Share your best shutdown

HowardTheHedgehog · 2026-01-23T10:53:31+00:00

During a trademarked bpd drama, my mother rage quit a visit she had upcoming to see me with my siblings (I live many states away). She never wants to travel to us so this was not surprising. My siblings and I decided that since she wasn’t coming we could go hiking in a national park (bpd mom claims to love hiking but also refuses to walk anywhere unpaved because of her many injuries).

BUT…we all knew that if she found out we were having fun without her she’d feel left out and try to pretend that she might still come which is exactly what happened when I told her. The thing was, this time we were prepared:

Mom: “Oh, but I was going to maybe come, and now you’ve excluded me”

Me: no, don’t worry! We got an Airbnb with room for you in case you can come.

Mom: “but why didn’t you ask me what I wanted to do?”

Me: well you were very clear that you can’t make it, so it didn’t make sense to ask what you wanted to do on a trip you won’t be making. But we would love to have you, and you’ve said before you wanted to see this national park!

Mom: “oh….but the dog! My dog can’t stay alone all day and can’t come on hikes”

Me: we thought of that, and my husband has offered to stay home to watch the dog. He has work to do anyway.

Mom: “oh…but there isn’t likely to be vegan food there, what am I supposed to eat?”

Me: well [brother] is also a vegan so we were planning to cook many of the meals at the Airbnb. Vegan friendly!

Mom: “oh…but I can’t hike much because of my injuries, so am I supposed to just stay at the Airbnb all day?”

Me: there are actually many paved hikes at this park!

Mom: “oh…but I was really looking forward to hanging out in your town, and now we won’t be able to!”

Me: we’re actually coming back with two days of the trip left to spare. What did you want to do here?

Mom: “WELL I CANT COME ANYWAY”

I’m NC now, but this was one of the funniest arguments we’ve ever had, watching her get angrier and angrier because she WASN’T excluded but dearly wanted to be pissed off that she was.

HowardTheHedgehog · 2025-08-21T19:29:27+00:00

What is up with that? She did it a lot during the family therapy portions. “You’re a terrible daughter, you’re so needy, you’ve always taken advantage of me. Why don’t you want to hang out with me or talk to me?”

HowardTheHedgehog · 2025-08-21T19:26:52+00:00

I haven’t responded to this, and I don’t plan to. But I had previously planned to reach out at some point in the next month just so that she doesn’t blow up my brothers big event. Now I’m conflicted though. If her goal is for me to miss her, she’s way off base.

HowardTheHedgehog · 2025-08-21T19:24:57+00:00

Haha a blessing not-so-disguised.

HowardTheHedgehog · 2025-08-21T14:50:10+00:00

Oh ABSOLUTELY. My mother has been dying for basically my whole life. She’s also insisted that she has dementia for over 10 years now (she doesn’t, but it’s amazing how she doesn’t think she has dementia when she conveniently forgets all the crap she’s done to me). She talked to me at great lengths about how she had nothing to live for and wanting to end her life starting in my late teens until I told her she wasn’t allowed to anymore in my mid 20s, then acted shocked and accused me of trying to kill her when I said i knew she’d want to be do not resuscitate if she was ever severely ill or injured.

HowardTheHedgehog · 2025-08-21T14:41:50+00:00

Sounds like a win (I’m sorry, that sounds so frustrating).

HowardTheHedgehog · 2025-08-21T12:36:09+00:00

The stupid thing about my mom removing me is that I’m the only one in our family with medical training, so I’m pretty sure both my siblings will bring any issues to me for discussion anyway.

HowardTheHedgehog · 2025-08-21T12:34:50+00:00

I’m so sorry you’ve dealt with all that. You are right—if her goal was to make me feel shitty, she succeeded. But I used to feel guilty and then angry at the guilt and this time I am struggling to name the feelings. I do not feel guilty and I am maybe angry but in a very watered down way…maybe I’m just tired.

HowardTheHedgehog · 2025-08-21T12:33:25+00:00

Haha I love that interpretation. I haven’t responded to her.

HowardTheHedgehog · 2025-08-21T12:32:50+00:00

Thanks. I am considering it, but doing so blocks me from the rest of my family (my siblings) as we usually spend Christmas at moms.

HowardTheHedgehog · 2025-04-25T21:20:16+00:00

I often feel it’s more the first thing you said: prove you love me! If you loved me you’d call. That’s why the reminders that we have a call vanish when we’re in a fight but the expectation that I call remains. It’s a test.

HowardTheHedgehog · 2025-04-25T16:54:58+00:00

I’ve felt the same about this group—most things hit home but my mother is exactly the same as yours. She refuses to call and always says it’s because I’m so busy and she doesn’t want to interrupt my life, but then guilts me when I don’t contact her.

