Mentally Ill Mother - likely borderline.

[Seeking1]

All,

 

 

I posted on here once long ago and from some of the negative comments I decided I would turn inward. For anyone referring to my previous posts, I wanted to provide a brief update. For my sanity I moved out of my parents home, significantly reduced my debt load (from grad school and spending on credit) and bought a home within 2 years of my original post. It was a liberating freedom to be out of the home and away from a mother who is very very ill. I no longer worry about my space being invaded where I live.

 

 

My mother and father are the only ones left in the home. I would have cut off contact with my mother but I love my father and he has chosen to remain with her. I say chosen with some hesitation because while I have been able to escape to freedom, my father has endured her wrath, her physical and emotional abuse. I have told my father on many occasions that I would have him in my home if he chose to leave (so that he knows he has a place to land).

 

 

My mother has gotten progressively worse. What I took as "normal" in childhood, adolescence and as an adult is/was far from it. In working with a therapist I have come to see that my mother is ill and likely would be classified as Borderline but there is no formal diagnosis in place.

 

 

Where I was her target when I first wrote the post - buying a home and moving out - was liberating but made my father the target. She is secretly and covertly abusive to him, physically, emotionally and verbally. She has cut off all family and makes outright lies about them. For example, she advised me that her cousin did not invite her over for Christmas last year. I have kept in contact with this relative and know that she left several messages for my mother which went unanswered. It has been very very difficult to process that my mother lies to my face. In addition, she has changed residences and phone numbers to avoid having anyone know where she lives. The only contact she has is with my father and myself and her various medical appointments.

 

 

I would cut her off in a heartbeat but I am my father's life line. My siblings live quite far and I live about an hour away. I call my mother to give my father a break from her tirades or her fists. I go over and spend time with a woman I feel very anger towards because I love my father.

 

 

Only a select few know slight details but I have kept the details of her physical abuse towards my father quiet at his request. I live with a constant worry that she may kill him. I have volunteered to call the police but my father does not want me to do so. I feel continually plagued by guilt that I am out of her clutches and have left my father behind. My therapist calls this survivor's guilt.

 

 

As my mother has cut everyone out of her life there is an expectation that I will be her entertainment. This is evidenced by the fact that I receive multiple calls from her daily. When/if I ignore a call to rest, I am met with a barrage of voicemails which she uses the guise of concern.

 

 

I believe my father is severely depressed. I know I was while living with her and continue to battle depression. He endures varying forms of abuse that run the range from being told that he would be better off dead to physical abuse to her throwing his things away. I apologize for not being more detailed about the physical abuse but it causes significant anxiety to actually mention what she has done. Her most recent tactic has been to not allow him to sleep.

 

 

I know that I cannot force my father to leave but at the same time, I am now becoming anxious when my phone rings or there is a text. I feel unable to have joy or a worry free evening as I constantly live with the fear if tonight will be the night she does something.

 

 

I am hoping there may be someone who could shed some light on what I can do to further assist my father. I fear his depression and living with constant abuse has worn him down and he is unable to make a decision for himself.

 

 

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[Tayla]

First, thank you for giving LS another chance. you sound like you made strides in that way.

 

I read your 2011 post. Five years .. And still ongoing for your father.

 

I've no valid professional answer .. Just a fellow poster understanding of your dilemma and ensure you that your father deserves protection. Domestic abuse does drain... Ask him to go with you to a meeting.. They have safe havens for family members... May he find that soon.

[Herbalist]

Hmm be wary of secondhand diagnoses by therapists, and of course take everything from people online (including me) with a grain of salt, as well.

 

But, Borderline PD is way over-diagnosed in women. Women with AsPD (sociopaths), bipolar disorder, PTSD, DID, schizophrenia and beyond get misdiagnosed as Borderline all the time, as it's a lazy label to slap on women who obviously have mental/emotional health problems. And a professional (therapist) trying to diagnose your mother without ever even meeting her just hints further at that catch-all laziness.

 

It's important to note this because people with Borderline PD tend to be dangerous emotionally, as they are exhausting and emotionally manipulative/abusive, but in terms of being physically dangerous, they are mostly just dangerous to themselves. Suicide attempts, substance abuse, self-mutilating behaviors, etc.

 

Also there would be other diagnostic signs such as splitting problems, no real sense of identity, impulsive self-destructive issues, suicidal ideation/impulse issues, etc. It's not just violence and lying.

 

Going as far as deliberately trying to keep someone from sleeping in order to tear down their mental health, well that is some calculated evil ****, if she's really deliberately doing that. Reeks more of AsPD which is a lot more dangerous to others.

 

Then there is the comorbidity possibility, in which your mother could have a mental illness involving paranoia. Like one would need to know the real details of the situation, such as the details of her keeping him from sleeping, to try to discern whether it's a case of calculated abuse vs actual "illness" disturbances like paranoid and agitated psychosis often seen in dysphoric mania (bipolar 1 w/ psychotic features) for example.

 

Plus it's totally possible for someone to be comorbid with AsPD and some sort of mood/psychosis mental illness, as well.

 

So maybe consider really talking with your father, asking him questions and actually listening to him. You seem to be in codependent "rescuer" mode which hopefully your therapists talks with you about, too. Your father is a grown man and chooses to remain with your mother. Maybe he knows things that you don't. And maybe he is in more danger than he realizes, because whether it's a case of AsPD or agitated-paranoid psychosis, or both, that can get way more out of hand in some ways that BPD. If she is "ill" then professional intervention might be on the table if they have insurance or could otherwise could afford it.

 

But,

 

Something else to consider, is that it is VERY rare for someone with Borderline PD to marry a partner who doesn't have a personality disorder, as well. A common pairing is BPDxNPD. It would be quite bizarre if your mother really does have BPD, but your father doesn't have a PD at all. If your mother does have BPD, then it's very likely that your father also has a PD, and people with NPD also tend to lie and distort things in order to play "poor victim me" yet never changing their situation because it's not exactly as they say it is.

 

You have escaped the viper pit, so to speak, so be wary of getting sucked back in an attempt to "save" someone who doesn't seem to want to be saved, despite how terrible they're always making things out to be.

[Herbalist]

Thought of an example for consideration,

 

So a relative claims they left a bunch of messages for your mother, your mother claims she never received those messages.

 

Notice how you automatically assume that your mother must be lying about the messages.

 

Other possibilities haven't even registered in your mind, such as:

 

1. Your father deleted the messages and let your mother believe that the relative never called.

2. Your relative is the one who is lying, and they never left the messages.

 

You just automatically assume that mom is all-bad, and everyone else is all-good. Dad would never lie, the cousin would never lie, so therefore mom must be lying.

 

But that's never the way it works in severely dysfunctional families. Everybody lies.

 

And with BPDxNPD pairings, most commonly the way it works is that the NPD will figure it out how trigger childhood trauma responses in the BPD, and will then do so covertly. Then when the BPD freaks out in a rage, the NPD goes, "Oh they just went crazy for no reason, poor me!"

 

In severely dysfunctional families, it is important to never assume anything, and also not to fall victim to the splitting mechanism yourself, i.e. "mom is all bad, dad is all good" because that's never how it actually works. Everyone is screwed up in their own ways, or they wouldn't stick around.

 

For me personally it started out the opposite, dad was all-bad and mom was all-good, and then I spent my mid-late 20s discovering that actually, both mom and dad were screwed up, manipulative liars, and I was just a pawn between them in their own warped warfare.

 

But that's how you can easily get hit twice if you 'split' your parents or other family members. You become a pawn. So be careful.