Happy Narcissistic Mother's Day

[H011yHawkJ311yBean]

Well, my mother's idea of "agree to disagree" is different from yours, I am sure.

She likes the whole philosophy of that phrase, but actually putting it into action is impossible for her. If she could actually utilize what's behind those words, our spheres would be able to overlap a little. But it's "either you're sucked right in with me or you're spit right out." I've tried somewhere in between, and she doesn't have an "in between!" lol

---------- Post added at 01:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:43 PM ----------

Now listening to:
"Let It Rain" by Amanda Marshall
"Thank You" by Alanis Morissette
"Next Time" by Bear Naked Ladies
"I'm With You" by Avril Lavigne
"There Goes God" by Crowded House
"How Can I Keep From Singing" by Enya
"All Alone" by Gorillaz
"Could I Be Your Girl" Jann Arden
"Tornado" by Jonsi
"Lightning Crashes" by Live
"She Will Be Loved" Maroon 5
"Losing My Religion" REM

Just because that's how I'm feeling right now... And I get to play with my iTunes that I am trying to get used to for my iPhone training at work. lol

 

[rdw]

Well, my mother's idea of "agree to disagree" is different from yours, I am sure.

I did not mean agree to disagree about an issue I meant agree to live seperate lives. If your parents decide to move to Timbuctu that is their perogative and decision; if you decide to move to Bali then that is your decision. If your mother causes problems with other family members that is on her, not on you. If she chooses not to seek mental health help, again that is her perogative and responsibility not yours. By rehashing the past and her problems with others there is no resolution available to you. You need to look after you and learn to live a great, peaceful life for yourself. The best part of this is you are now free to create and solve your own problems. Let your mother create and solve her problems and let your father create and solve his though I would definitely detach with regards to the money and property issues. As far as the weekly email goes - the weather always changes in Saskatchewan tell your parents about that or the flooding or the mosquitos or the sunsets etc. I hope you all find peace...

 

[H011yHawkJ311yBean]

lol

Well, yeah, that's why I said you're definition was different from hers. 8)

I blocked them from my Facebook today... I was thinking of blocking them from emailing us, too. Because inevitably (because they've already been high-selling BC to us) there will be more pressure from my mom to move to BC with them (laughable) and them paying for us to take vacation with them (more leverage for them) and whatever potential new garbage they would like to throw at me or old garbage they still want to drag me through. The new stuff and old stuff both stink. If I can't have a proper relationship with them, I would prefer not to have a relationship at all. I hate pretending, like the old days, that everything's fine. I don't want to live the lie anymore. And I can see that throwing an icy splash of reality in my mom's face didn't exactly cause her to wake up, it caused her to go further into a coma. And I don't feel like spoon feeding her little bits of this and that.

I don't want her to consume me anymore, whether she's in vulture form, leech form, or Komodo dragon form... It all hurts to have contact with her in any amount.

 

[rdw]

Holly
Don't sell yourself short - you have the ability to say "No" to requests to move to BC and to vacations with them. Your parents are unable to give you more than what they can give you but you can live your life to the best of your abilities. You have that right and the right to simply say "No". Take back your power to live your life. It is in your hands and in your control.

 

[H011yHawkJ311yBean]

Right now I am taking back my life by living it without them. I am not saying it's forever or if it's permanent because I am not a fortune teller. But right now it doesn't feel right to talk to them in any capacity.

I'm tired of setting up boundaries and having them broken (or having attempts at breaking them) time and time again. I'm tired of saying "no" like a broken record that no one listens to.

I would have stopped trying years ago if it hadn't been my mother but it's been 40 years for heaven's sake. Let me have my time to myself for the time being.

 

[H011yHawkJ311yBean]

Well, I had to laugh... My husband got a birthday card. It didn't really address that it was his birthday. What it addressed was that my parents still really want me to pay for us to come visit them in BC. Even since I sent them that letter, they are still trying hard to get me to visit them or try to convince us to move to British Columbia. I kind of like having a province in between our provinces. The distance has been nice. lol Oh and of course she sent photos of strangers and on the back of the photos she mentioned that there was a lady who was 47 when she had her first child. Because she doesn't want me to give up on having children. I don't want children. That's a very personal choice...

