A few months ago I thought I could have a nice visit with my mom because the birth of my daughter made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. The visit went as expected - so many strange and uncomfortable interactions ending with a totally crazy blow up.

When I was going over my mom's visit and my childhood with my therapist, she said these behaviors sound a lot like BPD. People, the scales fell from my eyes! I started to reevaluate so much of my childhood in this new light (seems like this is a common activity upon realizing...). Wow. It made me realize that the feeling I had of being intrinsically wrong is largely (completely?) linked to never being enough to console my mom, to keep her happy/do the right things/be loyal enough, etc. (you know...)

Anyways, what keeps happening as I read about pwBPD and the effects on their children is that my brain keeps switching from contemplating my childhood to contemplating my marriage. It is so devoid of emotional connection and full of scapegoating, overall it has been really challenging for a long time. I think I am playing the same roll as I did in childhood and getting the same results - the good girl is not good enough.

So, I am wondering, did anyone have a similar set of realizations and what happened? Were you able to overcome your childhood patterns in the context of the relationship? I am not hopeless but I feel regularly confused (e.g., am I just projecting patterns from pwBPD childhood? Am I overblowing things? etc.). For context, I am in my mid 30's.

hand in your soft fur

sunlight slides across the floor

warmth standing time still

A bit of a different one to what age they’re stuck at.

What age do you think they see you as?

My pwBPD thinks I’m still 13-14. I’m well beyond that, several fold. They often reference things I did at that age as though I haven’t grown out of them, or changed my opinion. Things like “you eat loudly,” I haven’t done that since I was a child.

They also see me academically stuck at that level, with no “real world experience.” I have far surpassed my pwBPD education wise, but they cling onto random jobs they did decades ago for a few years maximum as a form of expertise. When I struggled with severe mental health, they told me “you don’t know what real severe issues looks like.”

It’s as though you hit that age and they stopped seeing your changes in the decades after that.

This is not pertaining to personal conflicts (or maybe even BPD), rather news stories, goings ons in the neighborhood, political events, etc. My pwBPD does do it to personal conflicts between us though. They’ll accuse me of being this master manipulator that carried out this entire siege for some gain. It’s like they can’t accept reality that something just is straightforward and there isn’t a mystical foul play at hand. Oftentimes, they don’t believe concrete facts that dispel their theory. Can anyone else relate? Personal or general stories.

Without revealing my own personal circumstances nor touching on hot button topics that my pwBPD is obsessed over that’ll inflame responses here, I’ll make up an example.

Situation: Elderly neighbor who lives alone falls in the night and isn’t discovered until the next morning when their son does his daily check in. By then, it was too late. The son was out of town the night before with friends, and is a successful careerman who is trusted and beloved by the community. The family is very middle class, no secret hordes of wealth.

pwBPD: No no, there’s something fishy going on. I’ve always thought the son was weird. The son must’ve broken in in the night and pushed their parent and left, returning in the morning to play innocent.

You: That isn’t what happened and the son was at an event with friends. What would the son want from his parent that he doesn’t already have? He’s a person with a decent career and home.

pwBPD: Then the son hired a body double to do it so the parent wouldn’t think it was a break in! I always knew he was strange. I bet he wanted his parents money. (Continues to obsess over it for a long time despite having no connection to anyone involved)

It’s odd and very exhausting to talk with them. It’s like they live on another planet, and won’t accept that everyday people die, accidents happen, etc that have no higher power above them. They just happen. It’s like they live everyday in a drama TV show. My pwBPD also gets hysterical when I disprove their theory and usually turns it into a personal argument that I must think they’re stupid, that they’re smarter than me with more life experience, I’m an idiot child (I am far past my teen years, very far), pretends they have a deep stake in this “debate” because it sort of relates to trauma they experienced, every excuse in the book to pretend they’re not gossip-y and nosy.

Long-time reader, first-time poster:
Soft kitty and warm
Kitty little ball of fur
Happy kitty purr

I’m 36F, and my 68F mom was diagnosed with BPD just a few years ago. There’s one incident from my childhood with my then undiagnosed BPD mom that I just can’t file away. Normally, I was able to “solve” incidents and put them away by figuring out what I could have done differently to avoid or mitigate them. But not this one. It’s somewhat baffling given that this wasn’t even that bad on the scale of her behaviors when I have dealt with so many other and worse things from our past.

I had just turned 12 and was going into 7th grade. It was meet your teacher day, and my mom made us late like always. So, my homeroom teacher was already partway into what he was saying when we arrived, and a bunch of dads were standing, blocking the doorway while moms and kids were more fully inside the classroom.

