Please diagnose my DM

[Blueisthecolourilove]

Obviously I know you can't make a medical diagnosis.
But to those of you who understand and know a lot about unstable personality types, please hear me out and give me your opinion on what condition you think DM has got, I'd be very grateful, because I'm now losing my mind and I'm worried about my own MH. A large contributing factor to my collapsing MH is that I don't understand what's wrong with her. If I knew, I could read up on it all so that I understand better.
Here's what she's like:

• Hit me at full pelt with the back of her fist in the side of my face when I was 11 after I'd gone to our local bakers and bought her a mother's day cake with my saved up pocket money; I'd presented it to her whilst she was still in bed at midday. She said "Give me a slice". I went downstairs, served her a slice and took it up to her in bed. She ate it. She told me to get her a second slice. I did so, and when I gave her the 2nd plate of cake, I said "We should save some for later so we can have some after dinner to have together" . She sat up in bed, picked up the big slice of cake I'd given her, threw it in rage across the room, and it hit her bedroom window and slid down the glass. I'm surprised the glass didn't crack, as she threw it with almighty force. I'd saved up my weekly pocket money from DG for 6 weeks to buy this cake for her. I wanted to make her proud. I know it's silly but I was only 11 and I stopped buying the comics and sweets I usually bought with my pocket money from DG for 6 weeks to save up for this cake. I asked the bakers to ice a personal message on the cake topping, from me to her. So when she threw it in a rage right across the room against the window in response to me saying we should save the rest for later and screamed at me "I DON'T WANT YOUR FUCKING CAKE THEN" with a Medusa like fury in her eyes, I burst into tears and said with immense sadness "Why did you for that?" through my sobs. She lept out of bed, chased me down the stairs, struck me with full force across the side of my face with her clenched fist and then screamed "NOW LOOK WHAT YOU'VE MADE ME DO!!!" whilst glowering at me with fury in her eyes. Then she went back to bed.
• Spent my childhood with her telling me "I might love you because you're my child but I DO NOT LIKE YOU". Years of being told that. I grew up thinking I'm dislikeable. I still think that.
• My DF left when I was 3. She spent my entire childhood telling me he doesn't care about me, isn't interested in me, and doesn't love me. All of those things are true, actually. He did completely dump me at 3 and has been NC with me since then. But she regularly reminded me throughout my life.
• Spent my whole childhood telling me how much she hated, loathed my paternal DGrandmother. Now me and DG were exceptionally close, all I remember of her was her adoration of me and her love, care and nurturing. DM spent my childhood raging about her to me. It was very confusing as a young child, to have a grandmother in my life who loved me so very much, and for my own DM to actively hate a family member who really cared for me.
• My beloved DG died when I was a teenager, and I was so distraught I actually went numb. My DM never discussed her death with me. On the day of her funeral, I turned 13. DM stayed in bed and refused to attend the funeral. I had never been to a funeral and I was distraught about my DG. I remember the severe tummy pain I had. I didn't know what to wear. I walked into DM's bedroom and asked "What should I wear?". She ignored me. Blanked me. I went and put on black clothes. Black top, black skirt, black tights, black shoes. I walked back in to her room and said "Do I look ok dressed in this?". No response. I was ignored. I remember looking at her back, and the back of her head. She didn't even turn round to look at me or what I was wearing. Uncle arrived and took me to funeral. I was dropped back home that evening and not one word was spoken to me from DM about the fact I'd just attended my grandmother's funeral. To this day she's never spoken about it to me, only about how much she hated her. There was nothing to hate about my DG.
• When DG was still alive, I'd go and stay for entire weekends on a regular basis. She'd organise for a taxi to collect me from home on Friday after school and take me to her house. How I loved her home; it was my safe haven. When I got home by taxi on Sunday night, DM would ignore me. I'd sort myself out and get myself in to bed. Bear in mind I was younger than 13. She'd eventually come into my room and say "You've got fat. She's fed you up again with trifles hasn't she. You're fat again. 1 weekend away and you come back fat. Every time. Now I'll have to feed you vegetables all week.". Then, after that, whilst I was laying in bed with my light off to get to sleep before school the next morning, sge'd say in an aggressive, hostile voice "Did you enjoy yourself then?!". She'd be sarcastic. Almost sneering. I generally didn't answer. But once, I nodded and said yes, I had a nice time. She walked out in silence. I fell asleep. Next thing I knew, she came charging back in, opened up my wardrobe and pulled all my clothes out on to the floor, I had loads of stuff in there and she was wildly pulling it all off hangers and off the shelves, screaming "GO AND FUCKING LIVE THERE THEN! IF YOU THINK IT'S SO FUCKING GOOD THERE THEN MOVE OUT AND GO AND LIVE THERE!!!". She threw a suitcase onto my floor, told me to pack and get back over there. It was midnight. I'd been sound asleep. I had school the next morning. I was distraught. Then she'd tear out of my room and not come back. I'd fall asleep crying on my bed. This happened several times over. I'd get myself up for school the next day and go in and would tell nobody.
