The mind boggles

[walking on broken glass]

It's been a couple of months that I have been no contact with my mum. I have blocked her on all apps but one (where we normally communicate) but she hasn't made any effort to reach out to me, which is a huge relief. But I haven't stopped thinking about how spectacularly it all blew up and what brought us to this. I guess I still have trouble reconciling the mum I thought I had with who she turned out to be.

I think where I get stuck is that my mum hadn't been obviously difficult or paranoid before. Yes, we always had a somewhat cold and detached relationship, and she never knew how to deal with me. She always took the side of my sister over me, made a bigger fuss of my sister, and talked to her for hours on end, while she was perfunctory with me, and I know she was blaming me for not having a better relationship with my sister. But she had never had such huge cognitive distortions. She had welcomed my partner when she first met him, and even before the arrival of my sister, around my dad's death, the three of us had spent what I thought was pleasant times at home, and she seemed to enjoy our company. I can reconstruct what happened afterwards and how, with my sister's 'help', she started seeing things in a different light but I am still unable to understand it. I know that I shouldn't be seeking logic or consistency in all this but I find myself re-thinking our whole relationship. Like when an abusive romantic relationship comes to an end and you wonder 'was this all a lie? Did he ever love me?'. I can't understand how a mum, who had been seemingly loving for all these years, can turn to this poisonous snake. With my sister, I had time to experience that time and again. I had seen her rage, her instability, her obsession with me, I had experienced her love-bombing and her bullying. I know this is who she is. But I was totally blindsided by my mum's behaviour. It's like I never knew who she really was. My mind keeps agonizing over the questions 'did she never really see me for who I really was? Was her vision always distorted? Did she keep up pretences with me only to fulfill a maternal obligation?' It's just really difficult for me to accept that a person (a mum!) can show such cruelty after maintaining a seemingly loving relationship with me for years.

[peacepath_13]

Hi, I would really like to have an answer, but unfortunately I don't.

I'm speaking from my experience with my own mother. She has done so many cruel things to me — did she love me? I see two scenarios.

One, imagine she didn't love us. That wouldn't necessarily be her being "evil" at the core, but rather her disorder speaking, something she cannot overcome even if she wants to. Deep down in her conscience, I believe there is love, but her mental condition doesn't allow her to express it — and of course, that's cruel.

The other scenario is what I think happened to me. Until I was about 16, I do believe there was real love and concern from her, even if expressed in very bad ways. But when I started to disagree with some things, she changed — from being the person who most told me she loved me to the person who harms me the most and treats me the worst in my life, a version of cruelty I had never seen.

So what do I think? Yes, maybe there is love — and of course we all deserve that — but right now it may not be possible for her to express it. I'm not excusing her harmful behavior, not at all. But I think framing it this way has some coherence and can give us a bit of peace.

I wish you all the best and hope your soul finds light! 🙂

[NarcKiddo]

It is very strange and difficult to contemplate issues like these.

From my own experience I know that my mother does love me - but as a child might love a toy. Depending on the mood/whim of the child the toy is appreciated and played with, or  is forgotten at the back of the toy box, or has its arms pulled off.

I also follow Jerry Wise on You Tube. He speaks often of how people in PD families are just a component in a family superstructure.  So long as the component performs as it always has, the superstructure functions just the same. But once the component starts changing in any way the superstructure will inevitably adjust. It has to. And what is good for you is not generally conducive to keeping a dysfunctional superstructure going as it would wish. Therefore the reaction of the superstructure is not generally pleasant. Which kind of makes sense given the superstructure wishes to remain dysfunctional. And, continuing the analogy, I guess the more functional one component is becoming, the more dysfunctional the other components have to become to retain some essence of the dysfunctional whole. This is not a comforting thought, but it does make sense to me.

[Liketheducks]

Some parents just don't have the ability to love their children in a healthy way. 