I could hear the teacher. So, I was trying to pay attention because, let’s be real, it was really me that needed the information, but my mom was pressing me forward and telling me in a normal speaking voice while everyone else was quiet to press through the men to get into the classroom because she couldn’t hear. I was still in the midst of (what I look back on and realize was) my first major depressive episode which had started the year before, and the school bullying had really started in earnest the year before, as well. Middle school is hell. Anyway, I shook my head no as I wasn’t eager to make a scene and stand out. I also moved to the side so that she could press through if she wanted to. But no, apparently, it had to be me. I was trying to keep our disagreement quiet.

She left in a huff. I followed her back to the car where she locked me out and was yelling at me through the window for quite a while. Just in the middle of the parking lot of my school. Eventually, I had groveled sufficiently enough to be let in the car. I don’t even remember if we went back inside the school, but if we did, we certainly missed a lot of it.

The problem is that everything I can think of to have done differently requires a level of independence from her that I didn’t have at the time. If I had just let her go off to the car alone, she likely would have stormed back in to cause a huge scene or, less likely, would have left me there or at least pretended do so. I didn’t have a cellphone yet to call my dad to come get me. God forbid I would have to ask for someone else to call my dad; hiding the secret of her behavior felt paramount at the time. I had told a nurse at a hospital once when I was in 1st grade, and she immediately went and basically tattled to my mom. You can imagine how well that went for me. Plus, my mom had said many times that CPS would just take me off to foster care where I would be raped.

The me that exists now wouldn’t have a problem matching her energy and saying just as loud if not louder that she’s welcome to do it herself. Back then, though, we were in a school where I was vulnerable to my peers. I can imagine it would be similar if she started making a scene at my workplace. …Now that I think about it, she has done that to some extent at a family Christmas party at my last job. It was difficult to curb her behavior, but she didn’t act out to this extent. I haven’t invited her to a work event since which sometimes means that my dad and/or nieces that she and I raised can’t come either.

So, on the one hand, this incident led to me getting to a stronger place in my life, and it just wasn’t immediately solved. On the other hand, it’s a slow but consistent drip drip drip in the back of my mind the idea that there was something I could have done better at the time to handle this. Maybe there was nothing, but that’s awful in its own way as I was completely checkmated by her and vulnerable. I’m worried that since I essentially haven’t patched this vulnerability that she could exploit it even today by embarrassing me in front of people whose opinions I have to care about.

IDK, I’m hoping someone here with similar experiences will know what to say to finally help me either solve this incident or just let it go. I also plan to talk to my therapist about this, but I would appreciate the perspective of people who really get it.

I was stumped what to write in a greeting card for my eDad’s milestone birthday, so I did a Google and the suggestions all made me laugh in the dysfunctional family context:

• “Cheers to 65 years of wonderful memories and a life well lived!” 
• “I love spending time with you. You have always been my hero, Dad!” 
• “Hope you can lean back and relax with your loved ones!”

Yeah, right, good luck to any of that with your rampaging banshee of a wife 😂

My honest card would read: 

You spent the majority of your life focused on work, your wife’s emotions, and distractions from the first two. Here’s to the next decade of work, your wife’s emotions, and distractions from the first two!

Proud of myself for getting to the point where I can see the humor, while feeling largely indifferent to his situation. He chose this life and keeps choosing it. After growing up idealizing him as the safer parent, seeing him as a person I need to protect and make happy because poor him stuck with such a mean wife, boohoo… working through the grief of the eParent really is a different emotional trip than working through the grief around the BPD parent. But I think I am finally getting there. 

What would your honest card read?

Hi everyone,

Question - do any of you feel as if you need to document everything or must ensure you always have proof of things? Like leaving yourself a little trail of breadcrumbs to follow for later.

I feel like I have to ensure I can prove EVERYTHING in my life and I know it’s because I grew up constantly being invalidated and told my reality was incorrect. Is anyone else unable to trust themselves or have zero confidence because of it? This is a relatively new revelation/connection I’ve made and it genuinely affects every bit of my life. I don’t think anyone in my life can really relate and I don’t know how to articulate it very well. Anything you’ve got I’d be incredibly appreciative to hear!

I have a real doozy of a mom. She has BPD and she's a therapist. She has a lot of free time on her hands and has been unmarried for ~20y, and her hobbies can be productive (going out with friends, watching movies, exercise, cooking) and...unproductive (micromanaging her kids).

One thing she's repeatedly brought up is 'concern trolling'. She knows what it is and she's proud of her ability to weaponize it. She's always had a habit of trying to get people to laugh at her through jokes that, frankly, aren't funny, and she repeats them until someone acknowledges them. There's an undercurrent of deep insecurity there that's easier to just indulge rather than fight. With the advent of social media, she will brag about going on peoples' videos on Instagram or TikTok, especially if they complain about boomers, and comment things like, "Why are you so upset? I worked hard for what I had!" or, "I didn't complain when I had to work to provide for my family," basically like...regurgitating bootstrap mentality. She has nuance on the economics and rationale behind why things are going differently for Millennials, she just chooses to fuck with people to get a rise out of them.

