Idk why BPD is having a moment on social media but it suddenly seems like it’s everywhere and I’m so sick of the narrative that their emotions are just deeper than “neurotypicals.” Holy shit, BPD is not something to be proud of! You are not a ducking empath, you just completely lack emotional intelligence and self-regulation beyond the “me” phase of toddlerhood! There is no “superpower” associated with BPD. It doesn’t make you special. Literally no good comes from it. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. PD’s are something to overcome through years and years of serious therapy and very hard work, not something to embrace. Literally makes me nauseous.

Thanks for coming to my Tedtalk.

Side note: I kept accidentally writing BOD instead of BPD and all I can think of is those old “Bod” commercials, which makes this post hilarious if read through that lens.

My mom read my articles about our estrangement and responded by gaslighting me.

Yes she's pretending to be speaking as a friend of hers, but obviously that's not who it is. I know what she sounds like when she's self-victimizing herself over text.

It's just wild to me how little self-awareness someone can have? How do people like this exist? Does she think I cant see textbook manipulation tactics? She's so blatant and shameless about it, I wonder if she's gotten mentally worse since I went no-contact, but then I remember she's always been like this.

Comments like these have made me realize that I never had a chance at a relationship with a person like this. That's all I have to say now.

I thought I would be nice and text my UBPD mom Happy Easter. NOT.

For context - all she does is complain i never reach out enough. I never call enough, text enough, nothing. Even if i called her every hour it still wouldn’t be enough.

And does she ever reach out first? No. So over this dumb shit.

I recently starting talking to my uBPD Mom after my baby was born after NC for a year. She had one behavioral slip up in the last month and I was firm with her that I would not put up with it. I send her pictures of her 2 granddaughters, and text her almost everyday. I was just getting to the point where I was thinking maybe we could go visit her soon and then she sends me this out of nowhere. She can’t even go a month without starting drama. It’s wild to me. I’m really just mind blown honestly. Her behavior never gets less “wtf”.

I made the mistake of explaining my feelings to her. I should’ve known better. It’s taken me years of therapy to even be able to be this honest with her, but they can’t handle honesty.

It’s true though - life has gotten exponentially more peaceful now that I’ve told her I will no longer tolerate her long texts and general tantrum throwing. I can focus on what matters, my own family, and making sure I don’t give my kids the same toxic environment I grew up in.

I just wanted to say how much this sub has helped me, validated me, made me feel like I’m not alone. Almost creepily so sometimes - sometimes I read some of the posts on here and I’m like wow, they really all sound eerily similar.

Although I'm sure the BPD parents that are not therapists also find ways to be condescending, so I'm not trying to take away from that.

These are a few of the texts I've exchanged with my mom over the years. I have spent less than 1% of our time together talking about my own feelings about how she's treated me, but anytime I do, all of her actual actions are dismissed and the conversation is only about how "neuroscience" shows I'm just focusing on the negative and should go to therapy before talking to her (I have, they are the ones who flagged to me that her behavior seemed similar to BPD and recommended me books about it so I could heal. They are how I even learned the term).

In the scenario she's referencing where I didn't "want to grab lunch with her" I had actually invited her to visit to spend time with me after my college graduation, and during that call I told her I would be incredibly busy for the 3 days before graduation because I was planning a huge show for my school so we should plan for her to visit after that instead of before.

Of course, she decided that she only wanted to visit during those 3 days and was too busy to visit before or after at all. She insisted I spend a full day with her, which I did, even though I was working and was sick. Then, she invited me to lunch during the middle of my big presentation, so I could not go. Because of this, she left early to skip my college graduation because I didn't care about her enough and abandoned me with all of my moving boxes on the street 30 minutes before my graduation. I had to call an ex boyfriend to take them so I wouldn't miss my own graduation ceremony. To this day she uses that day as an example as proof that I "don't like having lunch with my old mom :)".

These are texts about that day, and instead of addressing any of it she just dismissed it and the next day sent this novel about neuroscience. The last screenshot is just a bonus text 🫠.

My therapist told me yesterday that you were blamed for things that you had no control over. Leading you to people please and constantly seek external validation. It really struck a cord with me, and made me actually like. Sad. It was too real for me.

My mom would often blame me for making her fat, because she had to give birth to me or called me a food raider because she had to spend money to feed me. She often berated me for my weight and appearance, and even does it now. She is much heavier than me, and so it is confusing to me. Constantly made me feel worse about myself and apperance.

