Guest guest Posted January 24, 2008 Report Share Posted January 24, 2008 Hello all, I don't know where to begin. Well some background: Nada came to visit my hubby & I last Oct. It was a disaster, she was on her worse behavior. I'm chronically ill to begin with & being around her, my health tends to fall apart rapidly, so hubby OK'd my sudden disappearance during her visit. Fast forward a couple weeks later, Nada is back home & I write her a lengthy letter laying down the gauntlet. I tell her she's absolutely got to get herself to a mental health professional & that if she doesn't try to get help, I must severely limit all contact with her. Since that time, it's been nothing but games. We've exchanged letters, emails, books. I've sent her books on BPD & she sent me a book on how diet can cause autism & said that must be my problem. To this day, she's not sought after any help. I've decided that I must just not respond to her emails & letters anymore. I'd already told her I was going to limit my contact with her in October if she didn't seek help. Since she doesn't believe that she needs any help, then I've decided that I will send her flowers for her bday & christmas & leave it at that. Well nada has now enlisted the help of my sick, ailing grandma to " spy " on me. Grandma called my hubby's cell phone the other day, twice. She called the home phone but didn't leave a message. She did NOT call my cell phone. So hubby answers his phone & she said she was just checking to make sure we're alive. Now, my gran & I have never, ever had a close relationship. She has never, ever, in my 38 years of life, ever deigned to call me. I know that my mom put her up to it & I'm livid. Nada doesn't try to call me because she knows damn well that I don't want to speak to her. But she has to have some attention, any attention, & if she has to send her messages to me through her Grandma, she's going to do it. I'm so pissed. So I live nearby to a prestigious university with a noted mental health program. Wanting all the help I could get to deal with my mom & my own anger/anxieties, I made an appointment to meet with a psychiatrist there. And do you know what happened? I had one long, 2 hour session where I poured my heart out to 2 psychiatrists & an intern & in the end all they said was that I have low grade depression, take this little pill & we'll see you back in a couple months! I had really wanted, nee expected, that I would get ongoing, weekly talk therapy. It's what I wanted, what I desperately needed. But they said that I had a healthy attitude and was dealing with my nada situation the best that anybody could expect & then I was dismissed. I felt so baffled & frustrated. So much for the mental health system...guess I'm on my own. Ever since the realization a year ago that my mom was BPD, I've been reexamining my life's memories in this new context. I've lost count of the number of times somethine suddenly clicked & my stomach turned over. I realize how manipulated I've been by her. For instance, she's run all my relationships with my other relatives straight into the ditch. Not a one of them communicates with me. She laid the groundwork for this the day I was born, bad mouthing all my relatives, not allowing them to visit me, discouraging me from visiting them. So now I've got oodles of relatives who are absolute strangers to me. Anyway, I could ramble on & on about all the injustices she's inflicted on me, that she continues to try to inflict from 2000 miles away. But I'll stop now. Thanks for listening. Angel ________________________________________________________________________________\ ____ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 24, 2008 Report Share Posted January 24, 2008 Hi Angel, My mother did the same thing with my relatives, at least some of them. I was told that they were horrible people and I would not want to meet them. Later, my mother thawed (and they were still willing to tolerate her) and I'm glad that I have had the opportunity to get to know them. However, her lies were terribly poisonous for a long time. She even told me that my grandmother had died of breast cancer (lie) because she couldn't afford treatment (in a country with socialized medicine) since she had given the money to my aunt to get a breast augmentation (my aunt is very flat). As one of my cousins pointed out, my mother was clearly not banking on me ever meeting this aunt. It has been very fortunate for me to get to know this side of the family. After spending time with the same aunt, I began to realize just how much lying my mother had done all of her life. I think it was at that time that I realized her behavior was not just a bit kooky, but a serious problem. I've noticed in our family that the cousins tend to bond quickly and easily, probably because we have observed two generations of dysfunction between our parents and our grandparents. I hope that your current frustration can be alleviated and that things start going better for you soon. is ________________________________________________________________________________\ ____ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 24, 2008 Report Share Posted January 24, 2008 is -- that's so nice that this generation, your cousins, aren't plagued by the same need to tear town their relatives. Your post made me have an " aha " moment -- my mother badmouthed everybody -- family, friends, neighbors, acquaintances, etc. Even the ones she liked, (with a handful of exceptions) eventually she'd find something wrong and withdraw. It makes sense, then, that I've kept to myself most of my life. Sure, that's probably how I was wired biologically, but the message my mother continually role modeled to me was " There's something wrong with everyone -- people will eventually piss you off. " I can see where that way of life would produce kids (my brother is like this, too!) that aren't anxious to go out and be terribly social. Probably not scientific, but I STILL struggle with being timid and anxious about going out into the world and moving in too many social circles. -Kyla Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 25, 2008 Report Share Posted January 25, 2008 Hi is, I'm glad you've been able to establish some relationships with relatives after all the brainwashing your nada put you through. My estrangement from my relatives isn't only the result of my crazy mother, my dad had a big hand in it too. As I child, I didn't realize that everyone was supposed to have TWO sets of grandparents, I had just the one (my nada's). Then when I was about 9 years old, my dad just casually mentioned that he was taking me to his mom's house, who lived only a 1/2 hour from us! So while I developed a great relationship with this new grandma who came from the old country (Italy), I still didn't realize that I was supposed to have more relatives on my dad's side. Then when I was an adolescent, my dad casually mentioned that I had SIX older 1/2 brothers & sisters living nearby. Also around this time, he started taking me over to aunts, uncles, cousins homes. Oh & he also casually mentioned that my last name was going to change. He had changed his sometime before meeting my mom, something to do with the Italian-American organization he had been in & was now hiding out from. I got to meet my brothers & sisters when I was about 12. Most of them wouldn't speak to me, they wanted nothing to do with me. After all, I had their father, though what they didn't know was that he was no prize! I don't know if my dad was BPD or simply a sociopath. It's hard to say since he's been dead quite a long time. But I do know that my early life was pure, utter chaos. Angel Re:So Frustrated & Angry Hi Angel, My mother did the same thing with my relatives, at least some of them. I was told that they were horrible people and I would not want to meet them. Later, my mother thawed (and they were still willing to tolerate her) and I'm glad that I have had the opportunity to get to know them. However, her lies were terribly poisonous for a long time. She even told me that my grandmother had died of breast cancer (lie) because she couldn't afford treatment (in a country with socialized medicine) since she had given the money to my aunt to get a breast augmentation (my aunt is very flat). As one of my cousins pointed out, my mother was clearly not banking on me ever meeting this aunt. It has been very fortunate for me to get to know this side of the family. After spending time with the same aunt, I began to realize just how much lying my mother had done all of her life. I think it was at that time that I realized her behavior was not just a bit kooky, but a serious problem. I've noticed in our family that the cousins tend to bond quickly and easily, probably because we have observed two generations of dysfunction between our parents and our grandparents. I hope that your current frustration can be alleviated and that things start going better for you soon. is ____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools. search.yahoo. com/newsearch/ category. php?category= shopping ________________________________________________________________________________\ ____ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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