Boundaries

Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously

--Prentis Hemphill

The Universe fed me this little nugget via instagram this morning.

A while ago, in the emotional graeco-roman wrestling match that is the relationship with my mother, we had a bout resulting from her unending quest to force me to stay overnight at the house with her, which I won't do. Ever.

I outlined (for the zillionth time) that I have and need boundaries in order to have a relationship; that love, like every other thing in the universe, has limits (aka boundaries).

She collapsed in on herself, slumped down like a deflated balloon, and moaned, "Love with boundaries is no love at all." There followed the litany of recriminations and accusations, too familiar by half.

Years and years before, my therapist had diagnosed my mother with Borderline Personality Disorder. Boundaries are a perceived threat to a BPD Person's entire existence. She, like a toddler, cannot perceive the end of her and the world around her. Which to her, like to a toddler, is fucking terrifying.

So she needs to control the whole world.

  • create a narrative structure that holds her at the center of the Universe, martyr and savior
  • designate an emotional pack animal (my role from childhood) to carry the emotions that threaten her (fear, vulnerability, sadness, hurt, shame, guilt), for her to either save or excoriate
  • find (or create) an enemy against whom she can wage war in order to feel truly alive and entirely justified in her existence and her every action. Could be disease, aging, neighbors, children, colleagues, employees, friends... doesn't matter, what matters is the high from the adrenaline and cortisol and pure, righteous anger. This also has been my role since I stopped buying into the narrative.

This is what is happening now. I am the enemy. Among her current top hits:

  • I am cold, hurtful, and clearly don't love her because I haven't moved into the house and care for her myself for two-and-a-half years as she did with her mother (resulting in a full-on mental break that landed her in the hospital for weeks, proving yet again what a dedicated caregiving martyr she really is). This is an old chestnut.

  • A conversation in which I patiently outlined that we have this team precisely in order to keep her in the house as she wants is retold to a caregiver as me threatening her that if she doesn't behave, I will ship her off to "the loony bin."

  • I am having an affair with some mysterious man in Santa Fe, which is why I am not with her every waking moment.

  • Brian, evil moneygrubbing husband and designated svengali, is actually staying in my apartment in Santa Fe, whispering dastardly plans into my ear.

  • I am gaslighting her (she doesn't use the term, which would be too goddamned ironic for me to stand) to believe that she is losing her marbles so I can wrest control from her and take all her money.

  • I have hired a team of assassin's masquerading as caregivers to kill her and get all her money and gold.

Yup. Boundaries.