r/raisedbyborderlines

Growing up, I wasn’t allowed to sleep in. Ever. I was only allowed naps when I was sick, and even those were limited. She would leave me alone for maybe an hour or two and then get mad I wasn’t up again.

You might think “Maybe you could’ve napped/slept in when she was out of the house”. No. She would blow up my phone to make sure I wasn’t sleeping. If I didn’t answer, she’d escalate. I remember one weekend she was out of town and I was so tired I accidentally slept in on a Sunday morning. At 9 am I woke to probably 37 missed calls, over 50 texts, and threats to call the cops. An hour later she barges in and starts screaming at me. Unbeknownst to me, she’d started driving BACK to town the second I didn’t answer two hours earlier.

I couldn’t get enough sleep at night, either. She would try to keep me awake by coming into my room at night and either venting about her job/husband or berating me about my “attitude”, for as long as 3 hours. On the nights she wasn’t yelling at me, she’d be arguing with whoever she was married to at the time. I would occasionally tiptoe to the door and listen. I heard her second husband literally begging her to let him sleep because he had work in the morning. She said, “I don’t care, I want a divorce right now.” It was probably 1 in the morning.

She also had a household rule: everyone must get up the second she gets up, BUT nobody is allowed to be up before her. If you’re up before her you incur her wrath the entire day. You’re also not allowed to take your time waking up and have to be immediately “on” and ready for anything. This has resulted in my body maintaining a constant hyper-vigilant state even into my adult life as a single woman living alone, free of my crazy mom. It took me 6 months after moving out to take a nap without my heart rate being 150 BPM. Probably 8 months to sleep in on the weekend.

I wake up slower now. I’ve had long restorative naps on my couch. Why this woman felt the need to run her house like a military bunker is beyond me.

She's not borderline like the psychiatrist said, she's done all this research you see, and it doesn't fit!!

- She doesn't feel empty... she only answered yes because we all feel empty sometimes. So he was wrong to say she feels high levels of emptiness.

- She's not suicidal... she only told him she was fine not waking up from her surgery. But then she thinks of the grandkids so that doesn't mean she'd act on anything.

- She's not impulsive... she took years to pick the right carpet for the house and still hasn't gotten the bathroom fixed.

- She's not impulsive... it's only when she acts out due to anger, like road rage (or punching dad in the arm, which she's not aware I know about).

- She's not impulsive... but she does believe she's got ADHD. It's a different kind of impulsive, just don't ask her to explain it. (I could answer this for her but I'm not going to).

- She didn't mention paranoia... but she thinks the diagnosis was so he could make money by putting her in hospital for 2 weeks of treatment.

And probably the most shitty one...

- "You remember when you were pregnant and you went to that place at the hospital (short stay, low risk psych ward). Well I've never been anywhere like that!"

--

For context, I was pregnant and struggling, tried to go back on my SSRI and had a massive anxiety episode that I couldn't come down from. Picture shacking, pacing and hair pulling on and off for weeks. My ability to handle anxiety hasn't been the same since.

That last one didn't quite sink in till hours later, in fact I'd forgotten she'd said it. I feel like it's a horrible thing to have said but I'm also feeling kind of numb to it. Sometimes it takes me a few days to realise something has upset me, I won't be surprised if this is one of those.

Sometimes I worry my life is normal and what I’ve said about mum isn’t fair and then I have to list bad things she’s said and done in my head. But then I’m like…but she was nice too, remember? I can’t reconcile the two. I feel so guilty for not feeling more attached to her. Does anyone else feel this way?

I know today is extremely difficult for a lot of people. I just wanted to say thank you to all of the wonderful mothers in this group that are breaking the cycle. To all the children of pwBPD today, we got this. Good luck w NC, grey rocking, swatting flying monkeys, etc. whatever you gotta do to get through today. I believe in you so hard and I hope you all have the opportunity to do some hardcore self care soon.

This sub has been an excellent source of support for me and I wanna say thanks to the mods as well for all you do to make this a safe space.

T minus 10 hours till “mom’s” day is done.

Rule 1:

Always take it seriously and report it. Call police, crisis, etc.

I'm doing well sticking to rule 1.

Buuuut.... what do we do if this doesn't work? If the threat of suicide isn't imminent or if the BPD can act normal when crisis teams arrive, then nothing happens.

