Another RBB w/Terminal uBPD Parent, Drowning in Guilt
I feel completely torn apart by my relationship with my mom right now.
Over the past year or so, I’ve finally started realizing that she almost certainly has BPD. I have a vague memory of the term being bandied around when I was a kid and she was in therapy, but I don't know if there was ever a formal diagnosis. She does not identify as BPD. I was the GC when I was a kid, so was witness to the way she treated others but not the victim of it. Becoming an adult, however, and differentiating from her, was the beginning of the end for our relationship.
Reading about BPD has been like someone secretly documenting my adult relationship with her, and what I witnessed in her engagement with others as a child: the emotional volatility, the guilt, the rage, the victimhood, the fear of abandonment, the way every boundary becomes proof that I’m cruel or rejecting her.
For the first time in my life, I’ve been trying to set actual healthy boundaries and protect myself emotionally instead of endlessly managing her feelings. Predictably, this has gone very badly. The backlash has been intense. According to her, I am cruel, selfish, uncaring, and have “broken her completely” (this quote was because I opted out of Christmas this year due to the utter toxicity of our family's current dynamic [sister is also BPD and has severe alcoholism and cannot care for herself; it's a barrel of fun when everyone gets together).
What makes it all even harder is that she also has stage 4 cancer. She’s not immediately terminal, but she’s declining physically and mentally, and the fear and instability seem to be making her symptoms much worse. She spirals constantly now. She lashes out, pushes people away, then wants us all to act like nothing happened and everything is fine once she's over it. Every interaction feels loaded with guilt and emotional landmines, and I feel like the worst person in the world.
At the same time, I also know that her illness didn’t suddenly create these dynamics. They’ve existed my entire life, and the diagnosis has just amplified everything. I’m realizing how much of my identity has been built around my own guilt and trying to prevent her emotional explosions.
I genuinely do love her. I don’t want her to suffer. I don’t want her to feel abandoned. But I also feel like I’m drowning trying to hold together someone who refuses help and turns every attempt at self-protection into evidence that I’m abusive or heartless.
My last engagement with her was texting that I just needed her not to be mean to me, then we could at least try reengaging. This was met with complete DARVO, and I told myself I was done. But she's having a bad week, physically, and it's just so hard.
For info, my therapist is NC with her own BPD mother and I'm just now starting EMDR.
I know plenty of you have been here, or are here right now. I see the posts, and it's so helpful to know I'm not alone.
Have any of you been able to figure out what compassion that doesn't completely destroy you looks like?
What are the things you do to regulate yourselves when the guilt becomes crushing?
AM I a terrible person for focusing on myself while she's dying?
I know I can't save her, or fix her, and I know that nothing will ever be enough to fill her deep well of need, but could I be just a little more open to being there for her?
black fur shining in the sun
collecting the heat
my own little footwarmer