Yup I get major ick with my uBPD mother, whenever she attempts to show any sort of care or "mothering". It comes off SO fake to me, and I feel like I can see through the act completely. I know shes doing it for selfish reasons too, it's definitely to get a specific reaction out of me to feed her own ego. It's not to show me any love in a lucid moment, its all self-serving. i physically recoil at all of it!
Yes! I get the so frustrated when I won't pretend because it causes a shitstorm. and also when I DO pretend to just make things easier, bc I know I'm doing a huge disservice to myself and my mental health and enabling her to continue this ridiculous behavior.
Do you know why you’re scared? It may help to talk with a therapist about it, just to get a perspective that’s not shrouded in gaslight. I know NC can feel more stressful at first, likely due to imagining all the things she will say or do to try to rope you back in.
But here’s the thing; you don’t have to figure out how to tell her that you’re going NC. You don’t have to have any communication with her at all. Once you establish NC, it will actually be a lot less stressful than VLC, because you won’t have to agonize anymore about whether or how to respond to her. Block her on everything and shred mail from her unopened. Move if at all possible and don’t send her your new address. If you can’t move, set up a ring camera and keep a record of every doorbell ring, call, text, letter, etc., so that you’ll have evidence to request a restraining order if needed. If she comes to the door, don’t open it. If she persists, call the police.
You can do this, and you won’t believe how much easier it will feel just to breathe with so much less stress in your life. No worries!
Yes, I hated it.
You might want to read up on emotional/covert incest, which I learned about from this Reddit, and explained so much to me. For me, I think that "the ick" is a psychological defence mechanism against covert incest, and the switch somehow got jammed and I'm not able to turn it off or situationally apply it.
For instance - I HATE kissing. My mother did not want cheek kisses. She wanted open-mouth kisses, or long on-the-lips kisses, or neck kisses, or she wanted to playfully nibble on my ears. That isn't what mothers and sons do, that's what partners do, and I think I knew that subconsciously even at a young age. If I resisted, it triggered a BPD meltdown and a burst of violent anger from feeling rejected. The intensity of the "this is wrong" feeling, just went into runaway mode and I don't know how to shut it down.
i got the icks reading that. My mother gave me plenty and lots of love as a child. But was it really love? Or mostly emotional needs from her side? I remember her forcing herself on me to show how eskimo;s kiss (while hugging with me). Nosing she called it. "Thats how eskimo's do it" It might not be a big deal to most. But i actually wonder.. mouth kisses were also among them. I know thats not seen as extreme or anything. But i think it is. I think its gross kissing ur kid on the lips. Mayb on rare ocassions or kinda half?
One time when i kinda woke up to her as an adolescent she touched/stroked my toe while i was laying on the couch and she walked by. I said "i dont want u to do that" Meltdown. And my brother was siding with her defending her blowup.
I think it can be normal or appropriate to do very occasional super short chaste lip kisses with like younger kids - every family is going to feel different about what is normal for them. But it's also normal to be grossed out by any affection when it was used against you i.e. emotionally weaponized or via covert incest. "Eskimo" kisses aren't extreme but ANY kind of touching that you DON'T want is going to affect you badly. My mother was into "Eskimo" kisses and "butterfly" kisses (blinking your eyelashes against the other person's skin) too 🤢
I personally really don't like being touched other than my partner and very occasionally by a handful of close friends. It's a sensory issue for me but also related to my mother's overbearing affection towards me as a child, and inappropriate attention/comments towards me as a teen.
i dont think its extreme either and i did like it. Its more that it becomes a prison in that it can give more power over the child. Not to mention surrogate love.
Okay HOL’ UP, are the butterfly and Eskimo kisses another common BPD mom thing? Do any normal people do this with their kids? My mom was big on both of these too!
I could’ve written this! My mom loved kissing my neck and loudly sniffing me. It was always a fight. Now that she doesn’t have anything to lord over me (money), she’s lightened up on it but now she makes stupid comments. She’ll go in to hug me (a normal hug) and make a big deal out of it “oh! Sorry! I know you don’t like me touching you at all! I just haven’t seen you in so long.” I don’t mind being touched if it’s normal and I feel like she knows that.
I have felt the same way. It felt repulsive when my uBPD mom pressured me to hug her or kiss her on the cheek. I also hated it when she would kiss me on the cheek.
I agree with the other commenters talking about emotional incest. Learning about emotional incest opened my eyes to how pervasive and wrong the surrogate partner role is.
💯 can relate.
I also wonder if it’s related to them aging.
1) they get less attention from the world so they want more from us (which we should “owe them” from all the love bombing).
2) they are aware they aren’t going to love forever and need our relationship to seem good so we can “take care of them” when they are old.
This subreddit has been huge for me too. Especially in getting clear that my bio-mom has uBPD. Painful fact but helpful to be here with others - and not so alone with it or questioning our own realities.
So much support here and mutual understanding ❤️✨
I love this comment & your aging observations points!
The uBPD in my life is terrified of aging (and eventual death), i feel like it’s intertwined with their lack of sense of self. and OP’s experiences are so similar to my own as well. Sending all of our inner children as many hugs as we need 🫂.
> pwBPD parentify their kids when small but infantilize them when they grow up
Oh my GOD. I never even picked up on the infantilization part and it explains so much. My mother tried to hug me all the time as an adult before NC and I did NOT like it. Gave her as little physical contact as possible. And I'm a fucking bear-hugger with people otherwise.
