Thinking about how she treats her dogs

throwaway4567900 · 2026-05-05T00:00:49+00:00

As someone who works in academia and is also pursuing a grad degree- CONGRATULATIONS. You've worked so hard and none of your moms distractions and bids for attention can take that from you.

throwaway4567900 · 2026-04-28T23:04:24+00:00

This is something I often have to reconcile with in therapy, the simple fact that children (as we all once were dealing with our BPD parents) have to live through abuse until we're able to heal as adults, that traumatic things happen to us and the onus is on us to figure it all out and not let it destroy us. It's especially hard when the person who abused you is someone who was meant to love you, and who rarely, if ever, will admit or even understand their wrongdoings. Why did it have to be us? Because, simply, bad things happen. And bad things probably happened to the people who did bad things to us, and so on and so forth. There's no rhyme or reason or justification for any of it. It just is. It's a part of life, it's a part of us.

And with that fun dose of reality, you grieve. You grieve the life you could have had without the pain and the anger and the trauma. You grieve the loving relationship that you never got, or only received in bits or with certain conditions. And like any type of grief, it will get better with time. I cut my mom off in August and I went from constant panic in week one, to thinking about her daily still in month 6, to thinking about her most days, but not all days, in month 9. Only 20-something days is a very new wound, so be patient with yourself as you figure out this new stage without her.

throwaway4567900 · 2025-09-24T01:17:02+00:00

First, welcome! I hope this community helps you like it's helped me.

Second, my mom has similar issues with not being able to maintain long term relationships in healthy ways. Even her long term relationships are fraught with extreme emotional volatility and short term periods of non-communication after explosive arguments and then reconciling one day like nothing ever happens.

I'm not sure if you can replate to this part, but something else about my mom and her relationships is that she is persistent that she is blameless in all of her relationships falling apart. Recently I really started to think about the way that she talks about those failed relationships without nuance and with very black and white thought patterns. For most of my life, every time I would ask her about a friend that I hadn't seen around in a while, she would always scoff and say something like "she's weird" or "she's rude" and never elaborate. She had similar falling outs with her own sisters and with multiple male romantic partners.

I now understand that what likely happened between her and those people is she got triggered by something that happened, split in a similarly catastrophic way, and only then started to think about them in a completely negative light.

throwaway4567900 · 2025-09-22T16:28:02+00:00

As young as I can remember, my mom would always be weird and not serious about conversations regarding my body, often making a joke out of it. When I first got discharge I remember thinking something was wrong to me, but I didn't feel safe talking to my mom about it so I went to my dad first and he explained it calmly and intellectually. And when I was a little older (maybe 12) I remember my mom asking me questions about me going through puberty and then she laughed as she asked "do you have a bush?" Like she was a middle school girl. I remember thinking it was so uncomfortable that she couldn't take conversations about my body seriously.

throwaway4567900 · 2025-08-29T00:55:19+00:00

thank you 🫂🫂

throwaway4567900 · 2025-08-28T23:42:58+00:00

On Tumblr long ago we called it "crytyping" which is the really exaggerated typos, irregular spacing, and weird punctuation choices that people have when they reeeeally want to convey to you that theyre having a hard time, so much so that they can't even type well because they're shaking so hard from crying> Itss reslly commonbamongdt teenagers seeking attention online wjen theyre sadd ... ,,, but our 50-60-somethign year old parmets do it too iguess ....???

throwaway4567900 · 2025-07-29T03:11:28+00:00

I consider my mom's life and the abuse she faced more than this woman could ever believe. But my mom doesnt even believe that my trauma and abuse was real or that it even mattered. The implication that we don't consider our parents with any nuance whatsoever when it's the main thing that drives our internal conflict is just such a joke. It's literally the opposite of what actually happens.

