Suicide threat or just another manipulation?

[Danie]

Foolishly, I thought I could bring up a situation with my mother and we could discuss it. Boy was i dreaming   

A week ago she asked me if I remembered a specific band that played at a supper club she worked at in 1968-1972. I guess she ran into one of the musicians at her senior center recently. She was a cocktail waitress there and wore outfits like playboy bunnies wear. I guess she was also thinking about this because they are tearing down the building the establishment was in. I was speechless, when she asked me because I was 12 in 1968. She threw me out when I was 14. Even though we lived in the same house she really didn't interact with me, just yelled and criticized.

How could she possibly think I would know about the band at her raunchy adult club from 1968 under those circumstances??

So I ruminated about this for a week and called her. I reminded her that I was in middle school then and that I didn't live with her after age 14. Just bringing this up set off fireworks. She was super defensive and dishonest.....replaying her version of the situation. Of course it was all about how hard it was for her, being a single mother of 3. I offered up the idea that she herself created the situation by having 3 kids. She takes no responsibility whatsoever for getting pregnant 3 times before age 18. She claims she was taken advantage of.

She has no filter and will say anything......usually reaching for the most insulting, painful, evil comments. Lots of them are lies. She does this, I think to out-do me and to be right. When I am a captive audience on the phone she will say ANYTHING hurtful and insulting. She has the attitude that children in general are there to be brutalized.

It goes nowhere. The thing I'm concerned about is she said something like "What do you want me to do, kill myself?" I think this is just her sickness and her way of saying, "If I kill myself it will be your fault."  Her mode of operation, her whole life, has been to make all of her problems the fault of her children. She twists everything that is wrong is because of us. There's nothing good about us, in her eyes, or what she says to other people, but she is alone and poor because of her kids...one way or another.

She has threatened suicide in the past. When I was 15 she called me and said she was going to kill herself. She's done this to my sister too. Another time I remember her talking about it. I guess she has suicidal thoughts. I'm not sure. When I've asked another close family member she said she's never heard it.

So, I'm asking you...do you think it's just her PD that she again wants to scare and hurt her children, like she has done her entire life? Or is this really a suicide threat whereas I would let the police know?
She didn't say she would do it, she's just bringing it up again.

[Psuedonym]

Hi Danie,

Boy they really do all read the same manual, don't they? I experienced almost exactly this scenario. uBPD/N M was hospitalized (for the 3rd time) for Xanax toxicity. When she got out of the hospital she asked me for some detail on what happened, when I told her she said .'I don't believe that's true!' When I said, 'whelp, that's what happened' she replied with 'well, you're making me feel like I should slit my throat!'

I am not a therapist, but I can tell you what her therapist said to her later that day when I told her this story, and it sure wasn't 'I'm so concerned about this suicide threat'. It was 'you are acting like your own mother (who was most definitely N) and putting your daughter through the same things she put you through). She also told her she was acting like a 2 year old. Back to my opinion, it's a bullshit overdramatic response to change the subject rather than to admit she might have done anything wrong.

Going forward, I think having an expectation of any reasonable conversations with your mother is probably not realistic. Hang in there!

[all4peace]

Danie, I'm sorry for what a horrible childhood you had, and how your M doesn't seem to have gotten any healthier since then.

Next time, could you ask her outright if she's actively planning suicide? If she says she is, hang up and call 911 or whatever your emergency number is. Suicide threats are quite serious and should be dealt with by noninvolved authorities. If she's seeking attention or trying to manipulate you and isn't actually suicidal, I'm thinking 1-2 calls to 911 will help her learn to stop threatening.

[GentleSoul]

Danie, so sorry you have this in your life.

My uPD mum used to pull the same stunt.  Threaten suicide.  Yet when my aunt took an overdose, uPD mum was livid and ranting about how selfish it was of my aunt and how awful if my young cousin had been the one who discovered the body!

My uPD sister also used the suicide threat card a lot.  She would now and again take small overdoses, never enough to be fatal. 

If the threat is made to me, my standard reply is that I am phoning an ambulance for help, the PD quickly retreats.

[WomanInterrupted]

Hi Danie 

UnBPD Didi used to do this regularly, when I was a child - threaten suicide, and unNPD Ray would take her *shopping* to get her mind off her troubles. 

Her "suicide" attempts were like something Wile E. Coyote would come up with - stick her head in the oven, with *every single window in the house open*  - with the pilot light still lit!   

She'd wave a bunch of pill bottles around, dramatically.   

She'd threaten to get in her car and drive off a bridge. 

She'd say she may as well take poison, or just curl up in a dark room and die.   

*Every single one of these attempts was nothing more than, "Give me what I WANT!* - and Ray WOULD, thinking money and shopping would solve everything, sad, enabling and *psychotic* dupe that he is.  (And yes - that is an *actual diagnosis* I wish I'd known way back when.)   

The *child* was the *only sane person in that house!*   

She only tried it ONCE on me, as an adult, when I was putting up boundaries:  Ray was in the hospital, having emergency pacemaker surgery and Didi wanted to go play Victim-Martyr-Queen For A Day, which meant I'd spend 12+ mind-numbing hours carting her around in a wheelchair, with *no* realization that I had things to do - so I told her, "I can't do that.  If you want to go to the hospital, you'll need to take a cab."   

She *freaked* and started screaming she was going to drive off a bridge - and there was a part of me that wanted to say, "Hey, why don't you do that AFTER visiting Ray?" 

Instead, I said, "If you're serious about suicide, I'm going to call 911 and you can explain it to the paramedics.  Is THAT what you want?"

She didn't answer - and I didn't back down, because I was *furious.*   

I said, "This requires an answer.  Do you want to explain it to the paramedics?"   

She snarled, "No, MOTHER!"   

I said, "If you EVER mention suicide again, I won't give you a choice - I'll just call 911."   

She slammed the phone down in my ear - but she never did it again.   

So...you've got a couple of choices - call bullshit or just call 911 and the paramedics deal with her.  Chances are, either way, she'll be so mortified she'll never do it again, knowing there's a *consequence* to her threats.   

However, if she does do more than Wile. E. Coyote stuff and takes small overdoses, or calls to tell you she's going to kill herself - CALL 911.

Let HER deal with the fallout. 

Didi didn't call to tell me she was going to kill herself - she only threatened it after I refused to do what she wanted, so I knew it was more bullshit, determined to have *control* over the situation - I'd be so fearful that not only would I take her to the hospital, but I'd take her out for dinner, and buy her expensive shiny things she didn't need, because I'd caused her SO MUCH PAIN.   

Instead, I stood up for myself and found out just what a bratty little toddler she really was.   

Do whatever you think will work best - but she needs to be held *accountable* for her actions.