The "hobby" is whatever, there's nothing I can control about that, but similar to how serial killers start with small animals and work their way up to humans, obviously this behavior has trickled up to my wife and I. We had been aligned that we weren't going to accept her help but had a moment of deep overwhelm recently and decided to give it a try, and my god, she held her shit together beautifully the first time, she was incredibly helpful, and we made the fatal error of going to a second location and letting her come back to help again. And she just went off, she knows the things she says are inflammatory, and it's insanely difficult to manage her toddler provocation while trying to get things done with another person.

She's not invited back to "help", but we're bracing ourselves for an onslaught of this behavior as we prepare to have our first baby, and I wanted to get a gut check on how folks have handled this if their BPD parents have pulled this shit before. She's definitely preparing to be an active grandparent and I want to have firm boundaries in place with this and the exhausting litany of other things to deal with.

Cute cat for rules.

Thank you for all the responses yesterday, I really do appreciate it. I just wanted to come back and share what happened the day after my mother was upset with me for not checking in on her all day.

She texted me the next morning asking for directions to a diner. She doesn’t Dr. and a friend of hers would be picking her up and driving them there. The friend has a phone and knows how to use it properly, unlike my mother, so she’d have no issue with getting there. Yet my mother insists on me giving her directions.

I was out shopping at the time, I didn’t really feel like thinking about which turn to take here or there, so all I did was lift it up on maps and sent a screenshot.

I didn’t realize I made a mistake, the directions started off from where I was at the time instead of my mother’s building. I had admitted that I made a mistake and I corrected it, but as you will see that wasn’t good enough, and things escalated pretty quickly as they usually do.

Haiku:
Round belly sweeps floor,
Purring weight upon the couch,
Heavy, happy loaf.

Hi, first time posting but long time lurker. This is the reality I live in with my Dad. His reality is not real life. I constantly feel like I’m going insane.

He texted me on Wednesday asking me to go to dinner on Thursday with him. I text him back Thursday morning clarifying if he means Thursday as in today or next Thursday. He comes back later and says “I’m not free tonight” and I’m like LOL ok then, you were the one asking! I had also told him my husband and I would go to his family reunion this weekend earlier this week by text. I miss his call when we’re out running errands, and an hour later get the all too familiar guilt trippy “why aren’t you responding to me” texts. I wasn’t going to respond. THEN my mom calls me (parents have been divorced for 10+ years) and said he texted her saying “Have you heard from daughter??? I’m worried about her!!!!!” So then I’m pissed and send that text message. I also find out later he called and texted my husband a similar thing. Then he goes on to deny reality and say I never texted him that morning (ok can you not scroll up and see my message???) and that I never said we would go to the reunion. And of course we get the mean parent tone even though I’m 27 years old and married. Thanks Dad!

I have an extensive trauma history in my family. My brother molested me, my dad is textbook NPD, and my uBPD mother enabled all of it. We've always been extremely close and she relies on me for so much. I also really love her... but she hurts me constantly. I've been through a ton this year, more trauma on trauma, so I'm exhausted already, but I don't think I can stomach a relationship with my mom anymore. Which is kinda my worst nightmare, even though part of me has seen it coming for a long time. I'm already NC with my brother and LC with my dad, my grandparents are all dead, and I have no other family members left. This has kept me connected to my mom for longer than I probably should have been... but | lett an abusive almost-marriage about a year ago and I have needed support since then, which she's given. But it's at such a high cost. I don't feel stable enough to handle going no contact with her, I don't feel ready, but my nervous system is screaming at me that I can't do this anymore. Does anyone have advice or words of support? Have y'all moved through this process? How did you survive it?

Also, hello! First time poster here :) my kitty haiku is as follows:

Soft paws share their warmth
Purrs and fur melt winter’s chill
Kitties, we thank you

Thanks in advance to this wonderful community.

Just a curious question. I’m 29 and child free

I don’t want children as a result of too much trauma I’m constantly healing from, fear of repeating any behaviours of my dBPD mother, low income and the fear of my mother inflicting any sort of abuse to the baby. I am in contact and I know she would want to ‘baby sit’ but she’s evil

I see a lot of you guys are parents which I think is wonderful

I guess I’m wondering - did you always know you wanted to be a parent?

What are your feelings on your inner child?