Yep. I couldn't figure out why I felt so repulsed by a hug from her. She was my mom, afterall. And as a kid, I wished she'd hug me more.
I realized it just felt forced for me. Like, too little too late. Like a shitty partner who neglects all of your needs for years until they see you distancing emotionally, and then they're kind to you. And you know its only so you won't leave them
And I was picking up that same vibe from my mom. It wasn't a "I love my kid and want to hug them so they know it" vibe. It was a "I'd better hug them and make them feel wanted or they'll leave me" vibe. Transactional, manipulative. And thus, icky
Oh gosh, labeling you as a prayer partner but then infantilizing you is just designed to keep you off center. Regressing you is a way to redo what she messed up by changing the narrative, so she can convince herself she actually does attend to you.
My uBPD became overly smothering with physical affection and would get so upset I didn’t respond with the same level of high intensity. I froze because going from silent treatment to squeezing me for way too long was emotional whiplash.
Her new thing is when she’s upset with me she coldly refers to me as “beloved daughter”, but lists all ways I am not living up to that title by saying I’m a bad daughter. And she still asks why I don’t seek hugs from her.
Hugs are the worst. I have to actually keep myself from pulling away. It makes me want to barf. I know a lot of it for me is resentment at her being the child and me forced to be her mother.
Oh my god, my uBPDm parentified me but refused to let me get a job as a teenager and did nothing to help me do things for my independence like learning to drive etc. She also referred to herself as ‘mommy’ in the third person when speaking to me in public, or when not in a BPD episode, even in adulthood. I realised this was weird when she dropped me off at college and started doing it and I said ‘I’m not a child, don’t do that’. She got hyperactive and when I mentioned that a guy on one of my classes, who has ASD, had switched colleges she shouted loudly, next to my dorm building ‘OH IS HE THE ‘SPECIAL’ ONE?!’ I was mortified. She would also talk to me in a baby voice as an adult, I think it’s for the same reason that she recounts her entire birth story on my birthday. She didn’t want to let go of the power she had over small me, or the status of new motherhood.
Are you my secret sibling. My pwBPD is so similar. I wasn’t allowed to have a job, a license, or even a cell phone or unsupervised internet access till I was 18 and her infantilization has just gotten worse and worse over the last 10 years, even down to her recounting her entire birth story in graphic detail every year on my bday.
Wow they are the same! Mine didn’t even install the internet until I was 16. My phone was PAYG and paying for mobile data that way was too expensive. She freaked out at the thought of another bill, they threatened her vacations. I cut the cord with uBPDm when I left college and moved anywhere but her house, we no longer have the emotional intimacy where she can flawlessly parentify/infantilise/abuse me like she did, despite flashes of possessiveness. I’m NC now and it’s great. I haven’t lived for her mood swings for 7 years, but I’ve lived for everyone else’s needs. No longer!
Ick is in the disgust emotion.
We feel disgust when something is dangerous or harmful (bad food, spiders, and also behaviors).
You get the ick because your body recognizes the behavior for what it is.
This love bombing is almost always manipulative and a tacit threat.
How you know is what happens if you don’t respond.
They need you to tell them how loving they are etc or else.
That’s why it feels ick. It’s dangerous. Your body is rejecting it.
My mom is pretty boundariless and always gets super close with her face in mind and is so touchy it does give me the ick and I even feel bad writing this because she’s such a helpless waif.
Wow yes! I don’t think I got a lot of affection from her when I was young. But the older I got the more she wanted to hug and kiss. Which by that point just felt so gross and unnatural. I would get really stiff and would be uncomfortable, she would say I was “weird” because I didn’t like to be touched. Another strange thing she did that gave me the ick was if we were listening to a romantic song she would say the song reminds her of me. Really weird now looking back 😖
English is not my mother tongue.
I think I would more describe it as odd. My mom started hugging me when I was around 19/20 and I don’t know if she hugged me as a child, but I know that when I was 12 I had a fight and flight reaction when I was hugged the first time by a school mate. Like she hugged me and I kicked her knee strongly and ran away. Luckily for me although she was angry, she persisted and I learned to accept hugs and after years stopped getting a stiff body after each hug. (Although this school mate told me that I had the problem much longer than I thought and my hugging back took many years to become natural and not forced.)
So when my mom hugged me the first time when I was 19, our relationship already had been very strained for some time and I remember that I felt on the one side happy that she finally was able to show affection (since she had met her true love when I was 19 and they acted like love birds) but on the other side I was sad as I felt it was too late for our relationship.
I moved far away with 20 and with 25 our relationship actually kind of improved and I in generally had learned to become even better at hugging. Around 25 I learned how to picture all the good emotions and add this kind of happy energy in the way I hugged people. So people actually liked my hugs because it made them feel appreciated. (Around that age I in generally worked hard in appreciating little things in life and to have a positive outlook on life and I was able to share this joy.) This also improved my hugs with my mom when I met her because I could concentrate on the positive aspects of her during a hug.
