Overcompensating

[DancingStar]

Not sure if that's the right term - I'll try to explain what I mean.

For as long as I can remember my mother has used illness as an emotional blackmail tool.  Any kind of stress (even if it's something happening to someone else) and she becomes "ill" and upset so that we  run around trying to soothe her nerves, coax her to eat etc.     She never has a cold, she is so ill that she thinks she will have to be taken away (ie. we will need to call 999);  those 24 hour viruses that we all get leave her feeling "I thought I was going to die"; she never feels under the weather, she is "weak as a kitten and going downhill".    I can remember being about 5 years old and thinking my mummy is going to die soon.  55 years later and she's still here, minus (as her GP put it) a bit of wear & tear. 

I think it has made me  dismissive of my own health needs.  Last year I was very ill and still have some complications as a result.  But I never tell anyone about them, I don't look look after myself or take care of my health needs, especially if it means letting someone down.  I never make any kind of fuss.  I pretend there's nothing wrong.  I can't even take my tablets in front of other people because I don't want them to think I'm making a fuss.    I know that if I say anything in front of my mother about feeling tired, or pain or not eating a certain thing,  there will be one of her stress reactions and I (and everyone round her) will be regaled with tales of how she hasn't slept all week and how she can't eat she's so worried, and she will cry.    But, I don't mention things to anyone else either.   It's almost as if I have seen my mother's reactions and how she has used illness as a form of control, and my brain tries to make me the very opposite so that I don't do it to others.   

I'm interested in your  suggestions and comments.

[Hepatica]

I just want to acknowledge and encourage you to keep sharing. Good for you for being curious and opening up here in this safe place.

Regarding what you have written, of course you shut yourself down. Because if you spoke up, your mother's illness was bigger and worse. That sounds like NPD of the histrionic flavour. And I can imagine you found her behaviour so irritating, so sad and overwhelming that your whole life you made the decision to stay quiet and never act that way. This is exactly how many of us react and survive disordered parents. How could we compete with them? We couldn't and we can't.

I'm sorry that you went through that growing up and into your adult years as well. It does affect how we treat ourselves later on.

I had a grandmother who was just like that and that is how my uNPD sister is now. She uses illness to manipulate and garner attention and, yes as emotional blackmail and control. She has used it to get out of taking responsibility for years. Nobody can be in as much pain as she is in. She wobbles and has dizzy spells when she hosts dinners. She has people running to her to help her. She has assumed she has cancer so many time since she was twenty-one years old and she has never had cancer. I think in terms of the book C-PTSD by Pete Walker, she would be defined as a "waif." It was probably a survival mechanism for her that has now gone awry and turned into a disorder.

Part of my healing process that I have found works the best is acknowledging and working with my needs. We were neglected. How do we even know exactly who we are when the people around us dominate the stage? I grieve that neglect now and I am working on listening to my self and treating myself as a good parent would. 

[Boat Babe]

What Hepatica says is spot on.

My grandmother was a complete drama queen when it came to her health. My mother waifs her way through her various, slightly nebulous ills. My granny died on her 101st birthday and my mum just turned 88 and, from my perspective, is doing great health wise (no chronic pain, no mobility/continence/dietary problems).   But, oh the drama and the pathos.

Like you I don't make a fuss when I'm ill (and I'm lucky to share in the family ox like constitution) but from what you say you put your own health needs right to the back of the queue. That you are asking this question, very eloquently, is very good news 😁😁😁. In our journeys of recovery this is the pattern. Once we see something, it can't be unseen. You KNOW that this is your next "inner" project because you've already started on it.

Here you will learn from people who totally get you and your struggles. You will learn so much and, by sharing your experience, you will help us too. My personal go to method for dealing with painful feelings is the Mindful Self Compassion work of Dr Kristine Neff. That and walking the dog!

Looking forward to seeing you here.

[Andeza]

For my uBPDm, every illness is a competition.  If you have it, she has it three times worse. I'm fairly certain factitious disorder is partly to blame.

I stopped sharing with her, but I never stopped sharing with my dh. I am guilty of not going to the doctor when I should. 

I think it's our natural reaction. We don't want to be that person.

[Call Me Cordelia]

Yeah that's me. I can't tell you how often I've powered through a migraine, never even thinking that I had the right to simply stop and lie down or take some medicine.

[Sidney37]

My PD mother is the same.  I had an injury as an adult that left me hospitalized for quite some time, multiple surgeries, etc., but when she had a panic attack with a headache and heart palpitations, she went on for weeks that I had never been as sick.  Same with her kidney stone (and I know they hurt horribly). But based on her behaviors and all the places she was going, I'm not certain her pain was so much worse than my injury.  Everything is a contest.  She has to win.