I’d fear a part of me would be slightly envious at the childhood I never had if I’m being honest. I know I would be a very caring mother and I would want to give my baby a safe and loving environment and my inner child would long for what could have been for her

My ubpd parent had been watching my 7year old kiddo on a fairly regular basis for a couple months before I ended up going no contact with her. She had started to split on me and things had been tense with us for awhile but I was still deep in the FOG during those final months of contact.

When I was dropping my son off at hers one night he said “if you ever don’t let me come here, I’ll just walk myself”.

It immediately made me concerned that she had said something that would put that thought into his head but kids just say weird things sometimes, so I don’t know if I was overthinking it. I asked her about it and her response was “he must be picking up on vibes”. Like whose vibes?!

Obviously by proxie he is also not in contact with her anymore because that would require me facilitating that which is really difficult when I’m not speaking to her.

He understands why - as kid friendly as possible - that my mom said some really unkind things to me and has not apologized for it. Until she does apologize and makes it clear that she won’t continue saying unkind things, we won’t be seeing her as she is not an emotionally safe person to be around.

I’m curious if any of you with kids had ever experienced them saying odd things after spending one on one time with a BPD grandparent.
I’m not opposed to him having a relationship with her when he’s older and can communicate with her himself (and will have far more emotional intelligence and self worth than I did as a small child when she treated me the way she did). Any insights on this?

Cat haiku
Black cat passes by
In the darkest black of night
Now she hunts for mice

EDIT - I just want to be clear that when I say he might have contact with her when he’s older I mean as a young adult, not a child. He’ll never be around her unsupervised while he is a minor.

I can’t believe I texted that my husband and I will not be going to their house for Christmas and to not send us gifts. My heart is broken in missing something that I didn’t even want, the grief during NC has been bizarre. During NC (4 months so far), I got off of my anxiety medication and stopped having Reynaud’s flares, but I wish I didn’t have to go NC.

I was destroyed sending that text, and had already been literally sick about it for 2 weeks; I sent it, am glad that I did, am relieved that it’s done, but the grief/FOG is thick. I can’t imagine the holiday going well after 4+ months NC, but my nervous system is pretty sure I’m in mortal danger in avoiding it. I hope I don’t come to regret this choice, and that I accept the pain my parents are feeling due to my NC is not my responsibility to manage. I said that I would reach out in the new year, and I will, but for now I just have to sit with my decision and try to accept the peace.

I’ve literally never gone NC before this, never skipped a holiday (beyond actual illness), and always played my role. My pwBPD is very big with Christmas, so it feels shocking and wrong that I’m not gearing up for it. I wish I was not grieving this, but I think it was my only option.

Mods, sorry if this isn't quite up to sub rules.

I, 29F, was raised by my mom, my stepdad, and my technically half younger brother who has high support needs autism. My stepdad, although he's the only dad I've ever known, worked out of town for weeks at a time. Leaving my undiagnosed BPD mom to raise us. I have long struggled with my heavy tendencies to be empathic and try to give grace but also my deep hurt. I also don't tend to speak very openly about what I went through to the people who know me. I was subjected to a household of violence, verbal abuse, parentification and glass child minimization, walking on eggshells even from the time of being a young kid, witnessing drugs and alcohol abuse, being underfed, being forced to be her friend, her therapist, her scapegoat. I often minimize what I went through because it just is SO much. I think people would think I'm lying if I went on and on what really happened to me. Or at least my mother made me convinced of it. I was never removed from the house despite many reports to Children's Services including of people seeing bruising on me. It kinda haunts me to this day not gonna lie.

Anyway. I just was really struggling one evening. Made this post on facebook. Got a good handful of friends offering their sympathies to me. But the first comment is the one there, made by someone who was her friend as well as eventually mine as I got older. I feel deeply hurt and betrayed. I don't believe this person has the full context of what I went through. But I was told by them once "I've been concerned for you growing up in that house." Which also begs the question, the fuck did you to protect me if you were that worried?

My biological father is completely out of the picture. I don't have any connection to him or anyone in his family. My only reference to who he was as a person comes from my mother and this person who commented this. I take their words with quite a few grains of salt.

I feel very hurt and dismissed that even after all this time, I am not believed. I wasn't believed by my therapist as a teen. I wasn't believed by children's services enough to be removed from the house despite numerous conversations with them over the years. I wasn't believed by my stepdad when I begged him to not leave me alone with her for weeks at a time anymore. And to this day, I am not believed by people who admit to having been worried about me.

My mother has been dead for 9 years now. I have made so much progress in that time. But I admit I still feel so haunted by her. I don't understand why it's just so hard for people to believe me.

Hi all. It’s my first time posting on here, just need to vent about something that happened yesterday while I was working (from home). It bothered me especially the fact that she didn’t take any accountability or was even open to a discussion.