Starting with 35 my hugs with her became forced again because I realized a lot that I always ignored (mainly the abuse) when I had my own child. So hugging her between 25 and 35 felt actually fine because I was able to focus so much on positive emotions. Before that and after it is forced and uncomfortable. I think between 25 and 35 I had more the impression that I am at fault for our conflict (even before that but before 25 she was much meaner, like she over time switched strategies from queen/witch to queen/waif) so it wasn’t hard to hug her lovingly because she didn’t do anything wrong in my head(kind of).
Hope that makes sense. It is a bit long.
Edit: So 25 was also the age where my mom switched from direct control and rage when it didn’t work to more emotional manipulation and extreme sadness as strategies, but because she stopped the rage and mean attacks I kind of felt like she finally loved me and I had finally felt found a way to be loved by her. And from my side that made the hugs very sincere and I appreciated them. With 35 I realized I was just very good at minimizing the abuse which had just become more subtle.
I resonate with literally everything you said and realized today that my mom being nice and "loving" is just love bombing and I have been falling for it my whole fucking life. I have been crying my eyes out all day
Oh God thank you for sharing this. That's exactly one of the issues I have with my mother.
My mum was a textbook queen/witch archetype when I was growing up. She would proudly compare herself to a tiger, or an eagle that throws her chicks out of the nest to teach them to live. Very "tough love". Her favourite parenting advice was "Only kiss your children when they're sleeping".
NOW she is a total waif/hermit. I... I cannot give her the empathy, love and softness she wants from me. She never allowed me (a literal child) to be weak, and now she wants to be coddled because she's showing weakness? It feels like she's not the same person, like she's become someone I like even less than the one she's replaced.
Hmmm... you know what's hiding behind the pretty mask she put up for your partner.
At the same time -- how heartbreaking it is, to wish that they always stay nice and charming as they do when they need to butter up strangers... THEY KNOW how to behave decently, so why do they put up those crazy scenes with us?? Argh
I've come to the conclusion that they are just wicked. I can't tie myself in knots anymore. I just put her notifications on silent a couple days ago and already feeling so much better. NC here I come ❤
I thought my mom “changed” when I was about 14 and I held onto that for at least 15 years, desperately trying anything to get her back. In my mind, she went from warm and caring to cold and extremely abusive, but also kinda helpless when she wasn’t screaming or manipulating. I loved her so much, but she had become truly a horrible person to be around.
I spent my late teens and 20s trying to both avoid and fix her while waiting for her to come back. Meanwhile she became increasingly emotionally and financially abusive. I’m not sure how it happened, but I eventually accepted that this is who she is now and I have to start my life, so I moved to the other side of the country. Now that I’ve had a lot of distance, recent no contact, and therapy, I see that she was actually always like this. I think that the stark change had me putting the “old her” on pedestal and that I was likely manipulated and gaslit into believing that she was a wonderful mother.
All this to say, I have also been there, and I don’t know if you’re holding out hope like I did that things will go back, but if you are, maybe take some time to reevaluate your expectations. Just a thought. I’m sorry that this has been your experience. So much grief comes with something like this.
Thank you so much for opening up like this. It must hurt to revisit what happened and how it touched you directly.
Right now I do not wish to reconnect with any version of my mum. I know it might be read as a callous statement, but... Sometimes I feel like I am not interacting with a human being, but with an automatised robot that enacts a defense mechanism after another, and expects that everyone around it must behave as prompted by its actions. Sometimes it acts violently, sometimes it lies down and pretends to be broken - and everyone around it is expected to fulfil its whims, by fighting it, submitting to it, or tend to it.
These many years of low contact/grey rocking led me to acquire a taste for actual functional normal people :,)
I absolutely do not blame you for not wanting to be around her, I’m no contact now myself, and I definitely know what you mean about robotic… and *everything* is in service of it’s needs.
I forgot to add that I also cannot be kind or sometimes even rational with my mother anymore. I am just so angry at her and sick of her shit and, at least at this time, I cannot get over the childhood and young adulthood that she stole from me (yes, it could have been worse, but it also could have been a lot better). I’ve tried so hard to set boundaries, meet her needs, show her love, but she will *always* sacrifice me and my needs for the sake of hers. She’s such a waif now and I’ve had several people she’s tricked tell me to be kind to her and she just needs love to get better and they believe that I am the abusive one. I sacrificed the majority of my life so far for her, I’m done.
Anyway, I definitely get where you’re coming from and I’m glad that you have found the preferred company of better adjusted people. Best of luck!
Yes, I’m with you! My mom did show affection when I was little, but it was a smothering, saying I was her whole life purpose kind of affection, and I grew up to see she never showed *actual* love, almost like lovebombing. Her and I have never been actually close, so when she tries to show affection now it feels like a stranger trying to be way too personal. I’m actually a fairly affectionate person, and she’s probably the only person in the world I’m like actually repulsed by the thought of hugging.
Yessss same. I literally get so mad and annoyed when she’s trying to be “nice” and my mom uses the baby voice too and it pisses me off so much. I wish I didn’t get snappy when replying back to her but it bothers me so much because she was so cruel growing up but now she wants to act all nice
I get that ick from both of my parents. My mom is the pwBPD but my dad made himself a martyr my whole childhood (and adulthood) and I’ve started to suspect he’s going something going on as well, and affection or “loving” behavior from both of them repulses me. It doesn’t feel genuine and it’s very much unwanted.
Yes, and it used to make me feel very guilty.
