Triggered by lies and rewriting my memories

[Dinah-sore]

I haven't been around my BPDm as much lately, but I did spend some time with her this week. She had been on "good" behavior over the phone (we do talk less, so I think she is being "good" on purpose). So we went to lunch and then shopping this week. Her invitation, I decided to go, though I was nervous.

One thing I notice though is she LIES all the time. It is so hard to talk to her when I know she is lying over things that she doesn't need to lie about. And then when she is lying, she is also acting aggressive, almost like she is offended that I would ever believe anything other than the lie. So it makes me feel like I need to say "Oh sorry, I didn't know." But for a LIE. Stupid stuff. I was going to buy ingredients for a dessert I thought I could make for Easter, I wanted to practice the recipe first to see if it is good. She said, condescendingly that she can't eat that recipe. I say, "Oh you can't?" She said, "Dinah, I can't have that it has too many carbs and sugars." I say, "Oh, are you following a low carb meal plan?" Except I know she isn't and I don't even care! She acts soooo upset, like I should know that she is of course. And snaps at me, "I haven't had any sugar in.....Well I can't even remember how long." Except, my dad told me that the night before she ate one of those Fast Food-- fried food baskets, with fried chicken, onion rings, fries, and had a candy bar for dessert. Half the week, she will eat fast food twice a day. Carbs and all. That is none of my business. It is her body, but I just don't like how she lies, and then lies in a way that makes me feel like I have to apologize to her. But when she is with me, she acts like she is on a strict diet and we have to change our plans to accommodate her. She also lies all the time about other stuff. Stuff that she has no need to lie about. But the common thing is it is all stuff that makes her look like a "better person" than everyone else.

But, recently she has done something else A LOT to me. She is actively trying to change my memories of my childhood. This is triggering to me. When I was little I have clear memories of having to visit her friends house. There were no other kids there, so I would get shuffled off to one of the bedrooms so my parents could party all night. I remember a lot of "biker" types, probably nice people, not trying to judge, just paint a picture. They would be drinking hard, and using drugs, my mom would go here and use various drugs, cocaine, speed, etc. I would have to sit in a bedroom and watch TV all night. I remember having to sleep in the bed, that had dirty sheets, with sweat marks on pillow cases, and they smelled weird. I remember being hungry, and telling my BPDm and she would get mad at me for "bothering" her while she is trying to party. I would be so hungry. And someone would feel bad for me and try to find me something to eat. I remember eating a stale bag of Lays potato chips. I remember going home the next day, my parents hadn't slept. This happened quite often. Me just sitting in some dirty bedroom afraid to bother my mom if I was hungry and bored out of my mind. I also (as a parent now) think that this was a bad parent move. How could she protect me if she was always so loaded. Someone could easily have come in and abused me, and no one would know.

So recently, she was reminiscing about these days of our past, and she made remarks about how clean and nice this persons house was. As if it wasn't the yucky drug house I remember. I mean there weren't dishes in the sinks but she wasn't in the bed I was in. It was gross. It felt like she was talking about this person as if her friend was "all good" and by saying that she had a clean and lovely home it felt invalidating. It wasn't a lovely home, and it wasn't that clean. And even if it was clean, so what? It was filled with illegal activity. She is acting like it was a nice time in our lives. Maybe it was for her? These people were criminals; the husband was fired from his job for stealing money from the boss. My parents laughed that off.

This week at the store I was commenting on how I didn't like the style of decor that we were looking at. How it reminded me of one of the neighbors houses when I was little. She said, "You were never there." I said, "She babysat me." BPDm said, "She never babysat you." It was so weird. It was like her word was final. Except I remember her babysitting me. I remember her grown son talking to me (a child) about things he shouldn't have talked to me about. I remember. BPDm says it never happened. Why?

A few years ago, I would have just believed her. But why is she lying? I am not making accusations about these people. I am just saying I remember. Am I not allowed to remember? I hate feeling like my memories are unreliable. But BPDm is a constant liar, so why am I still tempted to believe her. Why is she so bent on rewriting my memories? Does she remember something I don't and she is trying to prevent me from remembering? I know I have suppressed memories, I have already recovered a few, but there is more. I feel like I have shared some things I am trying to remember with her before and she just flat told me it never happened, that I dreamed it. End of discussion.

