New to group...

[Guest guest]

Hello,

This is my first time posting in this forum so it's nice to meet you all and so

great to have this place to turn to right now. I have a sibling who is

undiagnosed BPD, who has caused me much grief and the Siblings group has really

helped me through this. I've learned to set boundaries and have made significant

progress in that area. But what brings me here today is my mother.

Quick background info... My mother's been an alcoholic since I was 5 years old

(25 years ago). She has done some crazy things over the years for which I've

gotten a lot of therapy. I suspect she is BPD but is definitely diagnosed

bipolar and has NPD traits as well. And some may say she's a straight out

sociopath. My mother doesn't rage but does demand a lot of attention and does

launch smear campaigns against people. I haven't been her target for years, but

suffered from growing up in a household with all of her chaos.

Almost 10 years ago she divorced my father. Hate would be an understatement to

describe how they felt about eachother. They tried to triangulate through us,

their daughters, and it's impossible to speak to one parent without them going

into a rant about what an a*s the other parent is. It's all they can talk about.

They send eachother nasty messages through mail. I even suspect one has burned

down the other one's house but that's a different story.

Needless to say, my mother's a handful. But the reason I come here now is

because I have a difficult situation I'm not sure how to handle. Last week my

father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. It has ravaged two of his organs and

his prognosis is 4-12 months. Very sad... he's very young. That's enough on my

plate, but now I have to deal with my mother. When she found out she raged at me

for half an hour, saying mean and nasty things like I should have sent him to a

doctor (!) She calmed down overnight and the next day she was sweet as pie. The

next day she attempted to contact my father who promptly told her to go to hell

and not come near him. She called me and tried to rage about that. She said

things like she doesn't care that he's dying, him telling her to go to hell

confirms what an a*s he has always been and will always be. Fine... But she's

not letting it go. She messages me constantly asking for his health updates. I

don't want to give her this information so I suggest to her that she get the

information elsewhere. She continues to ask.

My mother's a loose canon. She's now telling me that her " friend " is urging her

to contact my father despite his warning. I know she wants to contact him, I

don't believe it's her friend who's urging her. She's looking for an excuse to

start something and she can never take responsibility for her actions so she

looks for scapegoats. She's also insisting that when I visit my father, that I

stay with her which is NOT going to happen. She's making this all about her. I

fear what a circus she will make his funeral. I don't know how to handle this.

She's insisting that she wants to 'support me emotionally' and is hinting that

she feels she should be present in the room when I visit my father, you know, to

*support me*. Again, NOT optional. She's just crazy and I don't know what to do.

She keeps messaging me and when I don't answer right away she asks why I'm mad

at her. I'm not mad.. Ugh, she's draining me right now.

My parents live in the same city and I live far away. I'm going to visit my

father and I don't know how to tell my mother gently that this trip has nothing

to do with her and that I don't want to see her while I'm there. I can't handle

it. I'm afraid that with her constant need for drama, that she'll use me as an

excuse to rage and to draw attention to herself. For example, focusing all of

her hate and anger on me for not staying with her while I'm in town. Using my

visit as an excuse to call my dad's house or to 'drop by'. The dramatic

scenarios are too numerous. I can't even handle her telling me to " tell your dad

that... " Even though I would never triangulate like this, I feel like I can't

even handle LISTENING to her. I need a plan for this visit but with all of the

grief I'm feeling I can't seem to think straight.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.. and thank you for listening!