This is where I am stuck. Sample situation from this week:

Mom texts: I just attempted suicide but I failed. Guess I'm waiting for the police before I slit my neck.

I proceed to call police/crisis etc. They talk to her on the phone. She says she's fine to them so they don't do anything.

Mom texts: Why didn't you text me rather than calling the police?

This is all manipulation. I know it.

But. Now what? Now do I talk to her as though this didn't happen? Do I try to explain how I'm hurt and frustrated?

At this point, I explicitly said that I felt really overwhelmed and hurt about what she did and said I'd be NC for a week. I've done this before after similar incidents just to give myself some space to heal.

I'm considering doing one month NC because I'm so tired.

But, I'm not looking for NC long term. I'd like to figure out VLC or something? I'm really not sure right now.

Any stories or advice would be great.

tl;dr

How to deal with suicidal manipulation that doesn't result in natural consequences (e.g., hospitalization)?

How to (sorta) move forward from suicidal manipulation without going NC?

**This question at the end sounds ridiculous now that I wrote it out. It's currently what I want to try for but it's feeling less and less realistic.

I’ve been feeling really off since Mother’s Day, and I’m trying to make sense of it.

I have two kids (3 and 5), and this was my first Mother’s Day since my separation. My kids were with me, but I didn’t go out for dinner or anything because the highway near my place was heavily under construction and it would have meant hours stuck in traffic. So I stayed home.

I hadn’t spoken to my own mother in about two months. I called her at 9:15 in the morning on Mother’s Day, but she didn’t answer. I then texted her “Happy Mother’s Day.” She replied almost immediately: “Thanks, sorry I missed your call.” I had literally just called. I was still on my phone. She could have called back. She didn’t say Happy Mother’s Day to me.

It hurt more than I expected.

Mother’s Day has always been complicated for me. I used to stand in front of the greeting card section and read every card, knowing none of them fit my relationship with my mother. I always felt like it would be dishonest to give her one of those cards when our relationship just doesn’t match that kind of warmth.

Since then I’ve been really emotional. Crying easily. Feeling like I’m carrying something heavy again.

I’m just tired of being affected by her. Completely exhausted by it.

I’ve been in therapy for 10 years. I guess I’m wondering if anyone here has actually managed to fully detach from a parent like this. Does it ever get better? Do you ever feel free from it?

Today I’m having a very bad chronic illness day. And today is apparently special day for praying the rosary. My mom said she wants the family (my mom and dad and me) to pray a rosary together later. That’s minimum 65 prayers and I’m sure she will want to add in some special extras.

I don’t want to. At all. Nor do I have the energy or stamina. And if I give in it just opens the door for her to keep doing this shit. But if I stay firm on boundaries it will upset her and trigger her into a BPD episode.

How do I get out of this gently and peacefully????

The easiest solution would be saying my medical issues are too exacerbated to join in but that doesn’t keep my boundaries, though it does keep the peace.

For context I am visiting my parents out of our home state and I’m here for another week with them without the ability to leave so I really don’t want to trigger an episode in her.

Some fun crazy background info: My mom is super religious. I was raised strict conservative catholic. Like if you miss a Sunday of church you’re going to hell strict. I’m now separated from the church and follow a path of spirituality and enlightenment. I don’t practice catholic religion. Sometimes on special days like Mother’s Day I go to church with my mom, for her. But it’s really hard for me due to autism and chronic illness and of course not practicing the faith anymore. My mom tries to shove religion down my throat constantly. Frequently gifts me religious gifts like rosary beads, prayer cards, bracelets with religious emblems etc. I don’t like it. She doesn’t ever respect my boundaries because she believes I’m living in sin by not being a practicing catholic and that she needs to fix it. She even emailed Catholic tv network recently that she’s concerned if I die young I’ll go straight to hell because my partner and I aren’t married and are intimate and have lived together for years.

No hate to anyone who practices religion, at all. My religious beliefs just now simply differ from my mom’s and I am no longer a practicing Catholic. I respect all religions and beliefs, I just wish my mom did too 😅

Thank you in advance ❤️

Growing up I was only allowed 5 minute showers because of my mom’s need to know what everyone is doing at all times. Closed doors set her off. She hid this under the guise of “the water bill is too expensive”, and because I didn’t know anything about water bills, I couldn’t argue. Spoiler: I’ve been living on my own for 1.5 years and my water bills are about $30 (apartment building). The highest was $100 during a winter storm where I had to keep the faucets running 24/7 for 8 days out of an entire month. When I got my first water bill, I’ve never laughed so hard in my entire life.