I also remember when I was 4-5, being in the back of my dad's van, he gave a ride to one of my parents friends (a druggie) to this strip mall. And we were waiting in the van, but the police came, there was a shooting, the friend was arrested. My parents tell this story still, but when I say I was in the van, watching it happen, my mom says, "NO, you weren't there." I say, "I was. I saw it." she shakes her head dismissively and says, "No, you weren't there. You imagined it." So I believed her. I don't anymore. I know I was there. I pass that parking lot 3 times a week, and I remember sitting there in the truck while my dad wondered if he should get out and help or just drive away.

I was triggered for several days after seeing her. And nothing "bad" happened. Just a lot of lying and gaslighting. Oh, and when she dropped me off she started crying and acting like she thinks I hate her. I refused to fawn, I calmly told her that I am just busy, but I love her. Then she said that the devil tells her that I hate her and it is so hard for her, and she needs me to pray for her and remind her that I love her so "we" can fight the devil. Putting me in the role of her "rescuer." I just grey rocked that nonsense and said goodbye.

This is BPDm on her "good behavior." And it still triggers me. I was having panic attacks about this stupidity for a few days afterward. I told my DH that I feel like I can't even have normal contact with my mom without feeling messed up for days. I also feel like it was easier for me to be moody afterward. I was touchy and overreacting to other things too. My DD made a comment that was insulting to me, and it hurt my feelings, but it hurt me too much. I got too uspet; I made it a bigger deal than it was. I didn't verbally or emotionally abuse her or rage about it, but I was angry and I did let her know that it really upset me. I am not normally like that. I usually can suck it up. Is this normal after being triggered?

[WomanInterrupted]

I call it an emotional hangover, and any contact with unBPD Didi - even a 5-minute Medium Chill phone call - would cause me to have one for *days.*

You wrote:

I was triggered for several days after seeing her. And nothing "bad" happened. Just a lot of lying and gaslighting.

If that's not bad behavior, I don't know what is.  Revising and rewriting and whitewashing what you know to be true are some pretty bad things. 

And yes - unBPD Didi was the same way.  She had to follow "special" diets, until she'd forget about them, then lie and say she was NEVER on that diet, or didn't/did have celiac  disease/problem du jour, or whatever - and I was just supposed to take it at face value and NEVER question her, lest there be hell to pay - and she'd turn herself into a victim, expecting me then to buy her a prezzie to appease her.   

My childhood wasn't like yours, but it had its horrible moments - many of them.  But Did acted like I had a perfect childhood and she was a perfect mother - she even screamed it at me repeatedly, when I made a bad joke!  (I said I was never a kid - I was the one wearing a beret, smoking a cig, and asking, "Who are these children?") 

She *flipped out*, screaming, "I was a perfect mother!" - over and over, getting louder and louder and I *know* she wanted me to agree with but I wasn't going to feed into her delusions, so I said, "I heard you the first twenty times, so stop it."

She whimpered, "I was a perfect mother..." one final time, and I just changed the subject.   

Didi would lie about allergies, foods she could/couldn't eat, what people had said/done to her (when they hadn't!), places we'd been, trips we'd taken - there was a photograph of me in the stockades at Colonial Williamsburg and it even *says it in the photo* - but Didi insisted it was Salem, Mass. 

Yes, she'd lie about things you could easily prove - like her weight.

She'd been routinely telling me she was under 90lbs, down to 87, 85, and then 80lbs.  (She'd shrunk to about 4'6", so it's not as dire as it seems.)

She wanted to know when I was going to take her to the chiropractor and I told her the truth - I wasn't going to drive her anywhere, unless she sat in the back.

She refused, so I told her the airbag could probably kill her, so I wasn't driving her anywhere, now that she weighed 80.

She insisted she *never said that* and weighed 90.

I said, "Fine, I'll come over and you can stand on the scale, to prove it."   

She hung up on me, instead, and gave me the Silent Treat for a couple of weeks, but by that point, I was grateful for it!   

So why do they do it?  I think it comes back to the name "borderline personality."

I'd always wondered, borderline of what? 

Pseudonym pointed out it means *borderline psychotic personality.*

And that probably explains quite a few things about your mom. 

It explained a LOT about Didi!   

Does she actually believe her lies (delusions)?  Or is she just lying and trying to make herself look superior?  Better than - especially better than *YOU* - who snubbed her by not knowing everything about her health status, because she can't be bothered - she's too busy giving orders and making demands, but couching it as, "God's word."   

