new here- holiday/general advice

[Guest guest]

I'm a 28 year old daughter of a mother with BPD. I was in therapy

trying to deal with the general stress in my life caused mostly by my

mother, and my therapist handed me the book Dealing with your

Borderline Mother and all of the pieces fell into place.

As a kid I was the all good child, until my parents got divorced when

I was about 15. By the time I left for college she basically abandoned

me (I went to school out of state) until the birth of my children. Now

i'm the all bad one for attempting to set limits.

She has really, really latched on to my kids, and made them the center

of her universe, and wants to use them to fill her emotional void. She

also has a big problem with spending and 'things'. I have tried and

tried to set limits with this, but she will still send things in the

mail (I donate to goodwill) or sneak things into the kids suitcases if

we are visiting, or give them to the kids when I'm not there so that I

will have to be the bad guy.

We had to stay with her during hurricane Ike for about two weeks, and

things really came to a head. I explained to her that this was not a

vacation, and that our family rules for the children would have to be

enforced during our stay. No gifts, no junk food, no special meals

(our son was a preemie and has feeding issues, it is very important to

stay consistent with him). She went ballistic about how I wouldn't

just 'let her love them'.

Then she started refusing to cook as an excuse to give them junk food,

so I started cooking meals. She then sabotaged those (would wait till

I was done cooking and tell how her husband couldn't eat that food, or

i didn't make enough, because she had invited people to dinner without

telling me, ect).

After this horrible visit, I tried to cut off contact for awhile. I

stopped sending her pictures of the kids, stopped returning phone

calls or letting her speak to the children (all of the conversation

were about what toys they wanted), would not reply to emails. I sent

her a very direct email explaining that i needed her to respect my

boundaries and that she was damaging our relationship by this

behavior. I got three days of silence followed by more phone call

stalking.

I started getting several emails a day evoking my dead grandmother as

proof that 'someday i would understand a mother's love', and 6+ phone

calls a day. If I would not answer my phone she would call my

husbands. On Thanksgiving day, she called my inlaws home repeatedly

trying to reach me there. It was horribly embarrassing. I don't want

to put them in the middle.

I told her that we would not be coming for Christmas, and got a string

of nasty emails about how much she has 'done for me', even though i

have asked her repeatedly NOT to 'do for me' and the kids. Then she

told me (didn't ask) how she was coming to my house to bring the kids

presents the next week, and that they could just come to my home for

the holiday and i could cook for everyone. i told her this was not a

possibility. More hysterics.

i feel emotionally exhausted and trapped. i am struggling to explain

to my five and three year olds why we can't go to see their Mimi. I

dread the holidays because she always ups her game this time of year

and makes it a big ball of stress for me.

I'm looking forward to having people who understand what this is like.