[Sneezy]

I took my mom to lunch and some outdoor window-shopping a few weeks ago.  She stopped at a hand sanitizer machine to get some hand sanitizer.  She then started hollering and carrying on to the point where it was embarrassing.  Her hands were burning up.  She was having an allergic reaction. Oh no, oh no, oh no, what should we do?  The pain!!!  She couldn't go on, her hands were turning red.  She was wringing her hands and wailing.  So I quietly said, "well, we'd better go home and you can call your doctor."  And just like that, she was fine, and she started walking along again like nothing had happened. 

There are very few true medical emergencies.  But PD folks will always have some kind of stomach upset, headache, lack of sleep, etc. that they think is an emergency and that they will use to get attention.  I've found that staying calm and recommending that she call her doctor works.  When my mom carries on, I just keep repeating that I'm not a doctor and if she's concerned about the situation, she should call her doctor and see what he says. 

As far as taking care of your own health, do what works best for you.  I completely understand wanting to be private about your own health.  My mom has shared way too much information, and I am determined not to turn into an old lady who discusses her gastrointestinal dilemmas with anyone who will listen or who rolls up her pants at the drop of a hat to show everyone her latest rash.  Do what you need to do to be healthy, both physically and mentally, but never feel obligated to share personal info with your mother.  She will probably just make it all about her, anyway.

[Leonor]

Omg Sneezy, "rolling up her pants at the drop of her hat to show everyone her rash"

I just wanted to encourage all of us to really look for a good doctor that we like and then be sure to keep up our appointments, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us. I found a fabulous doctor who is so compassionate that when I disclosed that I was a survivor of sexual abuse, she teared up and said, omg, this year must have been so hard for you and then showed me a tattoo of the woman symbol she got on her wrist in honor of her female patients and their right to health and wellness.

The good docs are out there (I also love nurse practitioners). It is such an affirmation of our selves and our right to dignity and self care to be looked after. I also love the work of Dr Christiane Northrup for women of all ages!

[DancingStar]

Today's example was just typical.    My illness flared up on Saturday and  I spent most of Sat and Sun in bed, unable to keep any food down, unable to walk further than the bathroom and back.   Over the weekend I have 4 texts from my mother telling me she's got a doctor's appointment on Monday (today) at 11.50 and will I take her.    I text my sister telling her to tell mum I'm ill (mum lives with sister & family) assuming someone else will take her to appointment (there are 5 other adults in the house besides my mother) 

This morning, not having heard anything, but still feeling wobbly and lightheaded I go over to my sister's (she's at work).  Mother does her very loud sighing and keeps telling me how tired she is.   Drive to doctors to find appointment is tomorrow, not today.  Am very patient, would quite like to show annoyance, but don't.    Get back in car, mother starts crying about being a burden. Feel too tired to spend energy reassuring her she's not so I feel mean as well as tired.  Go back to sister's house and find out that for some reason (probably extreme waifyness) all texts from doctor's surgery to my mum go to  my nephew and there has been a mix up between whose appointment is on which day.   

Ask why mum doesn't get her own texts so mix ups wouldn't happen & am told that she doesn't know how to access texts on her phone so misses them when they're sent.     Also feel more annoyed because I know my sister has been paying monthly for the last year for a smart phone in my mother's name, that was meant to make texting etc easier for her, and  my mother has refused to even try to learn to use it.  She won't even try to switch it on.

Sadly I know that I am now going to get  "I am such a burden on everyone" over and over for the next week.     It just wears me down and I start to feel so guilty because in my head I am annoyed - annoyed that despite family members urging her & my stepdad to move back closer to family they didn't, so now when she's at a point where she could live alone if family were near by she can't live on her own in the middle of rural Wales, annoyed because she  hasn't even tried to learn to use her phone properly, annoyed because she acts like a child so instead of taking responsibility of organising her own affairs, making her own appointments etc she's got different people organising things for her so there are mix-up's and double-bookings.     

[Boat Babe]

She's getting supply from all this chaos. She clearly doesn't give two hoots about your well-being. I feel for you Dancing Star.

My thoughts are that you need to prioritize your own health first. If you are not well enough to run around like a headless chicken then DON'T. I would take to your bed for a week if you can and look after yourself. No-one else will, so you must. You seem to be carrying a heavy load of obligation and guilt and I would encourage you to lay this burden down.

Sending love and hugs.❤️

[DancingStar]

Honestly, sometimes you have to laugh.    Why, when I tell my mother that I'm going home to have a few hours sleep, does she phone me an hour later (crying, of course) waking me up from my lovely sleep to check that I'm ok?    I normally turn my phone off but had forgotten this time.  More to the point, why did I answer it? 

This afternoon I was thinking about love.  I'm quite cynical about it as an emotion - so many people use it as an reason to try and bind people & suffocate them, or to control people.    It makes me sad that "love" (and my mother never stops telling me how much she loves me) has turned me into a person who feels so ambivalent about it.  I wonder if I'd rather have friendship, trust, honesty & mutual respect.