Anyway some of you lovely people were concerned about my decision to stop talking to my mother (indefinitely) and some even suggested I get in touch with my therapist. Well my husband and I have only seen him briefly (like dropping off cookies for the staff and him at Christmas) in the longest time, so sent him an email and here is his response... Keeping in mind I have spent 2 to and a half years going to see him in sessions... And then several years later I bring this up... He knows of my progress because I email him from time to time to say hello and update him.

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Hi Holly;

First off, wow. Suitably generic response to so much, hard to boil down my non-generic response. Your letter was great but given everything you have told me about your mother and father, her response was predictable. She just put up a rubber wall and everything you told her bounced right back, really she did not acknowledge you had any reason at all to doubt or question her behaviour. She essentially did not answer you, just threw up a cloud of sweetness and light. If someone else (her intended audience, it almost seemed) were to read her response they might think “Well, what’s Holly talking about? She seems just wonderful!” But she didn’t answer anything you said except to state, indirectly, that you needed a psychiatrist/psychologist more than she did. She can’t admit fault or blame or even (and this is the crucial point) doubt about anything. It’s a self-administered whitewash. Pure narcissism. I’m sorry to write that, but that is all I could glean from her letter. And at the end, the money thing just thrown in as an afterthought is like a purchase offer: Keep in touch and you can get the 10 grand. It was so innocently yet blatantly thrown in there at the end it caught me off guard because I had to check whether she or you had made much reference to it earlier on but it comes out of nowhere. Holly, she can’t do any better than this but to throw a blanket over top of everything you tried to tell her because, honestly, I don’t think she knows what you are talking about in your letter. If she engages in this process on a daily basis, she can’t just stop and she won’t ever see her actions in the way you and your brother have. In short, in her mind she’s innocent and you are asking her acknowledge guilt. I don’t think she can do it, I think her view of her actions is as coloured as anyone’s by seeing herself as the irreproachable heroine of her own drama. She will take drugs to change how she feels, but she will not examine her own actions or motivations.

In short, she cannot do what you are asking. She is not, as we say in the trade, psychologically minded. She is psychologically defended. If she was able, she would have doubt and ask “But what did I DO!” She never once asked you what you meant by your letter. She never even considered the possibility she was wrong about anything. But if she saw a shrink, she would get nothing out of it. She can’t present your version of the truth because she believes she is blameless. In her mind and her version of truth, she is blameless.

And, it follows, your father believes her unreservedly. He would have to, to live with her and love her.

I am not sure what else you can do, or say, to get through to her. She can’t hear you.

---------- Post added at 10:17 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:37 AM ----------

Ooops, what I meant to say was "My husband got a birthday card. It didn't really address that it was his birthday. What it addressed was that my parents still really want me to come to BC or for them to pay for us to come visit them in BC."

My husband got a birthday card. It didn't really address that it was his birthday. What it addressed was that my parents still really want me to pay for us to come visit them in BC.

See, as I have mentioned before, my mom has 'given' me 'gifts' that she uses as leverage. She and my dad were moving last summer (to go live in BC) and gave us their lawnmower and snowblower. David and I kind of thought they might try something with us because of this and we were correct. My mom came to visit last November and was trying to get us to drop off the snowblower at one of her properties so she wouldn't have to pay a property manager the amount of time it would take to shovel it by hand. So a) instead of my mother buying that property manager a snowblower to manage her own property, and b) and not wanting to pay the property manager for a 45 minute job with a shovel that could be done in half the time with a snowblower, she thought c) it would best if my husband (who has had 2 back surgeries) to go out of his way on a day he's doing guitar lessons (oh, no rush or inconvenience at all) and drop off this heavy snowblower at the other property. No thought about, hey, what if we wake up one morning and are snowed in (it's happened) and David or I have to get to work and our snowblower is at this other property? Then it's me who has to do all the manual shoveling, or worse, my husband (remember the back surgeries and he's had physio for repetitive work injuries on his elbows from a previous job)... So when I said to my husband, okay we could drop off that snowblower at the property and then go get our "own" snowblower, that's when my mom backpedaled and said we could keep it at our house. Looks like she will have to actually use her own resources/money to manage her own property instead of trying to get us to do it for her. Which is a boundary I made clear several times: that I don't want to deal with her properties. Even though she keeps saying stuff like "Well it might just be a little thing once in a very great while." No, it won't be, it will be a convenience for her, but an inconvenience for us if we start helping her out with her houses.

