Escalating situation with N mother, really need help

[Anonymous]

I am in a situation with my N mother that I am not sure how to handle.  Until recently my mother split her verbal abuse between my step-father and me but they divorced in the spring and he has ceased contact with her.  The result is that she has come after me with everything she has got and it's a lot!  

I had no boundaries before...just always did what she said.   When her behavior became so bizarre last holiday season I started doing research on NPB and began seeing a therapist who helped me begin to set some very minimal boundaries.  It worked for the summer months.  In August, things started going downhill again.  I am an only child, my mother has no friends and no family (two sisters, one also NPB, the other is estranged from both my mother and N aunt).

I began to feel very uncomfortable with her behavior around my 8 year old son.  Without my step-father to monitor her behavior, I couldn't feel sure that he was safe.  About two weeks ago, she was in my home to pick up my son for an outing, she became angry because I did not have time to look at some photographs she had taken, she began to scream and curse at me and then to yell at my son to "get in the car" so I told her that he would be staying home and that she needed to leave.  She tried to push me out the front door of my own home, cursing and screaming the entire time.  My husband (who has never been involved in any sort of physical confrontation in his entire life) tried to restrain her from pushing me, she began to hit him and eventually he worked her to the front door and outside (her screaming and cursing at him to get "get HER (meaning me) under control."  

Since that evening, we have not answered her numerous telephone calls, resulting in many vile, scathing messages left on our answering machine.  I have also not responded to several emails she has sent along the same vien.  She is threatening legal action to have my son removed from my home.  She has told people in the community that I am crazy and that my son is in danger.  She even called my therapist's office and left a message that "My daughter is in crisis.  My grandson is in grave physical danger and I have been beaten and battered my daughter."  

I feel that in ignoring her, which I do believe is the best option for my sanity, it is causing her behavior and threats to escalate.  I know that it will get worse as the holidays approach.  I don't know if I should respond to her in some way or continue to ignore her.

 I am doing the best I can to remain calm, I have saved the ugly emails and all the ugly phone messages.  Has anyone been harassed in this way by a parent?  Can you think of any effective way to stop her harassment?

[bunny]

Have you and your husband considered a restraining order? You and your family deserve protection from this disturbed individual. Have you been in contact with your stepfather at all? What is your therapist saying about this?

bunny

[Anonymous]

Hi Bunny,

Thank you for replying.  I've never been able to post to this board before although I read it frequently.  We have considered a restraining order.  I asked my therapist about it and he thought we should wait (this was last week) to see what she would do next.  

He thought it was interesting that although she threatens action (I have powerful friends...I have started a campaign against you...) she has yet to contact anyone (children's services, the police, etc) who could do actually do anything.  She has only contacted people who can only listen (my therapist, ministers at our church, friends and family).  He said it was a very disturbing situation.  He told me that if I knew for sure a person she had talked to, I should call that person and just touch base with them.  That is the only reason I have not blocked her calls and saved myself hearing the ugly messages....I wanted to know who she had talked with.  But now I realize that in her messages to me, she has left only vague references to people she has called, no specifics.  I found out that she called the ministers because she left their names on a message to my step-father.  I knew that she called the therapist because he read me the message.  

I think she is just trying to make me afraid and embarrassed.  This would have definitely worked in the past.  I had convinced myself that I had a normal family and had she threatened to call family and friends, etc, a year ago it would have had me crying and pleading with her not to do so.  I certainly had no confidence in myself and would never have believed that anyone would take my word over hers.  Now her behavior has become so bizarre I just have to believe that other people know it whether they have said anything to me or not.  

My husband is out of town, my son has been sick, I have been sick and I guess last night when I got the latest vile, sick message it got to me.  I would like to stand up for myself for once in my life but my husband, family and therapist think that ignoring her is the best way to stand up for myself.  My step-father has been very supportive but there is really nothing he can do other than offer support and sympathy and share what information he has been able to gather.  

I don't know anyone else who has ever had a mother like this.  If anyone has ever been in a similiar situation and could share experiences, I would be very grateful.

[bunny]

Hi it's me again.

My mother isn't like this, but I believe that others have had similar experiences -- those whose mothers have a mental illness. Your mother sounds paranoid. She knows how far she can go; she isn't contacting any legal authorities but only people she believes will be "nice" to her. It's highly unusual for a therapist to talk to a patient's mother without the patient present, so I'm wondering whether your therapist has an idea for persuading her into medical treatment or something. How do you feel about his talking to her on the phone?

