Re: I'm sure this will all sound familiar....

[Guest guest]

I think that hoping you can lay out the pieces and have your dad

suddenly come to his sense is unrealistic. He's been married to

her how many years? He has to know that there is something wrong

with her behavior. If he hasn't admitted it by now and done

something about it, it is because he doesn't want to do so. Men

who stay with women who have BPD for decades do it for a reason

and that reason is not that they're unaware of a problem. If

she's controlling him and painting you black, there's little

chance that he's going to listen to you where this is concerned.

If he came to you and said he thought she was mentally ill but

didn't know what to do about it, you'd have an opening to

discuss it, but it doesn't sound like that's likely to happen. I

think that just bringing up the subject out of the blue is

likely to make things worse rather than better. If he says

something to you to indicate that he thinks something is wrong

and doesn't know what to do, you might point him at some books

about BPD, but otherwise I think staying quiet about it is best.

I think you pretty much have to accept that he's in a situation

where he has to choose between her and you and he's chosen her.

As for letting your children see her, what you should worry

about is safeguarding them, not whether you'd be punishing her

by keeping them away. If you're going to continue to let her see

them while going NC yourself, someone else trustworthy needs to

be supervising their visits. If she's typical, she's eventually

going to start saying and doing things that are damaging to them

if she hasn't already. Sometimes the things they do are subtle,

sometimes they're blatently obvious. They love to set people

against each other. Since you're the bad one, she might start by

making little comments belittling you to them or by making it

clear that she's giving them treats that you haven't given them.

She might make one the bad child. My nada decided that my nephew

didn't like her when he was 5. This was after she yelled at him

in front of his parents for something that didn't bother them.

Luckily my brother lives on the opposite side of the country and

it doesn't really matter what she thinks of my nephew. (I have

noticed that he hasn't sent her plane tickets to come visit them

again, so maybe he's finally wising up a bit about her.)

At 05:12 PM 07/27/2012 thenogoodchild wrote:

>I'm sure this will all sound familiar, and I'll spare you all a

>lot of the details, because frankly, after reading so many

>stories here that I could've written myself, and after reading

>UTBM and SWOE, I am absolutely certain I have a queen/witch

>nada. I also have a dad that I love with all my heart, but he

>supports her without fail and without regard to logic. She

>poisons him and he gulps it down like an obedient child. What

>I'm not sure of is if he's doing it because he believes her

>rhetoric regarding the lousy human I am or if he just tries to

>keep peace in his own world. He's been ignoring me for weeks

>now even though there was no trigger between he and I. And

>it's killing me. Although this time, he has not made any

>demand of me, ala " do X, Y, or Z....But make this right with

>your mother or else.... " Yet, anyway... I am the oldest of

>three children and looking back have always born the brunt of

>her BP. My younger sister is the golden child. She is 25 and

>has been completely dependent on my parents her entire life and

>seems content to stay that way. She has recently recruited her

>good friends (who worship my nada) into the me-bashing. In

>turn, they have begun to fabricate lies to tell me nada. " She

>did this and that?...Can you believe that?! " to them, it's just

>entertainment. They don't realize that my mother is sick. But

>these lies have resulted in this latest round of BS and

>culminated in her screaming at me about the alleged behavior in

>front of my children and a house full of holiday guests.

>Perhaps that was the straw....but this situation just takes the

>cake. Currently, I am the worst humna being I have ever been

>according to her. But anyway....I know she's crazy and I can't

>change her. She's been through half a dozen therapists and

>claims no one will give her a diagnosis. I suspect either they

>really haven't because professionally they don't believe in

>revealing BPD to their patients, or they have revealed it and

>she left them citing crackpottedness. Either way, it doesnt

>matter. I've accepted who she is. I've dealt with the flying

>monkeys she sends to tell me what I'm doing wrong and how can I

>do this to my own mother. I've been NC with her before, and I'm

>considering making NC permanent. Im currently NC with my sister

>as well. But there's the matter of my daddy. I miss him so

>much. He and I are so much alike. I really feel like I could

>explain mom's illness to him and lay the pieces of the puzzle

>out there for him and have him make sense of it. I just don't

>know how to have that conversation with him and I can't find a

>book with any specific advice and how to clue him in. And

>there's my kids. They ADORE her. And she's good to them. I

>told myself I wouldn't keep them from her because I wasn't

>interested in punishing her. As much as her behavior hurts me,

>I know she can't help it and I forgave her a long time ago. But

>I've got to find a way to exist myself. Because I refuse to

>just be her punching bag any longer. I have a wonderful husband

>and a handful of friends that " get it " . For them I am grate

--

Katrina