Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
My mum is ill
JustKathy:
--- Quote ---OH... and I think that under the circumstances, it's probably healthy for you to wish your mom wasn't around anymore.
--- End quote ---
I think so too. It just takes time to accept that it's okay for us to wish them gone. I believe the reason we struggle with feelings of guilt for having those thoughts is because we're .... normal! We have normal, functioning human brains. We have the basic human instinct to care for and nurture others, so we feel that there's something wrong with us when we wish that our NM's would die. What we have to remember is that we aren't wishing death on some random person. We aren't plotting murder. Only someone with a defective brain would do that. We simply want their lives to end naturally so that we may be released from our own suffering, suffering that they inflicted on us. It also doesn't help that society tells us that we're to love our parents unconditionally. Only another victim of an NM can truly understand. Thank goodness we have boards like this one where we can meet others in the same situation. A few decades ago, that wouldn't have been possible. So at least we have that.
I also wanted to tell you that I, too, have a very difficult time saying no, probably because I was raised to put NM before myself, always. I was not allowed to assert myself or say no to anything. I was taught to be weak. Things that we are taught as children stay with us, and we really have to work hard to learn how to change those behaviours. I would guess that most children of Ns have a very difficult time asserting themselves. I had to learn to be tougher when I got a job in management, and I felt guilty every time I had to reprimand someone. I was being paid to do what my mother would punish me for. Who wouldn't be confused in a case like that? Trying to unlearn what they drilled into our brains is very difficult. It's like trying to learn to write with the other hand. It doesn't feel natural. It CAN be done, but it takes a lot of work.
Ehhhh .... it sucks. :?
Hopalong:
I understand.
I yearned for it to be over, too.
It was so hard to sort out what was the difference between:
--wishing for it to "be over" so I could experience my own life again, my own hopes -- and
--wishing her harm
I didn't wish her harm.
I didn't want her to die.
I just wanted relief.
I get it.
love,
Hops
JustKathy:
You said it a lot better than I could have. Yes, that's it, exactly.
Twoapenny:
--- Quote from: PhoenixRising on January 23, 2013, 05:54:55 AM ---
--- Quote ---I think I've felt that if I'm someone's 'friend' then I have to be available at all times, whenever it suits them, for whatever reason, otherwise I don't have a right to ask for a favour or to pay them a visit to say hi and spend some time with them.
--- End quote ---
Now, did you really hear what you said here? LOL... this is IT. This is what N-moms think relationships are all about: having us available to them at all times, for whatever reason... and since they claim control of us... we don't have the right to ask for a favour or anything else... unless THEIR NEEDS are satisfied FIRST.
That was perfectly said.
I still struggle with this too, btw. It gets better, but it's so deep down and (subtly) instinctive the only way I know to "edit" the reflex response - is with present moment awareness... combined with a quick "meeting" with my prim and disapproving inner scheduling director and wild-child whims.
OH... and I think that under the circumstances, it's probably healthy for you to wish your mom wasn't around anymore. Understandably, you want it all to STOP. The trick is, I think, to completely remove the power of "the mom" in your mind... just mentally go through taking back your own power and making her powerless -- and if there's anger lingering around looking for a target, just have a teenaged, total melt-down anger fantasy. This is almost a physically painful part of separating oneself from an "enmeshed" type of relationship... but a very healthy step along the way to just being you and making it all "stop".
Man, I'm for real, stealing that description of relationships... it was that perfect!! ;)
--- End quote ---
How funny, I thought I was over reacting or reading too much into it but you feel exactly the same?
I sort of feel like I don't want to see anyone at the moment. I'm finding all of my 'friends' annoying and selfish. I've been seeing a few health care people, because I've been feeling so ill, and they keep asking about friends, support, people to babysit and so on and I feel guilty when I say no, there isn't anyone (that's not strictly true, I have one friend who will babysit). I just have so little energy at the moment, I'm finding it hard to do anything more than get through the day.
Twoapenny:
--- Quote from: Hopalong on January 23, 2013, 08:33:09 PM ---I understand.
I yearned for it to be over, too.
It was so hard to sort out what was the difference between:
--wishing for it to "be over" so I could experience my own life again, my own hopes -- and
--wishing her harm
I didn't wish her harm.
I didn't want her to die.
I just wanted relief.
I get it.
love,
Hops
--- End quote ---
That's probably it, I just want the endless thinking and what next and why am I so bad to stop. I felt so ashamed that my first thought when I read 'Your mother has serious heart problems' was 'good', followed by 'I'm amazed they found she had one'.
I've been going through the almost 200 pages detailing the false accusations she's made against me and the proof I collected that showed she was lying and what hit me yesterday - and I don't know why it never struck me before - is that it's the most effort she ever put into my life. If I wrote down all the nice things she did I'd struggle to fill a side of A4, and some of those things would be things that I think are just basic requirements of being a parent, like cooking meals and washing.
No input at any age - no emotional guidance, no playing, no help with homework, no chats about boys or make up or music, just mockery and criticism and barbed praise (you read that so nicely, why can't you speak like that all the time?). But when I threatened her warped version of reality and started talking about the abuse she pulled out the guns and worked her arse off. I guess that's what it means, you're there for them and them alone. You just don't matter.
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