Dear Sophie:

First part of my post, about what you shared- your words paint a clear picture of enmeshment—a lifelong pattern where your mother’s emotional and practical needs have consumed your own, leaving little room for personal identity and autonomy. From childhood, you were placed in a parentified role, carrying responsibilities far beyond what was appropriate, shaping your instinct to fix and rescue her, even at the cost of your own well-being.

This enmeshment has led to a diminished sense of self, where your own identity, desires, and ambitions feel secondary—almost nonexistent—next to the constant demands of managing your mother’s crises. Your life has often been dictated by her cycles of conflict and instability, leaving you feeling like a passenger in your own journey, always on high alert, always prioritizing her needs over your own.

The emotional weight of this has seeped into every part of your life, including your marriage, where your husband notices how you disappear into your mother’s dramas for weeks at a time. You recognize that this dynamic is unsustainable, yet the guilt of stepping away—paired with deep conditioning that you are responsible for her well-being—makes setting boundaries incredibly difficult.

Second part, about your mother (and I am not a professional either, so not diagnosing)- you described her as manipulative, lacking empathy, and seeing you as an extension of herself—which are common traits of narcissistic personality disorder. Her intense emotional instability, volatile relationships, and impulsive behaviors could align with borderline personality traits. People with BPD often experience rapid mood swings, fear of abandonment, and difficulty regulating emotions, which could explain your mother’s frequent conflicts and emotional outbursts.

She may suffer from traits of histrionic personality disorder as well. People with HPD often struggle with emotional regulation, have rapidly shifting emotions, and may exaggerate situations to gain attention.

Comorbidity of personality disorders is common.

Her autism diagnosis can contribute to emotional dysregulation and difficulty with social interactions. Some behaviors you described—such as rigid thinking, difficulty understanding others’ emotions, and intense reactions to stress—could stem from autism-related challenges rather than a personality disorder.

Third part of this post- you mentioned that your mother lacks empathy. If she truly does not feel empathy for others, including yourself, then it’s likely that she won’t suffer from the loss of contact in the way a deeply empathetic person would. Instead of feeling heartbreak or loss, she may react with anger, frustration, or dramatic behaviors over the loss of control over you.

I know you care about your mother and are struggling with strong emotional conditioning, so me stating in my first reply that your mother won’t be deeply affected might have felt unsettling rather than reassuring, as in conflicting with your lifelong investment in her, and thinking perhaps that she will be devastated if you step away..?

I hope to read back from you, Sophie and develop this into a conversation with you.

I’ll close with this: your growing awareness of these patterns, along with the steps you’re taking to involve social services, suggest that you want to reclaim your life while maintaining compassion for your mother. The struggle now is finding the strength to prioritize yourself without drowning in guilt, redefining what self-care looks like, and building trust in your own needs, desires, and autonomy.

You deserve to be present in your own life, not just as a caretaker or problem-solver for someone else. The process of stepping back will take time, but even recognizing the need for change is a powerful first step.

anita

Hi Sophie

I’m sorry to hear about all of the difficulties with your mother. These things aren’t easy.

It sounds like you’re doing the right thing referring her to professional support.

If it helps any, she may actually gain some self-sufficiency by you stepping back from helping her all the time. I used to help out similarly for a family member who also has autism, but now I take a less involved role.

I realised that my helping out was from conditioning with my own childhood difficulties. I was trying to manage the person’s mood because I was uncomfortable with the person being in a bad mood.

It might be helpful to reflect and dig deeper into some of the reasons you feel a need to help her so much. Your reasoning might be different from my own.

Stepping back from managing someone else’s dysregulation allowed them to take a more active role in managing their own dysregulation.

I do still care, but I don’t overload myself with it anymore. It is important to prioritise managing your own emotional regulation. How will she learn if you don’t model the behaviour she needs to learn? But more importantly, you deserve to be happy and enjoy the relationship with your husband! ❤️

I also had to work on evening out the relationship, so it felt less one sided to me.

Have you considered therapy for yourself? You’re dealing with a lot with the childhood trauma and caregiver burnout.

Clearly you’re a very empathetic and caring person. I can understand your desire to stay in contact with her.

It took some time to get here, but things are in a more positive place now.

It sounds like you are ready to make these changes and definitely need them for your own wellbeing. I wish you a lot of luck in the process!

Please don’t feel guilty for taking care of yourself and putting your needs first. You deserve it and you cannot help anyone else if you don’t take care of yourself first. ❤️

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please feel free to write about anything!

Hi Sophie

I can assure you that it is possible for autists to lie. They do have tendencies to lie for specific reasons. To hide mistakes, to benefit others, to avoid negative situations or to be accepted.

I’m autistic myself and many of my friends and family are also autistic.

I’m sorry that you never had the mother you needed and suffered at the hands of the one you had. It isn’t easy when the child is more capable than the parent.

I’m glad to hear that your husband has started a new job and you will be able to go to therapy again later when the bills calm down. Please feel free to express yourself here. Some people also find AI helpful to talk to as well. ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini and the like.

Unpicking the difficulties of autistic meltdowns from abuse is not easy. I’ve just started researching that myself. What I’ve learned so far:

A brief summary of the difference is that triggers usually occur before a meltdown. These could be emotional, stress, pain, sensory, sleep deprivation, hunger etc. The individual is not in full control when experiencing a meltdown and different autists have different skills when it comes to regulating their emotions.

Whereas abuse occurs in a deliberately harmful manner and may be focused around an individual’s desires.

