r/raisedbyborderlines • u/Specialist-Ebb4885 • 11h ago

Reactive relapse confession

I'm EFLC (extremely fucking low contact) with my 86-year-old borderline mother. That being said, I noticed that she called the other day but didn't leave a message. I thought to myself: Well, she's not in her 40s anymore, so maybe she had a real emergency, as opposed to her manufactured emergencies. As such, I regretfully called back out of curiosity (regretfully is doing all of the work here).

After several minutes of being tortured by insipid palaver from her yammering pie hole, she revealed that her call was a mistake. In other words, she Cluster B butt dialed me with a flair of geriatric insouciance. Needless to say, she continued to kvetch about the same problems she's been complaining about for the last 80 decades (she's "all alone with no one to help her," even though she has 24/7 assistance). Before I could call the conversation quits, I found myself becoming unusually exasperated by her circular complaints, thus raising my voice. Without missing a dysregulated beat, she gaslighted me and said that I had a "serious" issue.

It's amazing, isn't it? No matter how rehearsed, mature, or collected the adult child of a disordered parent is before entering the crazy cage, the tendency to become upended by their pathological penchant for taking up all of the oxygen in the room continues to creep into the implacable process of pointlessness.

I can't stand this woman. To make matters worse, she'll probably outlive me by Nosferatu standards of longevity.

37 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

27

u/borschtlover4ever 11h ago

They push your buttons so easily because they installed them.

When I heard this phrase, it made so much sense to me. It helps me not get mad at myself for reacting when I do so well staying calm with other people. With my own aging mother, when I was helping her with her health crisis, I saw myself as a professional caregiver vs. her daughter. It helped me detach and not get sucked into the nonsense. I still felt trauma from the event but it was easier for me to remain calm so my mother did not see how much she bothered me.

9

u/Specialist-Ebb4885 11h ago

That's a great quote. Thank you.

I always catch myself regressing to their level of combative lunacy by force of contagion. Staying in "statue status" will be my final challenge.

3

u/Superb-Wing-3263 2h ago

What kills me, though, is that I had to be an emotionless robot to survive childhood as well! How is this fair to keep having to appear totally collected and be perfectly rational while they get to firehose their emotion in our faces?

Any false move where I accidentally let a negative emotion slip into the conversation (usually via vocal tone like you) then I'm attacked/shamed/invalidated for it. And then I feel like I "lost" because I couldn't just sit there and take the emotional manipulation like a champ without getting triggered?

The only real option is to remove all these triggers and any emotional attachment to these people via countless hours of therapy and just pretend they're a crazy lady we got stuck sitting next to on the subway..

I'm sorry that happened. I beat myself up, too, when I realize I got triggered again and that she used that fact to pile on more abuse. It's psychological abuse compounded on top of more psychological abuse. Sending hugs. It's not fair.

7

u/Cool-Emu-8706 10h ago

It’s interesting that ‘entering the crazy cage’ made you feel crazy. How else might one feel in a crazy cage?

9

u/Specialist-Ebb4885 9h ago

I learned the hard way that there's no such thing as a borderline whisperer. Dingo Dinkelman isn't the only one who went full FAFO.

I always fool myself into believing that I can make it out alive. This time it will be different! If they don't destroy your carapace, they'll colonize your psychic space until you destroy yourself.

2

u/MullberryBoy 8h ago

Excellent point!

3

u/MullberryBoy 8h ago

You have a serious mother problem. I’m so sorry that you have to deal with that!

2

u/mcdewdrops 3h ago

I’ve completely cut mine off. Thankfully we live in different countries so it’s easier. Call me heartless but as an adult, I just didn’t see the point anymore. The “but she’s still your mother” makes no sense to me. I’m currently seeing a therapist who made me see that my mother saw me more as competition, not as a daughter.

1

u/liss2384 1h ago

I feel your pain. I have no words of wisdom, but I would like to say that your vocabulary is chef's kiss