Re: Can't Sleep

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

Welcome to the Group.

I can " hear " how frustrated you are with your mother's behaviors; she sounds

very actively disruptive and clamoring for your attention right now, being

threatening and pathetic at the same time. Good Grief.

First of all, you are to be commended for protecting your children from your

mother. I agree with you that based on the incidents and behaviors you describe

(locking you in the house for *years*, dumping urine on her husband during a

fight with him, etc.) your mother is showing what I'd consider to be very

abusive, dangerous and even psychotic behaviors. No child should ever be

exposed to things like being sat on/immobilized and spat upon by her own mother;

that would be highly traumatizing.

It is hard to step away from the drama and take a detached, objective stance if

your mother is playing the wounded, suffering Waif card. At least, I myself

find that tactic difficult to deal with. My bpd/npd mom ( " nada " ) used to be

more of a Witch/Queen and I now find it easier to emotionally disconnect from

her when she evidences those behaviors. But the " Waif " still tends to elicit

sympathy from me.

I have to just keep reminding myself that it is a tactic, a manipulation, and I

can be firm and not " buy " or cave in to her manipulations no matter which one

she's using.

However, if your mother is seriously threatening you, such as making false

accusations against you, threatening to call child protective services against

you, stalking you with the intent of grabbing your kids, or doing damage to your

property or to your good reputation, etc., then its time in my opinion for you

to consult with a lawyer.

Serious threats need to be taken seriously. You need to protect yourself and

your family from someone who is that intent on hurting your reputation, taking

your kids, or even harming you physically.

RE therapy, have you tried finding a therapist who specializes in treating the

adult survivors of childhood abuse/incest? Or, a specialist in treating

post-traumatic stress disorder? Or a specialist in treating the adult survivors

of substance-abusing parents? The kinds of damage done by druggie/drunk parents

are similar to the kinds of damage done by personality-disordered parents.

Maybe if you can get someone who specializes in these things you'll have better

luck. My Sister was lucky enough to find a psychologist whose own mother had

borderline pd, so he was an ideal therapist for her.

This angel of a psychologist basically absolved my Sister of the misplaced and

inappropriate guilt she was feeling. He helped her overcome her co-dependency

with our nada. Sister had been brainwashed to believe that it was her job to

make our nada happy, and for all her efforts to please our mother all Sister got

was more abuse and more unreasonable demands. So, when my Sister was able to

overcome her feelings of responsibility (that were misplaced and inappropriate)

it allowed her to shift the burden of responsibility back onto the shoulders of

the person it rightfully belongs to: dear old nada.

There is a book called " Co-dependent No More " that is about shedding

inappropriate feelings of responsibility and guilt for other people's feelings,

and there are, I believe, " co-dependents anonymous " meetings for face-to-face

support. Maybe there is a CODA group in your area you can join.

Chronic sleep deprivation is a very seriously unhealthy thing; it saps you of

your mental and emotional and physical resilience. If any of the members here

have experienced chronic insomnia I'm sure they'll share things that have helped

them. All I can suggest is a thorough sleep study at a sleep clinic.

I hope that sharing your thoughts and feelings here and reading that others have

experienced really similar stressful, frustrating things with our mentally ill

parents that you are experiencing, will help.

-Annie

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> If anyone can validate, support, please do. I have been on a roller coaster

of NC and LC with my mother since my dad died eight years ago. I didn't realize

that he was a buffer to my BP mother's symptoms, but after his death, she became

more focused on me and my children. While he was alive, all her unhappiness was

because of him (she said). Now that he is dead, I have been the one who has

ruined her life because I do not allow her enough contact with my children.

When I limit contact, she turns and the witch personality emerges

instantaneously, she tells me off, using very mean hurtful comments, calls my

friends and extended family to bad mouth me, threatens to take me to court and

fight me " to the death " . This is how she responds to LC, which makes me go LC

even more, which makes her more agressive, which make me go LC more, she does

not see that she is creating the cycle for herself. Just to back up, this is a

woman who is so low functioning BPD that she is actually more on the psychotic

end of things although she has all the BPD signs and symptoms. She locked us in

the house for years at a time, her punishments would be to sit on me and spit in

my face, rub it in, spit in my face, etc. , dump urine over my father's head in

a fight. I could tell stories that would make your head spin. But throughout

all that, she could be kind and loving, creating the " trauma bond " that is

discussed in the book Boomerang Love. The problem is, cognitively, I know she

is not good for me. All of my friends and family are amazed I turned out so

well, and that the best thing I ever did was to get away from her and have NC.

Yet I toss and turn each night because I know she is miserable. She has been

miserable her whole life, I never saw a happy woman in her, but now I feel that

I am to blame (she tells me not seeing her grandchildren is now the misery of

her life). I have not been on the receiving end of so much punishment and blame

from her before, although I saw her do it to my dad, her siblings, parents, etc.

No one talks to her anymore and she is all alone by her own doing. I never

realized how hard it is to be on the receiving end, because somehow this woman

with no perception of reality is able to convince me that I am the bad person.

So now I can't sleep. When I am asleep, the cognitive part of my brain is not

so strong, and the emotional part that remembers the good part of her is on, and

I have the hope of fixing her or the relationship although everyone has tried

with her and she is 68, no one has been able to help her yet. Somehow, I think

that the emotions are real and the cognitions are just rationalizations. I

can't trust the emotions though, because they have always led me back to her and

more suffering. I have gone through the roller coaster my whole life, but I

cannot let my children experience even a portion of what I went through and she

will not stop attacking me if I go LC and if I am NC I can't sleep. Actually,

even if I am LC I can't sleep and come to think of it, even when I was in full

contact, I didn't sleep. I have been having nightmares about her since I was

four years old. I am starting to think that I have an Obsessive Compulsive

Disorder where I cannot stop experiencing guilt and have constant intrusive

thoughts and sleeplessness because I obsess about her and the guilt. (Very

codependent relationship, I used to think that I WAS her when I was a kid.) Has

anyone had a similar experience? Where do I go for help? I have seen therapists

and read EVERY borderline book. My husband thinks that I should just go NC and

deal with the guilt of that because correlationally speaking, I am at my best

when I go a longer periods of NC. The Boomerang Love book talks about saving

the " more valuable dog " which would be me, but how do I reconcile myself as a

good person, a loving mom and wife, a good friend, a compassionate person and go

NC to protect myself from harm from this woman. I wish there were an answer key

so I could look it up and know that I am doing the right thing. In the

meantime, how do I SLEEP??? And yes, I take gravol every night, just to get in

a few hours. My health is suffering, I have been off work with an immune

deficiency disease. I have had cognitive-behavioral therapy for two years, have

done Short Term Intensive Dynamic Psychotherapy, have seen doctors and

counsellors. I am thinking a Behavioral approach might be helpful and I can

behavior my way into being happy, that's what I did when I was a kid in school,

just pretended I was a happy kid, and I learned to make friends and get more and

more away from her and more and more happy. Any feedback welcome. I need

sleep.

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