Originally Posted by A Little Lost
Not that its excusable at any age, but how old were you when your mother sadly set you out on the doorstep more or less. It certainly was selfish on her part and not at all what I think of as what mothers should be. I have had some friends or acquaintances who say things like "my mother has been my rock, I never would have made it without her" i don't begrudge them that it just is outside my realm of experience personally but it sounds nice of course. There have been new developments, wild developments on my part which are long and a lot of people may not care to read them and since they aren't forced or obligated to I will copy them here to be read or not. I will just say its the strangest feeling or realization, like discovering a new color you didn't previously know existed, a totally new experience which while painful I hope will leave me better off.
I apologize - I have tried every which way to decrease the size of print but nothing seems to work. i pasted it into an email and made it smaller but when i bring it back here it is back to being large again?
My day yesterday (Tuesday):
I have been sad and desperate and have written in several places here the separation (and my ensuing sadness and confusion and sense of being "lost") that has developed between my son and I. As a matter of fact, i called him last night and left a tearful message for him that i missed him and was sad about our distance. He is, btw 48 years old. Up until about 3 months ago we have always had a good relationship and could talk about most anything. Then he moved in with this "person" whom i do not like for several reasons including that he himself said last summer she was bad news and he wanted to get away from her but she bought him flowers and he felt guilty so they got back together seeing each other.
She has been pressuring him to move in with her for years - he finally capitulated. He acknowledged she was manipulative - telling him she was moving away so he would move in and several other ways she herself later admitted were to manipulate him. In addition she deliberately excluded me from a surprise birthday party she had for him last April. I said i was hurt at the time but typically rather than defend me and ask why she excluded me he just glossed over as is his habit leaving me to "deal with it". i said I wanted an apology which I was informed would not be forthcoming and that he had more important things on his mind. My mother was good at that, weaving it in directly or otherwise, into the conversation "you are not important"..
In light of his blowing off my desire for an apology its all the more remarkable today that he had constructed a list of people he decided Ii owed an apology to as though who appointed him the judge of me. He refused to acknowledge that I was hurt by being excluded by his new "THING" and his attitude was that he felt very justified even heroic and righteous to have this list of people he decided I had wronged and whose cause he was championing when he has continually refused to be a champion for me - the same kind of neglect I felt always from my mother, that anyone could get away with doing anything to me and she would not intercede but would be swift to point out my transgressions (as perceived by her) against others. I always had to be so conscious of others feelings but never got the same in return.
My son seems to be of the opinion that it is my conduct that is unforgivably manipulative - which it has not been meant to be - it was part of the BPD. Cancer patients cannot choose the symptoms of their illness or the degree but I have failed to take proper control of mine it seems. His new whatever who told had eventually acknowledged trying to manipulate him was water under the bridge but NOT MINE that he holds me responsible for. My mother had the incredible ability to always have an excuse for her conduct no matter how outrageous, she would say, if I asked "you just don't understand its different for me".
As usual in my life I'm always off a stroke or two from everyone else. I did something at Christmas that turns out to have been a waste of effort and money. I spent many hours looking for just the right one last Christmas (a new bike) which was over $300 - a huge expenditure for me, the most expensive thing i ever got him even when his father and I were still together. I wanted to send a message, that he is worth better than he's gotten, the leftovers of what he has after paying a ransom sum of child support. He has always liked bike riding since he got his with training wheels and just about grew up on bikes except to sleep. his bike was old and beat up - incredibly - he showed no interest in it at all - my other son was the one who opened the box to look at it. On hearing some of the details he said he liked his old style better blah blah - the tires, the handlebars, etc. it was very unlike him to be so ungrateful he wasn't brought up that way.
it did hurt my feelings very much. Trust me that with my income this was like I said huge for me as i struggle to make ends meet on a fixed income. I was nevertheless happy to spend it and not at all questioning my decision to spend such a huge sum. At least not until it became how uncharacteristically ungrateful he was - I had been so excited to give it to him but it was a huge disappointment for me and set the stage for our growing distance. me feeling hurt and he being totally unapologetic for his lack of appreciation. i did not expect him to fall at my feet but i certainly did not expect the indifference - his brother was the one who opened the box - he was the one who listed the shortcomings of his gift.
