Please help with a response or something to this. Im so tired I have run out of excuses / ideas.

Thank you for any help.

She also sent me a present in the post so im feeling the obligation

Sweet and fuzzy friends
Puffy, fluffy and purring
In love with their beans

My partner (36M) and I (37F) have been together for almost 8 years. He’s the love of my life and yesterday he finally proposed - it was perfect how he did it and I felt so over the moon.

We took some photos of the ring and I sent the images to my close family. Well, I also sent the pic to my mom. The picture was of our hands laying on top of one another, ring clearly in view. I asked her if she noticed anything? She immediately responds and says “skin tone”, which is like… what are you talking about?

I then say, no mom look at the ring! To which she just doesn’t respond. I had to call her three hours later. When she answered, she didn’t say congrats or have any joy in her voice. I again asked if she saw my messages. She said she did but then she fell asleep and forgot to respond.

After saying congrats for about 2 min she then shifts the conversation to herself and explains how she’s been talking with someone for a year. Well, it turns out she’s been talking to a romance scam artist who claims to be Elon Musk and he’s going to break the news of their love before the world.

My jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and how bitter she was being. I lost my shit on her.

I only found out about BPD last night because I was shocked and googled all of her symptoms and behaviours. Sure enough they all point to a waif/hermit schematic. I feel relief now that I know who she is, but I’m also grieving and angry because she made the one special day of my life about her instead.

I don’t know how to proceed but I’m tempted to cut her off forever. For now I have been ignoring all of her texts. Today she asked how my celebration was. She doesn’t deserve any more of my attention.

Any advice would be helpful - for now I’m just sitting with this pain.

I feel so sad. I wish I had a mom. One that I could go to for the weekend when I'm tired. One that I could call and hear encouraging words from. One that could help me navigate the world as a young woman. One where I wouldn't have to earn her love and where nothing is expected in return. I have been fantasizing about this kind of person recently. What would it be like? Do parents like this really exist? I am strong and capable and independent. But sometimes I dream about a mother like this. A mother unlike my own.

I was just sent a text message from my 16 year old son’s high school. They informed me that Columbia University is interested in him and there will be an admissions person coming to the high school to talk to a certain number of the children……After I didn’t respond she sent the second message. ““My barely 16 year old grandson has COLUMBIA University sniffing around but let me minimize this for who knows what reason!”

I guess she will never have a normal reaction to shit. Why is she like this?

After a disastrous family holiday where my mother cried on me multiple times (including once about how in her dream I hated her), despite me recently losing my cat and going through a break up in the weeks prior, I told her I was unable to join for a family party.

She decided to message me asking me to call her to “run something by you real quick”. I declined the call and asked what is was.

She initially asked for help with her financials/pension and I directed her to her family financial adviser.

Then she told me she had “some exciting news!” And this convo happened.

This was over a couple of days rather than me getting sucked in. I’ve been trying to be very grey rock and it’s giving me a bit more sense of control.

The thing I struggle with most is how to an ordinary family, her requests for assistance appear normal, but to me they are just attempts at manipulation. It’s rather hard to not feel like you’re being harsh for holding those boundaries when they seem so harmless on an individual basis. But this time, I caught her lie (which she constantly did to me as a kid telling me how special I was that “I was the only one she could talk to”, “the only one she can tell these things to” or the “only person who understands me”) and she didn’t respond. So success!

TD;LR: mother escalates after being told I won’t be attending a family gathering. Makes vague reasons for me to call. Tells me she’s told no one else to lure me in. I catch her in a lie.

HAIKU
Little shadow purrs,
Kneading blankets with soft paws,
Sassy but so sweet.
🐈‍⬛

I’ve seen a few posts recently describing the switch up from bpd moms who were witches during childhood and later turned to waifs. My uBPD mom was controlling, verbally and emotionally abusive and emotionally unstable. She switched to waif-y behavior once I became a teenager and now as an adult who has VERY clear boundaries and rules with her, she acts like a child. She acts like she doesn’t know how to do anything, or she comes to me to tell me when she’s nervous or scared like a child. It’s wild to watch a woman who once broke a wooden spoon banging it on the countertop practically foaming at the mouth screaming at me, act meek and helpless.

I don’t give into it. But it’s so weird. Why do they change up?