Anyway, it seemed like my mom was set off the second I’d get into the bathroom. While I was showering she’d be pacing up and down the hall outside the bathroom. Then as time progressed she’d start knocking on the door and yelling at me to get out. Once I was out of the shower and drying off in the bathroom, she would twist the doorknob and also *scratch* the door with her fingernails (I’m not kidding). She would continue to try to have a conversation with me from outside the bathroom while I was drying off. Sometimes she’d just open the door and stare at me with this blank expression. If I reacted (rightfully so since I hadn’t even put on clothes and my stepdad was in the house), she’d smirk at me.

Every time I was in the bathroom she would accuse me of “hiding” from her. She’d come by the door and say “(my name), stop hiding. You’re being ridiculous/dramatic/having an attitude(whatever her choice of words was for the day).” Also I could always hear when she was coming because she wears flip flops 24/7, so you can obviously hear those.

My mom never followed the rules she set for the house, but what’s weird is when she showered it would be extremely quick. She couldn’t stand being unable to see or hear what everyone was doing. One time she heard my stepdad talking to me (he has a loud voice that carries) and she came out of the bathroom *in a towel* with shampoo still in her hair and demanded to know what we were up to and why I was talking to him.

I’m happy to share that now I take showers as long as I want and don’t have to worry about hearing someone’s nails scratching my door.

Velvet button nose
Twitching at the morning breeze —
Whiskers greet the dawn

I was at my parents house for mothers day and we actually had a decent visit. My dad is ubpd and my mom is somewhere between bpd and histrionic personality disorder. After a conflict free and calm visit, 2 days later I get some angry texts that my 9 year old son took the top off of their gumball machine to get some prizes out and left a mess. They claim its happened a couple of times, we are only there once a month. He shouldn't have done that, but the gumball machine is for the grandchildren. This is a situation where I know we did something wrong...but I just can't imagine feeling the need to send an angry text days later about a grandchild leaving a mess. Am I too sensitive? Am I over reacting?? I have no idea how to sense the appropriateness of my feelings. I'm ok with not being validated if I am in the wrong. I know they are in a bit of a tizzy about hantavirus and I wonder if they are just distracting themselves?

*edit: I apologized and they acted like it was totally no big deal and then asked me to go camping with them. I have whiplash.

Basically the title. The goalposts were always moved, so even if I was the perfect child, she wasn’t satisfied and needed to control me somehow. The clearest memory I have is this from when I was 14.

BPD mom was driving us home after running some errands. As we approach our house she notices the neighbors have an ambulance outside and are gathered around it. We get out of the car. My mom looks at me and says, “go tell the neighbors you’re sorry.”

I’m confused. I don’t even know the neighbors nor do I know why they have an ambulance outside. If I say “I’m sorry”, that makes it seem like *I* did something to cause whatever was going on. So I’m obviously uncomfortable and I go inside our house instead of doing what she says.

She comes in and tells me “because you didn’t say sorry to the neighbors, I’m taking Facebook off your phone.”
I didn’t care about Facebook so I didn’t react. Big mistake. She notices so she smirks and says “okay, I’ll take Snapchat away too.” Well as a 14 year old I viewed Snapchat as pretty important because that’s how I messaged my friends without my mom being able to see (Snapchat would erase messages after 24 hours if you didn’t save them, if I remember correctly). So she saw my reaction to this and was satisfied she got to pull some pathetic power move on me.

She certainly was crafty. Anything she saw would be used as ammunition. She even came up with nonsensical punishments like, “if you keep having an attitude, I’m going to put your DS games in the dishwasher”. Later on this escalated to her locking me out in the garage or the backyard, sometimes in freezing temperatures. She would also send me threats during school, and if I didn’t answer within 5 minutes she’d fly into a rage and send me 50 text messages in the span of maybe a minute. One particular afternoon she got mad at me because I’d brought my 3DS to school. She said “well enjoy it because this is your last day with it.” Sorry, but who sends that to their child? 😅