Re-introduction

[Dreamedeeri]

Hi, I joined this site back in 2009 after another online forum blew up, and then after a lot of reaching out I kind of hit a wall and have done a lot of holing up!

My story is here:

http://www.voicelessness.com/disc3//index.php?topic=8960.0

I'm getting over a round of back pain after dealing with a raging narcissist at work (guess who she reminds me of!) and realize I need to do some more work to be able to move on.

I am looking into EFT (which, in a roundabout way, reminded me of why I fled the other forum) and am also interested in using EMDR, dipping my toe into the water of really making some changes this time.

I'm still no contact with my NM. I still cashed the checks she sent me for holidays because I'm always broke, but then I learned she was using this against me: "She won't talk to me, but she cashes my checks!" (Then don't send me checks, Ma!) So this Christmas I kept her card but returned the check.

[Twoapenny]

Hi Kathleen,

Welcome, and good for you on returning the cheque!  Personally I don't think people can be NC if they're accepting money, for most N's it's just another way they control you.  I think the thing that infuriated my mum the most was that she couldn't control me with cash.  It's a very freeing experience so well done for doing that!

[fraidycat]

Welcome back Kathleen!

Good for you returning the check, my n-mom pulled the same crap. At first I felt like it was the least she could do to make up for the things she had done and being a terrible parent, like you I needed the money. I later realized there was a price in accepting and no amount of money was worth my sanity so I made the final cut. In some strange way my accepting her money was enabling me and holding me back. I agree with twoapenny it's all done as a means of control, growth stunting too!

I hope this site helps you in your journey, it has been so helpful for me.

Fraidy

[Dreamedeeri]

Thanks twoapenny and fraidycat.

Fraidy, I used to feel the same way you did--that the money was the least she could to after the way she treated me. But though I don't feel it's wrong to take her money, I don't want to give her any ammunition. It's true I took her money and don't talk to her. Is it wrong? I don't think so, but if she is using that truth against me, I need to take it away from her. She has enough ammunition by saying things about me that aren't true (though in her mind she must think they are). Luckily most of family believes me (that I'm not the spawn of Satan my mother makes me out to be), I think, though I still cringe a bit around my relatives wondering what they have heard about me.

[Hopalong]

Hi Kathleen,
Glad you're back!

I am in my 60s and my D is estranged.
I don't think it's been "wrong" of her to take my money but refuse to speak to me.
I know she's been absolutely desperate, and genuinely needed the help.

But if it's worth hearing the other side of the coin, though all situations vary...it really does hurt that she does not say "thank you." Ever. Years back, she did...but over time, it became more like--gimme the money and f**k you. More or less.

I try not to think about it and when I do feel a flash of resentment, I know that underneath that feeling is the real one. It hurts. Not because it IS MONEY, but because in giving her money I was trying to say, "I love you." "I wish I knew what else to do." "I am so sorry I have failed you." "I would give anything to roll back time and undo my mistakes." "I want you to be all right." "I feel helpless and heartbroken."

All of those things, I have said in different ways. But when it just boiled down to her need, what she wanted most was money. And I gave until I couldn't give any more. And when I stopped, she dropped me.

It doesn't mean "right" or "wrong" but fwiw, from the failed-parent side...it hurts. Because it feels as though all the love, including all the mistakes, you ever tried to give...has been devalued by your child. "If you don't give money, you have no value to me. And even when you do give me money, I won't even acknowledge that human exchange with even a scrap of gratitude. I spit on you -- with my hand out."

That's how much a child can hate a parent.

I think what they don't realize, or may not realize until many years later, is how much they can hurt them.

(None of this moaning probably likely has any resemblance to what you've experienced or what your own reasoning might be.)

But I've found in the last couple years that while I spent decades roaring in my pain at being the child of a very-N mother...lately, it's been a whole new pain I never expected. Being rejected by my own child.

I just didn't see it coming. Money was one way it played out. Maybe, one way to see it other than "control" (unless in your case, "control" is the absolutely only way to interpret the situation, and that could be true) ... but if there's a crack of light for any other view, is that giving money is also a language. For a parent who has failed, it can be a kind of desperate, sad way to try to still be allowed to love.

It doesn't work, either. But I think sometimes that could be what even a "bad parent" is trying to say.

Hops

[Dreamedeeri]

Oh Hopalong, that is so sad, thank you for letting me hear it from the other side.

I would desparately love to hear "I love you." "I wish I knew what else to do." "I am so sorry I have failed you." "I would give anything to roll back time and undo my mistakes." "I want you to be all right." or "I feel helpless and heartbroken." from my mother instead of getting a check at Christmast and my birthday. She can keep her money, those words would be priceless.

