To uninvite my mother for Christmas?

[IsThisYourSanderling]

She will probably end up coming anyway, as we already invited her, but oh how I wish she wasn't.

Reasons she should come:

• We had a baby in September, it's her first grandchild and his first Christmas
• When he was 8 days old she travelled up to help us on short notice (when I realised we were completely out of our depth) and stayed for nearly three weeks, doing laundry and other less than fun tasks. It was a lifesaver.
• She'd have a shit Christmas if she can't come here.

Reasons I don't want her to come:

• She has extreme paranoia issues that make her very difficult and often miserable to be around, you have to creep around on eggshells and she'll still find something to latch onto as proof you're conspiring against her.
• Her main thing is to accuse me of betraying her, conspiring, talking behind her back to relatives I haven't seen in years, etc. She brings it up whenever we're alone and won't believe me no matter what I say or do. When she was last year I had to leave the room with my newborn attached to my breast because she'd started attacking me about my supposed contact with my grandmother and uncle (I'm not in contact with either more than a card at Christmas, not that it should matter). She proceeded to follow me to my bedroom to keep going with the accusations. It's like this every time she visits, but I didn't expect to get chased around the house while breastfeeding a three week old.
• She's a pathological liar. These vary from extreme and damaging lies I won't ever really forgive her for, to silly ridiculous lies aimed at saving face, to lies that allow her to effectively pocket the occasional tenner here and there. It's a terrible bore and if you call her out you'll always regret it.
• Her latest thing is this: I suggested my husband and I get her a railcard so she can travel up to see us more (long train journey). She replied to say it wasn't like me to make practical suggestions and that I must be being coerced (she's always been obsessed with the idea of me being brainwashed/ coerced - even though I'm now in my thirties, have a PhD, a husband and a child, I still apparently am being brainwashed and marshalled against her by influences I do t understand...). So, friendly offer of railcard = getting accused for the millionth time of being coerced. Fuck that.
• She never, ever apologises for anything ever, and so me asking for an apology has been met with silence. What will happen now is that she'll refuse to acknowledge me for a while, then send a breezy text pretending nothing has happened so as not to endanger her Christmas up here. So far she has been giving us the silent treatment since Wednesday evening, when I asked if she would apologise or if she still thinks I'm being coerced into handing out railcards. She hasn't asked about her ten week old grandson once. She hasn't looked at his Instagram page (set up so she and in laws could see pics of him regularly) because she'd have to use the library computer and is too suspicious of the librarians, who must be spying on her. Her delusions and paranoid suspicions are more important to her than her only grandchild (and much more important to her than me).
• Her expectation will be that I shut up about the coercion thing, pretend it's fine that she withheld interest in my and my son as a punishment, and go ahead with our jolly family Christmas. I don't want to. I don't like being around her. But the guilt of telling her she's no longer welcome is pretty huge, because it means her having an absolutely shit time at her mother's (she lives with her mother and they hate each other)

So yeah. WIBU to uninvite her?

Forgive typos. I tapped out this entire saga with my thumb whilst breastfeeding.

OP I'm not quite sure what you want to hear. You have asked for opinions. Some of those opinions have tried to help you see how, if you want to understand your mum, a personality disorder (which you believe she has) requires you to understand and accept her limitations. That means accepting that some of the things she has done will not have been not to hurt you even if that is the effect.

However, you're the only person who can decide if it's 'worth it'. You don't have to. You can stop asking for help and stop making a place for her in your family. But if you are going to ask for your help and accept it for three long weeks, and then ask for unbiased opinions about whether it would be acceptable to bar her from your Christmas, expect a range of opinions and don't be so rude about it!

flippin

"I try to coax the good side out as much as possible, but clearly not very successfully."

The successful moments still count. Maybe they count even more in a way...

Do you have any clearer idea yet what you are going to do? I'm in the process of planning our trip to my parents. I am, of course, having to lie about which of us are coming and our mode of transport, because that's like feeding the bears, providing that sort info. Almost any information can feed the madness so I have to be on guard all the time.

[Flowers] sukey

I heard it described as shifting sands on here which exactly described my childhood. You just never knew when it was going to happen, or how bad it might be. I just closed down and hid with the cat a lot of the time. Yet my parents loved and do love me and did not abuse me save just by being unable to change themselves.

You're right about me needing to finally and fully accept her limitations, Humphrey. It's very hard to do, but it does have to be done. You weren't right in your assumptions about what she has and hasn't done deliberately, but you spoke with a weird degree of authority about it, hence my impatient response. This thread has been really helpful though.

Sorry Sukey, just reading what you said again

"oh she's not so bad, maybe it really is us, maybe we really are ungrateful children who don't appreciate her".

Are you saying that when she is ok you start to think you must be somehow not ok/ungrateful/mistaken, etc? Like a seesaw?

Exactly like that.You start to question yourself and your reactions to her, like YOU'RE the unreasonable one. But then something happens which makes you remember that yes, SHE is the one with the problem and she is the common denominator in all her problems. Not everybody else.

I understand and apologies that it came across that way. If someone has a personality order, they are driven. They're not sitting down and dreaming up the outcomes that come into being in the way that you and I would if we were rationally responding to a situation or trying to bring something about. There is a driveness that goes with the territory. That was my point.

