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.

Oh and ringing all these organisations, MIND and the like, is only going to help you not her. My mum stopped going to the gp When it got really bad as he was also in this big conspiracy to prove she's crazy and lock her up.

But maybe you'll have more luck, good luck to come to terms with this

I think thing one is that she can't be alone with baby
Thing two is to toughen up and withdraw a bit emotionally.

As for the rest, god help us. I wish I had answers xx

Thanks Fleur. I think it's incredibly self sacrificing/ generous of you to agree to weekly Skyping with your mother after what she's put you through. Presumably you have found that that is easier than any alternative?

Surprisingly I got a voicemail today from her telling me to stop sending her texts. It now seems she won't be coming up and has cut me off! Obviously there's a big sense of relief. But I feel so sad and so angry that she can turn the tap off caring about her grandson so easily. I basically told her she can have her mad stuff or she can have us, but she can't have both. and so she choose the mad stuff. It is better than him. Sad, sad stuff. There are definitely no winners here.

Thanks again everyone- eye, sukey, flippina, and everyone

Part of my genuine surprise that she has stopped asking and stopped caring and stopped looking at his pictures or having anything to say about him is that, well, he took three years for us to conceive, we thought we'd never be able to have a child, she thought she might never be a grandmother. Then I got pregnant and she was so delighted. She knitted him loads of cardigans and hats amc couldn't wait to be part of his life. She asked after him every day and commented on every picture. He's not even 12 weeks yet and that has all totally unraveled. She wanted her madness alongside her grandson and when it came to making a choice, she dropped him. Amazing.

No, there are no winners But you can protect yourself and your family as far as possible. Re the thing about turning off caring about her grandson so easily, I don't know if this helps. But it might help to remember that she doesn't "care" in the same way you or I would care, where love for close baby relatives is unconditional. I've never had babies of my own, but holding my sister's little ones is like feeling a well of warmth and protectiveness. Just feel sorry for her that she doesn't feel it

My heart goes out to you Sanderling, it really does. It's one of those situations where difficult choices have to made and there isn't an easy solution, it's just sad.

Take of yourself and your family. You mentioned speaking to your HV on Tuesday - if you trust her, have a word and see what she says. All the vey best to you .

Sanderling we now talk about the weather a lot. We don't discuss anything controversial which could open a uncomfortable conversation. It takes time... We were NC initially for a couple of years until something worse happened that made me understand that what I see is not her, I shouldn't have the same expectations I have from people without MH issues, that she'd never apologise for what she did, she'd never believe she has a problem and anything I say can be taken the wrong way and I can become the enemy.

It is really hard and the reality is that you will not reach the final peaceful moment until you go through the whole process, the step where you try to help her, the step where you distance yourself but you are full of guilt but also anger when she makes the random accusations and the step where you accept it and get on with your life ensuring she is safe.

I hope you find your peace quicker.

One thing sticks out to me from your last posts, OP, and that is that you feel like your mother has made a choice between her mental health and your son. Can you see that her paranoia isn´t something she has chosen? She can´t just turn it off when she wants to, no matter what choice she is given. She can´t turn it off any more than she can grow 5 cm or change hair color or whatever. So she isn´t rejecting your son at all by not behaving more normally. She can´t change her behaviour without serious outside help - and unfortunately with her condition one of the symptoms is that she can´t see that herself.

I can´t imagine how hard it must be to be in your situation, but I have been in other situations with close family members where their behaviour has been difficult, to say the least. The most important thing I learnt to do was detach emotionally. Learnt to accept that their behaviour was owned by them alone. It wasn´t because of me and I couldn´t control it. The only thing I could control was my own response to it.

I suspect she does love him unconditionally but somehow thinks it will "help" her case against you by withdrawing.

Doesn't make her safe with baby of course.

So basically I think Sonjadog is right.

My mother's worst behaviour came at times when it was obvious I had someone else in my life - my (now ex) husband, my first child. Lost track of the times I had to listen to rants down the phone about how I didn't care, had no interest in her, was shutting her out, and all because I was a young mum with a newborn! Looking back, I want to hug my younger self.
So a lot of the escalation could be because of seeing you have someone else, your son, and this is a threat to her so it sets off the behaviour. Your attention is not on her, it's on your son. If you look back you might remember escalations when you met your husband, got married, had other life events etc etc etc. And more etc! There's always etc!

Not talking about the OP's mum of course, but people with certain personality disorders do love their children conditionally. My mum was always talking about how my brother "behaved" as a small baby and how he didn't like her, which was the cause of her withdrawing emotionally from him and not showing him affection. It was his fault because he'd been an awful baby and blatently preferred my dad . A baby!

Sorry to hear about this awful situation OP. I can't offer advice but wanted to say Congratulations on your new baby and also offer my sympathies.

I have no personal experience of PD but a fair amount professionally (not a psychiatrist/psychologist though). For all of you living with parents with some form of PD you have my sympathies and reading of your experiences is really sad. A few thoughts...i think it's worth remembering that there is a distinction between paranoid delusions as part of a psychotic illness (e.g schizophrenia) and paranoid ideas as part of PD. In simple terms it comes down to these ideas becoming fixed as part of someone's personality and as such are not "treatable" in the conventional sense (though certain types of therapy may be helpful). For that reason a person cannot be sectioned under the Mental Health Act and PDs by definition are therefore not mental illnesses. in terms of thinking about their behaviour and what they "choose" to do or have control over is difficult to say. Often people with PDs have traumatic background of some sort (OP you mention your Gran being toxic too) and it's likely that your mum's personality formed the way it has in response to her own mother's toxicity. So in some senses she cannot choose to get better or not- her personality has formed the way it has and it's only with targeted therapy that she can overcome this, and sadly for many PD patients not even then. It would be like us unlearning something completely fundamental to our own personality. I think that leaves you with a few options: go NC accepting that she will/cannot change; try to set boundaries with her that you feel comfortable with and do not allow yourself to become emotionally blackmailed/sucked in to her emotional vortex when she breaks through the boundaries you have set for your relationship; allow things to continue as they are and try to limit contact/impact this has on your ds. He is still very young so you have time to see how her relationship evolves with him over time-currently while it's hurtful for you that she can switch off her interest in him, he is entirely oblivious to it.
I can only imagine how difficult living with this kind of parent must be. At times I find it hard work having a professional relationship with them. Sometimes I find it helpful, as others have said, to think about why it is they behave in the way they do and why their personalities formed in such distorted ways. That doesn't necessarily make their behaviour easier to bear or less hurtful but may lessen some of the anger and frustration with them. Ultimately I just wanted to say my thoughts are with you all.

Loving this thread.

Yes to managing expectations.

But maintaining her interest in him would be a rational response- you can't expect a rational response when she's clearly very unwell. It's not remotely personal to your baby.