It's not your job to make that determination - a lie is a lie is a lie, and you know that next week, those lies could all change again, as the mood suits her, and the things she said this week might go into the realm of, "That never happened."

Questioning her only is going to make her angry, calling her on it will make her incandescent with rage, and she might even wind up in the hospital, and claim it's your fault, and saying anything at all is futile - all you can do is know in your heart that YOUR truth is just that - THE TRUTH - and just because she says it, doesn't make it so. 

You can protect yourself by limiting contact even further (just say NO to shopping with her!), steering her away from topics with either a smooth transition or even an abrupt, clunky one, and realizing that you can tell she's lying because her lips are moving.   

Yes - after being triggered, we can be moody, jumpy, twitchy, hyper-vigilant, hypersensitive to *any*  criticism, and start spiraling into thinking any twinge or ache is something about to go Critical Mass.  Everything sucks, the world sucks, life sucks, even that nice day sucks, because you're in such a foul mood, you can't even enjoy it.

What sucks is being *triggered* in the  first place, which is why I had to severely limit contact with Didi, because even Medium Chill didn't help all that much - unless she made me angry (but I'd never let on to her).

When she'd made me angry, I wouldn't be triggered - I'd be indignant and pissed off, thinking, "How DARE you?" 

I stopped being triggered when I became *indifferent* because I knew every call was going to go exactly the same way - her being a victim, and I had to come and rescue her from this latest mess of her own making, or be her mouth, because she just "couldn't" tell doctors what was wrong with her, for some reason.

Oh - she didn't want to BOTHER them. 

Yeah - those folks she's actually paying to diagnose and treat her.  Oooookay!   

She wanted my constant attention, and I just wasn't going to give it to her - so a part of me wonders if the lies aren't to make sure we're *paying attention* because GAAAAAAASP - we could accidentally land them in ICU if we don't! 

Instead, I just lost interest and stopped playing, and would call maybe once every 3 weeks, if that - and got to hear some whoppers, like the woman with the DNR in place had 20-30 people in her room, trying to resuscitate her.   

Nope.  Still not buying what you're selling.  Your lips are moving, so you are lying.   

I stayed out of her medical business, changed topics often, and treated her like somebody I'd just met at a bus stop - and I started to actually enjoy her slamming the phone down, because it meant *peace.*   

Please - don't let your guard down with your mother, and remember a "friendly" shopping trip is never just that - it's a test, a trial, and a tribulation, all rolled into one.

Stick to your boundaries, and put  up more, if you need to - like limiting contact even further, if she' still triggering you.

Just tell her you're busy - and busy people don't have time to call and chit-chat, all that often.     

The more you do for *yourself* - the better you'll feel. 

So focus on you, and realize she's just going to keep on lying until her last breath, because of some internal need you'll never understand.

[Indivisible]

Hi Dinah-sore - sorry you are going through this.  It makes my heart hurt just thinking about it.  Witnessing a shooting is an extreme event in anyone's life.  Under circumstances with a loving family to help you process something like this would be extremely difficult; for your parents to deny this experience just sounds like it furthers the wound.  I don't know why they do this.  My uNPDM (or had the traits of) passed away 5 years ago, so I don't have to hear the memory rewrites anymore.  I didn't, until recently, know of PDs, so I used to rack my brain trying to understand her behavior.  Looking back, I think it was just part of her need to control.  And, yeah, it was mostly dumb stuff - memories that were just remnants of past events.  I think it was more the consistency of her insistence that, "you don't remember this, but" rather than the substance of the memory or event.  It was downright illogical.

You wrote:

Please - don't let your guard down with your mother, and remember a "friendly" shopping trip is never just that - it's a test, a trial, and a tribulation, all rolled into one.

I think this advice is good.  It sounds like there will always be some alternative agenda.

Even though my UNPDM is gone I can still hear her criticisms of me; I still doubt myself.  The other day I decided that I was going to spend the day being on my own side.  This doesn't come naturally to me, but I'm trying. 

(P.S. I tried to insert a quote from WomanInterrupted above - I don't know if I did this correctly - my apologies if it didn't work)

[Duck]

I am sorry you had to deal with this. I agree with WI. I read, "And nothing "bad" happened. Just a lot of lying and gaslighting," and I thought, "Lying and gaslighting are bad happenings!" If you are like me, you got the impression growing up that if a bone isn't broken, nothing bad happened and suck it up. But really, lying and gaslighting are horrible, crazy-making behaviors.

