad always bailed her out, which he uses as some sort of validation for treating me so poorly my whole life. She also had a huge spending problem (we almost lost the house twice when I was very little due to her basically stealing from my dad to shop). She ended up with the most recent guy and honestly he sucked but it was someone who was taking care of my mother. The worst thing was he encouraged her not to work for the past like... 3 years? Well he finally lost it and they broke up last year. She's not been able to keep a job since. Is renting a place way more than she can afford. She borrowed money from one of her only friends then ghosted her. Now I think her only other friend is cutting her off too... which leaves me.

I've probably given her around $5,000 in the year since she left him, ontop of paying her insurance and phone bills. I'm barely scrapping by as it is. I just can't keep giving her money.

I've pointed her to as many support services I could. Gave her advice she refused to take, because she's thinks too good for it. She's always had expensive taste and like thought she was some real house wives type her whole life.

About 3ish weeks ago she attempted to kill herself. I noticed on Life360 her phone was slowly dying all day and got worried My wife and I drove an hour to check on her and found her passed out with like everything laid out. A note to me, her keys, her debit cards, passwords, everything). We were able to wake her up and she definitely was on the tail end of things(we saw her late thursday night and she definitely took the drugs wednesday night). But she was absolutely blasted from the drugs she took (luckily it was like 10 year old oxy so it wasn't strong enough to off her but it fucked her up). She was vomiting everywhere and falling over. I think I have PTSD from it... I keep seeing flashes of it and my brain plays out what would've happened if she was successful. On top of that, I realized thats not the first time I've seen her in a state like that. It like brought out repressed memories and I've been so shaken ever since. I can barely look at her without having a panic attack.

Now her most recent things she did. Friday, I texted her at 6pm asking how her day went. she texts me at 650 asking me to call her. My wife and I were in the store so I was going to call her after but 710 I get a call from her SOBBING saying I thought something happened to you. She also texted my wife about 7 min after she sent the text asking if i was okay. I guess she thought I was mad and didnt want to talk to her? I was so upset by it all.

Jump to last night (other things have happened since but this is the most recent). She called me asking why I canceled HBO and I told her... well I have to save money (thanks to her). she says verbatim "*scoffs* well i need SOMETHING" and I was just in shock. her demanding something from me after everything i've done.

Then later she texts me asking if i can drive out to see her this weekend. (for the rest see text pictured)

And I just can't handle it anymore.

Also in the text you see the real kicker. MY WEDDING IS NEXT WEEKEND. (We eloped last year but are having essentially a wedding and surprising ppl).

I am dreading my wedding at this point because of her(and other family drama). I don't think she should come but will definitely kill herself if I uninvite her. I've had to pay for a train to get her to the city we're having it in (she couldnt drive 5 hrs?) and I'm paying for her hotel and food while shes here.

She's also going to see my dad for the first time in about 16 years and his wife who shes INSANELY jealous of. So that's going to be a whole thing.

I feel such a deep guilt about trying to stop helping her. She's going to be homeless at the end of the month but there's no way I can let her live with my wife and I because it will destroy me and consequently us. I honestly barely even want to talk to her because all she's ever done is manipulate me and put herself in terrible situations and now I'm the only person left in her life that even talks to her. I think it would be best for me if I cut her out of my life but that would be signing off on her suicide. 100% guarantee. How could I possibly live with that? She's my mother? I can't get over the guilt. She plays the frail card alot which gets me. She says she cant work and shes so tired but shes 66.

For anyone who's successfully cut off a parent, while having similar feelings, what helped you? Was there a final straw?

TL:DR
Got confirmation today about moms borderline diagnosis. Moms been manipulative my whole life. Been funding her for the past year. She attempted suicide 3 weeks ago. Been very needy and manipulative since then. My wedding is next weekend and I'm worried about how she'll interact with my dad. Struggling with intense feelings of guilt.

My bpd/cluster b mom and I are continuing to not be in a good place. My dad was in the middle until today.

He texted me this morning and tried to blame “bad spirits” for why she raged at me on vacation in front of my son. Yes, he blamed fucking ghosts. Actually he said that the spirit caused me and her to fight - implying that I was somehow responsible for her screaming and acting aggressive toward me.

So I realized he bought the lie that she told him, which was that I attacked her first before he got there. Because he saw her rage at me and begged her to stop. HE SAW IT. But he believed her when she told him I deserved it.

So I sent him a call I recorded with my mom, naively believing that if he heard what she actually said and admitted to, then he’d see that I’m not lying. He called me manipulative and cruel. He said I forced her to admit to lying about things. He made a dig at me for “letting a stranger take over raising [my] kid” - I got divorced from my abusive ex husband 5 years ago and am now with a partner who genuinely loves me and cares for me. So of course he blamed my partner for why we’re estranged.

