Violated boundaries- yet again

[Guest guest]

My nada violated my NC boundary AGAIN!!

I went NC with my uBPDm a year ago - I finally stood up for myself when she said

a nasty thing to me and I told her it was not okay for her to say such hurtful

things, and she needed to apologize, which she has never before done in her

life. Instead she sent me a 4 page hate missive of every lunatic imagined slight

she's ever dreamed up.

She has since tried to off-handedly contact me a number of times- of course

never with an apology, just flippant impersonal messages as if there's nothing

wrong between us.

The last one that set me off a few days ago was an invitation I got from her to

connect on LinkedIn. (I have her emails routed directly to trash, but somehow

the LinkedIn contact got through)

I'm not sure if she specifically selected to connect to me or if she is just not

that tech-savvy and just didn't bother to remove me from the people LinkedIn

suggested she connect to. Probably the latter.

It hurts so much to have a mother like this, who has never said a loving thing,

who always says really awful and mean things. I literally do not have one nice

memory of my mother. There is not one time in my life that she praised me,

encouraged me, comforted me, or has ever even shown any interest whatsoever in

me. Literally, I am not kidding, there is not one time that I can remember her

being pleasant to be around. And it is not me, I have lots of memories with

friends that we can point back to and say " remember when we used to do this fun

thing " or " remember how crazy it was when blah happened " , and I have memories

like that of my dad when we could get away from Nada, but not one fun or

pleasant memory with Nada. She definitely suffered immensely (still does), and

so did everyone around her.

I'm not sure if it hurts more to think that Nada willfully ignored my

NC-until-apology boundary, or that she just doesn't care that her LinkedIn would

contact me, isn't concerned enough that I might be in her contacts that she

should make sure to at least consciously deselect me to respect our lack of

contact.

I know that this is typical of BPD, but it hurts SO MUCH with every reminder

that I don't matter to her at all. Every time she does this I'm back in the loop

of reliving my traumatic upbringing.

I defended my boundary by responding with an email reminding her that we are not

in contact, that if she wants contact she must either 1) apologize or 2) start

therapy to help her learn how to communicate, and I would be willing to talk to

the therapist. Otherwise if she or anyone on her behalf contacts me again by any

method I will take legal action. There are no exceptions, not illness, not

death, game over, these strategies are never going to work on me. I told her I

was not asking her to do one of those things so we could have contact, just that

one of those things would be the minimal acceptable terms if she wanted to

reinitiate contact. Key word: she would have to want to consciously engage with

me and work at it. Otherwise I would prosecute her or anyone else who contacted

me on her behalf. Obviously she's never going to admit she is in any way less

than perfect, she's not capable of it, but at least I feel good that I defended

me.

I am so sad that this is the state of my life. I wish I had a mother. My dishrag

Schizoid PD dad is no help. He is voiceless. She beat him into submission a long

time ago. When I got her hate missive I asked him if he had read it and he said

yes. I asked him if he thought it was okay that someone was saying such hateful

things to his daughter, didn't he want to protect me? His answer: no. Mom knows

better than I do on these things. She is more of a people person. I don't know

what I was expecting. This is coming from the guy who helped her beat my brother

with a belt whenever my brother lost bowel control in terror of her rages. He

was and still is better than anyone else at the eggshell walk.

I am an orphan and always have been. :/

I am struggling to be okay and to be a better mom for my 2yo daughter. I

validate her emotions and go out of my way to do things to make her feel special

every day. I send her an email once a week with pictures of things we did

together and how she's learning and growing and how proud I am of her, so that

when she's old enough she'll always be able to carry with her reminders of her

mother's love. I'm doing everything I can think of and getting lots of training

to try to break the cycle my grandnada intiated with her children, but it is

hard.

I am sad and I know I am ranting.

It never fails that one thoughtless contact from my Nada will send me into a

tailspin for days. It is infuriating. I am working at not letting it get to me,

but it is hard. I am better at it some days than others.

Thank you all for listening.

[Guest guest]

For once, this may not have been an intentional boundary

breaking. Social networks like LinkedIn often try to get new

users to let them send invitations to pretty much every contact

they their e-mail address book knows about. Sometimes it happens

without the user having a clue that it is going to happen.

People often don't pay attention to little checkboxes that are

checked by default. I'm not sure exactly how LinkedIn does it,

but she may not even have been shown a list to choose or not

choose. It may just have been a question about did she want to

invite her contacts or not. I've gotten plenty of invitations

from people I barely knew, who I'd maybe heard from once or

twice about something or other in the past. The various mailing

lists I subscribe to get invitations every so often as well. I'd

write this off as carelessness rather than intentional. Getting

upset over it hurts you, not her. It is best to pick your

battles and this one doesn't look worth fighting to me.