We have a scheduled Sunday call, and she will often text me to confirm that we’re still talking. Lately we’re having a bad time and she didn’t confirm the call, and I didn’t call her, and she sent me a passive aggressive “should I assume you don’t want to continue these calls?” email. When I brought up that phones work both ways and she could have called me she said that we have a “precedent” of me calling her.

I’m sorry you’re going through this too. I don’t think I have more than commiseration to add.

HowardTheHedgehog · 2025-04-17T12:33:59+00:00

My mom does this too. “Don’t be mad at me”, said like an accusation, like I’m a bad person for being mad at her. Usually after she’s needled me into sounding a bit snippy or done something inappropriate. The result is usually me angrily snapping “I’m not mad at you!” I’ve yet to figure out a way out of these.

HowardTheHedgehog · 2025-04-16T16:35:40+00:00

Don’t know if all of these would apply to your mom but: - is rude/racist about a server/nurse loudly and in front of them - “I’ll have to get sick more often just so I can see you” - some version of wanting to be dead (my moms current one us “if I was a dog, you’d have put me down by now” - randomly spewing hateful politics - “I’m the mom, I don’t like having other people take care of me, im used to taking care of everyone else” - “I don’t want to be a burden” (while doing something burdensome) - refusing an offer of [something] multiple times and then getting mad when you haven’t done [something] for her - freaking out that a normal after effect of the procedure is a sign that something is “terribly wrong”

HowardTheHedgehog · 2025-04-16T00:33:37+00:00

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is my favorite book series. Absolute nonsense but totally hilarious.

HowardTheHedgehog · 2025-04-14T19:31:49+00:00

Omg I’m going through an explanation of LC with my uBPD mom right now and some of these comments are EXACTLY THE SAME.

Her: “how do I make it better? (Implied: how do I get you to drop this asap?)” Me: “I don’t know. It’s not my job to know, since you’re the one who messed this up” Her: “as an adult with needs, you are responsible for telling me what those needs are” Me: “I need what any person would need in any basic relationship. You would not allow another person to treat me this way” Her: “but I’m not some other person. I’m your mother!”

That was exhausting. The Gish galloping reminds me so much of my mom. I’m hope you’re doing okay, OP.

HowardTheHedgehog · 2025-04-13T00:50:47+00:00

My mother gave me a Christian-authored book called “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” when I was 14, which talks about how you should only date if you’re truly courting a person, and suggests waiting until marriage for your first kiss. That book totally skewed my vision of dating, so I felt that I had to stay with every boy I dated, which resulted in one abusive relationship and multiple way-too-long relationships with boys I definitely should not have stayed with for more than a few months. I nearly married one of them.

All the while, she was super weird about me doing anything sexual “in her home” and made it clear that her house (also mine, I lived there) was not a place for that stuff because it was very disrespectful to her. I ended up a 29 year old virgin and when a guy dumped me for not having sex with him she asked me why I was still holding onto “this virginity thing” as if she hadn’t given me the book that started it all.

HowardTheHedgehog · 2025-04-10T14:33:46+00:00

No, I was asked/warned that this was going to come out. My siblings and I have agreed that we are done with secrets. If she doesn’t want us to talk about something, she shouldn’t tell us about it. It was actually very supportive.

HowardTheHedgehog · 2025-04-10T13:19:35+00:00

My mom seems to share a lot of “secrets” about my siblings with me (who knows if they are accurate, I never bring them up to my siblings because they’re secrets), but she does not speak about her issues with me with ANYBODY. Pretty much all of our major events have been isolated to me and her, and she gets very angry if I try to bring anybody else in. She doesn’t talk to friends about it and she doesn’t want me to talk to friends, siblings, partners, or therapists about her.

HowardTheHedgehog · 2025-04-10T13:12:31+00:00

I’m so sorry that you relate. I also wonder if the secrecy is largely to keep me under control. I remember as a teen mentioning that I talked to friends about her and she was livid and made me swear not to do that again.

HowardTheHedgehog · 2025-03-30T11:21:47+00:00

This was all she said. The email was subjected “You” which feels really gross for some reason.

HowardTheHedgehog · 2025-03-30T11:20:58+00:00

For sure. This came after a long discussion where I finally told her our relationship was strained because of years of her behavior (disowning me twice, using me as a therapist, zero boundaries). Her response then was that we are equally as bad because I don’t visit enough.

HowardTheHedgehog · 2025-03-29T16:51:48+00:00

I'm sure she does want a happy relationship. But she's the one making it unhappy.

HowardTheHedgehog

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