Maybe at some point you'll have enough hard evidence on tape and can block her phone calls so you don't have to hear any more of them. I think it's great that you've saved some vicious ones in case they're needed.

I'm really sorry your mom is so disturbed and not getting treated.

bunny

[Anonymous]

Thank you Bunny.  I had never given consideration to the fact the as well as the personality disorder my mother may also be mentally ill.  

At age 40, having always been the "good girl", the "loving daughter", etc, etc, I never thought to find myself in this situation....defending myself against horrible accusations from my own mother.  I realize now that things were not right when I was a child.  My therapist said the denial was very deep seated.  It was not until last year, as my mother and step-father began their divorce, that things became so strange and surreal that I finally accepted there was seriously something wrong and that it had been for as long as I could remember.  

I know what was the start of this episode...the fact that for the first time in my life, my husband and I decided to spend Thanksgiving with another part of our family and not my mother.  In 11 years of marriage we have never gone to be with my husband's family for a holiday, including minor holidays.  This year we decided to be with my father's family...a strange mixture of children from three marriages who somehow have managed to form a loving, tight knit family unit.  We wanted to be with them and when I told my mother that is what we would be doing for Thanksgiving you could literally see the phony mask drop from her face for just a few seconds and then immediately it returned and she said things like "I'm so glad.  I have so many new friends now that I wouldn't have time to be with you anyway.  I think you've made a good decision.  You are always so stressed by trying to see them after Thanksgiving."  

But she immediately began to call my step-father and tried to enlist him in an "intervention" to get me "under control" because she was not going to "tolerate being abandoned" by me at Thanksgiving "after all the sacrifices she had made" for me.  I told my therapist that I was sure this would have happened 1 year ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago...at whatever point I finally made a decision on my own.  He agreed.

He told me that he would call my mother if I wanted to do so.  I asked if he thought there would be any benefit and he said no, that all he would do would listen to her.  He asked if she had any family who could intervene and unfortunately, there is no one.  He encouraged me, when I spoke to the ministers, to urge them to provide her any pastoral care that they could.  Unfortunately, when I spoke to them, they were quite clear that they are not equipped to deal with something of this magnitude.

I am alone in this...as far as being the only family who cares about her.  Right now, I am so angry with her that I cannot find any compassion.  I just want her to leave us alone.  I have a happy life.  I love my husband, my son is a happy, smart and confident little boy.  I know in many ways the poor parenting I received only strengthened my resolve to be the best parent I could be.  My heart soars when I see my son stand in front of a group and make some sort of presentation or run with confidence on to an athletic field.....knowing that as a child I would have never, ever been able to do such things and still have difficulty as an adult.  But still,  I am horrified and feel more betrayed than ever before by her threats to take him from me and to convince others that I am abusing him.  That is a line I never really believed she would cross.

I am only comforted by the fact that I know she really does not want him.  She would never spend her money on attorney's fees (she is very selfish with money although extravagant with herself) and she would never want the actual responsibility of getting him to school, etc.  I do think though, that if she could get him removed from my home and in to foster care, she wouldn't think twice about it.  After all...it's not about my son, it's about punishing me for my disobedience.  

Thank you for listening.

[Portia]

Hi, I was touched by your posts.

Your mother can’t take your son from you. People need proof of abuse before children are removed from their parents and even then, children don’t necessarily go and stay with their grandparents. It’s not going to happen to you and your son. Your mother is talking rubbish and no-one is going to listen. She’s full of empty threats. Good for you for keeping that evidence, just in case she starts to really lose it and tells lies about you to someone in authority. Make sure all the adults in your family know the score all the time. Don’t keep any secrets to yourself for fear of not being caring or dutiful. Your first priority is you and your family. She’s way down the list.

You’re a great mother. Listening to you talk about your son, it’s obvious you love him and put him first. And he sounds great too! You’ve broken the abuse cycle and I think that’s fantastic.

It’s probably not your ‘disobedience’ that’s the worse thing to her, it’s envy. She’s envious of you because she wants the love you have with your son. And she can’t ‘have’ it. I’m sorry, but sometimes it really is that basic and horrific. Take lots of care of yourself, P

[Anonymous]

A personality disorder is a mental illness. And there is a PD called "paranoid personality disorder." Of course I don't know what your mother's problem is, but she clearly has one. Part of the issue here is that your mother hasn't been evaluated and diagnosed by a medical professional. It seems the ministers she's talked to consider her disturbed. And you would find it easier to deal with her if she were under medical supervision and had a diagnosis. But since she isn't in treatment and isn't seeking treatment, you may have to protect yourself and your family. She may end up in the ER for some reason, and get psychiatrically evaluated. That sometimes happens. It's not in your power to control her, she needs a team of doctors at this point.