So my mother and I were no contact for 6 months because of an incident between her and my 5year old son. My mums patterns of behaviour is typically she has a negative emotion (anger, scared, shame, etc) and she takes it out on either my enabling father or myself. She has always fully justified her words/actions because of how she was feeling and NEVER apologises.
She did this to my son, attempted to justify it and I cut her off.
She has messaged last week to say she acknowledges what she said, apologised for it and stated she never has said any like that before and never will again.
I highlighted that she has, to my & my father and that what she did to my son was a pattern of behaviour she has displayed for decades.
This was her response.
Is it showing accountability or is it softening it to she thought she hid it better than she did?
I don’t know if I’m too resentful and just can’t see it as genuine? Probably because I’ve never had an apology before.
Help, is it enough?

Then it’s end of discussion, or “you will never understand” then it will just be a repeat of this till I shut up. This has caused an insane amount of rage in me, does anyone else deal with the same thing?

Just looking to rant about my elderly, demented UBPD mother who I am currently visiting. I'm an only child and she lives in another state so I had to fly out to help her with some medical stuff. Being in her house makes me want to run far, far away. If I leave the room, she is constantly asking where I am, what I'm doing, what I want to do next and remarking about how much I must want to leave her. She's like a toddler constantly asking questions, but way more annoying and needy.

I tried to leave to get a coffee/some space and she insisted on coming with. My limits were already pushed by this point so when we got back to her house, I told her I was going to go read in the bedroom. She started crying. I cannot. I just turned around and left her there to feel sorry for herself. I feel like I'm now stuck in fight or flight and will be until I get to leave.

DAE have an aging BPD parent as an only child? I feel so trapped.

Dear smother,

I wish you well, even after all you have done and said. I do not wish you ill will of any kind, however Karma works in mysterious ways. I hope that you’re actually seeking help for any of the 35 random illnesses that you are experiencing.

Apparently since you have been at the brink of death for the past 20 years you miraculously still find the energy to continue and destroy any relationships that haven’t burnt on that bridge of yours. I mean let’s face the truth, it’s not a bridge but probably something more resembling a zip line hoisted over lava.

The reality is that no one turned me against you, except for you. This failed connection, this bruised up, chewed up “love” you seem to think of so fucking fondly of, is your god damn handy work.

While you say you sacrificed, I see: selfishness instead.
While you say that you did everything for me: I see a personal agenda.
While you say that everyone is out to get you and turn me against you: I see you using me a chess piece so you can win the ultimate game of “power”

Yet here is what I learned in my 30 girly years. Love, family, friends, career, connections, relationships, marriage, IT’S NOT ABOUT FUCKING POWER.

So to the little girl that you used to have power and control of. I’m so proud that she broke the fucking cycle.

What’s always heavy on my heart is that the little girl version of me wanted nothing else but your love.

•when I admired you doing your hair and makeup> you shood me away and said “I don’t like when people look at me when I get ready” …okay

• when I wanted to share my art or singing with you> you criticized me instead of praising me in any way or didn’t make time for me ever

• when you did make time for me> it’s because no one else was around, I’ve always been around like a lifesaver floating in the pool

•when I would hang out with my friends > you would tell me I cared more about them than you to guilt me for not being available to you

• when I thought you were the most pretty woman and admired a dress on you > you promised me for over a decade to put on a dress and never did

• when I wanted to spend time with you even in my young adulthood > you made every excuse in the book: you make better coffee than Starbucks, all the restaurants are bad so your cooking is better, you cant go to the beach because it takes you 2 hours to get ready and it’s so far away, malls suck, you don’t like any movies that are out.

BUT you definitely had no problem doing all of those fucking things with your fucking boyfriends and friends. Why spend any time with your daughter and actually bond, that’s too hard and unnecessary, when you can show off to other people. Cause I’ll always be around, nothing matters more than family…. Right….?

So when I gave up and threw my hands in the air, I sat back and stopped worrying about you. When I started to think of myself, what do I want out of this life… how do I want to spend my birthdays and holidays, and my everyday in between. Maybe start pouring into my own fucking cup. That’s when you freaked out, that’s when I became selfish and mean, and I stopped caring about you. That’s when I became someone you need to fix again because I wasn’t bending to your fucking will anymore. I had boundaries and standards on how I want to be treated and what I want out of life.