In my case, my mother told me as a teenager that I was the product of a date rape.  Lovely.  She married my father, but never should have.  It was a different time, and this was expected of her.  I'm not certain that this is true, or if it was something she made up to make sure I believed she was the victim.  It was such a chaotic family life that I said on one occasion that I wished that she had had the option to abort me.  Not because I don't want to be here.  But, rather that having that as an option would have saved her, me and my siblings from my father's physical abuse.  Both parents actively did things not to encourage us, but hamstring us...not just emotionally. 

Decades later when I was still trying to reason with her, she let slip that she resented me, was jealous of the adult life I made for myself.  It was an AHA moment for me.  She really did.  Having me trapped her.  After that, I just don't talk those things with her.  She is not entitled the that much of my head space. 

It's mind boggling to me as a parent myself.  I want to give my son roots and wings.  I can't wait to see what he does next.  I'm so proud of him.  This is the opposite case in my FOO.  I've had to accept that my parents did the best they could and their best was woefully inadequate.   That came/comes with a ton of grief.    I can fill those gaps within myself (that their parenting caused) with support and therapy so that I don't spread my ick onto the people around me is the best I can do

[walking on broken glass]

Thank you all so much.

I guess the more functional one component is becoming, the more dysfunctional the other components have to become to retain some essence of the dysfunctional whole.

That makes a lot of sense, Narckiddo. Thank you for sharing ☺️

[Lillith65]

The sense that I've made regarding my mother is that she has an emotional attachment to me, but is actually incapable of love and capable of great cruelty.

On the surface she appeared a 'good enough' mother. Fed us, clothed us, worked hard. However, there was never any 'real' emotional connection and I, and my sister's strongest memories are of emotional neglect and physical abuse.

This isn't the place to rehash her (my mother's) behaviour, but I know that she believes she was a good mother and always did her best. That's not how I experienced her. I think that in the moment - chatting, playing games - there was warmth and emotional connection, but I think that her PD means that she cannot love, and neither can my sister. Their PDs mean that they cannot ask for what they want or behave in an adult way in many situations. They may also get some pleasure from the hurt they cause, and that is not love either.

I hope that my thoughts are helpful, but I do know how painful this all is.

[walking on broken glass]

Thank you Lillith

I understand what you and others have said about the lack of emotional bandwidth and the inability of BPD people to truly love. I think what I struggle with is that I had never seen my mum as such a person. She wasn't physically or financially abusive and she did care about me, even though this was expressed more through formal acts of kindness instead of genuine warmth and tenderness. She kept up with me, even if it was in a superficial way, and operated as if my partner and his family were family, asking about them, befriending them on social media and liking pictures and photos. She seemed to like my partner and even enjoy his company, the times that we were there.

I just expected that this kind of interest and care, with its limitations, would always be there, no matter what; that there was a core of genuine love that was just expressed in an awkward and strenuous way. But I see now that I was wrong, and that the love itself was conditional and fragile. The means of expression was not the issue: it was the nature of love itself. But, in the past, no matter what had happened (e.g. fights with my parents, me distancing myself from my sister) she had never withdrawn her love or turned against me. This is new and it really hurts.

[Lillith65]

I am so sorry WOBG. It is painful.

The issue with a lot of people with PDs is that other people don't exist in the same way as they do to others. Sometimes other family members are 'objects' to be used and manipulated. You don't have rights to respect, fairness, boundaries or even just your own feelings. The goal is to get you to behave how they want you to, and they will do anything to make that happen.

The loving relationship you describe may well have been superficial and based on you meeting her needs. It is, as you say, so painful to understand that a mother does not have the capacity to love that others have, but the important thing is that this not personal. It is their personality disorder, not you; and apart from surrendering your will and becoming their object, there is nothing that you can do to change it. The only thing that we can change is ourselves, our understanding and our responses. Working through the pain is part of that.

We can also find others who are capable of loving and find joy and support in that.