Oh - and she has zero power to take away your son. That isn't going to happen at all. She's clearly a mental case and no one is going to think your son is endangered. There'd have to be a big investigation first anyway and even that won't happen.

bunny

[Anonymous]

My mother will definitely not seek treatment.  She is convinced that the rest of us are crazy, in particular me.  She says my husband is afraid of me and won't stand up to me.  She said my step-father was crazy but now that she thinks she needs him to prove her case against me, she doesn't think he's crazy anymore.   Before she and my step-father decided to divorce, they attempted joint therapy.   What ensued was nightmarish.  First, after my step-father broke down and faced some things that happened to him in his childhood and my mother then used those things to try to blackmail him (expose his secrets, etc).  

So my step-father refused to see the therapist jointly anymore but agreed for the two of them to continue to see the therapist separately.  At that point, my mother began to attack the therapist.  She went to her sessions armed with the latest Oprah or Dr. Phil book, informed the therapist that she was not properly treating my step-father, etc, etc.  Eventually, the therapist refused to see my mother any more although she continued to treat my step-father.  My mother then dismissed her as a quack.  (Bear in mind, a few weeks before she had been recommending this therapist right and left to anyone she could think of.)

So, you are quite right that she has not been properly diagnosed, although my therapist feels she is NPB, having read many of her emails to me.  Last November, in sheer desperation, I thought to myself I have heard about detachment in dealing with alcoholics and I think that is what I need to do.  So I started doing web searches for detachment,  thinking it would lead me to sites about dealing with alcoholics (which she is not) but instead I kept finding links to sites dealing with personality disorders.  

When I found the list of nine characteristics of NPB I was completely shocked.  My mother exhibits them all!  I believe the standard is that there must be 5 of 9 traits present.  I had not told my husband at all what I was doing...just left that list of traits on the screen and asked him to read it.  I didn't tell him I was thinking about my mom...just said "read this".  He read it and looked at me and said "What do you we do if your Mom has all nine?"

I feel sure she suffers from this but I am wondering if that is all she suffers from.  Who would know?  She is a very attractive woman, very young looking for her age.  She can be quite charming although that is beginning to fade as she no longer monitors herself around anyone. (Puts her nose within an inch of your nose if she is talking face to face with you...even with strangers, gives way to much information about her sex life to even casual acquaintances, wears very inappropriate clothing, she never did these things before.)   She has had rounds of plastic surgery and revels in the fact that younger men are attracted to her.  Last Christmas, she told her best friend this about me "She is just jealous of me because I am so much prettier than her and always have been and she knows her husband is attracted to me."  That friend no longer has contact with her because once I retreated and my step-father retreated she went after her friend and began to abuse her (her only close friend for the past 15 or so years.)

I felt like I was living in some sort of twilight zone until I found the information on the disorder.  And though I think I understand why she does what she does now I still really don't know how to deal with her full scale assault on me.  And it still hurts even though I know she is sick.  I know that I will never be able to forgive her for threatening to take my son.  

Thank you and P for your kind words and for listening to me.  With my husband out of town I was feeling a bit isolated and this has helped me to relieve some of the stress.

[Ellie as Guest]

Hi guest,

I can feel for you. I have been through Nparents threatening to take away my kids. I still do not trust that my Nparents are not up to something at this momnet, but they have threatened so much, I finally chalk it up to threats.

I have a wonderful family, 3 beautiful kids, a loving H and my Nparents think we are the most terrible people in the world simply because we will not GIVE them our kids.

There is envy going on to the extreme. They did take my sister's child and adopted her with all kinds of threats. They are evil. My Ndad threatened to have me thrown in jail because I used curse words when we last spoke.

It's all about control. As long as they can threaten and think they are getting to you - they are in control in their minds. I stopped listening to my Nparents threats. I proved I was no longer afraid of them so they started using my oldest son - writing letters full of lies. We will intercept the letters from now on.

I don't call it mental as much as evil. My Nparents know exactly what they are doing - they just think it's ok because it's what they want - I am their child and they can still tell me what to do. They are livid now that I do not respond to that but if we ever met face-to-face, we would probably have a similar experience to yours.

Be strong - if she starts to act on the threats get the restraining order. But that is what my Nparents want - so they can tell all their friends how terrible we are to keep them away from the grandkids. They have not visited in over 8 years. But they need a good excuse and will not reveal that it's because they do not want to visit. They need to blame me.