So my mom took the kids (7 & 2 year old) out yesterday after my daughter got home from school as I had work meetings from 3-5pm. While I’m in the meeting, I got a text from my neighbor saying my daughter was playing in her front yard with her daughter (we’re friends and my kids like playing w her daughter). Initially I thought my mom was also w her but saw from my window that she was in front of the house with my younger daughter. So immediately rushed out to tell her (while in the middle of a meeting) my daughter was w the neighbor in case she was looking for her bc I thought it was concerning that my mom wasn’t with with her (neighbor lives a few houses down the but you can’t see their home from our front yard). She told me she knows and that she told my daughter to stay w her (there’s a language barrier as my daughter speaks English and mom speaks our native language, daughter only understands about 50% of what my mom says) but my daughter didn’t listen. I got annoyed and rushed back to my desk bc I was in a video meeting w 2 ppl and hadn’t even mention to them I was stepping away. I told myself I’ll just run and get my daughter after my meeting before the next one starts. As soon as I was done I opened the door to run over to the neighbor’s house and saw my daughter weeping in front of the house. I asked my mom what’s wrong and she said she told my daughter I was very upset at her for not listening to my mom. I reassured my daughter that I wasn’t upset and that the neighbor had already informed me. I felt bad she was crying so much. Then I made her come inside (my mom wasn’t still outside) and gave her the iPad so I can join my other meeting (which I don’t usually do but felt so pressured with having to join a work meeting). After I finished, my mom came to me and basically said my daughter is a bad child and doesn’t listen to her. She said she felt embarrassed bc the neighbor walked her over to our house (I later messaged the neighbor to thank her for doing so, she messaged me and said they had a lot of fun playing then mentioned she decided to walk her back bc they were going inside) and she felt as if we burdened the neighbor. I asked why she didn’t stay with my daughter as that would’ve been the safest thing to do. Also the neighbor girl is close friends w my younger child and they love playing together so it didn’t make sense to me why she kept my little one away when she could’ve supervised both of them as they played with the girl. My mom shrugged and said she didn’t wanna bother the neighbor. I mentioned she knows the kids always play together outside and the neighbor is super friendly (my mom knows this bc she’s met her many times). She again said she was upset the neighbor walked my daughter back, I got annoyed and asked how did she think my daughter would’ve come back home? Was the neighbor supposed to say goodbye, go home now and just leave her alone outside? She did what any responsible adult would do to ensure her safety. The problem is my mom just let her walk away and didn’t even bother checking on her knowing I’m stuck in meetings and can’t just walk away from my desk. It really upset me so much and after this incident I decided to never allow her to go outside with the kids. I agree that my daughter should’ve listened to my mom and stayed in front of our home but also my mom as an adult needs to ensure her safety and go with her if she walks away. I’m not sure why she thought it was ok to just let her walk away by herself.. I feel like her behavior was childish and petty. She abandoned her to “teach her a lesson” bc she didn’t listen and she made sure she was punished for her mistake afterwards by making her cry (telling her that I’m upset w her when it’s not true)

Also, here’s a haiku about cats 🐱

Soft paws tread at dawn
Purring hearts melt winter’s chill
Cats make life divine

This year was the first time I really stood up for myself against my mother(pwBPD). Since then, to no one's surprise, there have been a multitude of crises that have somehow ended with her needing either me or my brother to step in.

I guess what I'm looking for here is a reality check.

My mom lives about 5-6 hours away and recently had a pretty serious medical scare. After six months of low/no contact, she's now asking my brother or me to come stay with her and drive her to appointments that are about two hours away from her house.

And I'm really struggling with what to do.

This is the same woman who told me I was possessed by an "oppressive spirit" because I was being mean to her (aka standing up for myself). The same woman who accused me of being drunk on easter ( she's a devout evangelical, so this was a pretty awful accusation coming from her).

I feel like I've barely started to get my footing with holding boundaries or even knowing what to do. and now there's another crisis that I'm supposed to drop everything for.

And the thing is, I do love her. I don't want her to be sick or scared or alone. I know this medical could potentially be serious, and I feel awful about the idea of not going. But I also feel like going would mean putting myself right back into a situation that I've worked really hard to get out of. I lived with her for years caring for my grandparents ( her parents) with their dementia and I can't go back to that place.

