How do I find out what's wrong with my mother?

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My mother has some sort of Development Disorder, but I don't know what it is. One of our other family memebers has been diagnosed as Autistic and I started to read up about that and well, frankly my mother and this relative are very alike in their behaviours, so I think that she is autistic.

However, through reading posts on this forum, I have begun to realise that there is some other thing lingering in the background. Not all autistic people behave the way she does. Autism doesn't mean that a person is manipulative and emotionally abusive, that's more of a Borderline Personality or Narsasistic Personality Disorder sort of thing.

The simple solution is to just cut her off completely, obviously, but I've been reading about BPD and it seems that sufferers don't mean to behave the way they do, they're just reacting to how they feel and I read an experience of a person who recovered completely.

But how do you get a person to go and see a doctor if they don't think there is anything wrong with them, especially if they are able to manipulate the conversation and turn it round to make it look like you are attacking them by making the suggestion that they see a doctor. Her view is that the whole world, including well meaning family, is out to get her and trip her up and tell her she is bad. Most of my family have given up on her and just let her do what she wants with her life, which sounds empathetic, but I'm left to deal with her narcissism and wild ideas about everything. She's always telling me mad stories about how people are talking about her when she's not around, like she's a mind reader and knows for sure. It's like everything has to revolve around her.

She turned a recently family death and funeral into a drama about her. It was like she needed it to be more dramatic than it was and needed my attention. I didn't give her what she wanted so she told her sister her mad story about the circumstances of the relative's death. She didn't believe my mother either.

I can't cope with her anymore. I am sick of reading about PDDs. It's not my job to look after her, she needs a professional.

All I can say is my sympathies. I have dealt with family members who are like this, my sister in law currently and my late grandmother. I don't even know how effective treatment is for those with personality disorders such as BPD or Narcissistic PD. Sometimes I think restricting contact is the only viable option. Perhaps there should be support groups for family members. Maybe a great deal of the stress comes from feeling like you have to explain their behaviors to others when all you can do is ignore them.

Thanks, I think a huge part of the problem is the social stigma associated with disassociating yourself from your own mother. I actually have a friend at work who has similar problems with his mother. We were talking about it one day and a colleague said to us, "no, no, your mother is your best friend," really appalled at how we could say bad things about our mothers.

And when people ask me, "how is your mother," I feel bad, I just say fine. They can't cope with an, "I don't really talk to my mother," response, makes me look like a bad, uncaring daughter.

I don't put a lot of stock in the whole personality disorders thing. So many of them seem like they are the same-- emotionally abusive, self-centered, passive-aggressive... if you look up the traits of borderline, passive-aggressive, avoidant personalities, they have very similar traits.

Your mother sounds a lot like my grandmother was. Unfortunately there is not much you can do with these types of folks. They're gonna be how they're gonna be. My grandmother never changed in all her 88 years.

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