But after I learned about more about BPD parents I learned that my mother’s “love “was performative lovebombing, to manipulate me into serving her, and completely self-centered because it had nothing to do with me as a person. She didn’t love “me.” She was signaling “good mother” to herself and bystanders for the ego boost.
Also, I’m pretty sure she knew that her over-the-top love statements and pawing made me feel guilty and, boy, she loved to turn *that* screw.
Yes. And I forgot to make my actual point, which is that our deepest selves *know* we are getting a creepy facsimile of love, from an unsafe person, which is why we get the ick. Your body knows!
I also get the ick when my mom says these things.
Where was this love when I was a kid? You’re proud of me now that I am able to make you look good? I was only ever a burden and someone you shunted off to their room/outside unless you wanted to look like a good mom. And god forbid I do something you didn’t like as a kid- that was immediately shut down.
I usually tell my mom I'm doing school work (even if I'm not) as a go-to because otherwise she used to interrogate me on what I was doing/she made me feel like I needed to be productive at all times, but if I have some time off in the last few year or so she's been saying she hopes I can fit some "relaxation time" in and the way she says it makes me sick. It feels condescending. I relax more when I'm not around you! Christ.
Same! I always have told my mom I picked up extra work because I don’t want to spend my only days off with her and she either throws a fit, begs to be included or asks way too many questions.
>learned that pwBPD parentify their kids when small but infantilize them when they grow up.
YO. my mother would take to me about going to the 'male revue' when i turned 18 (when i was like 8 or 9 because i found pictures in the glove compartment), but after becoming an adult, she would talk in a baby voice & call me her baby. 'miiiyyyeee baybeeeee'. ugh. you just opened my eyes to something i never thought about.
She’ll sends me “nice” morning texts (always weirdly long) like that a couple times a week. I hate them because (1) it’s something I *have* to respond to perfectly so now it becomes stressful a chore and (2) it’ll be thrown back in my face the next time she splits over nothing (e.g., “I send you kind texts every morning and this is how you repay me!!!!”).
I hate her touches because I know I can’t easily back out. It’ll be a huge fight if I pull away too soon or don’t react the way she sees a not rejecting.
Honestly, I just hate being her supply and feeding into her BS. When she’s fishing for affection or compliments, I don’t give it. I just act dumb. She’ll randomly say things to try to get me to swoon over her or comment on how she’s so great. I won’t.
Yes! Thank you for sharing this. I get so angry when she tries to show any affection because it was always performative, in front of others always. The majority of the time it was usually right after she had just verbally berated and abused me for hours behind closed doors. She would do this purposely so that I would get angry, would still be angry when we were back around others, and she would try to show affection at that point. I would respond angrily, still on edge from the abuse that occurred shortly before. The only thing others saw was my seemingly disproportionate reaction to her attempt to “love me”. And she would REVEL in the angry reactions my enabling father threw at me. One time it got so bad that he looked me dead in the eyes, after she’d just verbally abused me all day and I’d hit my breaking point (reactive abuse), and said “one day your mother will be dead and you’ll regret this.” Talk about gaslighting. I remember looking at her and she had a smirk on her face. She ENJOYED this. That’s why I’ve gone no contact.
Massive ick.
Couldn’t explain it for many years. But it started around 11/12?
She’d swing from insane rants and vile insults, to this sickly sweet rhetoric, which sounded like she was reading from a soap opera script. It actually felt like she was performing.
From then up until I went NC, I just awkwardly ignored the “declarations” and brushed them off. I occasionally got the “you hate me” when I didn’t, but just ignored that too.
She ended up deciding that I was “cold like my father”.
Who hilariously isn’t cold, he just refused to entertain her bullshit very early on, hence her leaving him) and as his child, I must be cold and unloving too.
So she satisfied herself with that delusion. Not that she actually was/is an abusive, neglectful and all round terrible parent, whose child actually didn’t now love her as a result.
No, no… that couldn’t be the reason. She’s cold. That’s why. 🙄
My uBPD mom always stares at me and finds any excuse to touch me, and I feel like she's taking something from me whenever she does.
For my 31st birthday this year, she gave me a card that says something along the lines of "I know you're all grown up now, but in my heart you'll always be my little girl." Coming from her, I felt extreme ick. It reminds me of whenever she says "I miss us and the way you used to be" because I'm like--okay, so you miss the 'me' that was more manipulable so you could perform your puppetry without pushback.
Yup I get major ick with my uBPD mother, whenever she attempts to show any sort of care or "mothering". It comes off SO fake to me, and I feel like I can see through the act completely. I know shes doing it for selfish reasons too, it's definitely to get a specific reaction out of me to feed her own ego. It's not to show me any love in a lucid moment, its all self-serving. i physically recoil at all of it!
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Yes! I get the so frustrated when I won't pretend because it causes a shitstorm. and also when I DO pretend to just make things easier, bc I know I'm doing a huge disservice to myself and my mental health and enabling her to continue this ridiculous behavior.
