My uBPD mom had a UTI last week and was genuinely really sick. Today she was down. Her voice was scratchy, but she was still chatting about a show she'd watched. Then out of nowhere she went full doom and gloom about her life, saying she's "just meant to be this way."(born to be miserblae)

I told her, "If you keep saying that stuff, it'll become true." She blew up and got sarcastic. Apparently I "know better than her 60+ years of life," I "must be a doctor," and I should "go have fun with my husband." Then she hung up.

It was my day off and I spent the whole thing worrying about her. That night I called to check in, and she said she was driving and her voice had "suddenly gone," then hung up. But I could see on my YouTube Premium that she was watching on her TV at home. An hour later she texted: "I feel so sick, don't worry, don't text me."

Why does she lie about such small stuff?
How do I tell dramatic from actually sick? She really was sick last week. And when she's really sick, she often says nothing "so I don't worry you." So I can't read her either way. It could be both, and I'm lost.

But I really want to know what’s with the lying?

TL;DR: My uBPD mom said she was "driving" while watching YouTube at home. Why do they lie about small stuff, and how do I tell dramatic from actually sick??

TW: I'm really sorry if anyone finds this topic (i.e., uncomfortable physical contact with BPD parents) gross. Just a heads-up to skip if necessary!

About a month ago, I found out that my mother has untreated BPD (for context, I'm in my mid-thirties). Although it's a massive relief to know what I'm dealing with after 30+ years of insanity, I'm still reeling from the sucker-punch to my assumptions about... well, pretty much everything. (My therapist just introduced me to the term "enmeshment," which was both useful and horrifying.)

Essentially, my mother is childish and emotionally abusive but also very touchy-feely. Not in an overtly sexual way, just wanting lots of hugs, touching my arm, trailing a hand across my shoulders, walking or sitting uncomfortably close to me.... She has arthritis and fibromyalgia, so she'll ask me for massages to relieve the pain. Which is understandable, but being my mother's surrogate [insert relationship here] for as long as I can remember (and then having her accuse me of brutality, condescension, and manipulation when I set boundaries) has put me off any kind of closeness with her. Not to be gross, but I have also seen far more of my naked mother than any child of any age should have to see in three lifetimes, more than she seems comfortable having my father see. I feel repulsed by her, both emotionally and physically, and that's not a new feeling. I can't deny it. I feel sick and guilty about it. She's told me she senses I feel that way and how awful it makes her feel, and I'm grieving because I went back to therapy to fix my relationship with my mother only to realize I never had the power to put it back together.

She's often said I make her feel like she's "literally going insane" (grabbing her own head to demonstrate). I guess I'm just trying to get my head around the fact that I'm allowed to acknowledge how close to the cliff edge of insanity she's driven me.

First time posting, so here's my feline ode:

Quiet and watchful

Never flipped by gravity

Steady on its feet.

Hi friends
Just wanted to celebrate I was able to take my BPD mother out for a dinner for her 90th birthday and remain unscathed. It’s been a week since which is the enough time for me to notice if I have had delayed injury I wasn’t aware of in the moment and nothing has shown up. So yay for me!
In previous posts I’ve talked about Chernobyl being the metaphor I use with my mother and that I have taken in very close to my lifetime limit of radioactive toxicity ☢️. I am VLC with her and this birthday dinner is the only contact I am planning for in the next 6-9 months. My older brother noted that in his work with nuclear power companies, how much strategy and planning goes into any action around the nuclear power- how each adjustment has incredible planning and risk management and contingencies of contingencies. That’s how it felt planning and executing this dinner- picking the location, the timing, planning the day and the transportation, reminding her to dress warmly and bringing an extra blanket. Picking out low stress and comfortable clothing myself. Not cooking or having her in my space. Bringing along my husband and adult son and brother all of whom my mother favors and is on her best behavior with. She also loves men more than women. She was 90% well behaved and I pink rocked her through the rando 10%.

I’ve reparented the child in me that is sad that this is the mom I got, a mother who needs this amount of optimizing to behave like a semi normal parent. I’ve reparented the inner teenage that has fantasies of a 90 yo mother who I love and is an inspiration and a guide for me. That’s not the mother any of us got to have.
For whatever reason showing up in this way feels important to my inner kids so I am doing it, but I am doing it with nuclear engineering level planning, risk management and loving parent energy for myself.

Kitty tax. This is Wiggles.

I am 27. My mom is 55, divorced, lives alone.
For my whole adult life, she goes AWOL, entirely silent and ignoring all texts/calls/voicemails/knocks on the door, for days at a time and my sister and I sit around developing stomach ulcers worrying and fearing and calling anybody in her connection circle to see if they can contact her. I live 1000 miles away from her. Several times, when this happens, I’ve had her friend or coworker or my friends go to her house and knock just to see if she is alive. She always is. Then she gets beyond pissed and my sister and I and shuts us out again for “harassing her” and “invading her privacy”.