• I spent every day of my childhood with a tummy ache. Every single day. It never went away until the day I left home at 18. I told teachers through primary school and nobody ever did anything about it. I gave up telling teachers by secondary school. I even told DM as a cry for help, to make her see how worried abd nervous I was feeling every day. She responded by feeding me prunes and telling me I had a tummy ache because I must be constipated.
• My cousin was 5 years older than me. She bullied me. I told my DM. She really was horrible to me and would make me cry then laugh at me. Went on for years. Still DM would drag me round to her house every Friday night so she could socialise with and get stoned with the group of adults round at my uncle's house. I'd sit on the stairs and watch them all using bongs all night, way past my bedtime. No adult ever spoke to me. I was ignored. Then taken home at midnight, exhausted.
• When my DB was born, when I was 7, I loved him and asked DM if I could have a photo taken with him. She snarled at me and snapped "Brush your bloody hair then, you look too bloody awful for a photo". My 1st and only photo taken of me and baby DB was taken of me feeling like crying at how I'd just been spoken to by DM. It's a very sad photo.
• I was never asked how I was. She never asked me how my day went at school. She never took any interest in my friendships. She never facilitated play dates or anything. She took zero interest in my education, in my homework, in my GCSEs, in my A levels, in my degree. None. If you asked her what GCSEs I passed, or what A levels I took, she couldn't tell you. She never asked if I was ok when I was mute at home. She never had any interest in my thoughts, feelings or emotions. None whatsoever. I was told I was selfish if I ever felt upset. If I was quiet, which I generally was, I was told I was bad for making her feel like she'd done something wrong.
• She left me in charge of my 8 year old DB when I was 13 from 6pm through till the next morning whilst she went and worked a night shift at a nursing home 20 miles away. No mobile phones for contact in those days. We also had no landline. I remember feeling really nervous every time she left and was gone overnight. I found it scary all night on my own responsible for my young brother. She was on UC as a single parent but topped it up with this 1 night shift every week. Yet she never worked during the hours whilst we were at school, when it wouldn't have impacted me.
• She sent me in to our nearest town once, on the bus, by myself, aged 11. I didn't want to go and I told her this. She said I had to. She sent me on a 30 minute bus journey in to town to return an item she'd bought, get a refund and bring it back to her. I remember telling her I don't know what to do and I don't know how to do the journey by myself. She gave me very brief instructions of which bus to get and sent me off. I remember very clearly standing on the pavement in town, after having got her refund, looking at a whole long road of different bus stops and not knowing which one I needed to stand at. I started crying. I didn't know if I was on the right side of the road or not. I genuinely didn't know how to get home. A very kindly older woman noticed me standing alone crying on a busy town street. I get very overwhelmed easily and I was feeling very badly overwhelmed at this point. The woman talked to me and she helped me, walked me to the correct bus stop, and saw me onto the bus. She spoke to me so kindly, I remember thinking it was so different to how I usually got spoken to. She was so patient with me. I was so grateful and I will forever remember her kindness. When I got home and told DM that I'd got confused and hadn't known how to get home and that a lady helped me, she scolded me and told me off for being "bloody stupid".
• When I moved out at 18 because she'd moved a pervert man into our house who used to look up my nightie and smile suggestively at me, and stare at me suggestively whilst I brushed my hair, and openly talk about fancying me, and would have very loud SI with my DM in the next room then delight in asking me the next morning if I heard anything, she became bereft at me moving out. Crying. Drama. Looking on her face like someone had been murdered in response to me saying I was moving out. I couldn't understand it. She'd never shown any affection to me, yet here she was absolutely devastated about me moving out.
• Never hugged me. Ever.
• She didn't care for my needs as a child. For example, I remember a friend's mum asking me if my DM ever brushed my hair when I went round to my friend's house after school once. Only when I got home and looked in a mirror, still in my school uniform, did I see i had a gigantic great clump of days old knotted hair at the back of my head. I was 10.
• She attacked me and pulled my hair as an adult so badly that clumps of my hair was falling out at work the next day. That was over an argument started by her about wanting DH to give her a lift home, but he was working late and I needed to put little DC to bed so I said could she get the bus home instead. Apparently she didn't like the tone of my voice, so she physically attacked me.
• I tried to show her affection in my 20s, I linked my arm through hers as we walked together, I wanted to build a relationship with her. She yanked her arm away from me and hissed "Get off! People will think we're lesbians!!" and she looked disgusted and angry and scowled at me.
