My dad is deceased and she wanted me to get married across the country, where I'm originally from. And when my husband proposed (in front of my mom and his parents), my mom burst into tears and made the whole thing about her and how my parents in law need to take care of me once she's dead.
To this day, she tells people that my husband only married me for "family wealth".
Y'all I need a little bit of talking down. This has to do with a social situation at my child's preschool that I am very triggered by, and I feel it's directly related to my upbringing and having a BPD mom. At the beginning of the year, I volunteered to be a room helper, as well as did another mom. We built rapport with each other (I'd say we're acquaintances) and our two sons clicked right away and they say that they're best friends. Me and other mom planned a few things for the class together and then in March, she had a C-section, delivered her second baby and her husband has taken over the pickup/dropoff. I also felt I was friendly with him and we talked everyday, especially after school when all the kids play outside for 20 minutes or so.
A month ago, my husband and I sent out invites for my son's bday which fell on mother's day weekend, and there was also another classmate's party on the same day at the same time as ours. I wasn't expecting a huge turnout, but figured at least 3 of the kids where I talk with the parents everyday and feel like we have enough rapport will probably show up, including this other helper mom and her husband. They never RSVP'd and the husband just never acknowledged it when we chatted at the school and I find myself being very insulted by that given that I thought we were friendly enough to where he could have said, hey sorry we're not going to make it. My kids kept talking about their son, expecting him to be at the party, and I didn't really know how to respond given I never heard anything either way. I didn't want to ask the dad directly because I felt awkward in case they were going to the other party or just had other plans.
Now to rewind a little, up until now, I felt like there were some red flags with the mom, that she was fake for lack of a better word. At one point she told me she was going to a fundraiser event for the school and that I should come. A few weeks later she complained to me that the teacher talked to her and low key asked her to talk to other parents about buying tickets because no parents from our class had bought tickets and the teacher was embarrassed. So it made me realize she hadn't mentioned it because we were acquaintances and she was being genuine.
Closer to the time of her birth, I texted her to extend a helping hand that if she needed anything once the baby was born that I would be happy to drop stuff off at the door so as not to bother them, and wished her a smooth c-section. She didn't even bother to reply and say thanks.
At the beginning of the year we met up in a coffee shop to start brainstorming stuff for the year and she told me she was 17 weeks pregnant. We had a nice convo and I sent a follow up text to tell her to send me her wish list for the baby if she had one because I'd love to get something for her. She politely declined so I didn't push it.
Fast forward to today, the school year is almost over. I was disappointed about the low turn out for the birthday party, but my son had a good time so I'm trying to brush that off. His two other best friends showed up and he was really happy with that. A couple kids who didn't make it gave my son a gift at school on Monday which was also nice. But there's only a few days left and I'm done with making small talk with the other parents and putting effort into interactions that I don't feel are meaningful. My son is going to kinder next year and most of the kids will be staying in Pre-K another year, including my son's best friend. When the kids play outside after school, I stand a ways down from the other parents, staying a little closer to where the kids are congregating instead of with the parents.
Today I dropped off my kid at school and both the other mom and her husband were there with their small baby. My kids immediately went up to the baby, I made a comment that the baby was cute and at first didn't even notice the other mom sitting in the corner chatting with someone else. Neither she nor the husband said anything to me or made eye contact. They rushed out pretty quickly after the kids went into the classroom and they ignored my toddler when he ran past them and out the front door of the school, which they wouldn't have done before. They would have told him to slow down or somehow otherwise acknowledged me/him.
I feel like I've created a strange dynamic for myself and I feel so uncomfortable and awkward now. I don't know if I did something really amiss and am being a jerk by withdrawing. It seems like a small thing to ignore an invite but at the same time not, given the history of the previous interactions. Yet it really upset me and is taking up so much bandwidth, which is also really upsetting to me.
Can anyone weigh in and tell me what you are seeing about me/this situation?
She's a hermit.
I talked my mom today on the phone, wished her a happy mother's day, everything was normal, no fuss. She made no mention of feeling sick or anything like that. Granted she's 81. Turns out she went to the ER because she felt like she was "collapsing" and felt weak. But I was taking care of her in my home for the past year (til I asked her to leave) and we only had one hospital visit. It's literally always something. She chose to go across the country though, so I'm too far away to do anything or be involved, which frankly is a relief. She called me I think expecting more pity but I grey rocked her and asked her to keep me updated.
I'm 40F. Recently, a really good, long-term friend of mine has been having trouble with her mom and stepdad. Her therapist has told her they probably have NPD. In my efforts to comfort her, we commiserated about things about our moms that overlap. I wandered into a rabbit hole about BPD and was intrigued since my mom has narcissist traits, but info I read about NPD didn't quite fit. I was shocked by how accurate she was described when I started reading about BPD and the hermit subtype. I told my therapist about it at the next appointment and she validated what I was saying and was pointing out how certain ways I've described my mom aligns with BPD. The paranoia, the hoarding, the having to walk on egg shells, the list goes on. Now that I said it out loud to my therapist, my head has been spinning. Like this is really real. How did I not figure this out sooner? I've known my whole life she has always been fucked in the head and that she had some sort of personality problems but I didn't have the name for it til now.
What was your experience when you first found out about your pwBPD?
I posted in this sub 7 months ago (please see my previous post if you want to go back). After a number of months of looking into AL here in Arizona, taking my mom to the facility for the tours, med evaluations, discussions, paperwork, etc., my mom ultimately decided the place she chose was a "ripoff" and refused to sign the lease at the very last minute. She lost a $2k+ deposit. She then guilted me and my husband to let her stay in my home until after the holidays (because this whole process started in October of last year). When January rolled around, she asked if she could stay til March due to the weather in New England, to which I agreed. Once March rolled around, she asked to stay for two more months, to which I agreed. My husband was not happy about that (understandably) and I finally forced her to hire in-home help once a week which we increased to two times shortly thereafter for the remainder of her stay. In April, she made a very non-committal statement about when exactly she would go home, to which I finally put my foot down and said no. I told her we were leaving town when my son was done with school for the summer and we wouldn't be home. She finally left three days ago, my cousin (POA) escorted her back home to New England. She called me today telling me that her in-home caregiver may not work out to which I advised her to start calling AL facilities to tour and be put on a wait-list if necessary. I feel I have done absolutely everything I can for her, but she refused to give up any control and is of sound enough mind to where she can't be forced to do anything. It's very frustrating how selfish the elderly can become as they get older. She has always been a difficult personality but her age has compounded the issues and made her even more of a burden to deal with. She didn't trust me enough to assign me her POA (which just shows you there are issues), but I was expected to neglect my husband and young kids to help her. I prepared over 1300 meals for her. Her hygiene was so poor my entire house smelled like human waste and UTI most of the time. I even had to go to couples therapy with my husband because he was getting so fed up.
I'm glad I got her out (as sad as that is to say). How she proceeds now will be on her, although I won't be surprised if I get blamed at some point. She will probably only go to an AL if she is hospitalized, at least that's the way I see it going.