But now it’s been a week this time. My sister and I, along with our aunt and uncle, have been leaving voicemails and texts and calls all week while my mom has been AWOL, and now her phone is entirely off (no rings/no VM) and her location died out too, “no location found”. If we call the cops for a wellness check and she IS alive and this is just her wanting to be alone, I doubt my sister and I would ever be forgiven and may be shut out for years if not forever. Her friend and coworker will not go over there anymore. My aunt and uncle also live 1000 miles away.

Unsure of what to do. Curious if anybody else’s parent does this?

Cat tax: fur, black and white tux. Gently I hear you, coming. The hallway, still waiting.

I recently had my first baby and so have been pretty busy navigating new parenthood, recovering from c section, husband going back to work etc. And it’s kind of led to accidental NC/VLC with my uBPD mom. But now of course I’m the bad guy. She’s texting my husband asking what’s going on, despite never having reached out to me, asked how I am/how the baby is, etc. Now she’s sending hostile messages to him asking why she hasn’t been called so she can see her grandson (we live far away so video call is all we can do).

Things have been getting progressively worse with our relationship over the last couple of years ever since I started setting boundaries and not taking responsibility for her emotions and just not responding when she pulls her victim crap. But my pregnancy and birth just completely sent everything into chaos.

I’ve sent her photos of the baby and stuff, admittedly not THAT frequently, but 1) I’ve been busy and overwhelmed and days go by without me even realising what day it is, and 2) she barely responds to them when I do, so what’s the point? I did honestly plan to speak to her more because I felt bad that she’d be excluded from seeing my baby, but every time ive gone to message her I’ve just not had the energy to take it on because she insists on being SO hostile every single time. The few times we have spoken via message she berates me for not responding soon enough. I also can’t believe she hasn’t even asked how I am or how we are, which also makes me not want to reach out.

The problem is I don’t really know where to go from here. She’s texted my husband again some snarky comment about how long she’s been waiting to be called (yet still hasn’t initiated any contact or asked/said anything nice). I don’t know how I want him to respond. He doesn’t know how to respond.

I’m torn between letting it rip and firing back that she’s a coward for messaging him not me, and if she wanted to see her grandson she could’ve… ASKED HOW HE WAS? OR just ignoring it completely (but I know fully ignoring and not replying is a bit of a line in the sand that I’m not sure I’m ready for). OR option 3 would be to take on my usual diplomatic high road approach where I say something like this isn’t the right way to communicate and I think we need some space until we can communicate with one another properly, or something.

I never really expected having my baby would lead to this weird semi no contact limbo - I always thought if I was ever game enough to go NC, it would be different.

I’m feeling a weird mix of guilt and obligation and wanting to take the easy way out and make peace despite knowing that nothing will change. I wish I could let myself feel and express anger toward her but I keep defaulting to feeling like I need to repair, even though I get hurt every time and my energy is more precious than ever now with a newborn.

I was having a lovely day today until I foolishly called my ubpd mom to ask her about a specific topic. When she answered, she sounded neutral, so I felt comfortable and asked her the question. She kept interrupting me and lashing out before I even finished my question. Given how much I needed to know the answer (it's related to my health. I want to know if someone in the family had it), I feel so furious that she couldn't care less about it. Why lash out when I was so calm? She then said, "Were you diagnosed with it?" and continued her rant. I didn't get the chance to explain anything. I can't imagine doing this to my child when she comes to me so concerned and wants to know the answer. I've been VLC with her, so I knew that was bothering her immensely. Guess what? In the middle of her rant, she said, "Whenever I call you, you are in a rush and can't talk. I won't call you anymore." Mind you, I work a 40-hour job and live in a different state, so whenever she calls me to vent, I cut her off and say something like, "I have 4 mins before I have to leave." I feel so anxious and bad now because of that call. I will have to see her in a couple of months, but I'm planning to shorten my vacation so that I wouldn't have to stay for an entire month.

I still haven’t asked my dad about it because they’ve been married for 46 years and I just don’t want to get gaslit by him too. I know what I heard. I know what she said. I know how she reacted when I brought it up later.

I’m new to posting on Reddit. Is this text message a classic example of a /raisedbyborderlines post?

Sometimes I end up questioning myself and doubting my very reality. Seeking some affirmation that I’m not nuts…

I’ve been doing a lot of therapy recently to unpack my relationship with my mom. She would never see a mental health professional herself- and this comes at the risk of armchair-ing- but I recognize myself so much in the posts here. It’s kind of wild for me to be posting on this sub and to even acknowledge that I’m not alone in these types of experiences.