So when my mother says she will pay for a sitter for our dog, or pay for our gas if we bring our dog, or pay for our plane tickets, etc, I don't take the bait. Because then she can say things like "After all we've done for you why can't you do (task) for us?" And because, for another example, when I was in university she used to 'give' me $10 or $20 once in a while, and say I could just have it because I was working at university full time and I needed the gas and to socialize a bit and that sort of thing. Then a day or two later she'd change her mind arbitrarily and tell me I would need to pay her back the money. So I stopped accepting money from her.

Well there you have it. I feel much better for my decision. I've always felt that my mother doesn't/can't/won't listen to me because she's caught up somehow in her own little world. I'm tired of say 'no' and reposting my boundaries... It's like talking to a 3 year old but she's in her 60s.... She is supposed to be the mother, not me.

 

[Jazzey]

...your mother will never hear you, I hate to say. Personal experience. I've finally accepted that in my own life. Right now, my father is dying. And it's still all about her... And now I need to figure out how to manage not letting her move in with me.

Your mother will never hear you. Mostly because she's too consumed in herself. If your mother is as she appears to me in this post - she will never hear you, nor your brother. It's just not in her ability. So...you can love her, but still impose whatever boundaries keep you safe. It's not always about booting them out. Sometimes, you can have them in your life without accepting the hurt or the guilt that automatically flows from them.... In my opinion....One caveat - I'm still sorting this out too. So what do I know?

 

[H011yHawkJ311yBean]

Everybody has a different way of dealing with things.

I certainly do not impose my feelings or opinions on anyone else: Just because I choose indefinitely, at this time, not to talk to my mother - it doesn't mean I think everyone else should do what I am right now. I don't mind if someone else chooses to speak to their Narcissistic parent/parents. As I've said before, I may again at some point in the future, get back in touch with my mother. But sure as heck, not right now. If I tried to impose my opinion on people as fact and then take it personally when people don't follow my 'instructions' then I am turning into my mother.

I can't pretend it's water off a duck's back anymore. To pretend 'what she says and does doesn't affect me' is what I did my whole life. Eating my emotions. Putting up with her crap (and everyone else's) passively. Can't do it anymore, refuse to try. I'm taking charge now. I've drawn the line and my mother continually comes over it. There are consequences for things; if someone constantly do something undesired to someone else, that person then avoids them after a while.

 

[Jazzey]

My comments were not a reproach...just sympathizing and sharing a bit of me. So I'm sorry you chose to take it that way. I'm happy you found a solution for yourself.

 

[H011yHawkJ311yBean]

So...you can love her, but still impose whatever boundaries keep you safe. It's not always about booting them out. Sometimes, you can have them in your life without accepting the hurt or the guilt that automatically flows from them.

Sorry, I misinterpreted. Yes, sometimes people can continue a relationship with a parent(s) without accepting the hurt/guilt. I thought when you were saying "you" that you meant me. But I realize that you possibly meant people in general.

 

[Jazzey]

No. And ty Jolly. I meant generally. We all make our own choices . Fortunately or not...we are the only ones who can make those decisions. Wouldn't it be nice though to have someone tell us what the perfect answer was....Still dreamin' about that. lol

 

[rdw]

Ah the perfect answer - I am still looking too!! The only thing I know for sure is, each of us has to find our own way and find the answers that work for us an individuals. The other thing I know is that I can only change me - no one else. When I fight against those two things, my life is in turmoil.

 

[Jazzey]

Absolutely RDW Well said.