In her own way she is trying to be "fair". If she sends my brother money, she sends me the same amount. Because that is how things are done. (Nevermind all other forms of unfairness she takes part in, I don't think she sees those.) I think it's true that it is one of the few ways she knows to show that she cares (that is certainly the case with my father) but there are too many strings attached. And I'm not entirely sure she really cares. Cares what other people think maybe--e.g. "I can't not give my kids something for holidays, what would people say?" Personally if I were her, I would stop sending me money, but then she wouldn't have something to hold over my head.

I'm struggling to find a way to explain that my mother really is a bad parent (it certainly doesn't sound like you are!) without getting defensive--that's why I'm on this board, right? Because she is a raging narcissist without a shred of empathy for me, using me for day one as somebody to be "better than", though deep down maybe with some brand of "love". Thought I've had to give up thinking "she loves me in her own way" for my own sanity.

Anyway I get what you are saying, but I'm taking the money out the equation. Like I said, she can find something else to use against me (when she's telling other people what a bad person* I am, like she has my entire life) instead of money that isn't as fraught with baggage. It may not be 100% about control, but it is certainly a large component. I may be hurting her feelings, but after 40 years of my trying desparately to get her to love me and find me acceptable, she can darn well consider my feelings too. Unfortunately I think she is so mentally ill that she is incapable of that, which is why I have gone no contact.

*For the record I am and always have been employed, haven't caused any public scandals, am not addicted to anything illegal, have never been in prison, am not whoring myself on the street, and am kind to animals (small children on a case-by-case basis)! 

[Hopalong]

I hear you. It sounds to me as though you are doing exactly what you have to do, to stay sane and have a chance of maintaining your own serenity.

Your mom is so ill. I am really sorry she's so emotionally handicapped you haven't felt loved. I believe you. Either she does love you in some primitive way but is so mentally ill that it will never come out of her with any clarity at all, or she actually does not love you (because her wiring or illness makes her incapable).

I re-read your story. I recall how sad I felt for the children of hoarders when I watched those shows. I would see in their faces how utterly "left behind" they felt. Hopeless, but also resigned. (Some, angry.)

I don't fault you at all for how you feel about her.

Maybe you could tear up her checks rather than return them. I imagine she doesn't balance her bank statements. That way you aren't enabling her false delusion of caring, and you're not delivering new hurt.

(But if you need to make that statement, I'd understand that too. You're a human being and she hurt you. You didn't deserve it.)

Hops

[JustKathy]

Welcome back Kathleen. 

[Dreamedeeri]

I re-read your story. I recall how sad I felt for the children of hoarders when I watched those shows. I would see in their faces how utterly "left behind" they felt. Hopeless, but also resigned. (Some, angry.)

Maybe you could tear up her checks rather than return them. I imagine she doesn't balance her bank statements. That way you aren't enabling her false delusion of caring, and you're not delivering new hurt.

Hops

Hi Hops, I've been thinking about what you said about delivering new hurt, and I understand your personal experience with this situation, but in the interest of not being voiceless, I'm going to have to say that her feelings are her problem at this poiint. In other words, if her feelings are hurt, she can use her words to tell me about it, rather than complain to anyone who will listen.

Now as a child of a narcissist, I can tell you that I spent hours and days thinking about whether I was doing something hurtful, like I do with anything I get negative feedback on, examining it from every angle to figure out if I was going something "wrong". As I learned from therapist or another in the past, "normal" people don't agonize quite so much about "mistakes" and noted that "some people are just jerks" who aren't going to be happy no matter what you do.

By the way, I don't know if she balances her checkbook, but she does know if checks haven't been cashed. I did not receive the last one when she thought I should have because I moved and she a) put it in the mail anyway to my old address and b) spaced out and didn't even put the street number to the old address so it was returned to her. So she called around and somehow found out my new address but in the meantime, before the check came back from the postal service, she called people to "find out if I was OK". Believe me when I say this really isn't a question about my welfare.

And yes, the hoarding thing. Long long long story, but basically my brother and I learned that things are more important to her than people, and that the people in her life are treated as things. So the caring my mother exhibits is more like the caring one would show if one is obssesed with a possession, not the caring she would show towards a human being. I'm one of her possessions. It upsets her to have "lost" me. I should be hers to use as she sees fit. Does it being to make sense now?

[Hopalong]

Indeed it does.
I get it.
And good for you for saying that her feelings are hers to deal with.

Wow.
I never quite got there with my Nmother. My inner Cinderella hung
in until the end but I'm going to the ball anyway. Years later.

It's just a very small ball. And you don't have to dress up.

Hops

[Dreamedeeri]

Wow.
I never quite got there with my Nmother. My inner Cinderella hung
in until the end but I'm going to the ball anyway. Years later.

It's just a very small ball. And you don't have to dress up.

Hops

Heh. I don't know if I'm quite ready for the ball yet, but at least I've escaped the wicked N-Mom.