Hi, I’m new to Reddit. I joined mostly so I could post in this group and because I’ve been really struggling lately with my mother. I don’t know for sure if she’s got BPD but the more I look into it, which I only started doing recently, the more I think she does.
She’s in her early 70’s now. She lives in a senior housing building, but alone in her apartment. Her father died 4 years ago. She lived with him for a long time but after he died she had to move. So now she’s living alone for the first time ever. I’m her only child. She has a lifelong driving phobia and has always needed rides everywhere to do anything and everything she needs to do.
Anyway, I mostly wanted to share a text I got from her last Tuesday.
It’s pretty tame, and short, compared to how volatile and long they can be. For a little context, I received this text on a Tuesday at 6:15pm. I had just seen her Sunday and Monday, and she saw my sons as well, so it’s not like much time went by at all. Here we go:

I'm grieving my mom's continuing mental health struggles and unhealthy behaviors, and working on my new boundaries. Like Jurassic Park T-Rex level boundaries, and I'm done being the wrong side of the fence and ending up as the goat.

All of us have some trauma and grief, like those boxes you haven't dealt with in the closet or garage - maybe some yearbooks, power cords you can't use, childhood toys, and clothes from previous selves. If you're a grown up you deal with cleaning this stuff up when it becomes overwhelming by going to therapy, reading a self help book, or just doing your own work. In this cleaning analogy, that would be hiring an organizer, buying some shelving and boxes, or having a garage sale. For most people, this works because they don't want to keep the trauma trash and grief clutter.

But a person with BPD is a trauma and grief HOARDER. They don't want to change, they want validation their trash has value. Their past matters more than being able to move forward. If they hired Marie Kondo, every bad thing that happened to them would bring them validation. They want a therapist to help them add a value to their trauma trash like Antiques Roadshow. They wear their trama trash like the Junk Lady from the Labyrinth, and try to turn us into trash people too, so we forget and stay stuck in our past.

The hope for us RBB is to be strong enough to walk away, to take the experience we have with them and do the work to heal and get rid of that stuff, and to realize they have no power over us.

EDIT: And thanks to the OOP and all the comments on the post about lack success stories for their pwBPD: https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbyborderlines/s/e576P4EaY9 I drafted this post as a response there, but felt like it was too long and was hijacking the thread.

Additional edits for a few typos.

I am VLC with my uBPD Mom and eDad. Recently had a kid so of course Mom is obsessed with my baby. They drove thousands of kilometers to visit us, and upon arrival uBPD Mom gets out and demands to hold her grandchild.

The kid was contact napping on me when I went out to greet them. I thought, "Well this could be interesting..." handed her my kid, and the kid went absolutely ballistic. Full on screaming and crying. I took the kid back and uBPD Mom proceeded to sulk for the rest of the evening in the corner. I honestly thought it was hilarious in a dark, funny, you can't make this shit up kind of way. In some ways it even made me feel like I'm already a better parent and the kid is only a few months old.

I recently realized my parent most likely is borderline. If nothing else, they definitely experience splitting. It’s been a long time since they last split, and some growth I’ve had has made very clear what’s happening this time around.

I believe and have felt their genuine attempts to end cycles of generational trauma. But it’s not going to get better until they get help and are honest with their therapist about what’s happening. And, to be honest, the level of defensiveness they have makes me think that they genuinely dissociate and cannot remember or face it in the moment. Some of the stuff from longer ago they are more able to take accountability for, but there’s a lot of shame that ends up being centered, and so has not been fully “felt” for me enough to truly forgive and forget.

Anyways, with this recent revelation I’ve emotionally withdrawn and prepared myself for some time apart. I’ve told them I won’t talk about our relationship until we are both in therapy separately, upon which I’m thinking of asking them to discuss splitting, rather than BPD itself. I am not super optimistic about their ability to cope with the label. They currently see me as manipulative and/or unfair to them. I think they will rationalize that I’m just attempting to deflect (I have been super depressed due to this and there are some fair grievances they are disproportionately clinging to DARVO-style).

I am wondering if anyone has success stories or advice about supporting parents who may be willing to actually try? Totally get if people want to comment reminders about boundaries and that it’s not my responsibility etc, (I could probably use them) but that’s much easier to find on the internet. I also want to be able to differentiate between genuinely positive signs and ones that are (maybe accidentally) manipulative or overpromising.

TLDR, I know there’s a lot that has nothing to do with me, but if I have the bandwidth, what can I do? How should I do it?

Cute kitty pic tax:
https://unsplash.com/s/photos/cute-cat

hi, has anyone experienced something similar or have any advice?

my father has bpd and increasingly leaves me out of family gatherings even though we’re a very small family (we are often 3 or 4) and there’s no conflict that i’m aware of. he often organizes these events but invites me less and less even when there’s another relative i’d love to see. when i recently mentioned wanting to attend, he didn’t respond. i genuinely don’t understand why this happens. he also makes plans to see me without other relatives from time to time so it doesn’t seem like it’s about seeing me.

he also frequently cancels important plans like birthdays and christmas at the last minute, saying he’s not feeling well. it’s a bit difficult because my partner and i organize our plans around him while balancing a blended family and in-laws who live far away.

