panick attacks over thought of seeing Nada after my brother's accident

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone, it's been a long time since I posted. I have been doing

great! It's been a year and a half since I spoke to Nada and like

others in here it's really making a huge difference in my life. I'm

starting to feel more confident and strong and my socail anziety is

almost a thing of the past. My health is improving and relationships

with my husband and friends are all benefiting from my Nada's absence in

my life. I too am starting to find the joy in living and feeling less

guilty for enjoying myself with out Nada. I would say that looking back

a year ago to today I am 1000% better. BUT just a few months ago I had

a huge set back. That is why I am writting today, I am just now able to

really talk about it because it was so upsetting and really shook me to

the core that I was so affected by the thought of having to see my Nada

again. I got a call...from my Nada on my husbad's cell phone because

that is the only way she still has to call me. She still e-mails but I

only read them when I feel like it, or when I have braced myself, like

someone else put it. She never calls my husband's cell even though we

made it clear that is how she can contact me, because she knows my

husband won't put up with her bull so she is afraid to talk to him.

Anyway, she calls one day and just tells my husband that my brother was

in a car accident and wasn't going to make it and hung up. This brother

is not her son, in fact she has really nothing to do with him so I

wasn't quite sure how she even knew about the car accident. I called my

father's family to find out what was going on. In fact my brother was

in a terrible car accident and broke his back in several places and is

now paralyzed from the waist down.

At the time my Father (step Dad) thought my brother was in bad shape and

may not make it either as he had been told that the back of his head was

crushed in. It turned out not to be the case, my brother lived and his

head was not as bad as they first thought, it was just very swollen.

But at the time all I could think is that I had to get there to see him

before he died. I am very close to this brother, closer than any of my

siblings and I could not imagine not being with him at this time of his

life. I live in California now to be far away from Nada, she lives in

Texas. Unfortunately all my other relatives live in Texas too so I

don't see any of them anymore, just so I can stay away from her. I

feel sad that I can't be close to the rest of them just because of

her. I have a life now in California and don't want to move back to

Texas but it makes me sad that I feel too guilty to even go back for

visits because I worry she will be hurt that I went there to see them

and not her. I don't think any of them really understand what BPD

is and end up calling and telling her when I will be there or that I was

there. Well, I thought I was doing so great until that day. My husband

and kids and I all jumped in the car and heading for Texas to go see my

brother in the hospital. Another brother was talking to me on the cell

phone while we were driving and said " I know this probably

isn't the right time to bring this up but you really need to call

Mom (Nada) and tell her your coming and when you will be here and where

you are staying. " Again, she has no ties with the brother who was

in the hospital. I felt like I should be able to go see him and she had

nothing to do with it. She wouldn't be going out to the hospital to

see him on her own. If she knew I was at the hospital she would go

there to see me. It wasn't about her and me, it was about him. The

brother who was telling me to call her has admitted that he only cares

if I make up with her so that she will get off his back. He says that

since I left she started treating him bad like she always treated me and

he wants me to come back in her life so she will leave him alone. Nice

brother huh? Throw me under the bus to save him self. Well, I

didn't say anything to him on the phone about it, just listened and

then talked to my husband about it after I hung up. We were only a

couple of hours into the trip when my brother told me to call my Mom.

As I tried to picture seeing my Nada .….anywhere….at the

hospital, at the hotel, at her house, at my Dad's

house….anywhere…..I was terrified! TERRIFIED! I mean like I

wanted to die TERRIFIED! I started having chest pains and hyper

ventilating and bawling crying to my husband. The more my husband said

" don't worry about her " , " who cares if she shows up,

just ignore her " , " don't let her get to you " …..the more

I panicked. I guess it would have been better if he said, " NO way I

am not going to let her see you " , " I will put armed guards at

the hospital door to keep her out " , " I will tell the rest of

your family to back off and stay out of it " , " I will have

security guards all around you every where you go so she can't even

get a peek at you " . Maybe then I would have felt better. But

everything he was saying was telling me that YES I might have to see her

and deal with her…..and I didn't think I could do it. He

finally said this is stupid and stopped the car. We pulled over and

talking about it and he said lets turn around and go back to California.

Because I was having a panic attack I agreed that it would be best to

not go and we turned around and headed away from Texas. A few miles

down the road I could feel that I had calmed down thinking that I

didn't have to see Nada after all. As I calmed down even more I

thought, OK I can do this, and I have to go see my dieing brother, I

HAVE TO, he's dieing and I will never get this opportunity again.

