Re: Calm Before the Storm, maybe my little mantra will help

[Guest guest]

Hi Lorliz,

Here's a kind of mantra or manifesto I wrote that helps me keep

my priorities straight. Maybe it (or something like it: you can

customize it if you want to) can help you:

********

I believe that healing and personal growth are possible for me when at

last I am able to understand and *accept* that:

My mother is actually rather severely mentally ill.

It is not my fault that she is mentally ill.

I can't expect her to admit that she is mentally ill and seek help.

Even if she does go into therapy it may be pointless.

The abuse my mother inflicts on me is endangering my own mental

health, my right to live my own life, my peace of mind, my financial

security and perhaps even my physical safety.

I need to establish firm boundaries (rules, physical distance, limits,

conditions) with my mentally ill mother in order to protect myself

from further emotional or physical abuse.

I totally do not deserve to be mistreated, used or abused. I am not a

bad person for protecting myself and my family from a mentally ill,

abusive person, even though this dangerous person happens to be my own

mother. Its *my job* and my top priority to protect my children and my

spouse from abuse by my mother.

If I find myself too weak, too scared, too beaten down, too confused,

too filled with misplaced guilt and/or too dependent to take charge of

my own life, set these boundaries and enforce them, then I need to

seek help in therapy as soon as possible to gain the insight and tools

I need to help me stand up for myself like the adult that I am.

**********

Life is too short to live it as a virtual slave, a child, a robot, or

a cringing little pet dog, or as any kind of victim.

Overcoming misplaced guilt is probably our first obstacle: we have

been trained and conditioned over decades to feel responsible for

making our mentally ill parent happy, fulfilling their needs before

our own, catering to their moods, totally putting them first,

basically giving up our life for their pleasure, and that's just wrong!

Guilt is a useful emotion, and we should feel guilty when we are doing

something wrong. It is not wrong to have your own life: that is

everyone's birthright.

I personally believe that my filial obligations will be met if I

contribute financially to seeing that my mother has food, shelter, and

medical attention as needed, but it is an entirely different matter to

do those things personally.

Our mother had been treating my Sister as a virtual slave for the last

10 years, and yet had nothing but criticism and complaints about

Sister, who gave nada pretty much all her free time and did numberless

thankless chores and tasks for her. When nada hurled an amazingly

hurtful insult at Sister back in July it was the last, final straw,

and Sister (and I) have been " no contact " with nada for about 4 months

now, until such time as nada owns up to her bad behavior and

apologizes.

There is no way in hell I am volunteering to take up the slack. Nada

sucked away my individuality up until I was in my 30's; when I finally

" escaped " I learned to love my total freedom and independence and

gradually realized that its OK to be me! So I'm not going back to be

re-absorbed by nada. Nada has proven amazingly able to get friends,

neighbors and relatives and even taxis to take her places and do

things for her in Sister's absence, so, she is not such a helpless

waif as she makes out to be.

I hope that soon you can develop some kind of strategy for dealing

with your bpd mom that will free you from misplaced guilt and let you

live your own life in freedom and joy.