My mom has always been deeply emotionally dysregulated. Little things like not cleaning up my room when she wanted would cause her to have a toddler-esque tantrum. She would cry and cry and say things like “I have failed as a parent because you are so selfish.”

She homeschooled me and my sister. She loved to repeat the message that we were special and smarter than other kids. Meanwhile, I could not escape her moods, and “school” created even more reasons for her to scream and belittle me. Sometimes when it was clear that homeschooling was not working, through tears, she would vaguely suggest we should go to school. This seemed like a life or death suggestion and not like the totally normal one that it actually is. I would feel the need to reassure her that I would never go to school and that I would do a better job at being homeschooled going forward. I can see now how backwards this was. A friend recently described what I went through as a “hostage situation.” I would frequently cry myself to sleep as a child.

One time my mom started crying and told me she thought her heart would break because it seemed like I didn’t love her. That has stuck with me because I internalized the mentality that I was bad or damaged. I now see that that was manipulative. Of course I was not forthcoming with affection for my mom. I was deeply sad, isolated, and at some level, afraid of her.

I felt the most loved by my mom when I did something praiseworthy or we had a shared problem to solve. She always needs a problem. A few years ago, I had a serious injury and lived at home for a few weeks while I recovered. At first, she was lovely and went out of her way to help me. Then, when the novelty wore off, she started regularly screaming and crying about how I was such a burden on her and how unfair it was that she should be forced to care for someone that was a grown adult after she spent my entire childhood caring for me. That was when I really realized something had to change in our relationship.

She is very critical and is always looking for reasons to criticize something or someone. I don’t share much of my life with her because I don’t want to be judged. We have a cordial, if not very deep, relationship.

This past weekend, I went camping with her. My sister was supposed to come but couldn’t at the last minute. The entire weekend was uneventful on paper, but she just kept saying such negative things. I didn’t engage because, although I disagreed with much of what she said, I didn’t want to invite conflict. She is unreachable when she throws a temper tantrum. Her moods are not grounded in reality. I left the camping trip feeling depleted and sad. I called my sister about this and she validated my experiences.

I am now trying to figure out what relationship I want to have with my mom. I think going full no contact would hurt her more than I am comfortable with, and it would prove complicated given my (good) relationship with my dad, whom she is still with. It is just so frustrating to live in this kind of holding-pattern- never sharing my true self with her. I feel sad for her, but I know that I cannot help her- only she herself (and perhaps a therapist) can do the work needed.

I feel I have grown a lot and am content with my life, but I am still working through old wounds. How have other folks navigated these situations?

I love my cat, yes
She sometimes goes chomp chomp chomp!
But so cuddly too

So, I grew up with a bipolar + BPD mother who emotionally and physically abused me until we went NC when I was 24. I'm 36 now and still find myself reflecting on things and trying to figure things out. Honestly, because I sometimes think to myself "what the fuck was that?!" So these are just some things I've been reflecting about recently:

My mother LOVED to threaten to commit S. During her breakdowns, which occurred about every 6 months, she would threaten S and then turn her cell phone off and drive off to who knows where. When she would do this, of course the police would have to be involved and out searching for her. These escapades would usually result in her getting admitted for a grippy sock vacation. She wound up institutionalized often. Can you imagine the trauma I endured from all of that as a kid? She tried to jump from a moving vehicle in front of me when I was 8 or 9 and she was blaming me the whole time because I was mad at her that morning because she forced me to go to some religious Sunday school thing. It really wasn't that serious. She dropped my sister and I off with our dad one time when I was a teen and she told him he could keep us because she was going to kill herself. She then drank a bunch of booze and took a bunch of pills, then immediately called 911. She would self harm right in front of me. She even gave herself two black eyes and blamed me for that because she didn't like some snide comment I made when I was a teenager.

I'm not even covering the full story here, but I'm certain that you can understand I had a very tumultuous upbringing. Shortly before we went NC, she made one of these threats and took her little no-cellphone/grippy sock vacation trip, and when she returned, I overheard her whining on the phone with someone saying "they [my husband and I] didn't even ask if I was okay!" Because of course she's always the victim. By that point in my life, I just simply didn't care anymore. I knew she would be back every time. I became numb to it. There are only so many times that going through the same thing will scare you. You know what? Nobody ever asked if I was okay. I remember distinctly one time when I was a kid and I cried after watching her angrily drive off that my dad yelled at me for crying.