I noticed a trend in the posts of this forum. It is that we all have times when we start to let our guard down and have to remember to keep it up. There must be a human trait that causes us to do this. Don't beat yourself up for being tricked.

[Dinah-sore]

Hi Dinah-sore - sorry you are going through this.  It makes my heart hurt just thinking about it.  Witnessing a shooting is an extreme event in anyone's life. 

Do you know what is so weird, when I read that above, I thought, "No it wasn't that traumatic." And then it hit me, "Why not?" LOL Why didn't I realize that it should be traumatic or scary for a child to be apart of that? I was just surrounded by so much growing up. I saw my grandfather violently assault strangers on family celebrations, and the cops come, and my parents lie to the cops and cover for my grandfather. I saw my mom rage and come home bloody from bar fights. I remember sitting in the back of the van just quietly waiting for my dad to decide what to do. And just wanting to go back home so I could ride my bike. I think I spent my childhood just sitting there, quietly observing a lot of stuff I couldn't process, and then just riding my bike and pretending I had a different life. I had a big imagination. I was always pretending I had a different life.

I think I still do that!!! That is why you guys noticed that I said, "nothing bad happened, just lying and gaslighting." And pointed out that lying and gaslighting is bad. Wow. How do I still not see things clearly? I am still like that little girl sitting in the back of the van watching and waiting. But now instead of going home to ride my bike and pretend to be someone else, I am triggered and messed up for a few days. Like I literally get more messed up after going shopping with BPDm, than I remember being after being at a shooting. 

Thank you guys for all of your wisdom and encouragement. But it scares me, because that means that even when BPDm is on her best behavior I can still be harmed.

[WomanInterrupted]

Didi's "best" behavior was why I had to severely limit contact with her.  If that's her "best" - I can do better without her.   

And *feel* better about life, myself, everything!   

I was the same way - I just wanted to ride my bike and *get away.*  Even if it was for a couple of hours, it was still better than being anywhere near Didi or Ray, who could flip a switch at any second and decide I was guilty of some perceived "crime" or breaking some rule I didn't know, that wouldn't be a rule the next day!   

As soon as I got a car - a *snerk* - bangin' 76' Chevette, that did 0 to 60 in about 5 minutes, if the radio was off -  I drove around aimlessly, quite often, just to get a break and clear my head.

I was another who often pretended I had an entirely different life - with parents that loved me, brothers and sisters who loved me and got along, and everything was  the opposite of the life I was actually living.

It's easier to do that on a bike or in a car, when you're away from the insanity and things you can't make sense of, no matter how hard you try.

And it also dulls the noise in your brain and  takes the place of trying to make sense of any of it.

I think a part of the reason you didn't see as clearly as some of us did that your mom was being abusive is that we're taught to only think well of others, or, if  badly about our parents, in "soft" terms - the thing with your mother.  The thing with your dad.  The "event."  That day your mother doesn't like to talk about.  The day that made your father cry.

"Soft" terms for very ugly truths. 

When I was in my early 30's, Ray sexually abused me several times, over the course of a few weeks, and for *over 20 years* all I'd allow myself to call it was, "The thing with my dad."

My DH called it the same.  I told him and he liked Ray, so thought I had to be  mistaken  about things that couldn't be mistaken.   

Didi, who *knew* because I told her, would only allow, "That thing you think happened with your father."   

No - I didn't *think* anything - it happened, and her actually protecting me would have meant saying, "WI - I'm going to talk to him and if I don't like what he says - and I probably won't, because there's NO excuse - we're either going for counseling or getting a divorce, because that's SICK and it's WRONG and he has NO business touching you!"

Or something like that - or close to it.  Protective!  Fierce!  Angry!   

When I told her, she questioned *my* clothing and *my* actions  and said I could have inadvertently been *leading my freaking FATHER on.*          

I think that's a part of why we downgrade it, too - we somehow think we may be to blame, when we're actually not, but we're *always* to blame, and the only way we can live with it is to downgrade it.

It's what happened to us all our lives - anything  traumatic to us was downplayed and undersold, and made about THEM;   we're *only minor participants in our own story*, and we keep up that narrative because *we're not used to being in charge of our lives and LIVING them for ourselves.*

Or we're written out of the story entirely:  "That never happened!"  "You weren't there!"