 

[SueW]

Hi all,

I have been reading with interest replies and discussions following Jolly's communication with her mother. Having been through something very similar myself, and having trained as a therapist, there is something that has occurred to me. Firstly, for those of us who don't have NPD, the most natural thing in the world is to make, create and seek relationships; it's in our nature to want to bond and connect with others. Secondly, it goes against the grain for us to break a bond; it feels unnatural us to break bonds with others even though sometimes it would make logical sense to. Thirdly, (again I am referring to non-NPD people) we are born with a conscience and so question ourselves constantly and therefore we would not break off a relationship without considering the other person. Lastly, all these most natural human traits, are usually advantageous traits in they keep us connected with other members of the human race and fortunately most other humans also have such advantageous traits and consequently our reaching out to others is reciprocated. This is why living with a narcissist is just so impossible - it means we have to go against our own nature in order to protect our own self-worth and integrity.
Sue

 

[H011yHawkJ311yBean]

That is why I keep describing my mother as an alien visiting from another planet. She is trying to a part of the human race, but can't quite blend in, and she's more of an observer than an actual participant. There are some things that she can't quite grasp. You have to spend a lot of time with her to figure out she isn't quite like the rest of us. She is in her own little reality-construct, with carefully crafted filters.

My therapist also added in a later email:
This is the best she can do. We are all narcissists to some degree, but most of us can acknowledge the possibility we are wrong, misguided or selfish. When a person cannot to such an extent as this then all those around them carry that burden for them and their certainty takes on a pathological air. All people who question their perceptions are sane; all those who cannot (question themselves) are a little or a lot crazy. PS: her preference for meds over self-examination is a tell.

 

[Jazzey]

Thank you, Sue. Good insight. I'm going to leave this topic here for now. But I loved your thoughts on it.

 

[SueW]

Jollly,
I get the feeling you are not at peace, Jolly, but I think you are getting there. Whatever you decide to do, I hope you find peace. Look after you!
Sue

 

[H011yHawkJ311yBean]

Hi, Sue! Actually I'm feeling a lot more peaceful now, thanks!

 

[H011yHawkJ311yBean]

Well,

Since I sent the email to my mother in May 2011 and her response was pretty much what I expected, I still haven't talked to her.

Just an update: just before I blocked her I received an email from her but I didn't open it. I finally had my husband read it several months later in August.
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We think about you every day and in the night I often pray for you as you are in my heart at all times. Of course we pray regularly for Robin and Grace, David and Chris and his partner -to be someday. But we couldn't help but pray more for you lately because we don't know just where you're at right now.
Our only "scheme"since moving was to survive our move to Ladysmith and get settled. It was too hard on Chris and on us to live in the same house ,so that when we sold our own house in Regina ,we decided to make Chris 'large room into a bach. suite by putting in a bathroom and a small kitchen, then rent the upstairs for a little less than before, and take our Windfield house money and get our own home separately. I do not have any wages now from nursing which used to compose 4\5 of our total wages.
We have been diligently trying to sell a house in Regina.We have 2 mortgages on rental houses and a small mortgage on our present home to the tune of over 300,000$ The 2 rental houses with mortgages will slowly pay for themselves, and if and when we sell a house in Regina we plan to pay off 2 of 3 mortgages. At the present time, to hire anyone to do any repaires on our rentals, wages for these people have gone way up in Regina, and we have had a lot of them these past 2 yearsThe main advantage of Chris being where he is , is that he now has some decent housing and we don't have to pay 1\2 his rent like we did when he was in Regina.The last 6 mos. before he left Regina,he was out of work.Here he had one job for 6 weeks and only recently got another. This one is at a wondertful place and is an answer to his prayers .We are so happy for him.But we love Chris whether he works or not.You see we love you all , no matter what difficulties you may encounter. Chris will not accept social assistance or EI . On a rare occasion he has asked the former for help for a mo. or 2 and that is all..And you must know as we do ,in the past he will actually rather starve than ask anyone for help.We took years to gain his trust that it is Ok for him to get food, etc.from us and he does not have to feel shame Chris loves Ladysmith. I can't ever remember seeing him quite as happy before this.He loves BC, the weather the walking trails etc,etc

We borrowed 12,000$ to get Chris' place done, but as you can see over time this will not be an issue.
We pay about 7,000$ on house insurance on the rentals and pay ours too.This mo. we paid over 12,000$ on the city taxes on all the houses Also if any house is bought in BC ,unlike Sk. one must pay a provicial tax. Ours was over 6,000$WE just borrowed about 5,000$ to do repairs that were necessary on the rentals

So I hope you will understand we have not forgotten you . W e are slowly catching up though and if nothing unforseen comes up plan to get you that money.You are the person on the top of our
priority list.Please be patient, if you can.
Love,
Mom

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An explanation:
What this boils down to is her perception that I am mad at her for not paying me for the house I used to have title on with her. This is not the case. I don't even want that money anymore. It's not something she can hold over my head anymore because I somehow managed to remove my name from the title in the spring of 2010.