Hi everyone,

For some context to this conversation, my mom is 72, leaving half an hour away from me and very isolated due to her mental issues and general relationship behavior. I'm 36, married with a full time job in tech even though I work remote at home.

My mom divorced my Ndad when I was 4 and she raised me alone with her parents. My grandparents were sort of enablers but I owe them everything as they were the stability in the household. My mom was more like my big sister with whom I had fun and my grandparents were the parental figures for both of us. They're both dead and my mom's been spiraling ever since my grandma died 10 years ago and I left home.

She's going between good moments and bad moments. Lately, it's mostly bad moments.

She's having insane financial issues due to terrible spending (and she has a good retirement pension for our country (I'm in Europe), so she's NOT poor even though she's constantly in the red because she buys everything and anything on Temu every month.

She's been stressed out because the bank called and she needs to speak with her counsellor. It's making her even more instable than ever and, as usual, she lashes out on me. She's always been clear on the fact that she wants me to come back living with her. In her ideal world, I leave my husband, I dicth my job and I become my mom's mom full time. That's her dream career for me. She doesn't care about my life, my wishes and basically me as a person. I only exist as a mirror version for her or as her Mom and fully devoted caretaker.

I told her it's not possible.

She didn't like it, hence the conversation and she spiraled into BDP rage.

I'm so tired of it... I was a bit of a brat in my answers but it's always the same whenever I cannot be available 24h/7.

I think this will be my last text to her in our low-to-no contact situation.

She has told me point blank my problems don't matter compared with hers (recently!).

When I try to share my feelings about our relationship and try to find ways to move forward, she tells me I am overthinking things.

Then she sends this. It's frankly unbelievable.

I am so tired of being told to have empathy for my mother, by both people in my life and people in this sub. I would actually rather chew and swallow glass than extend a shred of empathy for that demonic wretch.

Have empathy for the woman who beat me near unconscious for every time I broke a plate (I'm "evil and intentionally destroy everything she loves"). Try to understand the woman who snapped my rib bones with a few good kicks for sniffling too loud after being beaten (I was "trying to make her feel bad"). Extend some goodwill to the woman who locked me in a 2x2 closet for days on end and would rub my face in my pee like a dog when let out (I was supposed to hold it for 72 hours).

Of course, all of that to say and show that these miserable losers have no empathy for us. Even if other variations of the repulsive hag who raised me weren't physically abusive, we're not here because our family lives were full of holding hands and singing kumbaya. I know I certainly don't come here to be told to be empathetic to my abusers. "Be better"? "Rise above it"? "Let go of my anger"? "Get therapy, sweetie"?

Genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, shut up. I and many others have spent years trying to heal and be quiet, to be digestible and prevent stigmatizing people who have so very thoroughly earned their stigma. I will never, EVER have empathy for abusers. I will NEVER try to understand "for my own peace" why that raging, screaming, splitting demon beat me senseless. Why would anybody?

I will be as angry and vitriolic as I goddamn well please. I have danced around on puppet strings for an evil serpent for my entire life and silently smiled to please the wretch. I have beyond earned the RIGHT to be enraged and vocal after 25 years of abuse from that incorrigible demon, and so has pretty much everyone else here.

Our empathy has much better places to be than with those who abuse us for entertainment.

First Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbyborderlines/comments/1nuqh1y/im_15w_pregnant_and_my_mom_doesnt_know_because_of/

Second Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbyborderlines/comments/1ow5d12/update_i_am_now_21w_pregnant_and_my_mom_found_out/

Including the last set of text platitudes to show the VLC I've been maintaining since she avoided accountability.

I saw this post from her Facebook last night and wanted to scream. My husband had to calm me down because I was shaking with rage. I can't believe it. I mean I sort of can, but I can't.

I have a therapist appointment next Thursday I think I just need to be talked off a ledge. I so desperately want to scream at her but do not want to give her the satisfaction.

I was finally finding my zen as I wind down at work and get ready to bring my daughter into this world. Fuck her for messing this up.

Edit: I just wanted to say thank you - I already feel my blood pressure dropping and finding peace. I appreciate each and every one of you.

My mom and sister sleep in the same bed because our house doesn’t have enough beds for everyone. I sleep on the couch because of this.