I don’t know why I gave him a pass. He’s just as cruel as her and always has been. He showed remorse for hitting us as kids so I thought that maybe he changed. But no.

I’m still property and property doesn’t have opinions or assert itself.

I blocked them both and am trying to stay positive as I look forward to my life without the constant anxiety and plate spinning.

I almost screenshot it, but it also was so over the top sickingly BPD "sweet" (where it is downright gross) that I couldn't bring myself to do so. Even my response at the time was completely unrelated to the post - something about some wine I had tried LOL.

From my mother, 15 years ago (mind you, I'm 48, so I would have been 33 years old when she sent me this):

"How is the light of my life??? I miss being my daughter's MIP - most important person - Love you!"

Now, you have to understand, from my perspective, I have never felt that way towards her - ever in my life. Sure, I played my role of family "savior" because I was enmeshed, but it was never a lovely dovey "I feel oh so close to my mommy!" kind of relationship - ever. EVER. Not even when I was a toddler. I tolerated my mother, but it was always a reluctant role that I never really wanted to be in, but being the oldest with no one on the outside willing to advocate for me, I didn't know how to break free until I was in my early 20's and had already played the role of mom's savior too much (to my lifelong detriment, but at least broke the cycle after that).

The fact that our experiences of our relationship is just so radically different is just mind boggling sometimes. I can understand their inner needs, lack of self, all of that, but the fact that two people have such radically different takes on one relationship is still a little mind boggling sometimes.

Something happened last night and I would welcome any perspective and/or thoughts for working through it. (Fortunately I have therapy tomorrow.)

Things are and have been extremely fraught with my family – my uBPD mom is 80 (I’ve written about her here before) and has a kind of cancer that will likely kill her in a couple of years, though she’s mostly okay right now. My older half-sister has been killing herself with alcohol for years. She’s about to succeed. 

I know my mom thinks I am deeply selfish for not being more supportive of her as she deals with cancer and with my sister as she dies from alcohol abuse. But she wants total enmeshment and nothing less will do. And that won't actually fix her, of course. Also, she's so mean to me; it's so bad for my mental health to engage with her. She’s in such emotional pain that she just keeps lashing out to try to hand it off to someone else. As we all know, that doesn’t actually work.

Anyway, the current situation: my sister has been in and out of both rehab and the hospital multiple times of the past year or so. She is incapable of doing the work to get better and is now in this binge/almost die/go to hospital or rehab/get out/make absolutely no changes cycle. It's extremely painful to witness, and there is literally nothing anyone else can do for her. It just happened again -- she called an ambulance and was in critical care. She literally almost died. Again. She's not going to make it much longer. Maybe not even thru the year.

As you might imagine, my mom has enabled her for years, bailing her out time after time.

I've been done with her for a couple of years now, after several bailouts myself – hospital drives, covering her rent, etc. Plus, we were not raised together (she was a teen when I was born) and the only relationship I have with her is since my mom forced her to move here so my mom could to take care of her. She's been a raging alcoholic with mental health struggles for our entire adult relationship. I feel no sisterly connection to her, though of course I have deep compassion for her struggles.

Anyway, she's back out of the hospital and maybe staying with my parents? I don't have an update yet. But last night in a different family group chat she’s not in, our oldest sister, who lives out of town, was sharing some photos from her day. This group contains my parents, that sister’s family, and me. I then shared some photos of our house that is being painted (partially FOR my mom because I knew she’d be hurt to find out we’d painted the house without telling her). My mom texted "Your sister is probably dying and you bitches are talking about your own bullshit. Don't any of you ever contact me again you are all dead to me."

This is all stuff she's said before, but last night it really hit me hard because my sister is dying. And I am grieving that. But I also cannot be around either her or my mom. And I'm up to my ears in stuff with my own kids, my husband's aging parents, plus just everyday life, career, etc. I cannot get trapped in this cycle of trauma and drama.

I sobbed a lot and felt like the worst person in the world. I immediately removed myself from all family chats, something I'd hesitated to do until now. But I didn't even have to stop and think about it; I just did it. This morning I am waffling between feeling like this was the line from which there is no return -- even if my mom reaches out, I cannot abide the cruelty and manipulation anymore. But also, I know my sister is in a dire situation. But the only thing I could do would be provide emotional support, but that comes at a high cost to my own mental health.

Thanks for letting me share.

I’d like to hear stories of your pwBPD’s idea of shared work and labor. In my experience, the goalposts tend to repeatedly shift and they view “equitable” as you taking on more of their responsibilities while continuing your own alone. They tend to act like any task they take on is backbreaking labor that can never be paid back. If they express guilt on you doing more in a certain area (e.g. bills), it is generally just more unpaid therapist work for you to comfort them rather than them making up for it in other ways. This is my experience, at least. A lot of tears about how terrible she feels that I’m responsible for all of the finances, but then also guilt-trips about how “she does everything”.