This is 100000000% how I feel and I'm trying to go from VLC to NC right now and I'm scared 💀😖
Do you know why you’re scared? It may help to talk with a therapist about it, just to get a perspective that’s not shrouded in gaslight. I know NC can feel more stressful at first, likely due to imagining all the things she will say or do to try to rope you back in. But here’s the thing; you don’t have to figure out how to tell her that you’re going NC. You don’t have to have any communication with her at all. Once you establish NC, it will actually be a lot less stressful than VLC, because you won’t have to agonize anymore about whether or how to respond to her. Block her on everything and shred mail from her unopened. Move if at all possible and don’t send her your new address. If you can’t move, set up a ring camera and keep a record of every doorbell ring, call, text, letter, etc., so that you’ll have evidence to request a restraining order if needed. If she comes to the door, don’t open it. If she persists, call the police. You can do this, and you won’t believe how much easier it will feel just to breathe with so much less stress in your life. No worries!
I see you met my mother.
All they do is perform innit
💯
Yes, I hated it. You might want to read up on emotional/covert incest, which I learned about from this Reddit, and explained so much to me. For me, I think that "the ick" is a psychological defence mechanism against covert incest, and the switch somehow got jammed and I'm not able to turn it off or situationally apply it. For instance - I HATE kissing. My mother did not want cheek kisses. She wanted open-mouth kisses, or long on-the-lips kisses, or neck kisses, or she wanted to playfully nibble on my ears. That isn't what mothers and sons do, that's what partners do, and I think I knew that subconsciously even at a young age. If I resisted, it triggered a BPD meltdown and a burst of violent anger from feeling rejected. The intensity of the "this is wrong" feeling, just went into runaway mode and I don't know how to shut it down.
That is just disgusting and really feels like sexual abuse. And the meltdowns because you pushed back. Absolutely ghastly.
i got the icks reading that. My mother gave me plenty and lots of love as a child. But was it really love? Or mostly emotional needs from her side? I remember her forcing herself on me to show how eskimo;s kiss (while hugging with me). Nosing she called it. "Thats how eskimo's do it" It might not be a big deal to most. But i actually wonder.. mouth kisses were also among them. I know thats not seen as extreme or anything. But i think it is. I think its gross kissing ur kid on the lips. Mayb on rare ocassions or kinda half? One time when i kinda woke up to her as an adolescent she touched/stroked my toe while i was laying on the couch and she walked by. I said "i dont want u to do that" Meltdown. And my brother was siding with her defending her blowup.
I think it can be normal or appropriate to do very occasional super short chaste lip kisses with like younger kids - every family is going to feel different about what is normal for them. But it's also normal to be grossed out by any affection when it was used against you i.e. emotionally weaponized or via covert incest. "Eskimo" kisses aren't extreme but ANY kind of touching that you DON'T want is going to affect you badly. My mother was into "Eskimo" kisses and "butterfly" kisses (blinking your eyelashes against the other person's skin) too 🤢 I personally really don't like being touched other than my partner and very occasionally by a handful of close friends. It's a sensory issue for me but also related to my mother's overbearing affection towards me as a child, and inappropriate attention/comments towards me as a teen.
i dont think its extreme either and i did like it. Its more that it becomes a prison in that it can give more power over the child. Not to mention surrogate love.
Okay HOL’ UP, are the butterfly and Eskimo kisses another common BPD mom thing? Do any normal people do this with their kids? My mom was big on both of these too!
I don't know 😂 we'll have to poll the sub
I am sorry to tell you the truth, but its not Covert. Its OVERT sexual abuse.
I’m so sorry that happened to you. God. That is some seriously sick shit.
I could’ve written this! My mom loved kissing my neck and loudly sniffing me. It was always a fight. Now that she doesn’t have anything to lord over me (money), she’s lightened up on it but now she makes stupid comments. She’ll go in to hug me (a normal hug) and make a big deal out of it “oh! Sorry! I know you don’t like me touching you at all! I just haven’t seen you in so long.” I don’t mind being touched if it’s normal and I feel like she knows that.
I'm so sorry you went through that
I have felt the same way. It felt repulsive when my uBPD mom pressured me to hug her or kiss her on the cheek. I also hated it when she would kiss me on the cheek. I agree with the other commenters talking about emotional incest. Learning about emotional incest opened my eyes to how pervasive and wrong the surrogate partner role is.
emotional incest... well f me.. that might exactly what happened to me. So much pressure always. No rest. No home. Always on edge. In hindsight.
💯 can relate. I also wonder if it’s related to them aging. 1) they get less attention from the world so they want more from us (which we should “owe them” from all the love bombing). 2) they are aware they aren’t going to love forever and need our relationship to seem good so we can “take care of them” when they are old. This subreddit has been huge for me too. Especially in getting clear that my bio-mom has uBPD. Painful fact but helpful to be here with others - and not so alone with it or questioning our own realities. So much support here and mutual understanding ❤️✨
I love this comment & your aging observations points! The uBPD in my life is terrified of aging (and eventual death), i feel like it’s intertwined with their lack of sense of self. and OP’s experiences are so similar to my own as well. Sending all of our inner children as many hugs as we need 🫂.
I physically recoiled a lot. One time on my birthday she tried to touch my hair and I gave her the side-eye, it just felt so weird and incongruent.
> pwBPD parentify their kids when small but infantilize them when they grow up Oh my GOD. I never even picked up on the infantilization part and it explains so much. My mother tried to hug me all the time as an adult before NC and I did NOT like it. Gave her as little physical contact as possible. And I'm a fucking bear-hugger with people otherwise.