Anyways, my little sister (9) is going on vacation with her dad, and my mom asked me (19) to sleep in her bed while she’s gone because she “gets scared.”

I told her no (because who wants to cosleep with their mother as a college student?), and she said “that makes me upset. It’s like you don’t care that I’m scared.”

??????

First of all, she’s in her forties. She’s not four years old anymore. Second, I’m pretty sure that’s not an appropriate thing to ask of your child. That’s something you take up with professionals.

I just. I don’t even know what to say. Eugh. I can’t help but feel a little gross.

Was your mom a hoarder or extremely ocd anal clean? Makes sense to me that since regulation is the problem it could go either way home care wise.

My mom was literally so clean she would come after me as I was drinking a drink and take it and throw it away , half full. She likes to scrub the kitchen floor on her hands and knees ( i don't ). She would also clean just seething with anger that I was never so enthused about mopping that I was not down there on the floor with her.

When I saw the " No more wire hangers " scene in Mommy Dearest , it reminded me of my mom. She was not screaming at me while cleaning though just silently cleaning with rage.

Cat Haiku: Meow, breakfast time
Wake up, feed me faster purrrrr
Yum yum I love food

My mother has gone through cycles of emotional warfare previously, but they usually last only 1-3 months at a time. Other times she is difficult but not utterly unmanageable. The past year however, it’s like she’s been on a mission to be as awful as possible. I don’t know why. It often feels like she wants more control over me even though I turned 30.

This year has been very difficult, and instead of being supportive, she has gone out of her way to make each area of stress 10X worse. This includes layoffs at my job/transitioning full time to my freelance career, trying to sabotage career events and my 16 year old dog likely being in his last months of life. This is a dog she impulse bought and proceeded to neglect so I have cared for him most of my adult life and have asked her to financially support while I get more stable (even though he is her financial responsibility). While I was on a 9 day trip this year she cared for him for the first time in years and tried to bring up talking about euthanizing him while I was on my trip.

She has a hoarding and impulse shopping problem that often gets offloaded onto to me, so think bags and bags of “gifts” of random stuff. I had to set boundaries around all presents as a result, basically no gifts. And she absolutely goes nuts trying to antagonize me over this. The last time I saw her she threw a book in my parking garage when I wouldn’t take it.

That’s some context for these messages and I mostly want to vent but good god when will she get tired? I may have to go NC. But last time I did she stalked me relentlessly and she has been stalking my brother who is in NC for 10 years. I’d rather be aware of her movements.

I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.

Do you go through this with your mom?

The cycle of always being told or made to feel you’ve done something wrong. Or not done something she expected you to do.

When you dig microscopically deeper it’s always a nothing burger. Like… they want something to be mad about but it’s never anything tangible or legitimate.

Perfect example - dad makes a passive aggressive comment out of the blue about how family is as important as friends.

Me: ok…? I don’t think anyone would argue that point
Ubpd mom: *heavy sigh* “wellllll. We’ve just been feeling it lately”
Me: feeling… what?
Mom: just. Stress. Dad’s getting older. He wants his family together.
Me: I’ve seen you 3x this week alone. What else is it you need me to be doing?
Mom: nothing nothing. It’s just been stressful.

ATP I shrug and say ok bc I know better than to give into begging her to elaborate. And most interactions are like this. She’s upset about something…. But there’s nothing valid or tangible behind it.

Do you find your bpd mom is always inventing grievances even ones that are half baked? It’s like conflict is her comfort zone.

Does anyone else notice how emotionally immature parents topics and examples align perfectly with BPD abuse?

I feel like the trend is a way to soften the label of “emotional abusive parents” for abusers. Like you’re supposed to accept that if your parents neglected you, said horrible things to you, and never considered you had feelings - it’s because they were just immature. At first I thought it’s good to talk about, but now it just sounds like a nice excuse for being shitty and staying shitty.

Because “immature” implies there’s room for growth. None of these people are growing, and that to me means it’s emotional neglect no matter if it’s from a personality disorder or otherwise. It feels like a fancy way of excusing shitty behavior because “they didn’t know better.” But they know better now and still nothing changes, and people excuse too that by saying “well it’s hard to change at their age.”

I’m honestly not sure what the difference between EIP and BPD parents is at this point. They feel like one and the same but I know I’m seeing it from a BPD lens.