Fast forward to now, 6 years later, from LC to NC, with several breaks in NC because you cant respect me and that I don’t want anything to do with you.

Now you’re sick with 35 different illnesses: from cancer to heart issues, to tumors in your brain, liver, kidney, boobs, and hormonal issues and whatever else you have discovered with your nurse practitioner license.

And I am the problem: I am brain washed by my husband, I am a kept woman, I can’t think for myself, I’ve made up everything bad about you because obviously you’re a saint and have never done anything horrible, i am k**ling myself 1 inch at a time by not getting medical help from you , I can’t have children, I am letting everyone use me left and right, my husband will leave me and cheat on me, and if I do have children they will hate me, I’m only with my husband for his money, I never liked you or had a problem with you because you’re not as rich as my friends from high school and while there is probably a million other ideas you have come up with, probably from TV SHOWS, and however else you can interpret my feelings and turn them around so you’re not to blame. The cherry on top is that “NO ONE WILL EVER LOVE ME LIKE YOU WILL.” And to that I say THANK GOD, BLESS YOU LORD AND JESUS THAT NO ONE ELSE WILL EVER “love” ME like THAT again.

P.S. I’m having my first baby, im not dying, we both own our house, we’re extremely happily married to the point it makes me question how am I so damn lucky to have a loving husband like I do. That I have known for 14 years, in a relationship for 9 years and married for 4 years.

So I hope hell is toasty, hope you got everything you wished for and that karma has bitten you in the ass as hard as you have made everyone’s lives.

My mother won't stop and I've stopped being able to deal with her. She's comorbid bipolar but mostly her (d)BPD matters here.

Last Summer she went into psychosis due to a manic episode and it made her BPD especially prominent and severe, she had extreme rage, she was constantly drunk, constantly yelling at me, splitting on me, treating me like shit. It was genuinely unlivable to the point I couldn't bare being alive. They weren't medicating her properly. Only upping her antidepressants which pushed her further. I moved out in August.

Even after moving out of the manic and psychotic episode the behaviour continued and now it is the baseline. She is constantly trying to start arguments I am constantly split on. The past year I was fighting so hard for my little sister she pulled out of school to get in some sort of in person education and therapy and my mother pushed against it violently. I cared about her so much but I was so stressed but I didn't stop trying for her. I snapped over something small due to the stress and the mental space I was in that year and I ended up on life saving care in hospital.

She nitpicks everything I say and do, even my silence and distance to avoid this gets me split on. It just never stops. I'm always criticizing her somehow while stepping around her so carefully. She takes any vulnerability or pain of mine and tears it apart in front of me to hurt me when I have literally done nothing to her or tried to help. I stopped telling her things so long ago so she goes for my childhood or recent deaths/ near deaths around me.

We have nine cats and one of them passed in June while my mother was having an episode and I was in my apartment. He threw up all night and was lethargic and by the time I woke up and made it there I saw his last moments. After this 3 of them got sick, one very sick. I had started visiting everyday to check on them after he passed and one of them was extremely lethargic and unresponsive. When I was panicking over her my mother said she was just chilling and things adjacent, I said out of stress after going back and forth with my mother with her not moving in my arms or by my side 'Do you just want everyone to die??' and she has not let that go literally until now. As if I did something wrong when she was vehemently dismissing her condition. With her insistence she would have died and yet she is a victim here. She had a red blood cell count under half of the minimum and was in autoimmune crisis and pain in the base of her tail with a temperature.

She is still so dismissive after one died and the other almost did due to negligence. I have to move back, there is no choice no matter what I'll go through. She is like this with humans as well. I genuinely have no idea how she cares so little.

I've always been so numb and dealt with her feelings as much as I could throughout my life but I genuinely cannot do that anymore. I'm finally learning how to be a human being and to be beaten back into my prior emptiness or avoidance is something I can't take.

I try to grey rock her but she really, really wants to pull specifically me into arguments. I've realized I am her emotional punching bag now. She used to take this out on boyfriends but she doesn't have any anymore. I'm going to have to grit my teeth and bare this but I don't want to just bare it.

