Childfree Abby's Mailbag - There Comes A Time11 March 2007Message ID: 12v9eao78c35i4a@news.supernews.com
Dear Abby, I have written to you before. Your advice before was great. Ever since I was seven or so, at least that's when I start to remember it, I have been my mom's physical and emotional punching bag. I'm 24 now. A couple years ago, she grabbed me by the hair and dragged me across the garage floor. She said it was because I was screaming and fighting and making a scene in front of the neighbors. The garage door was shut and I was silently, but angrily, heading toward my car. She has psychotic episodes. I suspect she may have borderline personality disorder, just as I have (though I'm ashamed to admit that to people) and in my paranoid moments I think she has Manchausen's by Proxy. Tonight was horrible. I was downstairs, happily making a milkshake after playing with our puppies. I was watching tv with my dad and little brother. She corners me and yells at me about not making her a milkshake. Earlier, we had been talking for the umpteenth time about my fiance and how she hates him and that she "failed with me." I had invited her to go to lunch with me at dinnertime. She kicked me out of the house. I want to cut off ties with her, but I'm scared of the pain. After all, for someone with BPD, isn't that the ultimate abandonment? She always apologizes to me afterwards, but then later she turns it back on me. I'm beginning to suspect this is not all my fault. I just can't even stand her hugging me. Another thing I'm afraid of is losing ties with my father, whom I love. I know she would make his life all if he even spoke to me after I cut ties with her. I'm going to miss the puppies, and the pool, and the flowers and the bathtub, all those little things that made contact with them worthwhile. I'm going to miss my aunts and uncles and cousins. Also, if I cut ties with her, I'll never understand why she treated me the way she did. I know a lot of my problems are not the fault of my mother--I had horrible social experiences in elementary and middle school, rape, blah blah blah--but I unfairly think that sometimes I could have survived all this if I had had support. When I was raped she didn't do anything--she just said that real rape is when your husband rolls over in the morning after thirty years and says that he doesn't love you anymore. This didn't happen to her. It apparently happened to a friend with a friend. my mom is obsessed with betrayal. Can I even cut ties? How do I protect myself if she goes insane? How can I help myself through the pain? How do I deal with the loss of my father and all the things I love that I will lose if I cut ties? How do I cope financially? How will I ever know Why?
Gentle Reader, There comes a time when we all must leave the nest, and I believe that this time has come for you. I believe that the only way that you will gain a modicum of peace while retaining your own sanity, is with distance. Whether or not that distance will grow to include cutting all ties with your mother, only time - and you - will be able to decide. Even if you should have to cut ties with your mother, where is it written that you must cut ties with everyone else? As for your father, with respect, he is a grown man and can take care of himself. For that matter, where is he when all of this abuse is taking place? It is not and should not be your place to "run interference" between him and your mother, nor should your sanity be sacrificed so that your mother has an outlet for her rage. As for missing all the comforts of home and familiar surroundings, that is sometimes the price that must be paid for independence and sanity. Believe me; no bathtub is worth being abused over. Accept this: you cannot change your mother, and the only thing you can change is yourself. Also, as for knowing "why?" unfortunately, that is something you probably will never know. Likely there is no "why"; no rhyme or reason for it, and nothing that you have ever done other than you were a convenient target. I know that is not very satisfying, and perhaps the hardest thing of all to accept. However, if you are expecting your mother to have some sort of great "epiphany", you will wait a very long time, and there is no guarantee, or even likelihood that this will ever happen. How do you help yourself through the pain? Counselling helps tremendously, so does having a support system beyond your immediate family: your friends, cousins, and fiancé. As for coping financially, the same way the rest of us do: a job, a budget and sometimes doing without. If your mother really goes off the deep end, you can have her arrested for assault, and it may be the wake up call she and your family need, or not. You can stay in an increasingly intolerable situation and likely wind up as crazy as your mother or worse, or take the step to independence, with all the responsibilities and rewards thereof. The choice is, as always, yours.
Childfree Abby
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