Leave it to the experts she says...

[freedom77]

BPD/N has not relented in her scores of emails...at least 2 dozen a day. I have to be more disciplined in not reading them. Many I don't, but because she's so close and has a history of blowing up my life with calls to police or my job, etc...I do read some.

I got aggravated that she would state what a perfect parent she is, and how I'm ungrateful, and all she's ever done for me, and how I'm the bad one. When in reality our lives were hell.

Anyway, I broke down and emailed her back and stated the truth, that she's a BPD/N (she was diagnosed when I was in my teens), and she's having a narcissistic injury because I won't agree with her.

She writes back, how dare I get into a topic I know nothing about, and to leave it to the experts. That I am the one with the personality disorder. And I'm not qualified to make such statements about her. That there is absolutely nothing wrong with her, and she was/is/and always will be a perfect person, far better than I deserved.

[GettingOOTF]

What I came to see is that you can not argue with people. They believe what they want to believe. Nothing you do or say will change that. It's not a case of logic or more knowledge. People hold the views they do from years and years of conditioning and in some cases it's to do with how they are wired.

I gently suggest taking an honest look at why you feel you have to read her emails and why you feel you have to explain things to her.

I know I kept tabs on my ex and kept some form of contact because I was scared to 100% let go. I told myself it was for my protection, I needed to make sure he was still in a relationship, that I kept him happy etc. but at the end of the day I wasn't willing to make the final cut.

It was the same with my family. I held on to the relationship for years after I wanted to cut contact because I was scared to finally cut the cord.

Full NC isn't easy, not everyone can do it, but if you want to stay in contact you will need to find a way to accept that she is who she is. She will never change, she will never acknowledge any wrongs, she will never be the mother you need and deserve. 

It's hard to give up hope that they will change. I still don't fully accept that my father is a terrible person incapable of any genuine relationship with me but I now know this on some level and that's what I work with.

[athene1399]

She says to leave it to the experts and then diagnoses you.  At any rate, it sounds like a PD defense mechanism, like projection or possible gaslighting. But I guess labeling it isn't important. I agree with everything gettingOOTF said. No matter how logical you are, it will just lead to an argument that goes no where.

Maybe think on why it is important to defend yourself and respond to your mom. Do you want her to accept the truth and admit to how she treated you? Do you want validation for the low contact? Maybe once you realize why you sometimes respond you can figure out how to move forward.

I know I sometimes want my parent to acknowledge stuff like this too but I eventually gave up. They can't change and the won't change. I had to accept they are what they are. I had to drop it and move on. My feelings weren't important to them then and they aren't important to them now. It's just how it is. And trying to get them to admit anything about it and the conversation going nowhere just made me mad. I was wasting energy on it. Now I put that energy into healing myself.

[Psuedonym]

hey freedom77,

Everything that GettingOOTF said, especially: I gently suggest taking an honest look at why you feel you have to read her emails and why you feel you have to explain things to her.

After you went NC with her originally, you said you were reading her text/emails and listening to VMs that were terribly upsetting to you. Like Out of the FOG, you believed it was for your own protection, but she didn't actually doing anything. Then you contacted her about an apartment you found for her and she threw that back in your face and started blowing up your phone by disguising her number. Unfortunately, this time, you have taught her that you do indeed read her emails, and she's learned that if emailing you 200 times is what it takes to get you to respond, she's now going to email you 400 times. Honestly, by interacting with her intermittently in this way, you are encouraging her to up her game. If you really want to protect your own mental health (and your daughter's), you need to delete the blocked emails without reading them, change your phone number, and truly go NC. At this point you're still letting her abuse you by exposing yourself to her toxic bs.

[Medowynd]

Really consider sending her to a spam folder and block her texts.  Your BPD/N is only going to continue to hurt your mental and physical health.  I understand the attraction to read or listen to what the BPD/N says, but does it bring value to your life?  Is this something you want in your mind, that will play on repeat indefinitely with the automatic physical responses of headaches, nervousness, stomachs, etc?  Since the BPD/N is perfect, there is nothing that you have to offer for her.   

[MamaDryad]

Just adding my voice to the chorus. I'm sorry, Freedom77. I know how hard it is; I understand the impulse. I also sit by the window on airplanes because I'm afraid of flying and maybe if I'm watching, I can keep something awful from happening. The difference is that this is doing you harm.

You can give yourself and your daughter the gift of a life without your mother in your ear, living rent free in your head. You deserve that. She has nothing to offer you that you want, and you can't help her. I know how hard that is to hear.

A very wise person in my life used the fable of the scorpion and the frog in talking about me and my mother. Do you know it? I think it applies to yours as well.

[freedom77]

Thank you all for the responses. I've been pretty good, not reading the emails. Right now it would be super inconvenient to change my phone number. I wish my phone would just block her number, but it doesn't, it puts her texts in the blocked box (similar to a spam folder), and her vmails still register and come thru. And I wish there was a way to block people's email. But apparently all it does is send it to spam. I wish blocked meant blocked. So it's up to me to have the discipline, will power, and investment in my own spiritual health to not look. But therein lies a large part of the problem, we were groomed to do otherwise.

[Andeza]

Hey Freedom, in your email you can probably create a "rule" so that everything that comes in from her address is automatically deleted. I'm not sure who you have your email through, but I know some of them when you block the address, you see nothing at all from that sender.

As for the phone... eh, I can't help there, sorry. I'm better with computers than phones, but as they say.... there's an app for that. At least, I bet there is.