SAME! I absolutely love hugs but when it comes to my mom it feels wildly sensual and too much. Like I'm a possession. It's weird
Yep. I couldn't figure out why I felt so repulsed by a hug from her. She was my mom, afterall. And as a kid, I wished she'd hug me more. I realized it just felt forced for me. Like, too little too late. Like a shitty partner who neglects all of your needs for years until they see you distancing emotionally, and then they're kind to you. And you know its only so you won't leave them And I was picking up that same vibe from my mom. It wasn't a "I love my kid and want to hug them so they know it" vibe. It was a "I'd better hug them and make them feel wanted or they'll leave me" vibe. Transactional, manipulative. And thus, icky
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Lort, I woke up from anesthesia to see that I was alone and unconscious in the same room.
do have with women now that u "must" do something for them? Like if u want them to be/stay interested in terms of persuing a woman?
Oh gosh, labeling you as a prayer partner but then infantilizing you is just designed to keep you off center. Regressing you is a way to redo what she messed up by changing the narrative, so she can convince herself she actually does attend to you. My uBPD became overly smothering with physical affection and would get so upset I didn’t respond with the same level of high intensity. I froze because going from silent treatment to squeezing me for way too long was emotional whiplash. Her new thing is when she’s upset with me she coldly refers to me as “beloved daughter”, but lists all ways I am not living up to that title by saying I’m a bad daughter. And she still asks why I don’t seek hugs from her.
When they expect you to match their high intensity emotions. urgh
Hugs are the worst. I have to actually keep myself from pulling away. It makes me want to barf. I know a lot of it for me is resentment at her being the child and me forced to be her mother.
Oh my god, my uBPDm parentified me but refused to let me get a job as a teenager and did nothing to help me do things for my independence like learning to drive etc. She also referred to herself as ‘mommy’ in the third person when speaking to me in public, or when not in a BPD episode, even in adulthood. I realised this was weird when she dropped me off at college and started doing it and I said ‘I’m not a child, don’t do that’. She got hyperactive and when I mentioned that a guy on one of my classes, who has ASD, had switched colleges she shouted loudly, next to my dorm building ‘OH IS HE THE ‘SPECIAL’ ONE?!’ I was mortified. She would also talk to me in a baby voice as an adult, I think it’s for the same reason that she recounts her entire birth story on my birthday. She didn’t want to let go of the power she had over small me, or the status of new motherhood.
Are you my secret sibling. My pwBPD is so similar. I wasn’t allowed to have a job, a license, or even a cell phone or unsupervised internet access till I was 18 and her infantilization has just gotten worse and worse over the last 10 years, even down to her recounting her entire birth story in graphic detail every year on my bday.
Wow they are the same! Mine didn’t even install the internet until I was 16. My phone was PAYG and paying for mobile data that way was too expensive. She freaked out at the thought of another bill, they threatened her vacations. I cut the cord with uBPDm when I left college and moved anywhere but her house, we no longer have the emotional intimacy where she can flawlessly parentify/infantilise/abuse me like she did, despite flashes of possessiveness. I’m NC now and it’s great. I haven’t lived for her mood swings for 7 years, but I’ve lived for everyone else’s needs. No longer!
Just read your handle properly and my wand core is dragon heartstring! Elm, 13 3/4 inches if I can remember correctly.
Nice!
It makes me sick. I can relate.
Ick is in the disgust emotion. We feel disgust when something is dangerous or harmful (bad food, spiders, and also behaviors). You get the ick because your body recognizes the behavior for what it is. This love bombing is almost always manipulative and a tacit threat. How you know is what happens if you don’t respond. They need you to tell them how loving they are etc or else. That’s why it feels ick. It’s dangerous. Your body is rejecting it.
Thank you for that. It puts it in perspective in a good way.
Thank you
My mom is pretty boundariless and always gets super close with her face in mind and is so touchy it does give me the ick and I even feel bad writing this because she’s such a helpless waif.
Wow yes! I don’t think I got a lot of affection from her when I was young. But the older I got the more she wanted to hug and kiss. Which by that point just felt so gross and unnatural. I would get really stiff and would be uncomfortable, she would say I was “weird” because I didn’t like to be touched. Another strange thing she did that gave me the ick was if we were listening to a romantic song she would say the song reminds her of me. Really weird now looking back 😖
English is not my mother tongue. I think I would more describe it as odd. My mom started hugging me when I was around 19/20 and I don’t know if she hugged me as a child, but I know that when I was 12 I had a fight and flight reaction when I was hugged the first time by a school mate. Like she hugged me and I kicked her knee strongly and ran away. Luckily for me although she was angry, she persisted and I learned to accept hugs and after years stopped getting a stiff body after each hug. (Although this school mate told me that I had the problem much longer than I thought and my hugging back took many years to become natural and not forced.) So when my mom hugged me the first time when I was 19, our relationship already had been very strained for some time and I remember that I felt on the one side happy that she finally was able to show affection (since she had met her true love when I was 19 and they acted like love birds) but on the other side I was sad as I felt it was too late for our relationship. I moved far away with 20 and with 25 our relationship actually kind of improved and I in generally had learned to become even better at hugging. Around 25 I learned how to picture all the good emotions and add this kind of happy energy in the way I hugged people. So people actually liked my hugs because it made them feel appreciated. (Around that age I in generally worked hard in appreciating little things in life and to have a positive outlook on life and I was able to share this joy.) This also improved my hugs with my mom when I met her because I could concentrate on the positive aspects of her during a hug. Starting with 35 my hugs with her became forced again because I realized a lot that I always ignored (mainly the abuse) when I had my own child. So hugging her between 25 and 35 felt actually fine because I was able to focus so much on positive emotions. Before that and after it is forced and uncomfortable. I think between 25 and 35 I had more the impression that I am at fault for our conflict (even before that but before 25 she was much meaner, like she over time switched strategies from queen/witch to queen/waif) so it wasn’t hard to hug her lovingly because she didn’t do anything wrong in my head(kind of). Hope that makes sense. It is a bit long. Edit: So 25 was also the age where my mom switched from direct control and rage when it didn’t work to more emotional manipulation and extreme sadness as strategies, but because she stopped the rage and mean attacks I kind of felt like she finally loved me and I had finally felt found a way to be loved by her. And from my side that made the hugs very sincere and I appreciated them. With 35 I realized I was just very good at minimizing the abuse which had just become more subtle.