He couldn't wait to get away on Christmas day, lying about having forgotten a gift or his granddaughter when it became clear he had gone not for the forgotten gift but to retrieve and show up at a later family gathering with his person that unbeknownst to me he had moved in with. I had stated i did not want to be around her and would not invite her to my home so his surreptitious activity bringing her to a gathering at his daughter/my granddaughter's house that day knowing that i didn't want to see her was disrespectful.
Its my feeling he should have had the character, if that's what he chose, to be honest, to say he had decided to include her and leave me free to go or not but instead he was 'sneaky' about it. Its not a matter of whether I'm right to choose to distance myself - its my choice and his choice who he lives with --- the issue was his flagrant disregard and lies.
Anyway since that time i have been sick and physically challenged in addition to the depression lasting for years, I came down with a severe "raging" pneumonia as my doctor put it and just when I was getting over that I sprained my ankle (still over 2 weeks later swollen and in need of mending) which has laid me up under doctors orders to keep it elevated so it kept me sitting with plenty time (too much time) to think. I could not distract myself as usual by doing some project or whatever.
During the course of all this my son adamantly refused to come to visit or help in any way. i told him earlier that I wish for Christmas he had given me, if i could choose a gift (he got me nothing but that was ok I don't need anything and he has a tight budget) - I would choose an hour of his time to come and just sit with me like the old days, just him and me. he never acknowledged my request. The last I heard his new bike was still in the box. he also owes me $10 which he refuses to pay which is also unlike him.
I have BPD, which has heretofore been more or less latent but recent developments have brought it out shocking even me -- and I have tried to educate him about what it involves. i have emailed him info, as well as taking the trouble to send info thru the mail. When i asked he said he did not look at it which sends a clear message to me that I am not important - I thought in addition that it was rude and dismissive. He has not been exposed to this before and in fact it is a startling development to me as i have never had such extreme volatility - but it is clear to me it is due to the subject matter which began the whole thing, my unresolved anger at my mother. in truth it took me decades to realize there was anything wrong on the part of my mother and that it was "me"..
During the past few months our relationship has seriously deteriorated. I was under the impression that he just did not understand the BPD nor what I was struggling with and that if I could explain he would return to his formerly supportive self. He knows I have had depression from the time he was young so its nothing new but the BPD diagnosis is. I think the BPD came to the surface as a result of his ignoring my pleas, which frustrates me, getting no response I escalated what i said to try to get a response and the longer he ignored me the more hateful my messages. I do not like what I said nor do i approve yet I understand how it came about. it is a side of me that was as much a shock to me as to him. We got in this cycle of me going thru various emotional states none of which seem to motivate him to help. I went from sad/crying and talking about remembering the precious times when he was little, reminding him i had always been there emotionally for him (which my own mother was very cold and detached and actually not just distant but vindictive and punitive if I dared not do as she wanted always, even after graduating high school. I also went thru periods of extreme anger and rage which as i read is part of the BPD thing. I'm not proud of it but like other diseases its not something I set out to have.
He totally turned away from me and seemed to think he was practicing TOUGH LOVE taking the incorrigible me in hand for my transgressions he adjudged to me.
We had met once at my psychologist's office whom i hoped could help us get some sort of communication and understanding going on but then I got the pneumonia and the short of it was I met with him at the psychologist once when I had the pneumonia and was so sick I had to leave. Before I got there the psychologist went against my wishes and began the appointment just with my son. The next appointment I wasn't advised of and so now we have almost 2 hours of he and my son meeting together. The next meeting he told me he didn't care to come anymore. Meanwhile I noticed a significant shift in attitude from the psychologist - very unsympathetic, very uncommunicative and non-supportive offering no solutions just saying it was too bad my son and i were apart but that's the way it was. he was also dismissive of my ongoing thoughts of suicide and told me at our last appointment as I was leaving to "take care of myself". I realized something was amiss and decided to quit seeing him and wrote an email telling him why which he never responded to. Then I learned that he was still meeting with my son - but he said about something else, either way, I think it was unethical to do so especially when i specifically stated I did not want it to continue. He ignored me, never responded and continued to meet with my son.