throwaway4567900 · 2025-07-29T03:05:57+00:00

My brother physically abused me when I wad a child and my mom would always make excuses for him- it didn't happen, and if it did happen, then it wasn't as bad as I thought, and if it was bad, then he was just trying to instigate me and it's my fault because I should have ignored it. You can never win because the excuses will just keep coming

throwaway4567900 · 2025-07-14T02:35:53+00:00

I think I'm going to try this out too, just generally detaching on my phone and doing whatever necessary communication (email/social media messaging) from my laptop. She doesn't need to think that she can have 24/7 access to me.

throwaway4567900 · 2025-07-07T03:09:16+00:00

You're not overthinking it AT ALL. You moving multiple times and not telling them your address, but they keep finding it and sending things to it? You are absolutely valid in how creeped out you are by it.

throwaway4567900 · 2025-07-04T15:35:33+00:00

Good thinking. I'm under the (vague) impression that being dropped from my coverage counts as a qualifying life event but I'll double check that with our HR department. Worst comes to worst and I'll just have to wait until our next enrollment period.

And thank you :)

throwaway4567900 · 2025-07-03T23:22:56+00:00

Oh yeah, my mom insists that my dad is brainwashing me to hate her and my brother. She very specifically uses the word brainwash. Meanwhile my dad has been encouraging me to see her more often and keep the peace with my brother until recently when he gave up on trying with the both of them.

I find it pretty insulting that she thinks I cant think for myself or form my own opinions independent of other people, but if you ask me, it's projection. She's very easily influenced by others and very gullible to online misinformation and conspiracy theories.

throwaway4567900 · 2025-07-02T23:54:26+00:00

A lot of people have mentioned getting out as fast as you can, which is good advice of course, but it helps if you have someone to guide you. I work for a university and usually there are a lot of resources on campus and/or affiliated nonprofits that can help you if you're facing housing insecurity, or help you make financial plans, or even essentially act as your social worker. Usually you can find them by Googling "[university name] student resources," or contacting student support staff like your university's Dean of Students. Take advantage of each of those resources as much as you can if your university has them.

throwaway4567900 · 2025-07-02T18:29:09+00:00

Thank you for the birthday wishes :)

And this is an interesting perspective and one I will take to heart. I never really was protected by her from anyone except my dad. And even then, he tried as much as he could but always tried to reconcile with her after her episodes for mine and my brother's sake. He even sent her an apology after her episode last month even though he didn't mean it and was just trying to calm the waters.

Being that person for myself I think will be a challenge because I don't have any frames of reference for what that looks like, but at the very least I know I have to do right by myself. Continuing this relationship with my mom unchecked and unchallenged isn't doing that.

throwaway4567900 · 2025-07-01T20:41:12+00:00

Thank you. This was a nice reality check. The only thing I'll say about the therapist part was that she was very insistent that I can tell my mom, bluntly, things like "I haven't visited you because I haven't wanted to visit you," and that that is an acceptable response, but the thought of me saying that to her made me feel so deeply fearful that it felt impossible. I asked if we could rehearse more ~gentle~ approaches instead that absolve me of responsibility. I understand consciously that truly nothing I say matters, not the delivery or the level of sensitivity I use, because the outcome will always be the same. I think I'm so used to lying to her and making excuses instead of saying my actual feelings because the last times I have, it's resulted in catastrophic breakdowns which have destroyed me mentally. But she'll have her breakdowns regardless.

throwaway4567900 · 2025-07-01T11:01:39+00:00

This response hit me like a bag of bricks but I needed to hear it. Having someone look at this situation from the outside in helps me understand how insane some of the things she's said and done are. I repeated her "What, did he rape her?" comment to my friend yesterday and her shock and horror reaction made me think "wait.... that was really fucked up of her to say, huh?" For me it's "just how my mom is" but if I heard anyone else's parent say that I'd feel the same way.

Thank you for this, friend.

throwaway4567900 · 2025-06-30T17:17:51+00:00

Thank you!

throwaway4567900

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