• My entire adult life, from 18 onwards, has been spent with her angrily ranting, and angrily ranting, and angrily ranting, and angrily ranting. About me. About my DB. About my DH. About my SiL. About my DN (a child). About her neighbours. About people on the bus. In the shops. It goes round on a loop. The same subjects on a loop for 30 years. Non stop. Anger, anger, anger, Rage, rage, rage.
• She HATES my DH and makes his life a misery. He refuses to engage with her now.
• She HATES my DB's partner. Hates her. Hates her family.
• I have never heard an adult rant and criticise a child like she does my DN. Every time I defend my DN, which is every time she rants about her, I have to brace myself to be screamed at by DM for taking DN's side (a child).
• She sends endless texts telling me I'm a terrible daughter for causing her depression. She tells me I am the sole reason she is depressed.
• She screams at DH and tells him she hates him
• She is often demonic towards me in her behaviour. Her eyes change like she's suddenly been possessed. I've never seen someone's eyes change in anger like hers do.
• When my baby was born, I didn't want to see her. She let herself into my home with a spare key (she knew where we left it) whilst I was at home with my baby, and peered her head around the corners of my rooms, glaring madly at me. When I looked up to see her, she'd jerk back behind the wall and hide. Then slowly peer back round again and glare at me with madness in her eyes. It was so weird, it was so obvious I could see her and knew she was there because our eyes were meeting, yet she kept hiding back behind my hallway wall and then slowly peering round repeatedly. I was completely freaked out by this behaviour. I told her to leave. She started shouting at me in my own home with a newborn baby in my arms. I was home alone. I ordered her out. She shrieked and swore and shouted at me. She eventually turned and ran out. As I shut the front door behind her, she turned back round, rammed her foot into my doorframe so I couldn't shut my door, started kicking my door back open, and started hissing at me a thousand hateful things about me, glaring at me with that deranged look in her eyes. She left when a neighbour showed up.
• Her arms are covered in self harm scars. Not superficial. But great, long, deep rivets of scarred scissor wounds to both forearms.
• She argues at me non stop for not seeing her enough. She argues non stop all the time at me for making her feel excluded and isolated. She has argued at me for not seeing her enough since I left home. She never invites me to meet her or anything, she simply attacks me on a permanent basis for not seeing her enough. I've been attacked for this for 30 years. It pushes me away further, it doesn't result in me seeing her more.
• Every Christmas, every birthday, every Easter, every summer is a huge drama leading to her having a meltdown. Every special occasion is annihilated by her turning it into a histrionic drama.
• Never does she ask me how I am. Never does she ask me what I've been up to. Never does she ask me how my job is going. Never does she ask me how my holiday was. I don't think she even knows where I go to on holiday. I tell her and she doesn't listen. She never listens to anything I talk about. Ever. She constantly non stop interrupts, interjects, looks away, changes the subject, starts talking about herself again. Zero interest in me.
• She says it's my fault her mood is low. That I am the cause of all her problems.
• She had a shocking argument once with her next door neighbour because they cut a shrub down in their garden. Went round there blazing and shouting at them for chopping it down. It wasn't a privacy issue. She simply felt they had no right to cut it down. It was in their back garden. They never spoke to her again.
• My childhood memories are full of her physically fighting. Physically fighting a boyfriend she had, stabbing him over and over again with nail scissors, blood everywhere, in front of me watching aged 9. Physically fighting with female neighbours, hair pulling, slapping, screaming, shouting and swearing, in front of me.
• I grew up silent. Just knowing that nobody else I knew lived like this. I'm still incredibly quiet now. I can't speak up for myself if I'm wronged, and I assume nobody likes me or wants to hear about me. This makes me less popular than more outgoing chatty people.
• Nobody except you knows all this. I have told nobody.
• There is so, so much more to tell. I think it would take me all weekend.
• But here's the thing. Throughout all of this, she buys me gifts. She gives me money. She gives me thoughtful presents. She made my childhood bedroom look beautiful the way she decorated it. She buys me lovely things. She says all she wants to do is see me regularly and to be spending all her time with me. She texts me pages of loving messages. But then she argues at me for breaking her heart by not seeing her enough. And if I don't appear ecstatic with the presents she gives me, all hell breaks lose and she's arguing at me for being ungrateful.
• What has she got? Bipolar Disorder? BPD? Narcissism? Insanity? What? I need to know because I need to understand. If anyone has experience of how I've described her, please tell me. I will never know from her because she wont go to her GP. She says she doesn't need to because she knows what the problem is with her feeling this way; the problem is me. So, she says, what can her GP do about me?!? Exactly. No point in going.