Monday night it got really odd and uncharacteristic of the past 3 months or so, i thought, my son called numerous times, maybe 5 or so, asking me would i meet him at the psychologist office and I told him no and why but he kept pressuring me. i told him to forget it i no longer trust him nor do i feel comfortable sharing any info with him being present. he called me again around noon again asking would I go. All of this was quite odd as he's been fairly well ignoring me and showing no interest in getting together despite my pleas. finally I called my son and i said i would meet with him but not at the doctor's office. So we agreed on a restaurant between his work and where i live about 4:00 pm yesterday. We had not been together for months - I got there first and I was nervous and i thought how odd, that this son i have known for over 45 years that I should be so nervous meeting him and how sad that was. When my son came in it was very awkward. i had determined to try to take a positive tone, not challenging him just trying to reach out as we used to but he began immediately accusing me of lying, he said things like "your broken leg looks fine to me I see nothing wrong" I said it was not broken it was sprained and he said you told me it was broken. I said I did initially before going to the hospital but there I found it was a severe sprain but he said NO YOU DIDN'T. I knew what I told him. He was being totally unpleasant telling me I needed to apologize and basically reading me the riot act so i told him to leave as i did not care to discuss anything with him in the accusatory manner he was in. i acknowledged to him I had said hurtful things but I also said that it was at least partially due to his ignoring me which provoked me to say something to get him to respond, etc. So I admitted my part in the distance but for him it was totally my fault and everything i said he would say "no you didn't". After he left he called me a couple times and said, we can talk again but not if you are going to be hateful. And i said it was his attitude that started the unpleasantness and again he said no it wasn't. i said this is stupid i don't want to argue with you. i left the restaurant in about 10 minutes as I had ordered a hamburger. It really didn't taste good but I wasn't going to waste it especially as it was meat which i rarely eat but when i do I think that since it involved an animal that it was sinful to waste.
Anyway when i got outside i was surprised to see my son's car still there two spaces from mine. I was out of the mood to meet with him and went to my car, i felt afraid of him and i wanted to go home. he was on the phone when I went out but he hung up. Anyway when i opened my car door he would not let me get in and I said for him to get away from me but he refused. Finally I said okay then I will call 911 and you can deal with the police because technically he was guilty of unlawfully interfering and depriving me of my freedom. Which phased him not. Finally I managed to get into the car when he walked away but he came back and brazenly tried to grab my car keys. I will never, i think in my life, forget the feeling of his hands restraining me, trying to grab my car keys.
In hindsight, I think he was deliberately confrontational hoping to push my buttons so that when i went off publicly he would have witnesses who would back him up about how out of control I was.
By now i was totally taken aback by his brazen behavior which he has never done before. it turns out he had called the police before I did and that the whole thing was a setup for the police to get there under the guise that i needed to go into a mental facility against my will. My mother did the same thing to me in the same manner NOT TO HELP but as retribution for crossing her.
And here is my son who turned cold and abusive now doing the same as my mother - he had not tried to help, had not said anything at all if he believed I was depressed and needed help he certainly showed no concern or empathy so it seemed clear to me it was vindictive and to dispose of me.
Luckily the police officer was not heavy-handed - we talked at length and he said I seemed in control and not in need of going to the facility. Meanwhile my son was filling the other officer's head with the worst he could dredge up showing him mean email (but none of the conciliatory ones on my part). It became clear to me then why he had pushed me to meet at the psychologist office, the two of them connived together to "put me away". needless to say I was offended at his plotting against me. The officer said he probably just was worried about me but i said i don't believe that because he has been totally distant and cold, he never came to me with anything but coldness.
After an hour or so I was "allowed" to leave and go home. In that time, though, it was hard for me to realize my son had plotted against me. I do not believe it was to be helpful because if he was concerned for me he showed nothing of that only a need to control and get even. it was hurtful realizing that but in a way it set me free. Because i had been thinking my son just did not understand and that if I kept trying to communicate he would finally hear what i was saying when the truth was the person who did not understand was me.
I did not realize that my son had turned so totally against me and vindictive and hateful, that is not my imagination. To think that he had plotted with this psychologist who I did not know that well but I was his client not my son. it occurred to me that my son was dead. The son I had been hoping to connect with did not exist any longer. And it has set me free. i have no desire to contact him in anyway nor do I wish to see him or know anything about him. I do not care what he does or with whom, i am free of him.