Unfortunately, both experiences can still be harmful to the people around them if they are not equipped to manage emotional meltdowns and don’t understand the difference. Not very helpful when you’re on the receiving end of things.

Feeling responsible for her makes sense. She doesn’t seem particularly capable.

There are different personalities that people have with autism and she seems to have one of the more troublesome ones that causes a lot of conflict with others. That cannot be easy to have grown up with or deal with now. I know people who have similar issues and it is a very stressful way to live.

I can believe when you say that she has done horrible things to you. Sadly. I’m so sorry your mother has treat you in this way.

There was a family member that my therapist made recommendations to treat as though she were ill and have no expectations of them as a result of their issues. It is not easy to care about someone like that. Doing your best to have a minimal role in her life sounds like a smart choice, one that I also took.

Continued:

“telling myself that my Mum is vulnerable, could be easily taken advantage of, needs my protection”- You are vulnerable and have been easily taken advantage of by your mother. You need protection from her.

“I realised that she was actively lying to me… she lies to manipulate me”- Here’s another suggestion for rebuilding your identity—root it in honesty, straightforwardness, and justice. Let these values guide you, leading you to distance yourself from those who are persistently dishonest and manipulative.

“I also think she weaponises her autism when she wants to get me to do something”- if her autism diagnosis is correct, then the part of her that weaponizes it against you is not the autistic part.

A mother should protect and nurture her daughter, not use emotional weapons against her. Parenthood should be built on care and support, not manipulation or control.

“I think, for me, the nail in the coffin – this time – has been that my Mother has started reaching out to my husband directly.. I don’t want my husband sucked into her vortex”- seems like she’s trying to pull him into the same dynamic, extending her reach beyond just you. I am guessing that if you had children, she would try to pull them too into the same dynamic.

“When I think about having no contact myself, where I always fall down is – not so much that I feel guilt that she would be sad about this, because I truthfully don’t think she would be upset in that way, because I just don’t think she’s capable of it – it’s more the conditioning that, if something happens to her, it would be my fault or responsibility. That’s what I struggle to make peace with. I just have this little nagging voice in my head that’s constantly saying, ‘she’s in danger, if you don’t step in… something terrible will happen. She’ll die and it’ll be your fault’.”-

I, too, was terrified as a child that my mother would die. I saw how fragile and needy she was, and I feared for her. She spoke of suicide—describing how she would end her life—forcing me to carry the weight of that fear.

A child needs a strong, stable parent. When a parent is too weak and suicidal, it becomes deeply traumatic for the child, who, in an attempt to cope, takes on a parentified role—constantly trying to support, protect, and strengthen the parent, hoping that one day, the parent will finally be able to care for the child in return.

It’s interesting how, even as adults, we continue to operate from that perspective—still waiting for the parent to become the parent they never were.

“There is a part of my brain that tells me that – if her behaviour is caused by her autism… then that’s not her fault and so surely I should be more understanding and accommodating… Equally, if it is some kind of personality disorder…should I not be understanding of this too, because that’s also not her fault?”-

I don’t believe your mother behaves the same way with everyone in every circumstance. It seems she takes advantage of those she perceives as weak and accommodating, while withdrawing from those she views as strong and self-assured. If that’s the case, then her behavior isn’t entirely beyond her control—there is an element of choice. Unlike a psychotic episode, which removes a person’s ability to make rational decisions, a personality disorder may still allow for selective behavior, particularly when it benefits the individual.

Hold your mother accountable—not for her emotions, but for the choices she makes in how she treats you and others.

“Also, truthfully, there is still the little inner child part of me that desperately wants a mother. Looking back, I think I got myself into this pattern of.. if I just fix this one thing (and it was always one more thing), then MAYBE, just MAYBE, we can have a ‘normal’ mother/daughter relationship and everything will be okay.”-

It will take grieving the reality that you never had—and never will have—the mother you needed in her. Only through this acceptance can the longing begin to quiet, freeing you from chasing someone who was never truly there.

This kind of grief isn’t easy, but it is necessary. In letting go of the hope for a relationship that cannot be, you create space to nurture yourself in the way you always deserved.

* I wrote the above before I even read your words: “definitely a kind of grief for a relationship that can never exist.”

“sometimes, I would be physically unwell – and I would worry that my manager at work wouldn’t believe me if I called in sick, or that I was actually making it up, because I was so used to having my own feelings and needs minimised, that I couldn’t even trust myself to know and accept when I was actually physically ill.”-

Same here—I used to second-guess my own reality constantly. Only recently have I started trusting my understanding of myself and my life more and more. The difference in my mental state is profound, to say the least.

“I just have to find the strength to see this through and to prioritise myself. Truthfully, I don’t know if I can do it… or where even to begin. But I desperately want to try.”-

Think of prioritizing your values as the first step—honesty, straightforwardness, and justice. Let these principles guide you as you begin choosing yourself.

“Added complication for me is that I have ADHD”- me too, similar responses to similar mothers, I think.

“Maybe the inevitable outcome is no contact. I don’t think I am there, yet, or that I can be until I know everything is in place for her to be okay.”-

I think her ‘not being okay’ is, consciously or not, a way to keep control over you—to keep you attached and under her influence. She may be continuing behaviors that work for her, even if she isn’t fully aware of it.

Ironically, I believe there’s a greater chance for her to be as ‘okay’ as possible if you choose to cut contact. In stepping away, you free both of you from this unhealthy dynamic—giving her the space to navigate her own life without relying on you as a constant emotional crutch.

Can you imagine, Sophie, that ending contact with her might be the right choice—not just for your own well-being, but for hers as well?

anita