-Annie

>

> I have this horrible knot in my stomach, a very familiar feeling and

I am trying so hard not to project.��When I have felt this before 99%

of the time I was right in my feeling.� Since I had a " bug " yesterday

and got out of seeing my mother for Thanksgiving she spent the day

alone.� We had been invited to my cousin's but we didn't go.� She is

upset with her nephew about things he had said to her on the phone 2

weeks ago and feels everything he said was because his parents (both

deceased) had brainwashed him and are evil.� I also haven't seen�her

in almost 3 weeks. �I am the only person who takes her food shopping

or to her appointments and I have guilt about not seeing her.���I was

supposed to see her the Monday before this last one to take her to the

dentist and errands.� After my cousin's call to her she said such

horrible things to me and about me that I decided for the first time

in my life, there was no way I was taking her to the

> dentist or spending the whole day with her. the next day.�Instead

of my usual lame excuse of feigning some illness or headache I was

just honest and said I really needed to detach from her for a bit.�

That of course, didn't go over so big and her phone calls escalated so

badly she was making me sick again.� I did not phone her back (like I

usually would) and she called the next day in one of her crisis modes

(first on the house phone, then my cell).� I had been outside and

missed the calls.� She was in a panick asking if I hasd lost power as

all her lights went out.� I calmly told her that it might have been

caused by a car accident and did she phone the woman she knows

downstairs in her apt. building.� She made some lame excuse to get

off.� Few minutes later she calls back and her lights are on. She then

asks were you going to call me today?� I explained that she said alot

of things that didn't sit too well with me and no, I wasn't.� She

> acted as if nothing was wrong (which is basically the way my FOO

always acts after any crisis) and said she was too tired to talk.� I

got sick last Sunday so I didn't see her this week as I had been out

of work too. So yesterday I call to say Happy Thanksgiving and all she

was concerned with was if I heard from anybody? (meaning any of my

cousins).� I'm damned if I say I did and I'm damned if I say I

didn't.� I said my cousin who invited me phoned back in the morning

after she had gotten my 2 messages about not coming.� So this morning

she calls to ask me the same question again.� I said i didn't hear

from anyone.� So she starts in with I hope you learned a lesson from

this and I cut her off as I was getting ready for work.� I phoned this

evening and she asks the same question and I finally said " Mom, why

are you just sitting there making yourself miserable about noone

phoning you?� " � She said " I have had it and I can't talk anymore " .� This

> scares me as somehow after reading all about BPD these past months

I finally realized that everytime my nada is upset with someone else,

somehow everything I have ever said or done since I was a child gets

thrown up to me.� I have been down this road so many times and it has

worn me out.� I just don't know how to deal with any of it anymore.�

The sick part is there is a part of me that feels so badly for her-i

visualize her just sitting there, stewing, thinking of every rotten

thing that everyone has done to her and it saddens me.� My role has

always been to get her out of the house, entertain her, take her

abuse, and hope her mood changes.� Reading all I have these past 6

months, and especially on this list, has me so emotionally sick.� My

life has been spent trying to understand what I did to make her hate

me so or cause her rages and now I'm realizing it hasn't been me.� I

have alot of anger at her, relatives and even my father.� Anytime I

> ever visited he would say " get her out of the house " .� He couldn't

take another minute with her and I felt so bad for him and his life

that I got her out. One time after she was really on a roll, I yelled

at him and said " I don't want to take her out for lunch, how could I

even eat now and you're her husband, you deal with her " .� I felt

tremendous guilt after that as well since my father was legally blind,

due to a suicide attempt in 1969 where he shot himself in the head in

front of the precinct he worked at as a detective and was literally a

caged animal for the next 20 years of his life.� Just thinking about

everything makes me so sick.� When she's the " nice " nada, I fall right

into thinking I have a mother and we can hang out, have a nice time.�

Lately, that seems to be getting harder & harder.� I had a therapist,

but, she left about a month or so ago.� I will get another one

assigned but right now I'm angry at the whole mental health system

> as well. Since my mother moved closer to me about 7 years ago she

is also part of that system.� When she needs something her therapist

will say " why can't your daughter do it? " � I, of course, go into a

rage silently wanting to call her therapist and the nurse practioner

who prescribes medication that they are jeopardizing my mental health

everytime they make those statements.� I have done what I can and when

i can't it's because i know it will kill me.� I am slowly being killed

by all of it and now am in the " i don't care anymore " ��mode.� It's

probably because I still have this bug and i'm worn down and out, and

i just want to avoid EVERYTHING. And yes, I do know for a fact that

the therapists have said what she said they said.� This is not the

first time this has happened and I just get so tired of trying to

explain anything to anyone.� Noone ever listened or cared.� When I

explained to my therapist all I learned about bpd and what I

> suspected with my Mom she blew it off.� When I explained to the

nurse practioner (who also sees my mother) she said your mother

doesn't have bpd.� The next time I saw her I told her a few things

that I think shocked her and she just didn't know what to say.� Both

the therapist and the nurse practioner left the mental health facility

in the last month so I will be assigned to 2 new ones.� The funny

thing is when i first got my therapist she was reading over the nurse

practioner's notes and said I was too dependent on my mother.� I think

she had the cream in the coffee or whatever that expression is (i

remember it from the billie holiday story- " lady sings the blues " .� I

can't do anything without my mother butting in, telling me what I

like, dislike, should do, not do-when she speaks about anything

concerning herself she always says " we " -like " we " don't like that

restaurant or " we " aren't like that-she speaks for me-i'm sorry I am

blabbering and this

> post is all jumbled like my thoughts.� Just want to say thankis for

this website as I have learned so much.

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