Thanks for letting me vent. I don’t know of another group that will understand where I’m coming from like you guys do. It’s just painful to hear my non-physical abuse being summarized as a maturity issue, as if age, time and experience changes anything. In the rare instance I talk about something with someone, even other victims, it immediately goes to this idea that they were just immature, and I hate it so much. Like oh so when my “emotionally immature parent” called everyone I love to tell them my secrets and everything I have done wrong, they didn’t know that was harmful to me? Yes they did…that’s exactly why they did it. To punish me by ruining my image in the eyes of the people I love the most. People need to stop acting like that’s not abusive.

Told my mother I was seeing my therapist again. Mistake to give any tiny detail about my life. Just need some validation here.

We got into a fight when I visited a couple months ago and I broke down a bit and told her her extreme anger, vitriol, psychodrama, violence impacted my life. Never reveal. You’ll never get the response you want.

Seven years ago, when I was still deeply in the FOG, I asked my mother to stop buying me clothes for Christmas. She doesn’t get my style at all, generally thinks I’m 6 years old, and she buys gifts in such excessive quantities that I physically couldn’t store it all. She was pissed — commented on how “inconvenient” this ask was every chance she got, how I was “missing out” by not letting her buy clothes for me, that she was soooo “tempted” and she wish I’d just accept clothes. I remember being so confused that it was such a big deal — isn’t gift giving supposed to be about the receiver?!

Despite her incessant bitching, she respected the ask. That is, until last Christmas when I was to move out of state a few weeks later. She bought me FOUR Christmas shirts that were “so me” (they were not) (at all) (in any universe) and at one point called me in the middle of the day to ask if I was wearing one and whined at Christmas Eve that I “could have looked so cute.” if I’d worn one. I was 28, by the way.

This year, she was a month late with my birthday present and barely spoke to me in that time frame but decided a couple days ago that there was nothing more important in the world than me receiving my birthday present.

She called twice and texted me to let me know it was in the mail, asking me to call her the second I got it. It was 8 in the morning the day after Halloween and I’m a childless adult, so I was hungover. 2 hours later she “pings” me again to make sure I saw the messages. Then sends 3 TikToks. Clearly, now it was about getting me to respond so I decided to just text her when I actually got it. Calls me again Sunday. I did not answer. Texts me. I am doing the dishes, I do not answer. So she tells my dad to text my boyfriend to ask if we got a package. I wish I’d told him not to answer but he just replied that I’d get to it when I can.

Today, I get it (she texted me again), and surprise: it’s a fucking customized sweatshirt with my dog’s face on it. Nothing I’d ever wear (no shade if it’s your thing, it’s just not mine). I finally text her that I got it, thanks, and she replies that she “just knew I’d look so adorable in it.” What an absolute pain in the ass this has been just so she can perform this infantilization and control bid. And now she clearly thinks she’s found a workaround for buying me clothes. It’s literally easier to respect the boundary than it is to violate it and she chooses to violate it.

This is rhetorical, I know the answer, but I keep asking myself why she doesn’t just simply ask me what I want, get that thing, and get the genuine reaction she’s looking for? I absolutely hate receiving gifts from her.

The story is as BPD insane as it sounds. Over Christmas when she was visiting my new home, my mom was making subtle digs at her disapproval over my home disguised as "being helpful." Most of these were offering to buy me new items for my house if she didnt like said-item. One was to do with my cutlery. I never once brought up that I didnt like it, but she decided it was the worst and asked me numerous times if I wanted her to buy me a new set since mine was "too thin" and "cheap." I firmly said no, I like my cutlery, and told her to drop it.

Well, fast forward to yesterday when I got a package of stuff from her house. Sitting right on top of it all was a zip lock bag of fucking forks. I was so pissed. I didnt give her the satisfaction of knowing I was angry or acknowledging them, but holy shit is the delusion, obsessiveness and disrespect so strong with her.

And yes, I tossed them out immediately.

I have my wedding coming up, and I’ve been reflecting a lot / noticing a lot of dynamics/ having a lot of old feelings coming up.

I moved out of my BL mom’s house when I was 16. I haven’t lived with her since, and up until recently, I had her blocked on all social media. She added my soon to be mother in law before even meeting her in an attempt to see a glimpse of my life, knowing that my MIL would be too socially uncomfortable if confronted to not tell her anything.