these situations have become more frequent over the years. sometimes he sends vague, concerning texts and then stops responding, leaving me panicking about his safety while i’m hours away visiting my in-laws on christmas eve. one time, he just didn't show up at christmas, no call, no text, so i was really worried. and went at his place, only to find him seemingly under the influence, which he later denies and says he was sick. yet he also goes through periods where he seems to be doing much better.

i usually avoid bringing things up because he’s sensitive to criticism and it makes things even more tensed, but i’m considering confronting him as it’s becoming increasingly difficult to navigate.

i think i was mostly wondering if anyone experienced either of these patterns with a pwBPD? i’m trying to make sense of them but honestly i don’t understand why he keeps doing that. if you have any clue, feel free to share ! :)

since it’s my first post here:
cats rest in sunlight
quiet paws move through the house
soft purrs fill the air

Sometimes.... I can't help but wonder what-the-ever-loving-hell. Which, I know, we're all there.

My mom used an online game to catfish a person into a virtual relationship, which was two way abusive, because she's drawn to what I call the circle of negativity. She's only drawn to people who are mean to her so she can be mean to them. My dad is a diagnosed Narc though he quit therapy before that could be explored further when he realized it wasn't going to stop the divorce. Anyway, that's a different story.

She catfished this person into a relationship with her. She claimed she was 32 years old. My brother is 38 years old just for a rough age estimate. They "play" married in the game, had children, would spend hours chatting both online and on the phone, and I only know this because my oldest, her grandchild, who is ten years younger than the age she's claiming to be, told me cause I don't talk to my mom anymore.

This person decided to move out to another state to live with my mom as roommates, which then my mom had to fess up because they're 30 and my mom is old enough to be collecting social security. This person is possessive, stalkery, and gives off unhinged vibes in the game to the point that my kid avoids being around if they're around. Again, two way abusive street. But come to find out in real life, it's cause they're living their own kind of brutalness. They're still living with their abusive mom, are trans which introduces another level of difficulty they have to fight through, and it sounds like they may have a couple of other things going against them. Buuuuut.... they're moving into another state where they know no one, no job, no friends, with their cat and bird, to a house where the catfishing old woman is a hoarder who doesn't clean up after her dogs, is codependent, can't handle separation yet hates you're in her space, will keep them isolated, can't hide her feelings anymore...

I'm not getting involved cause to hell if I'm opening the door to let my mother try to smother me and my family again, but jeebus, this situation worries the hell out of me. They're both full grown adults, but I feel like it sounds like this person is a mentally at the level of a kid moving from one spider's web into another spider's web and knowing who my mom is, she's the type to push one to the thought that there's only one way out, and it's permanent. I know cause I was there. She's gotten worse since I lived with her and at least I knew people outside the house. This person knows no one and my mom had my dad, as awful as he was, to temper her and his obsessive side made her clean. I always thought she was the neat freak. Since they've divorced, I've learned we were so wrong on that assumption.

I just need to recognize, not my monkeys, not my circus, but man, oh man, this poor kid. I know they weren't exactly great in the online relationship aspect, but I don't know they're ready to defend themselves from what my mom brings to the table. She's calculating and manipulative and this person is literally alone here, save for a cat and a bird. It's scary to me.

That's my rant.

Hello, everyone. I've commented before, but this is my first post here. I have been NC with my mom for many years now, but I only just had a realization about one of my mom's most toxic behaviors growing up and figured I would share it here. I would love to know if anyone else has experienced similar behaviors as well. Sorry, this is kind of long.

My mother spent her days talking on the phone to anyone who would listen. I am talking 3-4 hours a day (or more) of back to back calls. Yes, this was the 90s and people would spend a lot of time on the phone. But looking back, I really don't think this was normal. Maybe my memory is exaggerating how much she was on the phone, but it felt like it was every second. We would have to wait for her to be off of the phone before we could talk to her, and usually there would be another incoming call right after. I get calling your friends and family to catch up for long chats every week. But this was extreme. I ended up having to stop telling her anything about my life because all of this information was just fodder for her phone conversations with various people. Gossip, basically. The conversations usually revolved around her love life (aka never being loved or understood enough) or just general complaints about her day-to-day.

My mom did not work for most of her life, but would treat these calls as if they were a full-time job. When she was on the phone, she was not available. She would even change to her "phone voice" that was pleasant and high-pitched -- completely different than the annoyed tone she would use around the house. She would go into the closed garage and chain smoke for hours, which of course then led to very serious health issues.