As you can see she mentions that instead of making my brother move out and get a job and stick to it, my parents moved out of the house they shared with him and into their own house. lol If that isn't putting the cart before the horse, I don't know what is. But whatever, right? Not my problem. It's typical that they treat him this way. I didn't know they paid half his rent before, but it doesn't surprise me since they also paid for his dental, car, car repairs, all his groceries, his tobacco and heaven knows what else. Their reason for buying him these specific things is to avoid giving him the money for it, because he would then buy booze or drugs with the money.

Yes so she has a couple of properties with mortgages on them. But she doesn't mention the other properties she doesn't have mortgages on, nor how many properties she sold in total in the last decade. And she is so cheap with fixing issues with her properties that she is probably paying normal price for them now and thinks they are extravagant. Case in point, the house I used to rent from her was NOT to code with the wiring. None of the ones she owned, to my knowledge, were wired properly. Our living room light kept burning out almost every 2-3 weeks. We could not have more than one appliance going at the same time. I could not cook on the stove and vacuum. I could not have a tea kettle going at the same time the microwave was on. I had a real electrician come and look at our wiring but she wouldn't use him, she would used retired electricians or she would used unlicensed/uncertified guys who wouldn't charge as much and would take money under the table. The fellow that we had look at our wiring said that there were far too many overloaded circuits and it was a possible fire hazard. Also the venting system from the bathroom went DOWNstairs into the basement, met up with the dryer ducting and then outside (another fire issue because the lint kept going UP into the bathroom venting system and clogging it up). At another property where we once lived she also very grudgingly (and not until the SaskEnergy technician came out to refit the gas meter on the outside of the house) had someone fix the pipes coming into our basement. She didn't believe me, so I had her talk to the man who told us that information. In Regina the soil (if that's what you want to call our gumbo) shifts a lot, so the basement floor moves, etc... So in our house we had a fixed connection instead of a flexible one. Well we were told it was dangerous for it to be on a static connection like that, and it appeared that it was already under a lot of stress. It's probably a good thing because this year alone there were several fires and one house exploded in a couple of areas of the city since last year and this spring was so wet it caused gas pipes to move. There are more examples (and at least one complaint to the Health Board where she was fined over $1000, but it wasn't me) but this gives you an idea. Oh and of course she's also been sued for backwages twice when she used to own a care home for the elderly, and she was audited twice by Revenue Canada... So yeah, she kind of tries to get away with a lot of things so she can save money for herself and not for the people who live at the properties. So on the one hand I wonder how much money she really has, but on the other hand, I don't really care. Mostly I just don't know if she's telling the truth, or thinks she's telling the truth, or lying unintentionally, or knows she's lying through her teeth because she thinks she's entitled to having money or wants to seem important owning all these properties.

While on vacation we found out a couple of things, too...

As I mentioned, we stopped communicating with my mother in May. Shortly afterward, around 7 am before my dad got up my mom called my dad's sister (or my aunt suspects that is why my mom called her that early) whom she frequently calls to torment, and asked if my aunt had said anything to me about anything that would make my parents (meaning my mom) look bad. My aunt was going to work, so she didn't have time to talk, but wouldn't that be a fun call to field when you are getting ready to go to work. So my poor aunt, who really had little/nothing to do with our decision to cut off my parents was getting harassed again (there was another time when my mom was threatening her not only at home, but calling her cell phone AND calling her constantly at my aunt's workplace and leaving nasty messages). So my mom said that my dad didn't ever want to call my aunt back again because of me not talking to them. Isn't that manipulative? She is punishing my aunt for something my mom did to me. And she made it sound like it's my dad punishing her. But my dad never calls his mom or his sisters or brothers, it's always my mom calling and controlling everything and my dad just sits there listening (or maybe spacing out, or drinking heavily, who knows?).