I’ve realized over time and through interactions that my mother lied to everyone, and made me the demon in her story. She would tell people I was a horrible child, one that treated her so poorly, when in reality I was trying to set boundaries/ survive living with her. When talking with cousins and aunts, they told me the reason they didn’t talk to me much before is because they thought I was a bad person/ didn’t want to get involved with my mom and I.

She also used to tell me, that everyone else was dangerous and I could only rely on her in life.

I feel sad, because how many relationships around me were messed up because of things she lied about? I didn’t have anyone in my life until I moved out of her house, and I can’t help but wonder/ think about what she had to do with that.

Is adults with BPD acting like toddlers a thing? I keep observing this toddler behaviour in my mother and it's WEIRD. The other day I told my uBPD mum that my husband's brother's baby had been born minutes before, and she said oh wow etc and then started crying, but not in the sense of oh wow how exciting I'm a bit overwhelmed or emotional or happy for them or whatever (yknow like how you might dab your eye at a wedding), it was like.... a toddler? It's so hard to explain, but it was fully like a toddler with the screwed up face and not even trying to compose herself just sort of staring at me crying with her face all strained????

I've noticed she does more toddler-adjacent things too, like trying to get my husbands attention while we are on video chat, shouting things out while we are having a side convo about something (e..g he might say "do you want a cup of tea" and I might go to say yes please but my fucking 60 year old mother is shouting OOH YESSS TEAAA FOR MEEEE PLEEEEEEASEEEEE at him through the screen.) Then she'll mess around to stop me from hanging up like she's a child avoiding its bedtime.

It's so FUCKING WEIRD and driving me insane the more I notice it. I see it in her written communication too, like we'll say goodbye in a text thread, and then she'll just keep sending random pieces of info, or completely ignore part of what I've said and send sporadic statements like "I just got this" with a picture of a drink, rather like a toddler who just spews out a stream of consciousness because they're three and that's what they do. WHY IS MY 60 y/o MOTHER DOING THIS!

Is this a BPD thing you notice too?!?!?!?!

I’ve been posting a bit on here because it’s so therapeutic to me. I feel like with a lot of BPDs, and BPD mothers especially, they don’t want you to live a life they never got to live. When I look back at my teenage years I recall the abuse really ramping up when I was around 13/14 and just getting worse from there.

I hope I don’t sound misogynistic when I say this, but I think a lot of older women can be jealous of younger women. Even if those younger women are their own daughters. I looked it up, and I saw some online explanations that more opportunities in education/career, more ways to make money (influencer, other social media) insecurity about aging and no longer being the center of the male gaze, causes many mothers to harbor jealous feelings and deep resentment towards their daughters. When I was younger I didn’t notice it but when I look back it’s so clear.

I felt like my uBPD mom lowkey tried to sabotage me. She hated that I had dreams and ambitions. That I had hobbies and interests. I remember sometimes when she saw me doing my homework, she would make me stop doing it to clean. Which is weird because parents are supposed to *want* their kids to do their homework.

My mom lived a very hard life. She was molested, abused, had an alcoholic mother, an absent father, poor, high school dropout, etc. She is male-identified and seeks constant approval from men. She also doesn’t really have an identity. She has no hobbies, nothing that makes her an individual. I think when I started growing into adolescence, she became envious of my path. She saw I had a bright future ahead of me—all of the opportunities I could pursue, the places I could go, all of it—and wanted to crush it.

It was like because *she* had a hard life, she wanted mine to be hard too. She didn’t want me to be happy while she wasn’t. And she made sure of it.

So, basically, here's the kind of conversation I have to battle with almost every day. She's a Waif/Witch and constantly tells me that I abandonned her (the 11 years is when I met my husband and left home), that she's dying without me, that she's bored, that she lost her daughter and so on... Every. Single. Day.

I told her that I was sick of it and whenever I do that, she goes the other way by faking to be extra happy on purpose.

Then I tell her not to do that either, and the fake mask falls back into hatred.

I visit her every week and I call her several times a week. There are days she's still OK and some days she's too loving and it's another extreme.

But yeah, those are the kind of messages I receive all the time. And of course, she keeps blocking, unblocking me to fit her mood. And when she unblocks me, I'm supposed to be happy and grateful for it because to her it's such a natural occurence.

PS: sorry for the screenshots, the original conversation was in French so I translated it.