This is all sort of mind blowing, that within 3 months we have come to this. But it was revealing and I felt a sense of peace come over me ever since. The rage i felt is gone, replaced with sadness but i am at peace, as much as i can be it was as though my son died today. And i did send him that one email simply stating that it was a sad day in that I found out my son was dead.
And that is the end of it. it was shocking, i could not believe he would be so deceitful and plotting. i told you he had spent far more time with the psychologist and me not there to know what was said. i plan on filing a complaint against the psychologist as i had stated specifically i did not want them meeting. I believe the two of them colluded the whole thing together which some would say sounds paranoid but I say it just the truth.
The whole thing was a nefarious scheme. It started, originally I had opened this can of worms, it became clear, hoping to find the acceptance and love and support of my son I never got from my mother. In reality what i got was a re-affirmation of her judgment of me that as she told me quite clearly when i was younger that I was not the kind of person anyone would be drawn to so whoever was nice to me I should not make waves. Which is probably how i ended up in such abusive relationships.
As just one example of my mother's coldness and willingness to blame me - I was gang-raped by 5 when I was 15. I must have just "gone away" mentally to have left evidence of what happened in the laundry, otherwise I would have not been so careless but when she found it she was livid. No questions what happened, her face was set in stone scowling like only she could do. She said obviously I was intent on bringing disease home to THE REST OF THEM, horrible me. no questions, no words of comfort just icy cold.
Do you see the irony, that i wished to "deal with" my hurt and unacknowledged feelings of anger toward my mother so i could put it behind me and what i got was almost a duplication of what she did - she too had me locked up when i was almost 18 as a vindictive move, she came to gloat when I was locked up at the state mental hospital which was not a helpful place it was a warehouse.
I am at once lost sort of with this new realization but i am also free because i realize there is nothing I can do or say to reach my son again, he has proven himself a bold, rude, audacious traitor. And I do believe it was helpful - i did not need to be locked up i needed to feel his support which was denied me. now that i see his true character - i am free of the anger and hurt and rage which has been so pervasive for these many months. Which proves he was wrong - he did not want to help me, he wanted to get me somewhere that i could not contact him, where i was "safe" and out of the way - and wash his hands of me.
What an incredible earth-moving day but also a day of being set free. I do believe that had i not listened to "my voice" and had instead gone to meet at the psychologist office that i would be locked up now as we speak. That the two of them together would have had the greater credibility - me being 'crazy' and all. And if they had been successful I do not think i would have ever recovered from the duplicity, the physical aggression, the deviousness of what they obviously had planned.
This has been one of the strangest days of my life, my son that i have adored forever is gone. He son I knew is dead, thats the way I see it.
I could say much more about the things my mother did to me but this is long enough already but suffice it to say she was a cruel physically and emotionally abusive person, vindictive, manipulative (including faking heart attacks to get sympathy as a way of inducing guilt). I will say that my mother had me locked up in an act of vengeance so this whole thing has a touch of deja vous.
I do not believe, ultimately, he meant to be helpful because if I was as "sick" as he made me out to be he should not have been so callous. Apparently in his mind people can be mentally ill/depressed but that they get no allowance whatsoever if they are. They get judged mentally unsound yet incredibly deserving of no help or consideration. That is what is so revealing (but sad) to me.
I realize this is long and I apologize but the earth shattering life altering events of the day I am still trying to wrap my mind around - I wanted to document and explain. I wanted to share my sadness but the first peace of mind I have felt in months. Which proves I did not need to be LOCKED AWAY - i need to remember that feeling any time i might begin to feel sad we are not together so that it will help me keep this feeling of peaceful freedom, albeit bittersweet. I know that for the rest of my life i will never forget the memory and the feel of being physically restrained by my son shall never leave me.
I am grateful that I listened to that voice we all have of intuition or whatever that set off alarm bells that I should not go to see the psychologist again because if I had gone between the two of them I'd now be "safely" put away. its why my psychologist wasn't bothered by my statements that if he persisted I would file charges against him with the lieensing board because he would explain them away as having been made by a crazy person.
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