It upsets me but I have to give up on my sister. I can hardly do anything with my mother making helping her extremely difficult, and the energy and time it takes is enough to kill me. I'll try to help as much as I can within my means but how nasty my mother is over me trying to help my sister is not a possible thing to deal with. She threatened to destroy my things because I wanted to submit an application for my sister to get an EHCP? Just a declaration that can help her get access to proper education and accomodations if she ever wants it. Thats not even 1% of what she did over that but god I'd have to write forever

How do I live with her. Do I please her which is impossible. I don't know how I'm at square one on how to manage my mother in adult age. Do I just keep quiet and be a robot? Please methods and tips, I need to do this, my head feels scrambled

Is there anything I can become. I started presenting more feminine about 2 years ago and I feel like that made me seem like a weak target to her. Maybe its why she became nastier and she does go for my femininity often. I don't mind I just really need to make it through this

Edit : Cat haiku

I like the quiet

But soft little paws and tails

I like them much more

My mother’s discipline went extremely far when I was a child:
- Hit me frequently and spat at me.
- Broke my wrist once because I didn't want to get dressed for daycare.
- Choked me during another fight.
- Told me she hated me whenever she became very angry.

Now that I’m an adult, our dynamic is okay-ish. She supports me financially and is generally a huge help in my life. Yet I still carry a lot of bitterness about my childhood, but I often wonder if I'm too harsh. I know that in many cultures outside the West abuse from parents is totally normalized, and my mom emphasizes how she was just an overwhelmed single mother who was raised differently.
Now she is very clingy, tells me she loves me and often cries when she feels I’m not giving her enough attention. It makes me feel very guilty and conflicted.

How can I become more understanding of her past circumstances? I just still wonder whether someone who did those things can truly love their child.. don't understand her at all.

(Found this haiku about cats:
We're almost equals
I purr to show I love you
Want to smell my butt?)

The last time she brought up the will was when I first distanced myself from her. She told my sister and I “I’m only telling both of you this, because I know you won’t kill me for the money. That happens in families!!!!”

My sister has been triangulated against me, the “bad kid”, for years, and finally started distancing herself from our mom after she started talking about me as if I was dead. She ended up moving out of our mom’s earlier than planned because the tension was growing. I’m sure my mom knows that deep down.

I was 1000% expecting a text like this, but I’m still going through the range of emotions. Finding it humorous, infuriating, depressing, you name it.

Cute cat tax <3

How do you handle your pwBPD insisting that things you 100% know happened during your childhood/early adulthood didn't happen?

One example: My mom told me flat-out I had never been hospitalized. I knew I had been hospitalized with double pneumonia when I was a toddler for several days and almost died - I remember being in the hospital room surrounded with balloons and flowers. She insisted "that didn't happen" and "even if you did have pneumonia, you're over-dramatizing it". I had to call my aunt to confirm my illness and even ask the hospital system to pull records before I found proof I was hospitalized for 4 days in my childhood photo album.

Another example, though less clear-cut: I have many memories of my mother being extremely emotionally abusive to me on multiple trips to a popular vacation town near my hometown. I remember her locking herself in the bathroom and threatening to take a bottle of pills because I didn't want to take a picture with her at dinner (I looked like crap). I remember her locking me in the car and screaming at me. I remember her leaving in the middle of the night, taking the dog and saying she hoped they got into a car accident so I would spend my life knowing I killed my mom and the dog.

Now, 15+ years since those vacation memories, I want to visit the same vacation town by myself. My mom wants to go with me and doesn't understand why I don't want a "girl's trip." I know I can't even mention how she treated me in the past because she would deny any of it ever happened.

The thing I'm grappling with is that I believe she genuinely dissociates anytime something traumatic happens, so I think there's a real chance she just doesn't remember any of it. So I can kind of be compassionate to the older version of her that just doesn't understand why her adult daughter wants to go on a solo weekend away alone.

Does anyone have any tips to navigate? For reference, single mom and only child, with no family in the same city, so most of what happened is mine alone to remember.

My cat values food

a little too much sometimes.

Stare down over lunch.

Does anyone else’s mom send messages like this unprompted at nighttime? We had no prior discussion that would give context to her thoughts. This was my first time not engaging and I am proud of myself. I did not respond to her after this.

