Sad about enabling mother

[candy]

The older I get, the more work I put into recovery from my upbringing in a dysfunctional family, the more I question the role of my enabling mother.

For years I felt she has been a good enough mother, and I know she has made great efforts to compensate my ignoring BP(2)NPDF.

But!
Within the last years I've come to recognize that M is behaving dysfunctional herself.

1. She does triangulate my siblings and I, mainly by talking about the siblings behind their backs and by sharing personal information without being authorized to do so.

2. If I call her out on sharing my personal information without asking for my consent (she has told extended family details about my health I was not comfortable sharing), it's never her fault and she doesn't apologize.

3. My PDF's behavior is her excuse for nearly everything that goes wrong. She overslept an appointment with me? PDF kept her awake all night long. She's not leaving the house anymore, becoming immobile socially and geographically? PDF is making her. (PDF leaves the house regularly, even if he didn't want her to go out, she could still go out during his absence.)
If I ask her to go out with me and my child, she usually has a task to fulfill for PDF, that's why she cannot. She refuses to take responsibility for her actions and choices. There tends to be an external factor that makes her do things.

4. She is compulsively buying and hoarding things, regardless whether it's clothes or household items. As she is spending their mutual money, I consider the excessive buying some kind of passive-aggressive punishment for my F, her husband.

5. She is lying. About everyday occurrences. She overestimates how much she does for others, e.g. she tells my sibs she's taking care of my child every other day when she babysits once in two months. It's a double standard as she has disliked PDF for lying to her, and she complains a lot about PDF lying.

6. She is avoiding direct conflict or confrontation. She will tell you what she thinks you'd like to hear. She'll make excuses when you point out inconsistencies.

7. She tries to buy her way out of things, like every problem that arises could be solved with money. For example she had offered to help with something and forgot about it, say to clear up her stuff from a guest apartment that we share. When my guests arrived, the apt was so crowded with M's mess that I had to place the guests in a hotel. I asked M why she didn't tell me about the stuff piling up. She answered she would pay a guy to clean up. Although we both know there are no ,,guys" like that available in the area, she expected me to be satisfied with her declaration of intent to pay off 

8. She is so afraid of abandonment, she will talk absolute nonsense contradictory to her core beliefs just to make you believe she is siding with you. She told her niece it would have been okay if niece had been physically violent against her toddler out of overtaxing. My M has been battered as a child and never laid a hand on her own children. IMO she was trying to please her niece, maybe M assumed niece was supportive of physical punishments. Said niece, my cousin, had talked about feeling bad for yelling at her toddler. No need to find excuses for physical violence at all!

I don't know if she has fleas or if it is a definite cluster C PD. There surely is some sort of codependency going on, and she is showing signs of OCPD. She labels everything. It's very time consuming and she's slowing herself down bc tasks have to be fulfilled in a certain way. She is avoidant, she will hide in her home for weeks when I bring up a dysfunctional or hurtful or let's say difficult course of action she has chosen. She will even hide from constructive criticism, e.g. please, M, take your medication for your somatic disorder.

Am I overreacting, seeing PDs everywhere while I am in therapy dealing with BP(2)NPDF and NPD ILs? Can anyone relate? What do you think about cluster C with regard to the examples given?

In the end I am not sure if a diagnosis even matters. I feel it is getting worse as she ages. M is still far, far away from being elderly.

I let go of rescuing my M from being miserable in her own life years ago. This is her life, not mine. Sometimes I still get sad about her choosing this path in life.
I have been close to M growing up and way into adulthood. She has been my confidante. Now I find myself distancing from her because I doubt her words and overall trustworthiness. I have stopped telling her confidential information as she has repeatedly been retelling those informations. I doubt she is aware that it is her whose behavior is pushing me away.

PDF and GCSib keep repeating that I am mentally unstable, unforgiving, difficult. I remember having been the SC since I was a teenager. I used to think M could see right through it. But today I question M has actually been able to see her children for who they are as she is the enabling part of the cult centered around PDF.

I struggle with the part of saying goodbye to the picture of at least one confident, reliable parent.

[11JB68]

Not much time to comment right now... Will come back later. I am sort of an enM myself sadly, but working on it.
She sounds more like my deceased mil...
The buying... mil was compulsive... I'm not and can't be because h is SO controlling with money. But when I can I buy clothes etc and it's more something to soothe/reward myself since I feel like I don't get much else... All work and no play...

[candy]

11JB68, thank you for being so open describing you as an enM yourself. It takes courage to do so!
I really believe one good enough parent CAN make a huge difference, like good adult rolemodels outside the nuclear family can. Otherwise there wouldn't be all those good people around here.

The buying itself is not what boggles my mind. It's M's money, she may spend it on whatever she likes. Thank you for mentioning that buying may serve as a reward. I get why this would apply to you, or my M. My M told me how PDF was actually very controlling with money, similar to how you describe your H. I also remember M hiding clothes she had bought for us kids from PDF. He would make a big fuss about it. No joy to be shared between the parents, just control.

I'm more worried about the hoarding. En plus she mostly buys stuff online which gets delivered to the house. It's one of her excuses to not leave the house anymore. She has to wait for the delivery guy  Last holidays she bought every ingredient for Christmas cookies online although there are several supermarkets and groceries within walking distance. I had also offered to buy the stuff and bring it along. She declined, I think because she is unable to accept help.

While I'm writing the above I get to thinking about depression..

Again, I am really not sure if M is an enabler with fleas or actually some sort of PD.

[11JB68]

It sounds like she has a very complex set of behaviors. There could be a PD or two in there, or fleas. Maybe some depression? Being married to my uocpdh for years, I have had some bouts of that. Maybe some learned helplessness?
Also I think big difference between an enW who is deep in the fog, vs someone who is out or in the process of getting out. Generational stuff might impact it too.
When I finally realized what was going on I had a lot of guilt for not doing better as a mom. By then my ds was old enough, I had a long talk with him about what I feel his dad's situation is and how I had been dealing with it and how I hoped to deal with it better going forward.
It doesn't sound like your mom is at that stage.
My mil lied a lot, to everyone. Hid stuff from fil, etc. Always pretended everything was fine. I was surprised when one day she got h and I alone and complained to h that fil was abusive (verbally). Unfortunately h really didn't offer any help to his mom, I was still deep in the fog myself and felt it was his place not mine...