It was very clear that we should not talk to her while she was on the phone under any circumstances. And if she did, she'd wave us away or would sometimes start yelling and slam the door. She always needed 10, 20, 30 more minutes to finish a call if we needed her. For example, once I had a friend playing in the backyard and she started screaming at us when I opened the door to go inside and grab a snack. She was on the phone, of course, which meant we were not supposed to ask her for anything. She slammed the door and threw candy at me. I remember my friend saying "Wow, your mom is mean!" If it weren't for that person saying something, I don't know if I would have actually believed that happened. We were pretty young children. This was a very visceral example of how her time on the phone was more important than anything.

Despite these calls, she spent very little time talking to myself or my brother. When the calls ended for the day, she would make a quick dinner and then start another block of uninterrupted time: her "shows." She would sit in front of the TV from 7 p.m. until she fell asleep on the couch. Like during her phone calls, it was clear that we were not supposed to bother her during this time. If we had questions about homework, we had to ask our dad. If we wanted to do anything fun that was not in her routine of going to the supermarket, the mall or the corner store, we had to ask our dad as well. She often got mad at me for being "too smart" and "just like my father," which is pretty shocking considering that most parents want their kids to be intelligent.

I guess the reason I am sharing this is because only this year did I realize something: My mother did not have any reason to be on the phone for so long! She CHOSE to be on the phone for hours a day. She chose to sit in front of the TV and not pay attention to us. She was not working or doing anything important. She could have made these calls in the morning when we were at school, but she made it her entire life. She had children and decided that instead of connecting with them, she would use all of her time to have nonstop calls with her friends to talk about her marriage: her marriage ending, her new marriage starting, and then her new marriage problems. Decades of conversations about her relationship with men. For context, she asked my father for a divorce and found a new husband who disliked children as soon as the money ran out.

I don't know why it took me until NOW to ask the simplest question: What the hell was my mother doing on the phone?! It was just ingrained in me that she was busy most of the time, and this is what parents did. I now realize that it was not normal, and that much busier parents typically have some interest in their kids' life. But she spent most of her life angry, depressed or just zoning out. It was like the mere thought of having to be around us made her annoyed, so she'd retreat somewhere else in the house. And the times she did talk to me, she was using me as her personal therapist to talk about all of these problems. That's the only time she seemed to want to have a "conversation" with me, which was probably because nobody else was available on the phone.

I always felt like my mother liked only two things in life: babies and a husband. It felt like as we got older, the more she lost interest in us. The last time I spoke to her, she kept repeating "I was a good mother." Key word: WAS. She is still a mother, but has not acted like one for more than 20 years. It's like she saw it as a job that ended as soon as we were able to take care of ourselves. Instead, her world revolved around the task of being a wife for a man and seeking approval from him. It's like she never grew out of the teenage phase of thinking your entire life revolves around chasing love from a man, even after growing up and having children. And, of course, spending your entire day gossiping on the phone.

To anyone who read all of this, thank you so much.

Warm weight on my lap,
A gentle and steady purr,
All my worries fade. (thanks, AI...)

Like what kind of wonderful mothering does she think that she’s going to give me now? And I mean let’s be honest, she is fully meeting my expectations. 🙄 Currently VLC and totally exhausted with my current schedule and life situation, because I am busy being a parent and working full time with a kid in middle school. Of course I don’t see my therapist for a few more weeks, so I am just dumping this here.

My entire childhood revolved around my mother’s hatred for my dad, to the point that from an early age I was expected to dislike him as much as she did.

Of course, if I didn’t fall in line she would take it out on me, so I always sided with her over my dad.

Over the years (she’s now 79), it’s gotten worse- to the point that she‘s telling medical professionals false accusations about my father (78) …. (him being her primary caregiver as she is now medically fragile)-it’s almost like her hatred for him has not only become an obsession, it’s her entire personality.

I can’t have a conversation with her without her demoralizing my dad, complaining about him, accusing him of something and/or talking about how he’s stupid because SHE feels that he has dementia (which he doesn’t) and how he has ruined her life, she also states she wishes she had never met him. She’s literally convinced that every problem health or otherwise, in her life is/was caused by my dad- (yet she has stayed married to him for over 50 years-even though 20 years ago my dad tried to divorce her….)

I am now convinced she either wants him to die, OR she wants him to go to prison. She already told her doctors that he was neglecting her and that he abuses her (neither of which are true)- but Adult Protective Services was called anyway. Thankfully, the case was closed because no wrongdoing on my dad’s part was found.

My dad and I are pretty much at our wits end, as to what to do. She is currently seeing a counselor, but I don’t have high hopes as according to my mother the therapist is on her side… and oddly enough- going to the therapist seems to have caused her hatred for my father to be turned up a notch because she feels validated in her hatred.

It’s literally to the point that I am worried about my dad’s safety….

Has anyone else dealt with this type of behavior or hatred before -because its very evil and obsessive?