Starting my journey

[Guest guest]

Right now I am just beginning my journey and therapy to heal. My mother is

a BPD parent. Sorry this will be long.

Growing up it was all about mom. She often used emotional blackmail and

verbal abuse in order to control behaviors that went against her wishes.

She called me fat at 125 lbs, " what's wrong with you? " , allowed my brother

and herself to invade my privacy and destroy my things, and announced to the

world that her daughter is so horrible to her(exaggerating humiliating

stories).

In the past two years it has spiraled out of control. When my first

daughter was born I agreed to have my mother there. My birth became about

her and she even tried to guilt me because she missed work to be at the

birth. She immediately started abusing me verbally in front of my

daughter. Once she threatened suicide in front of my daughter when she was

1 1/2. She demands that she has " right " to my children. She wanted my

daughter(and now both daughters) unsupervised. Even in my home she will not

respect our wishes. She gives my daughter candy when I turn my back and

tells her that I am wrong or mean. With my niece she gets unsupervised it

is worse. She has left her alone with 2 mean dogs, puts her in an unsafe

car-seat, and smokes in a closed car with her. Needless to say she has

never been allowed to have my kids unsupervised.

When my 2nd daughter was born she made it clear she didn't want to be there

this time(and I didn't want her there). She did call me at the hospital to

tell me all the horrible ways I could die and how worried she was. I hung

up. She refused to see my new daughter for 3 days and when she did she gave

me a letter. 3 pages of abuse including how I treat her like ****, denied

her her " right " to be at my birth, denied her " rights " to my children, and

she will no longer see my children unless it's on her terms(we have to take

the children to her ect.) We had no contact for 4 months after this.

Last month she called and sounded calm on the message. I called her back

prepared to discuss boundaries calmly to try and restore a relationship

between grandma and grand kids. She immediately demanded to see the kids.

I said we need to discuss the boundaries. She started screaming that she

was a great mother and never did anything wrong. I tried to explain what

was hurtful in the letter. I eventually lost my temper and called her

abusive. She screamed that I ruined her life and I hung up(she was leading

into a suicide threat).

2 weeks ago my aunt/her sister called to ask what was going on. I explained

and she agreed that my mother needs to respect boundaries BUT I need to be

responsible for fixing the relationship(I made it very clear that she is

being unreasonable). That I will regret how badly I am treating her, I am

depriving my children, and offered to mediate a meeting(so they can gang up

and convince me I am bad).

Right now I have just started therapy. I am trying to decide weather or not

to end the relationship with my mother, if I decide to maintain a

relationship how to go about it, how to handle other family members who are

getting involved or to end relationships with them as well. I will not put

my kids in danger to make her happy and I can no longer handle the stress

and negative feelings alone.