What was I thinking letting my Nada keep me for my beloved brother on

his death bed, " TURN THE CAR AROUND, we are going to TEXAS " .

OK, as soon as the car pointed in the opposite direction, towards NADA,

it started all over again, chest pains, thinking I was having a real

heart attack, the hyper ventilating, bawling. What the heck is the

matter with me…..my Brother needs me and I am letting her affect me

like this? OK, I'll spare you any more, we drove back and forth a

few times with the same result, it was pretty stupid. My husband

finally said enough and we headed back to California. I didn't even

try to talk him into turning again because I knew what the result would

be. The panic attacks would go away shortly after the threat was

removed. I was exhausted! I couldn't believe that I reacted this

way. I had improved so much over the last year and this was so

unexpected. Will I never be able to go back to Texas if she is there?

I have the same fear thinking about her showing up at my house in

California too. What happens when my Grand parents die, am I not going

to be able to attend their funeral for the same reason? So many things

could happen to any of my family members, are they going to think I

don't love them if I don't come out for important events, such

as my brother's car accident? I have talked the brother who had the

accident many times since then and he plans on coming to stay with us

for a while after he gets a little more independent. As far as he goes,

he loves me and I love him and we both know it and it all turned out OK.

But if he had died…..would I have ever forgiven myself for not being

with him? You know I got really angry with my Nada after that,

realizing that she had done this to me. How horrible a Mother must be

for her daughter to react this way over the thought of being face to

face with her? That is so NOT NORMAL! What was I afraid of? I knew

she wouldn't hit me, or kill me, or run over me with her car or

anything like that. Just the thought of her looking at me and not

saying a word was terrifying. The look in her eye, I could picture it,

staring at me and saying so much hate and evil with just a look. I

guess I am terrified that now that she actually has a reason to hate me

BECAUSE I LEFT HER, that her hate will be even more intense than it was

when I had done nothing wrong. I know leaving her was not something

mean I did to her, I did that for my own survival. And you could say

she did that to herself for treating her daughter the way she did. But

you and I know that is not the way they think! Now she actually has

something to hold over my head that I DID TO HER. I tried my whole life

to please her at the expense of myself, this is the first time that I

stopped trying to please her to save myself. Now I am terrified of the

repercussions of my actions. Finally standing up to the wicked witch,

just waiting for her wrath to come.

The saddest thing for me to realize is that I feel like I have to give

up my relationship with everyone in my family to truly be free of her.

I hate to sound so insensitive, but if only she would DIE, I could have

a whole life here on earth. I hate to admit that I sometimes wish she

would die, but I do. That is one of the reasons I decided to go No

Contact. I couldn't just keep holding my breath waiting for her to

die. I decided to pretend like she was dead, so I could move on with my

life, instead of wishing bad things on her. I wish her well, but leave

me alone. Problem is she's not really dead and how do I bury

someone that keeps showing up at other family events? Please no one

take this wrong, I would never kill her or anyone!!!!!!!!!!! I just

want her out of my life completely and forever, not really dead, just

dead to me.

This makes me think of something else I keep holding onto out of fear

that I don't want to. I still have dishes that she gave me and

other gifts from her all over my house, in fact since I left her she

sends me even more gifts and for occasions that she never did before.

They are all manipulations to get me to contact her, but I don't.

Anyway, I don't want these reminders in my house. I want to forget

about her and every time I turn the corner there is something that she

gave me sitting there. What I want to do it clear out everything that

was hers or came from her so that there is no reminders…..do you

want to know why I haven't? Because I fear the day she shows up on

my door step and comes in and wants to know where this is or that is.

Why am I so afraid of that? I'm afraid to throw things out for fear

she will find out I got rid of them and it will hurt her feelings. My

husband says if she ever gets healthy enough to come for a visit she

should be able to understand why I didn't want to keep those things

around……..ha ha ha! I was breaking the dishes she gave me one at a

time when I had a bad day to help me feel free. It was working but as

the dishes started running low and I started to worry that if she ever

came over un-invited she would notice that some were missing and I

stopped breaking them. Now when I open up to top cabinets I still see

them sitting there and it's like a thorn in my side that I want to

remove but I don't.

Ok, I have gone on and on. You know I felt like I was getting so strong

and doing so much better and then I had the huge set back with my

brother's accident. Then now as the holidays get closer I am

starting once again to feel anxiety. Tell me this is like the Texas two

step dance where you have to move two steps forward and one step back

but that you do keep moving forward all the time and never go back all

the way.

Thanks for listening! Lotus flower