Sometimes on mumsnet it seems that people are labelled with a PD and there is a measure of relief that they and all their opinions can be dismissed on those grounds. Fair enough but there needs to be an acknowledgement that they didn't ask to have the PD and probably wouldn't have chosen it, even if that sympathy cannot extend to ongoing relationship. I'm uncomfortable with the some of the vitriol from other posters (not the OP) against relatives who are apparently suffering from a disorder.

sorry, Op that was from humphrey.

Very much relate to the shifting sands thing. I think it's left me with anxiety issues.

Sukey you're spot on about the psychology of it, the 'oh maybe it is me after all' response whenever the parent has a good moment. It's a constant tussle in my head and is going on right now, even. I sent a text this morning saying we might make alternative arrangements for Christmas and could she please not vandalise my mail. I've been feeling massive guilt about this all day, thinking I've probably behaved badly and an being unfair to her. Then I have to go through threads like this one, reminding myself all over again that it's not me, it's her. No response from her to my text. She's vanished. She was so delighted about every picture of her grandson, every detail of his day. Now nothing. I feel sick about it tbh

to all affected by parents with personality disorders, and thanks so much everyone for your insights.

ifnobody you are right about the stigma of personality disorders and I agree nobody would choose to have one.

You can be understanding of that, and care about someone who has a PD, while putting boundaries in place to protect yourself for your own mental health.

Ifnobody

I get what you are trying to say.

Unfortunately people with these issues often feel better when their children are weak. I don't know why. Perhaps it reminds them of a time when they knew without question that they were loved? Perhaps that surge of protectiveness remains intact even when other parts of the personality are damaged?

As you can imagine, it's a very short step from that to preferring situations where their children are weak, and from there to allowing such situations to happen, and from there to arranging them.

If the child isn't weak, sometimes they then actively try to make them so

It's a spectrum I guess, all the way from benign normal mum behaviour (which my mum imitates) to out and out abuse.

I think you just need to find your own way through it Sanderling. It's one of those situations without an easy answer .

It's nice to talk with you lot but it's bloody sad too isn't it?

Actually pathetically started crying just now saying to my husband 'two weeks ago she was hanging off his every smile, and now nothing. Complete silence. Why doesn't she like him anymore?' God I'm pathetic. I'm so deeply hurt that she's just dropped any interest in him. Maybe it's new mother hormones, I know many grandparents probably dont take much of an interest, it's just the suddenness of it. I wouldn't care if it was just me she'd dropped. But I find her ability to withdraw from her own previous investment in him genuinely shocking and upsetting.

Interesting cross post there eye, you suggesting PD parents prefer it when their children are weak, while I'm writing about how pathetic and tearful I am over this. Perhaps you've nailed it.

OP,

I hope you ate the chocolate.

Do you think you may need to be a bit more guarded during the good times?

And maybe to try to break the link between good times and any sense of you being wrong/ungrateful?

Re our weakness suiting their damaged side: it would be interesting to know if others have found the same thing.

My M is very similar. Narc, pathological liar, twisted. She REVELS in my "weaknesses" - loves it when she hears the DC have been ill, or I have, or something else has gone wrong for me. She just loves to be needed by me.

And then she uses the time to manipulate me, make me feel guilty, destroy any new-built confidence or certainty in the reality of the situation.

I have come to the decision in the last 24 hours that I have to go NC, and it's tearing me up inside.

Someone's point upthread about information being ammunition is spot on. I can't let her or her flying monkeys know how I feel, or it will be used against me. Having no right of reply is very, very difficult. I want to scream, but she will destroy me if she hears.

I have been invited to a wedding in two weeks time, it has been organised at short notice as the bride has ovarian cancer. She is a friend from work, problem is I had arranged a really special afternoon ice skating and meeting father Xmas and feeding reindeer. My ds is nearly 8 and I think it is the last year for him to believe in father Xmas hence why I booked this at end of August at great expense. My parents will take them it to be honest I have been looking forward to this all year but said yes to wedding invite and didn't realise until last week it was same day. WIBU to feign illness to go to wedding and take my son to see father Xmas???

Should be not go to wedding.
It is a friend I have visited lots since I'll but didn't go out socially with before illness, wedding same time as father Xmas and tickets non refundable or exchangeable plus can't rebuy for another date as all sold out in october

Sorry posted in wrong place 🙈

Shiraz, go to the wedding but find your own thread😀

The information=ammunition thing was my number one problem I would say. "Guard up!"

things have got much better for my own mh now mum is 78. She is now willing to talk about her own real problems and to accept sympathy at least some of the time. In the past she was fantasising problems or creating/revelling in mine.

The improvement came when she got cancer and had chemo. It was as her real life finally matched her sense of what's her life was and so she could stop trying to prove the point.

She asks very few questions about us now. It's all one sided - but it always was, just in a different way.

This post is difficult to read. I can relate, OP. I sincerely hope you, and other posters with similar issues find peace with the situation. It is so incredibly hard.

I have gone NC with my mother at the start of this year. It is hard, but no where near as damaging as when she was in my life. I cannot have my DC around her. I cannot let her emotionally abuse them. I cannot.

The guilt creeps back frequently. My inner child craves having my mum back, but the mum I always hoped she would be, but never was. I feel a part of me is missing, everyday, and it's based on an image of a person, not the reality.

Please never think you are pathetic, OP. You are strong. This stuff is tough, but you are not alone.

I am trying to find myself now, now that I am truly allowing myself to live. I can no longer have FOG take over.