personality-disordered behaviors: gifts with strings

[Guest guest]

I sympathize with you; my nada is like this. Accepting gifts from her meant

accepting that they had chains attached to them, not just strings. My nada

liked having Sister and me feel beholden to her, in debt to her, as it were. At

least that's what it felt like to me.

She also made selecting gifts to give to her fraught with anxiety and stress.

She would delicately and subtly turn her nose up at many of the nice gifts I

sweated over selecting for her, show little enthusiasm, and sometimes she'd even

openly criticize them in some way.

I'd carefully choose an item of clothing that I'd made a point of noticing that

she admired, but she might dismiss it as being the wrong color or not a good fit

and she'd let me know that it needed to be returned. I'd be told that flowers

I'd sent her arrived apparently wilted and shabby and needed to be replaced, and

that she really didn't like flowers that much. So then when I stopped sending

her flowers she complained about it and asked me why I never sent her flowers

anymore. (Very crazy-making.)

The jewelry I'd carefully select based on her tastes was apparently not to her

taste at all. The gift card I'd give her to her favorite department store or to

a spa/beauty shop she liked to frequent was declared " impersonal. " Some gifts

were returned to me, apparently she simply didn't like them at all and wanted me

to try again.

So, I no longer accept any gifts from nada and I only send her generic, briefly

solicitous hand-written greeting cards (think " medium chill " ) for the usual

holidays/birthday, with perhaps a modest gift card for her favorite department

store in them, even knowing that she considers them " impersonal. " But I'm doing

this for me, I still need that connection with her, and yet I no longer care if

she even uses the gifts or not or gives them away, or whatever.

Its just painful, any way you look at it: having a nada. Its like having a

wound in your psyche, and sometimes the wound heals but other times its like

having a fresh scab ripped off again.

-Annie

>

> I have recived several packages from my nada that i've been NC with for 5

> years.� She first started sending me 'anonymous' mail. They were poems about

> daughters loving their mothers. She would have someone else address them to me

> so i wouldn't recogonize her handwritting, also no return address. She also

> started sending my daughter gifts and she would put them on the front porch.

It

> would be expensive clothing for her. My husband and i would pull up and see a

> package on the door step and joke that the " gift fairy " had visited again. My

> therpist always said to be aware of gifts from her b/c they came with strings

> attached. My mom would always use her gifts as a way to get me to make up with

> her and have her back in my life. Then, she would use those gifts as

> leverage---when she would rage at me she would say things like " how dare you

> treat me this way and not speak to me you ungrateful bitch and here i've

bought

> all that nice stuff for your child. " The last thing she did was after about 2

> years of NC out of nowhere, she gathered up all of my stuff from childhood and

> high school and dumped it on my front porch. I always ignore these kinds of

> " bait " tactics by her. My T told me that the gift giving/packages/odd mail was

> very common for BPD's...

>

>

[Guest guest]

I just posted about this the other day: " weird packages. "

The strings thing seems to be common...I don't think I'll ever live down nada

helping me during my undergraduate degree. Nevermind that I'm paying off 99% of

the loans I took out. Funny that dad's never said a thing about it.

My partner has also encouraged me to discontinue gifts from nada. Sometimes I

don't know how to do it, but I'd rather rip up a check or not take something

from her (which makes her cry) than hear about it forever.

Good luck to you.

> >

> > I have recived several packages from my nada that i've been NC with for 5

> > years.� She first started sending me 'anonymous' mail. They were poems

about

> > daughters loving their mothers. She would have someone else address them to

me

> > so i wouldn't recogonize her handwritting, also no return address. She also

> > started sending my daughter gifts and she would put them on the front porch.

It

> > would be expensive clothing for her. My husband and i would pull up and see

a

> > package on the door step and joke that the " gift fairy " had visited again.

My

> > therpist always said to be aware of gifts from her b/c they came with

strings

> > attached. My mom would always use her gifts as a way to get me to make up

with

> > her and have her back in my life. Then, she would use those gifts as

> > leverage---when she would rage at me she would say things like " how dare

you

> > treat me this way and not speak to me you ungrateful bitch and here i've

bought

> > all that nice stuff for your child. " The last thing she did was after about

2

> > years of NC out of nowhere, she gathered up all of my stuff from childhood

and

> > high school and dumped it on my front porch. I always ignore these kinds of

> > " bait " tactics by her. My T told me that the gift giving/packages/odd mail

was

> > very common for BPD's...

> >

> >

[Guest guest]

" Its just painful, any way you look at it: having a nada. Its like having a

wound in your psyche, and sometimes the wound heals but other times its like

having a fresh scab ripped off again. "

Annie, how perfect you describe how we feel.

Amy