You might want to see if you can set up whatever you use for

e-mail to send messages with her full name in the message to the

trash rather than just looking for her address in the from:

header. The message from LinkedIn got through because it was

from LinkedIn, not from your nada. LinkedIn's automated messages

do normally contain the full name of the person involved though,

so you can look for that. Or, if you don't use LinkedIn

yourself, you can do what I do and treat all their invitations

like spam.

At 05:33 PM 08/29/2012 mdg2101 wrote:

>My nada violated my NC boundary AGAIN!!

>

>I went NC with my uBPDm a year ago - I finally stood up for

>myself when she said a nasty thing to me and I told her it was

>not okay for her to say such hurtful things, and she needed to

>apologize, which she has never before done in her life. Instead

>she sent me a 4 page hate missive of every lunatic imagined

>slight she's ever dreamed up.

>

>She has since tried to off-handedly contact me a number of

>times- of course never with an apology, just flippant

>impersonal messages as if there's nothing wrong between us.

>

>The last one that set me off a few days ago was an invitation I

>got from her to connect on LinkedIn. (I have her emails routed

>directly to trash, but somehow the LinkedIn contact got through)

>

>I'm not sure if she specifically selected to connect to me or

>if she is just not that tech-savvy and just didn't bother to

>remove me from the people LinkedIn suggested she connect

>to. Probably the latter.

>

>It hurts so much to have a mother like this, who has never said

>a loving thing, who always says really awful and mean things. I

>literally do not have one nice memory of my mother. There is

>not one time in my life that she praised me, encouraged me,

>comforted me, or has ever even shown any interest whatsoever in

>me. Literally, I am not kidding, there is not one time that I

>can remember her being pleasant to be around. And it is not me,

>I have lots of memories with friends that we can point back to

>and say " remember when we used to do this fun thing " or

> " remember how crazy it was when blah happened " , and I have

>memories like that of my dad when we could get away from Nada,

>but not one fun or pleasant memory with Nada. She definitely

>suffered immensely (still does), and so did everyone around her.

>

>I'm not sure if it hurts more to think that Nada willfully

>ignored my NC-until-apology boundary, or that she just doesn't

>care that her LinkedIn would contact me, isn't concerned enough

>that I might be in her contacts that she should make sure to at

>least consciously deselect me to respect our lack of contact.

>

>I know that this is typical of BPD, but it hurts SO MUCH with

>every reminder that I don't matter to her at all. Every time

>she does this I'm back in the loop of reliving my traumatic

>upbringing.

>

>I defended my boundary by responding with an email reminding

>her that we are not in contact, that if she wants contact she

>must either 1) apologize or 2) start therapy to help her learn

>how to communicate, and I would be willing to talk to the

>therapist. Otherwise if she or anyone on her behalf contacts me

>again by any method I will take legal action. There are no

>exceptions, not illness, not death, game over, these strategies

>are never going to work on me. I told her I was not asking her

>to do one of those things so we could have contact, just that

>one of those things would be the minimal acceptable terms if

>she wanted to reinitiate contact. Key word: she would have to

>want to consciously engage with me and work at it. Otherwise I

>would prosecute her or anyone else who contacted me on her

>behalf. Obviously she's never going to admit she is in any way

>less than perfect, she's not capable of it, but at least I feel

>good that I defended me.

>

>I am so sad that this is the state of my life. I wish I had a

>mother. My dishrag Schizoid PD dad is no help. He is voiceless.

>She beat him into submission a long time ago. When I got her

>hate missive I asked him if he had read it and he said yes. I

>asked him if he thought it was okay that someone was saying

>such hateful things to his daughter, didn't he want to protect

>me? His answer: no. Mom knows better than I do on these

>things. She is more of a people person. I don't know what I

>was expecting. This is coming from the guy who helped her beat

>my brother with a belt whenever my brother lost bowel control

>in terror of her rages. He was and still is better than anyone

>else at the eggshell walk.

>

>I am an orphan and always have been. :/

>

>I am struggling to be okay and to be a better mom for my 2yo

>daughter. I validate her emotions and go out of my way to do

>things to make her feel special every day. I send her an email

>once a week with pictures of things we did together and how

>she's learning and growing and how proud I am of her, so that

>when she's old enough she'll always be able to carry with her

>reminders of her mother's love. I'm doing everything I can

>think of and getting lots of training to try to break the cycle

>my grandnada intiated with her children, but it is hard.

>

>I am sad and I know I am ranting.

>

>It never fails that one thoughtless contact from my Nada will

>send me into a tailspin for days. It is infuriating. I am

>working at not letting it get to me, but it is hard. I am

>better at it some days than others.

>

>Thank you all for listening.

>-

--

Katrina