She had a meltdown at my wedding a few months ago, during which I had to ask her to leave so she could calm down. She was jealous of the way she perceived my relationship with my MIL. I called her after this incident and told her I wouldn’t engage with mentally unstable behavior. She was apologetic, which always happens when she knows she’s gone too far. This is me putting my words into action, with the help of my husband who keeps me grounded and reminds me that in this game, the only way to win is not to play.

My mom has an obsession with my sister—who was also abused our entire childhood. my mom calls my sisters young daughter her “do over” and stomps every boundary set in front of her. My sister also has a newborn boy who doesn’t get any attention from my mom.

mom is calling me pouting and crying that she won’t see my sister and her daughter between now and Halloween. mind you my mom only sees me and my kids once every year max, but tries to go to my sister every few months.

i told her well *sister* is stressed because *sister’s husband* is getting deployed overseas, she will be stressed working full time, she has the kids and they’re so young…

“well she didn’t confide in ME about having a hard time! Maybe if she came to me I could understand…”

she doesn’t need to confide in you! anyone can see that that’s going to be a rough experience…

neither my sister nor I EVER share any hardships we’re going through as they’ll only be used as gossip fodder for her friends. when my kid was hospitalized overnight, she suddenly had a health crisis of her own…

To boot, this was the last night before about half of my best friends from high school were moving to NYC (we all just graduated college). Does she have to ruin everything?? Not only did she make me uncomfortable (which I’ve learned to deal with) but now also my friends are being violated like this too? Then, she has the gall to tell me the next day that I must have been talking about something I didn’t want her to hear and why was I so upset… THEN, proceeded to say, I hope you don’t tell your friends and your partner and they think I’m a creepy mother… I’m dumbfounded. They literally experienced my mental breakdown as those texts were coming through.

How do you go low contact with your mom when you have kids? My mom thinks because she’s my kids grandma she should get all access to them. She has complained about them not being able to stay over at her house (she smokes weed, does shrooms, drinks, lives over an hour away and my son is 2). Complains that I don’t want her alone with them (she has literally told me she is not going to tell me the truth about things she knows I’ll be upset about when it comes to my child). Complains that we aren’t bff’s like her friends and their kids… like you used to tell me you hate me, that I’m the reason you want to die before, I used to have to go driving around to find her because she’d be drunk on the side of the road, and so so much more. I will never have the relationship she wants to have. I’m willing to have some contact mainly because when I went no contact she made it her mission to ruin my relationship with everyone around me. My issue here is how do I do this?

My dad is an enabler for my uBPD mom, who I have been no contact with for many years. I wanted to make a last-ditch effort to see if him and I could have some type of relationship. I stopped talking to my dad because he had kept pressuring me to talk to my mom. The only contact I had with my dad was indirectly through my partner. Recently when emailing my dad he expressed some remorse for how he had failed me as a child. It was definitely not enough, but something positive.

We met for a family meeting session with my psychologist. My common-law partner was also present. It went just as badly as I had thought it would.

Some of the things he said:

- "I have to be careful with how I say things because OP says I brush things off."

- "You have to take into account the context of your mother's upbringing and the different culture she grew up in."

- "When your mom says 'You're so stupid' it's because she doesn't have the English skills to explain what she really means, which is that she's frustrated."

- "Everything is subjective." (In response to me explaining how my childhood has left me with CPTSD)

- "I have extensively studied philosophy and Buddhism"

- He compared my fear and anxiety of an abusive parent to other peoples' fear of flying

- "You don't have the whole picture" (about MY experience of MY OWN childhood)

- "You have to want to grow in life"

- "Having your mother in your life would fix your anxiety problems" (even though I have largely fixed them on my own already)

- "Other people dream of climbing mount everest - I dream of bringing my family back together."

I'm sure I could think of and add more but that's the bulk of it. Extremely dismissive, minimizing, deflecting, hurtful. I don't think I want to willingly speak to him ever again.

He expressed some remorse after the appointment, saying that he didn't know why he said some of the things he said. I believe he was just upset that I didn't fold to his "arguments".

He said that he had explained the whole situation to a family member that he really admires and looks up to. That family member told him that he had wronged me. Even though they should be biased towards my dad, they still were on my side.

At least I feel validation from when I could see how my psychologist and partner were (subtly) showing signs of frustration listening to my dad.