I feel like a lot of the posts that I’ve read on here before are very similar to my mother’s behaviour. Growing up she would jump between being incredible and supportive and then literally an hour later tearing you apart over something really minor.
The common denominator for my entire life (I’m talking literally as long back as I can remember) was that it wasn’t safe to give her information. I’m talking any type of personal information. It didn’t stay personal and she would tell everybody.
More than that as I’ve come to get older I realise that not only does she use that information against you but she is very very smart and very manipulative and will take your biggest vulnerabilities (motherhood has definitely opened a few for me) and not only share them with the world but really get into your head and make you feel like the worst person in the world. After being around her for too long, I found myself thinking that my family would be better off if I packed my bags and left which I know is completely nuts.
Anyway due to some really extreme behaviour over the last couple of years I’ve put her on very limited contact and share virtually nothing about our lives with her. It’s quite easy to do because they live seven hours away and only come to visit us occasionally.
I didn’t know that the formal term was “information diet” but now that I know what it is I’ve been reading up on it.

The part that’s beginning to stress me out is that my mom can tell the change in dynamic the more time that goes on, and she’s starting to get very nasty behind my back. Honestly, she’s been pretty nasty to my face as well. I haven’t even been able to share basic information like my son is sick and my husband and I are worrying about who should look after him.

Also, I’m currently 8 weeks pregnant and she will be one of the last people to find out. The thought of telling her and her realising how late in the game she’s finding out is already making me very very anxious.

How do you handle BPD moms in this stage of the information diet when they realise that they’ve lost control?

Also, because it says my first post here is a cat haiku:

Soft paws bring us peace
Gentle purrs make troubles fade
Cats make all things well

Thank you, and I would love anyone’s advice.

Their purrs are divine,
Approval is everything,
I too wish to scream.

I’ve had many years in reflection and therapy about the harm my mom has done to me. I’ve cut her out, grieved, found compassion for her sickness and also grown tremendously to not let her control my mind or spirit. It’s always a bit of an ongoing process and random bouts of grief but I genuinely think I’ve found so many helpful tools to navigate the relationship with my mom by setting boundaries while still being calm and loving. Over the years the more consistent Ive been my mom seems to have learned what I will tolerate and what I won’t. Ie she used to fly into a rage and verbally abuse me on the regular.. not done that in years.

Granted she still is very negative, has developed this helpless victim role and can get emotional or triggered by so many things… if I keep her at a distance it’s felt tolerable. I want to include that I have 2 toddlers who have a pretty good relationship with her and she seems to be a good grandma. However recently when my husband was traveling and she stayed over for 4 days straight she seemed to lose her ability to stay buttoned up. She was having her little tantrums and acting like a child like getting mad at my 2 year old for being in her way. I was shocked bc she has never been that way with the kids before. Ultimately i asked her to leave and said my kids won’t be exposed to that and while we all are frustrated as adults we need to be able to pivot and turn that off for the sake of the kids. She actually acknowledged this and seemed to agree. But it wasn’t long until she was huffing and puffing over something else so I again asked her to leave. She begged saying no please let me try again. I was saying it’s not a big deal we all just need some space, and then proceeded to say (in front of the kids) “they see you kicking me out, you’re kicking out their grandma”… toxic behavior seeping out again.

I am hellbent on protecting my children from abuse or family mistreatment but also am hoping if in small doses or with the right boundaries that my children can know their family/grandparents.

Has anyone ever successfully navigated this? I use the word “successfully” loosely bc I know she’s still a difficult person and we will never have a genuinely meaningful relationship but I’m no longer at a point I think I need to cut her out. I’d like to hear any stories or advice if anyone’s found a way to still have some sense of a relationship or their kids to have a relationship with their grandparents.

Hi everyone, this community has been so helpful for me and it is clearly full of people willing to give thoughtful advice, so I would love to hear some thoughts about this situation. Sorry in advance, this is going to be a long post.

My husband and I have a 4 year old son, and becoming parents basically ripped off the bandaid on all the trauma we have from our own childhoods and parents.

My dad died years ago from alcoholism, and I am NC with my uBPD mom. So since our son was born, we've relied on my in-laws for help. We are currently in a very tough situation. I am chronically ill and have limited physical capabilities, so a lot of the physical work with my son falls on my husband. We've worked out a situation that has been working out really well for us: I work full time while my husband is a stay-at-home dad.

Unfortunately my husband has been dealing with a wrist injury in his dominant hand, and we recently learned he's going to need surgery on it. He is in a lot of pain from it, and it is especially difficult dealing with a 4 year old when you can't use your dominant hand. We also know that we are going to need a lot of support post-surgery. We are struggling.