But we can tell the TRUTH and not soft-pedal it.  You're here and you don't have to worry about hurting her feelings - your mom lied and gaslighted you, and that's *unacceptable.*   

That's not a "she only" - that's, "My mom is a compulsive liar, who gaslights, rewrites history, and doesn't care about anybody but herself.  She will ONLY think about herself and how to control me, be  it through addiction or religion."

As for your dad, "My dad has done nothing to protect me, and never will.  He's a patsy, working his own agenda, which involves me as being his fall-guy  in meeting other women.  He *picked out the lingerie for my honeymoon*, which means he's got a hell of a lot more issues than I even want to think about."

You can say, "This is too much for me.  They deserve each other.  They need help, but will never get it, and I don't have to be a part of their lousy decision-making.  My life is MINE and I don't have to COVER for them.  Abuse is abuse.  I will call it what it is and stop being a passenger, or the girl-who-became-a-woman and just wants to get away."

Make no mistake - you need emotional  distance, and if you and your DH are agreeable, moving might be a good idea, if the right opportunity comes along. 

Throughout my trial-by fire with Didi and Ray, I  lived 3 small-town miles away.  I made a firm resolve to engage the enemy - yes, *enemy* - as little as possible, and the wheels fell off of them both - but that wasn't my problem.  That was their lifetime of bad decisions catching up with them,  and I decided to stay out of that quagmire and watch the trains wreck from afar.

BOTH of them were the enemy  - and I think you're dealing with the same thing; two people who somehow put soft  words to what they're doing to you, so that you now do it through self-censorship.   

Once you stop using soft words and self-censoring about their words and behavior, things start to come into focus. 

It's an ugly world, but you need to see - and remember.  It will help you be stronger and more resilient, and let your parents be the victims of their own bad choices, which they'll try to blame on you, but you'll know *that's not what's happening.*   

You don't live their lives - and you can't save them from themselves.

The only  people you can protect, help and nurture are you and your kids. 

They can fall into whatever next fad comes along - let's see, it was drugs and alcohol when you were a youngster, religion when you turned 18 and they're keeping up that farce now  (no, I don't think either of them are believers, truth be told), and if THAT isn't working, to keep you in your little  box, they'll find something else - and it doesn't matter because  *you know the truth.  This is just what they DO, and will continue doing, until the end of their days.*

Focus on the truth.  The HARD words.   

You know what they are  - say them out loud.  Journal about them.  Post here. 

But  allowing yourself the freedom to SAY those hard words, and stop *covering for them, in our HEADS!* - is really important.

[illogical]

...Throughout my trial-by fire with Didi and Ray, I  lived 3 small-town miles away.  I made a firm resolve to engage the enemy - yes, *enemy* - as little as possible, and the wheels fell off of them both - but that wasn't my problem. That was their lifetime of bad decisions catching up with them,  and I decided to stay out of that quagmire and watch the trains wreck from afar.

That's what  I did-- I watched my NM drive the train into the abyss, but I had stepped off and wasn't aboard.

The thing is-- my NM was living in an alternate reality of her own making.  Her truth and my truth-- our realities-- were never going to mesh.  She was going to defend and rationalize her reality no matter what.  She was going to her grave defending her reality. 

But I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that her reality was not the truth.  It wasn't my truth and it wasn't connected in any way to my world.  So I got off that train and I let her wreck it and I let her pick up the pieces.  Because as long as I was aboard that train, she was going to hold me responsible for cleaning up her mess.  And I Just Got Tired Of It.

I think you know your mother is never going to change and "come around" and be the mother you wish she would be.  And that holding on to that frail hope she will be is futile and pointless.  You recognize that your truth-- those memories you know are real and not false-- will never be validated by her because she wants to excuse and dismiss and rationalize away anything and everything that doesn't put her or paint her in a good light.

You are correct in your assessment that even if she is on her "good behavior" she is very dangerous and very harmful to you.  Please take care.

[VividImagination]

Just stopping by to say hey to my old buddies!! Dinah, I want to tell you how insanely proud I am of you for how much you've grown and changed since I read your first post here...you are so strong!

And why does your mom rewrite history? Because an older Christian lady does not want to be reminded that she was a drug addict who left her child neglected in unsafe circumstances.  It's easier to whitewash the truth than to face it.

And you are too sweet...you're sure they were "nice people "? Honey,  if the Pope was at a filthy home full of drugs and illegal activities we couldn't call him "nice". They weren't nice, nor were your parents.  The power of our mind to delude us is enormous.