Another thing I found out was that where my brother was living in his newly renovated suite, that site had a committee and they voted to no longer rent out those houses. So now my mom has 2 years (because the current renters signed a 2 year contract) to sell that house and now my brother has to go somewhere else to live at that time the contract ends. Sounds like they are all back to square one again. He will either have to move back in with my parents, or my parents will have to buy another house so that my brother can live apart from them and have renters upstairs. lol Ah, Karma! 8D

Now it's interesting that my mom says that my brother Chris "doesn't have to feel shame." Well, duh, I know that. But he does. He's told me many times that he feels ashamed that he has to "borrow" money and take groceries from mom. My youngest brother Robin told me, however, that Chris told him that he is just taking advantage of my parents and that he doesn't need to take these things from them, but just does because they let him. lol So I don't know if he's saying that he's taking advantage of them rather than admitting that he doesn't know how to get along on his own (because they always coddled him like that), or what, but basically he's told me one story and our other brother another story. lol On the other hand he seems oblivious to the fact that if a girl was ever interested in him, what would she think when he picked up groceries from his mommy and daddy at the age of 38 years old?? He hasn't had a girlfriend in decades, at least not the kind of steady girlfriend one would want. He mostly ends up with girls who confuse him, take advantage of his apparent na?vet?, manipulate him, take his drugs, eat his food, or use him in some fashion or another and then disappear until it's convenient for them to contact him again. On the other hand he's disappeared for a year or more and estranged himself from the entire family. Another time he 'ran away' to British Columbia and needed them to pay him money to get his car across on the ferry to Victoria Island. And then rent, and groceries, and healthcare, etc, etc, etc until he threw in the towel once again and came home to Saskatchewan. Until my parents moved out there. Then he went with them.

Anyway, just letting you know I had a wonderful time at my dad's mom (my Gramma's) and my aunt's (my dad's sister) - my aunt and Gramma both live in the same house. My aunt has a job and also takes care of my Gramma, and she is about 93 years old I think. In return my aunt houses her own son, who has a job but pays no rent for room and board and my aunt pays the bills and groceries and so forth. My aunt is a wonderful person, but a bit like my dad, where she lacks the power to say No sometimes and ends up bending over backwards for everyone else in the family and wearing herself out. So we made sure we did the dishes (because she kept trying to do that for us)... And we brought some vegetables from our garden for her and Gramma to cook. We also treated them to Chinese food because my aunt organized so many things for us, inviting piles of family over, and running around doing other things for her niece and her other sister. My Gramma is also very quiet and passive and gentle, quite the opposite of her tyrant of a husband (my dad's father passed away several years ago -- I have been told Grampa was very controlling and emotionally/physically abusive, especially toward my dad in the family of 9 siblings)... My Gramma, aunt, and brother and his wife didn't talk about my mom at all until the very last day and then we had a nice long laugh at my mother's expense and a good venting session. We just have to, otherwise if we didn't laugh we'd be pulling out our hair and screaming profanities.

So hopefully this isn't boring and is more interesting... Anyone who has a narcissistic parent might find it interesting, anyway, because they might see some similarities in the situations above....

 

[heatherly]

I had a feeling that your mother would turn your letter to her against you. Mine always did. I was always the one with the problem all because I had been in therapy, and once you are in therapy you are never considered normal again, if you ever were.

It is obvious from her letter that she loves you, but it feels like she is using her words of love to make you feel guilty about not wanting her in your life. She will never change. I remember at my mom's funeral I was sitting by myself under a tree while my brothers and sisters were at the gravesite. I wanted nothing to do with my sisters because of their accusations of accusing me of stealing Mom's money--the $40 I mentioned. Then my brother came up to me and said, "You are not crying because Mom is gone; you are crying because you never had the mother you wanted." So true. He didn't love her at all because of her abuse.

And I mention this because I had written letters to my mom, and the response was that I was a demented trouble maker (my words, not hers). Even when I wrote my sisters that I wanted nothing to do with them as long as they see me as a thief got no response from them. That is the dynamics of my family.

It is better to not have a response than it is to be told it is your problem.

How is it going now for you?