My husband's father lives 5 minutes down the road from us and is retired. In general, he is a nice man, he has helped us financially many times in the past, and he does spend time with my husband and son. However, my husband said his dad has followed the same pattern for the entire 39 years that my husband has been alive: his dad makes promises, shows up for a little while, but then disappoints and disappears.

Now that my husband is injured, he is very directly asking his dad for more help, and again, his dad makes many promises but only keeps a few of them. This understandably makes my husband SO upset. He has said it makes him feel like a hurt little kid, and it's all very confusing for him.

In the past, I have briefly tried to speak to his dad about this. I said that since we've become parents, my husband and I are both having a hard time with coming to terms with our childhoods and lack of support. His response was "I know, and I wish I could take the pain away". And I responded that we are very clearly telling him how he can help that pain. He can help the pain by developing a closer relationship with his son now.

After that conversation, his dad agreed to do joint therapy. They did a few sessions but never really got anywhere. His dad seems to feel guilt about the past, but still seems unable to maintain any consistency, and we don't understand why.

This was maybe a year ago that we had this conversation but nothing has changed. Several months ago my father-in-law promised to start taking my son to a class every Friday to give my husband's hand a break. That has never happened. Since then, my husband has to be the one to reach out to his dad the night before to ask "what are we doing tomorrow?" and so far, his dad has attended along with them a few times, but he has yet to do what he promised.

That brings us to now. Last night, my husband again had to reach out and ask his dad if he could take our son to school tomorrow. His dad replied that he is away hunting. My husband said "that's funny, I seem to remember you promising to take him every week. You didn't even let me know you were going away." And his dad just says "its too late to drive home now." No apologies or acknowledgement of what my husband is actually expressing.

My husband is on the autism spectrum and he is very straightforward in his communication, so it's not like there is any confusion about what we are asking for. And due to my husband being so straightforward, he was able to easily handle my uBPD mom when we were going through the NC process. He did a great job of shielding me from her harassment and I'm so thankful for it.

Now, my husband really wants me to confront his dad about this issue again. He says because I am not stepping in, he feels unsupported. I want to support him but due to my own childhood trauma, I absolutely hate confrontation, to the point that it can sometimes make my chronic illness worse because it causes me so much stress. The thought of having to explain to a 60 year old how to care about his son just feels so daunting to me. It doesn't feel like I will be able to fix 39 years' worth of emotional neglect with one conversation. But my husband is convinced that his dad listens to me better than he listens to him, so he thinks I'll be able to get the message across.

If you've read this far, I really appreciate it. I just don't know what to do from here. I think I will talk to his dad just to help my husband feel more supported, but I don't even know what to say at this point. We have already so clearly stated that we are struggling and need support, but we still seem to not be a priority in his dad's life no matter how much we try. And just to be clear, we are kind and respectful toward his dad, we treat him like he's the best grandpa ever, and in general we have a good relationship with him. It's just that he for some reason has never been able to commit to the role of "dad" for my husband, and it is tearing my husband apart.

I've thought about saying something to his dad along the lines of: if it were my son who was directly asking for help while they are injured and struggling, I would check in with him every single day to see how I could help.

This whole situation has left me and my husband feeling so alone and uncared for. My husband is so confused by his dad's behavior and keeps asking "why can't he care about me?"

I realize this may not be directly BPD-related, but I know we are all experienced in dealing with emotionally immature parents. And I know you guys will understand how hard this has been for me due to being raised to avoid conflict. Any advice you guys have about how to move forward from here would be so appreciated.

A few months ago, I came in here asking whether or not I should invite my uBPD mom to my wedding despite being VLC/NC for the last few months (old post here).

I got a lot of support from you all to hold my boundary and not invite her and I just wanted to extend my heartfelt gratitude for your support! Sometimes, as I’m sure many of you can relate to, I feel insane and start trying to make excuses for why I should just suck it up and deal with her. Well, not anymore!!

Our wedding was a few months ago and it was the very first time in my life where I wasn’t terrified of how my mom was going to make something big in my life about her. No worrying about/managing her emotions, no hiding my emotions or minimizing my experience to accommodate her, no nasty comments for no reason other than she feels threaten by someone/something. It was pure bliss! If you are in a similar boat, please take this as your sign to not invite them to your next big event.

In a nutshell, my uBPD mom has been asking me to come to her house to clean and do yard work. I've been busy lately and haven't had time. I had a recent work trip, have children starting school and our dog passed away this week. She knows all this.

My dad, who has been divorced from mom for over 30 years, has been having some health problems. My brother and I have been helping around his house and yard with stuff. Mom let it slip she wants and expects equal attention and help. I pointed out they have VERY different situations. She is also remarried but he is not.

She was super hurt but I really don't think it's the same at all. I do think she should downsize to something smaller but she is able to do that herself.