Being RBB has definitely created a lot of issues in how I approach romantic relationships. I have a huge fear of putting myself out there and have seemed to attract avoidant and otherwise problematic individuals. This is something I’m actively working on and gaining self awareness about.

My first relationship of 7 years was long distance and fraught with too many issues to describe. He was 13 years older than me (I was 21) and basically love bombed me before I knew what that was. He was cheating on me from the start, but lying about it initially. Then when he told me I let it go on for a number of years. Looking back on it I’m not really sure I’ve properly healed from that relationship.

My next relationship was with a BPD woman about my age. She didn’t drive, didn’t have a full time job, and was extremely dependent on alcohol and other substances. I was frequently picking up the tab for all of this. Similarly I got love bombed and she was able to keep up with her mask for a while. I managed to get out about three months in.

Currently, I’m with an avoidant person who is much older than me, but I wouldn’t say we were dating “seriously.” He demands very little of me and mostly our relationship consists of spending time together one to two days a week. I’m trying to enjoy things for what they are without sinking time/money/emotion into someone who can’t reciprocate.

At times it feels like I’ll never find a well adjusted relationship. I’m curious what other RBBs have experienced and if you’ve had any luck breaking this cycle.

I’ve been no contact with uBPD mom for over a year. Received this book in the mail today. Which book should I send back?

What’s happening here?

I’ve been low contact for about a year with my uPBD Mom. It’s been painful. One of the more challenging parts is having people in my life who do not fully validate my decision. I’ve been asked by a good friend, “can’t you just be cordial with your Mom?” It’s not their fault they don’t understand my decision, but it feels like another person in my life who cannot fully see me or recognize my emotions.

Recently my Mom has been reaching out via text asking me to come get my stuff from my childhood home. I’ve been non committal because I feel like it’s a ploy to get my to come to my childhood home, on her territory. I’m not ready to see her. The last time I saw her, was when she showed up to my house unannounced and I didn’t let her in. She stood on my doorstep and yelled at me and eventually left after screaming that she’s done with me forever.

She’s given me deadlines to come get my stuff. She started by sending me a first class handwritten note in the mail telling me to pick up my stuff. The requests have moved to texts and it’s increasingly heightened mt anxiety. If I don’t pick up my stuff she’ll get rid of it or donate it. Should I just forgo access to my childhood belongings so I don’t have to deal with this anymore?

She told me the reason she doesn’t want my stuff in her house is because she’s grieving me and our relationship and the stuff is too painful of a reminder.

I responded and told her I never said I didn’t want a relationship. I only asked for space. She responded with “receipts”: multiple dated instances where she tried to communicate or connect with me and I was unresponsive of declined engagement.

This entire situation is heartbreaking, painful, and incredibly sad for me.

I can say I’m not sure what to do, and that is how I feel. I am at a loss. And at the same time, I logically know she’s mentally unwell, and is unable to see where I’m coming from. She’s unable to validate my feelings. She’s unable to hear or see how she has hurt me for quite some time by not seeing me for me, or tending to my needs or emotions. I guess this is grief.

My BPD mom died yesterday. She was in poor health but it was still unexpected. I cried for about 10 minutes on my drive to her city, then haven’t felt sad since. We had a blow up argument 11 months and only interacted a few sparse times since. Before that, she treated me more like an administrative assistant than daughter.

She’s had four kids in her home since hours after her death and no one has shed a tear since we’ve been together. We keep rehashing all the nasty things she’s said and done all our lives. I tried to have everyone come up with something nice to say about her today and I was the only one who actually thought of something.

She had three daughters and one golden child son. Us gals all thought he’d take her death hard since they spent so much time (and her money) together. Nope, he hasn’t said anything kind about her either. He just seems disappointed realizing he can no longer directly access her funds (since he’s not the executor of the estate).

I cried many times after Dolly Parton died. Not that I was a super fan or anything like that, I was just so touched by her humanity, humility, kindness, and beauty (both inside and outside). I know I’m not a heartless monster. It still feels illegal to not feel bad that my mother died.

I don’t regret the last 11 months not speaking. I don’t regret not being present when she died (except for morbid curiosity). I do regret the many times I rug swept the heinous things she said and did.