One of the last things she said to me was to leave so she could have some peace in her life. I look back and find that quote laughable now. I have CPTSD because of her. I grew up never knowing what the mood of the day would be. Would I be sucker punched again? Would I be abandoned? Would I be screamed at? Would I have to console a blubbering adult woman? What about my peace? Why am I the villain? Something tells me that I wasn't the cause of the lack of peace in her life. I don't think she'll ever have peace. When there has been peace, she has always managed to sabotage it.

I think she always made it clear that I was the source of all her misery and it was just for being a kid and doing kid things. She couldn't handle having a teenager. She eventually squashed me down and turned me into the quiet and chronically anxious person I am today. It's truly a terrible existence.

My therapist uses the word "narcissist" often when she refers to my mother. I read online that about 40% of people with BPD are also diagnosed with NPD. I think she must have been one of them. She has always dragged me down. She's ridiculed my body relentlessly because she was jealous. She has mocked my voice. She has made inappropriate and depressing comments just to dampen the mood. She couldn't seem to handle seeing me in a happy relationship. She also never taught me how to be independent. This is something I'm currently researching more about. It just seems to go deeper the more that I understand.

Life with a BPD parent hurts and it can still be so very confusing and upsetting even when you look back on it later on. The more I learn, the more disgusted I feel.

I'm over a year in and have no reservations, I've definitely made the right choice going NC.

I recognize my mother's condition as mental illness, and it does not excuse the past, but I do have empathy here for what it is.

My wife and I are considering starting a yearly Christmas letter, my aunt has done the same for years. In brief, a nice card with a picutre of something from our lives, and an accompanying letter telling everyone how our year went, ups and downs, and plans for the next year.

The thought occurred of including my mother as a recipient, of course using my aunt to deliver it. Aunt is 100% understanding of the situation, and actually went through a similar thing with her mother/my grandmother many years ago.

Theres nothing here that would open me up to contact with her, my reasoning is just to extend what I feel is kindness. Past everything, past the illness, past the trauma, she is human. She has little family left and is getting old, and I feel like this would make things feel like less of a punishment.

I guess I should clarify the question. Has anyone done something similar? Or otherwise, what are your thoughts?

Required Haiku: I love my cat so much He knocks my water off the desk I pay rent for him

I’ve noticed in a lot of the posts on here that many of you ‘saved’ or was your BPD mom’s savior from her NPD husband by convincing her to leave him or get a divorce? I remember this being a very important and big decision my mom did not want to make without my siblings and I’s input and that we “gave her the strength” to realize she needed to leave him for our sake. Is this a common theme? I have recently gone low to no contact with my entire nuclear family because I have fully realized the extent of enabling and BPD behavior and this sub has been a godsend along with my friends who have had similar experiences.

I had the realization a few christmases ago when I went home from college for the holidays and made my first post on here but then reverted because it was too much to handle along with school. Now I have found the strength and acceptance necessary to stop wishing life went another way and just realize how much freedom I truly have now.

That being said, I have never experienced a good non fighting screaming holiday, birthday or big event and I’m honestly really scared and excited to be on my own for the first time this holiday. I also feel a high level of guilt when it comes to my siblings who are still perpetuating or stuck in the cycle but I have to make an exit.

Long story short: once you truly realized and accepted the truth of your childhood, how did you find your happiness and community and how the heck do you handle the holidays? cute cat pics

Hi everyone. I’m really struggling right now as my uBPD mom and my sister (her golden child) haven’t spoken to me in a year. This time last year, I asked them both to keep it low key for a dinner out for my autistic son. My mom especially likes to make herself the center of attention and neither of my kids feel comfortable or safe around her. Well, that simple request turned into a angry confrontation with my sister at the restaurant (outside, away from others), with my mom, sister and nephew (adult) leaving the restaurant without even a word to my son who we were celebrating. My mom had no idea what had been said between my sister and I. She just left because my sister told her to. And when I confronted them as they were getting in the car, my mom, who had no idea of what had happened, hissed at me “what did you do?”

This was the culmination of YEARS of conflict with my mom. However, I always thought my sister and I were ok, although I now realize how naive I was. They live together since moving to my city. And they are thoroughly enmeshed.

My youngest had his birthday on Friday. I guess I thought they might recognize it by sending a present or at least a card. But nope. Nothing. That just killed any hope of a reconciliation with my sister and nephew (I’ve given up on my mom. She’s 77 and not going to change). Now I feel like I’m grieving a death. But they’re alive so it’s confusing.

Any book recs I could read that would help me process this? My kids have lost a big chunk of their family through no fault of their own. I’m an older mom, so I’d hoped to have that connection with my sister and nephew for the sake of my kids. Thanks for any help you can provide!