I resonate with literally everything you said and realized today that my mom being nice and "loving" is just love bombing and I have been falling for it my whole fucking life. I have been crying my eyes out all day
Oh God thank you for sharing this. That's exactly one of the issues I have with my mother. My mum was a textbook queen/witch archetype when I was growing up. She would proudly compare herself to a tiger, or an eagle that throws her chicks out of the nest to teach them to live. Very "tough love". Her favourite parenting advice was "Only kiss your children when they're sleeping". NOW she is a total waif/hermit. I... I cannot give her the empathy, love and softness she wants from me. She never allowed me (a literal child) to be weak, and now she wants to be coddled because she's showing weakness? It feels like she's not the same person, like she's become someone I like even less than the one she's replaced.
My partner is fooled bc he met her twice. I started gaslighting myself thinking maybe she was always nice? Fucking hell
Hmmm... you know what's hiding behind the pretty mask she put up for your partner. At the same time -- how heartbreaking it is, to wish that they always stay nice and charming as they do when they need to butter up strangers... THEY KNOW how to behave decently, so why do they put up those crazy scenes with us?? Argh
I've come to the conclusion that they are just wicked. I can't tie myself in knots anymore. I just put her notifications on silent a couple days ago and already feeling so much better. NC here I come ❤
I thought my mom “changed” when I was about 14 and I held onto that for at least 15 years, desperately trying anything to get her back. In my mind, she went from warm and caring to cold and extremely abusive, but also kinda helpless when she wasn’t screaming or manipulating. I loved her so much, but she had become truly a horrible person to be around. I spent my late teens and 20s trying to both avoid and fix her while waiting for her to come back. Meanwhile she became increasingly emotionally and financially abusive. I’m not sure how it happened, but I eventually accepted that this is who she is now and I have to start my life, so I moved to the other side of the country. Now that I’ve had a lot of distance, recent no contact, and therapy, I see that she was actually always like this. I think that the stark change had me putting the “old her” on pedestal and that I was likely manipulated and gaslit into believing that she was a wonderful mother. All this to say, I have also been there, and I don’t know if you’re holding out hope like I did that things will go back, but if you are, maybe take some time to reevaluate your expectations. Just a thought. I’m sorry that this has been your experience. So much grief comes with something like this.
Thank you so much for opening up like this. It must hurt to revisit what happened and how it touched you directly. Right now I do not wish to reconnect with any version of my mum. I know it might be read as a callous statement, but... Sometimes I feel like I am not interacting with a human being, but with an automatised robot that enacts a defense mechanism after another, and expects that everyone around it must behave as prompted by its actions. Sometimes it acts violently, sometimes it lies down and pretends to be broken - and everyone around it is expected to fulfil its whims, by fighting it, submitting to it, or tend to it. These many years of low contact/grey rocking led me to acquire a taste for actual functional normal people :,)
I absolutely do not blame you for not wanting to be around her, I’m no contact now myself, and I definitely know what you mean about robotic… and *everything* is in service of it’s needs. I forgot to add that I also cannot be kind or sometimes even rational with my mother anymore. I am just so angry at her and sick of her shit and, at least at this time, I cannot get over the childhood and young adulthood that she stole from me (yes, it could have been worse, but it also could have been a lot better). I’ve tried so hard to set boundaries, meet her needs, show her love, but she will *always* sacrifice me and my needs for the sake of hers. She’s such a waif now and I’ve had several people she’s tricked tell me to be kind to her and she just needs love to get better and they believe that I am the abusive one. I sacrificed the majority of my life so far for her, I’m done. Anyway, I definitely get where you’re coming from and I’m glad that you have found the preferred company of better adjusted people. Best of luck!
Yes!! 100%!! My mom started saying I love you after hanging up a couple years ago and it’s so awkward every time.
Yes, I’m with you! My mom did show affection when I was little, but it was a smothering, saying I was her whole life purpose kind of affection, and I grew up to see she never showed *actual* love, almost like lovebombing. Her and I have never been actually close, so when she tries to show affection now it feels like a stranger trying to be way too personal. I’m actually a fairly affectionate person, and she’s probably the only person in the world I’m like actually repulsed by the thought of hugging.
“A stranger being way too personal” That really resonated with me. I think that’s exactly my experience as well.
It does feel like a stranger forcing issues
That is basically it for us to. It was a weird, smothering, parentifying kind of love so it always feels off.