What wonderful responses OP from such kind people.
I can only add that none of this is ever your fault. In fact it sounds as though you have successfully won at life.
Go non contact, is my advice.
Good luck. X

Not everything is explainable with a mental health diagnosis. It sounds like she is just a horrible, abusive person. Don't waste your energy trying to understand her. She doesn't deserve understanding or empathy.

I get this. I wanted and pleaded with friends and families to know if my father was ND or my mother and that would then mean it ‘wasn’t me’ it wouldn’t then be my fault. The reality is - a top MH professional spends hours with her as diagnosis of x condition - what then? The reality is my love that she abused a child, society let you down, your father - the very things that unpin life. All parents should love and protect their children - that’s the norm. So if they don’t / is it the child? The child did something wrong? Of course not. You are looking for a logical answer to make sense of something that makes no sense. It’s not nature.

for me healing really started when I went NC - and it got worse during NC it was hard. The first year was so hard and it wasn’t linear. Christmas, birthday, even celebrating achievements with the children - why didn’t they want to see us and be normal and just love us? The reality is you can’t get there. You have to accept and grieve and go NC.

Honestly you need a really smart therapist who can go through this with you. She is absolutely insane.

She sound vile.

Whatever condition she has isn’t as important as escaping her. Shes let you down repeatedly. You deserved so much better. It’s not your fault shes incapable of being a decent human being. Don’t give her another second of your time.

Shes a bastard. You were an innocent child. Thank God you are away from her now.

Never see her again unless it’s to piss on her grave. Shes horrible.

You want a diagnosis? I had one of those as a child/adult (I cut her dead when she attacked me with a weapon and I then found out that she had attacked my DD1).

A horrible, horrible person with
A personality disorder - Narcissistic Personality Disorder
A second personality disorder - Antisocial Personality Disorder
PMDD/Postnatal psychosis
Drug induced psychosis
Rage. Pure, unadulterated, rage.

There might be a tiny scrap of a negative childhood experience somewhere along the line, but don't be fooled into thinking that it could in any way be a reason not to stay the hell away from this creature.

Some people are just wrong. It's why we have fairy tales, myths and legends about monsters and demonic possession - it's how we rationalised people who behave so abominably, that there had to be a supernatural explanation for it, especially the way the eyes and face change; anybody who has ever been on the receiving end of this knows exactly what the face and eyes are that you describe, clear as day, even many decades later.

You can't and won't change into her. You may very well have cPTSD, reactive depression, anxiety - none of those make you remotely like her and are, quite frankly, hardly surprising after a lifetime of abuse.

In short, my diagnosis is that she is both mad and bad. You, however, aren't like that - you're traumatised.

OP - I am giving you a great big hug. You absolutely didn't deserve this. You didn't deserve the parents you had. You have a huge heart and a desire to please and explain away. That makes sense that you want to understand. Maybe there may be an explanation or excuse for your parents awful behaviour.

Here's the thing. Let. It. Go.

Trying to understand won't bring you peace.You will tie yourself up in knots.

Take a breath and walk away.

I found the Stately Homes a godsend. AtillatheMeerkat and many other posters have a tonne of good advice. You are really not alone.

There's evidently something wrong with her, whether it's diagnosable or not isn't really your problem. My best guess based on a family member of mine is borderline personality disorder. It's really hard to live near, you never know if you're in favour or not, and you're expected to just ignore the really awful things that were said when you were out of favour. They can be lovely at some times and then suddenly switch. There's a constant cycle of "idealise - devalue - discard" and you're trained to work for the idealise part of the cycle and abase yourself when you're in the discard pile.

A psychopath is my first guess!! A narcissist is the second! A very very nasty abusive piece of shit that doesn’t deserve you even wanting to think about what is wrong with her! Nothing is wrong with you it is ALL her!! People like her are usually locked up in broadmoor

I couldn’t read anymore after the cake, that broke my heart I am so, so sorry. I just want to cuddle 11yr old you and give you the love you deserved. You poor thing. I get you need to understand her but the thing is - you can’t. You won’t ever understand her because she’s not understandable… Focus on those who do love you and don’t let her destroy anymore of your lovely soul ❤️‍🩹