[Anonymous]

Hi Ellie,

Yes, that is what I hear over and over again......"don't think that you can withhold my grandson from because of your own problems."  

When I spoke to the first minister, she would not (understandably) tell me exactly what my mother said.  Actually, I didn't even ask.  I told her that I just wanted to make myself available if she had any questions or concerns (specifically because my husband and I are in charge of several youth programs at our church).  Eventually she said "I hope that you will be able to find some way for your mother to see your son."  I gave no details but told her that although my husband and I had done everything in our power to preserve that relationship it was no longer safe and we could not allow her to see him.  

I told her that my mother had made some terrible accusations regarding myself and my husband and that if we needed to step down from our positions with the children at the church in order to save the church from being concerned about those children's safety with us, that we would do so.  She was absolutely horrified and said "I had no idea you were so far from family mediation.  I did not understand what a horrible situation you are in."  She told me there were no concerns from our church family.

At any rate, as I write this, yet another message is coming in on the answering machine.  More threats....just heard "you are horrible parents and horrible people!"

[Ellie as Guest]

Hi guest - we must have the same mother! Actually my Nmom will not call anymore.

Sounds like its time to really smack her around some.  I think I would change my recording to "we're not available so leave a message, unless this is my crazy mother. If you are my crazy mother, we don't want to her your carzy rantings. Go tell someone who cares. Have a good day."

[Anonymous]

I think your mother is very seriously disturbed. I'm surprised that the original couples therapist refused to keep seeing her. If a therapist rejects mentally ill patients, what is the point of being a therapist? I don't get it. Have you ever phoned that therapist to tell her what's going on now? Is your stepfather still seeing this therapist?

bunny

[Anonymous]

Hi Bonnie,

I never called the therapist because I felt sure she would not discuss anything with me.  I don't know for sure why the therapist terminated the visits.  I do know that at the time my mother's behavior was still fairly controlled in public.  Her public persona did not begin to deteriorate until  more recently.  I believe that my mother attempted to manipulate the therapist and became very angry and abusive with the therapist when the therapist did not shut up and do what my mother told her she should do...which was tell my step-father he was wrong and their marital problems were all his fault.   It was for marital counseling that they were originally seeing the therapist.....perhaps when they decided to divorce the therapist saw no further use in dealing with my mother although she continued treating my step-father.  I just don't know.  

I realize it's a very complicated situation.  I have decided to uncomplicate it for myself.  I am going to block my mother's calls and not do anything else until I am actually contacted by someone of authority or by her attorney.  She left a message for my step-father tonight that she had contacted an attorney who was going to force us in to mediation so that she can see my son.  She left a similiar message for me only she did not mention an attorney...she said she was arranging a mediation with members of our church.  I don't believe any of it.  I guess it could be true but I will wait to hear from the attorney and then I will hire an attorney of my own and produce her caustic emails and phone messages.  

I think I mentioned that I have been sick and my son has also been sick.  Today he did go to school but I found myself unable to accomplish anything except the most simple tasks and then only for a few minutes at a time.  I spent a great deal of time "resting" which I recognize now as signs that I am becoming depressed again.  I don't want to end up that way again and I think it is because of the sickening phone messages.  So to take care of myself I need to stop listening to them.  

Thanks again for listening.  It has been a big help to me.

[Ellie as guest]

Guest,

The stress you are under can hinder your health. You desperately need to try some form of seperation from her harsh and cruel thrashings. She is fighting to keep you under her control. I've seen my Nparents do things like this. They keep it up for a while as they think they are getting to you. But when they reach a point that they see they are not accomplishing anything anymore, they let up - at least for a period of time. I guess it could be a pit stop for refueling - at that time they refuel on another supply til they are strong enough to start at you again. Ns have been compared to vampires for a good reason. They need you for their survival supply. Cutting off the supply will force them to someone else.

Cut her off and give yourself a break to get healthy and stronger again. Good luck. Get well soon.  

[Portia]

Hi again. Some of what you describe sounds like my mother too. Do you need to hear this? - I’m sorry that your mother is unable to love you. You deserve to be loved as much as anyone. Maybe part of being tired is feeling this in your bones?

If this wasn’t your mother, but say someone who was stalking you, someone you’d worked with, would you have told the Police by now? I might have. Just so that they are aware of the situation, should I need to call them. I’m not saying you should! But I want to say, be ready without hesitation to call them. Just because it’s your mother doesn’t mean she’s outside the law.

Good for you for blocking her calls. Take care, P