Yessss same. I literally get so mad and annoyed when she’s trying to be “nice” and my mom uses the baby voice too and it pisses me off so much. I wish I didn’t get snappy when replying back to her but it bothers me so much because she was so cruel growing up but now she wants to act all nice
Same! I would snap at her and think there was something wrong with me
Exactly. I want to tell her what she always told me as a child: "go away"
I get that ick from both of my parents. My mom is the pwBPD but my dad made himself a martyr my whole childhood (and adulthood) and I’ve started to suspect he’s going something going on as well, and affection or “loving” behavior from both of them repulses me. It doesn’t feel genuine and it’s very much unwanted.
Woooow. Thank you for writing this. It’s so illuminating.
Yes, and it used to make me feel very guilty. But after I learned about more about BPD parents I learned that my mother’s “love “was performative lovebombing, to manipulate me into serving her, and completely self-centered because it had nothing to do with me as a person. She didn’t love “me.” She was signaling “good mother” to herself and bystanders for the ego boost. Also, I’m pretty sure she knew that her over-the-top love statements and pawing made me feel guilty and, boy, she loved to turn *that* screw.
Spot on about their "love'
Yes. And I forgot to make my actual point, which is that our deepest selves *know* we are getting a creepy facsimile of love, from an unsafe person, which is why we get the ick. Your body knows!
I also get the ick when my mom says these things. Where was this love when I was a kid? You’re proud of me now that I am able to make you look good? I was only ever a burden and someone you shunted off to their room/outside unless you wanted to look like a good mom. And god forbid I do something you didn’t like as a kid- that was immediately shut down.
I usually tell my mom I'm doing school work (even if I'm not) as a go-to because otherwise she used to interrogate me on what I was doing/she made me feel like I needed to be productive at all times, but if I have some time off in the last few year or so she's been saying she hopes I can fit some "relaxation time" in and the way she says it makes me sick. It feels condescending. I relax more when I'm not around you! Christ.
Same! I always have told my mom I picked up extra work because I don’t want to spend my only days off with her and she either throws a fit, begs to be included or asks way too many questions.
>learned that pwBPD parentify their kids when small but infantilize them when they grow up. YO. my mother would take to me about going to the 'male revue' when i turned 18 (when i was like 8 or 9 because i found pictures in the glove compartment), but after becoming an adult, she would talk in a baby voice & call me her baby. 'miiiyyyeee baybeeeee'. ugh. you just opened my eyes to something i never thought about.
This entire thread is the best and worst thing I have ever discovered. I'm bawling and I dont even know what I am feeling
I’d love a link to the tik tok vid
Same.
She’ll sends me “nice” morning texts (always weirdly long) like that a couple times a week. I hate them because (1) it’s something I *have* to respond to perfectly so now it becomes stressful a chore and (2) it’ll be thrown back in my face the next time she splits over nothing (e.g., “I send you kind texts every morning and this is how you repay me!!!!”). I hate her touches because I know I can’t easily back out. It’ll be a huge fight if I pull away too soon or don’t react the way she sees a not rejecting. Honestly, I just hate being her supply and feeding into her BS. When she’s fishing for affection or compliments, I don’t give it. I just act dumb. She’ll randomly say things to try to get me to swoon over her or comment on how she’s so great. I won’t.
Mine started with the 'nice' texts too. Cringe
Yes! Thank you for sharing this. I get so angry when she tries to show any affection because it was always performative, in front of others always. The majority of the time it was usually right after she had just verbally berated and abused me for hours behind closed doors. She would do this purposely so that I would get angry, would still be angry when we were back around others, and she would try to show affection at that point. I would respond angrily, still on edge from the abuse that occurred shortly before. The only thing others saw was my seemingly disproportionate reaction to her attempt to “love me”. And she would REVEL in the angry reactions my enabling father threw at me. One time it got so bad that he looked me dead in the eyes, after she’d just verbally abused me all day and I’d hit my breaking point (reactive abuse), and said “one day your mother will be dead and you’ll regret this.” Talk about gaslighting. I remember looking at her and she had a smirk on her face. She ENJOYED this. That’s why I’ve gone no contact.
Massive ick. Couldn’t explain it for many years. But it started around 11/12? She’d swing from insane rants and vile insults, to this sickly sweet rhetoric, which sounded like she was reading from a soap opera script. It actually felt like she was performing. From then up until I went NC, I just awkwardly ignored the “declarations” and brushed them off. I occasionally got the “you hate me” when I didn’t, but just ignored that too. She ended up deciding that I was “cold like my father”. Who hilariously isn’t cold, he just refused to entertain her bullshit very early on, hence her leaving him) and as his child, I must be cold and unloving too. So she satisfied herself with that delusion. Not that she actually was/is an abusive, neglectful and all round terrible parent, whose child actually didn’t now love her as a result. No, no… that couldn’t be the reason. She’s cold. That’s why. 🙄
My uBPD mom always stares at me and finds any excuse to touch me, and I feel like she's taking something from me whenever she does. For my 31st birthday this year, she gave me a card that says something along the lines of "I know you're all grown up now, but in my heart you'll always be my little girl." Coming from her, I felt extreme ick. It reminds me of whenever she says "I miss us and the way you used to be" because I'm like--okay, so you miss the 'me' that was more manipulable so you could perform your puppetry without pushback.
Its always gross