The last straw with my mom after years of trying to help her with her house, before I realized she didn't want and couldn't accept help (there was nothing wrong, you see), was when she basically ordered me to drop what I was doing (I work full time, and need approval to get the day off) and come help her get things out of her condemned house. I did come, on a day that worked for me, which happened to be the very last day she was allowed to get her things out.

Again, long story, but I'm a very capable person and at this 11th hour rescue operation, I expected to at least be given some targeted missions to get the most important things out, like an antique table, some silver coins, things like that. Note that the house and garage at this point were like a giant indoor landfill (6 feet deep) and cat box (she fed a pack of feral cats as well) so it was really hard to breathe and I had to take lots of breaks so I would not lose it. My brother totally had my back and would drive me away when I couldn't take it anymore.

Since I did not jump when she said jump as far as the chores she did want me to do (wrap up stupid cat figurines, sort through scraps of smelly ruined paper one piece at a time) she reduced me to feeling 5 years old again, to the point where I was meekly saying "I'm sorry" and doing her bidding...up to a point. I left her sitting on her steps trying to sort through a garbage bag of smelly papers and my last words to her were "Good luck, Mom."

I wouldn't fault anybody for "hanging in there until the end" but it was at that moment with great clarity that I realized that I didn't matter to her at all. All my hopes and illusions were shattered at that point. I wouldn't wish that on anybody.

[Hopalong]

That is heartrending.
What a hideous mental illness it is.

I am so sorry you went through that moment (and those years). I cannot imagine. Like watching someone develop Alzheimer's, but in a way, worse. Because it would seem as though they have a choice, and they make it over and over and over...it's the clutter and stuff, that matters. (I am not sure they DO have a choice, because it seems to take over the brain just as severely as something like epilepsy or schizophenia would.O

It really sounds as though you've experienced exactly the anguish they show on the TLC show about hoarding, over and over. The faces of the adult kids who have given up, as they've seen the obsession fill up all the space in their sick parent until there literally is no love left for their own children. Or no ability to fight through their own sickness to express any. It's just smothered.

I am really sorry, Kathleen. I'm so glad you're here again to talk about it.

love
Hops

[Dreamedeeri]

Thanks Hops.

Yes, it's awful. I don't think I could ever watch one of those shows, I think I saw about 5 minutes of some TV medical drama that had a hoarding character and I couldn't take it. It sounds like they are showing the reality though, and not just the "Mom is a lovely person but she shops too much and doesn't clean and now this expert has done an intervention and viola! we live happily ever after.". I think most hoarders really can't be cured.

It is important for me to be here with people who get it and to be able to talk about it, not specifically hoarding but who know that mothers don't always have their children's best interests at heart. I'm going to start shopping for a new therapist soon. A psychiatrist I saw mostly for medication management (AD/HD) dismissed my issues with my mother as "poor parental fit" or something like that. I know I tend to minimize the whole story until I feel I can trust a new therapist, but come on! It makes me feel like I was just whining because my mother and I have different personalities. That's sitcom fodder. I guess I need to just give it to them with both barrels at the first session and see what they come up with. I want at therapist who gets it at least to some degree the way those of us who have lived it get it.

[Twoapenny]

Thanks Hops.

Yes, it's awful. I don't think I could ever watch one of those shows, I think I saw about 5 minutes of some TV medical drama that had a hoarding character and I couldn't take it. It sounds like they are showing the reality though, and not just the "Mom is a lovely person but she shops too much and doesn't clean and now this expert has done an intervention and viola! we live happily ever after.". I think most hoarders really can't be cured.

It is important for me to be here with people who get it and to be able to talk about it, not specifically hoarding but who know that mothers don't always have their children's best interests at heart. I'm going to start shopping for a new therapist soon. A psychiatrist I saw mostly for medication management (AD/HD) dismissed my issues with my mother as "poor parental fit" or something like that. I know I tend to minimize the whole story until I feel I can trust a new therapist, but come on! It makes me feel like I was just whining because my mother and I have different personalities. That's sitcom fodder. I guess I need to just give it to them with both barrels at the first session and see what they come up with. I want at therapist who gets it at least to some degree the way those of us who have lived it get it.

I think you're absolutely right, Kathleen, it was a therapist who opened my eyes to what was going on, I was so used to it I didn't see what was happening as abusive, I blamed myself and used to go into my sessions talking about everything I'd done wrong and how I was going to put it all right by working even harder and being even more perfect and caring and considerate.  I feel so lucky now to look back and know I happened across that therapist by chance and that she saw what was going on in my life and knew how to pull the lid off veeeeery slowly and veeeery gently.  Eventually she retired and again I was lucky with the next one who taught me how to feel - I was so used to being numb that I didn't even realise I was.  Again she took baby steps, knew when to push and when to back off.  I remember one session - and I think I've mentioned this on the board before - where she asked me to imagine a situation where I'd walked into a party and of the ten people there, seven liked me and three didn't.  She asked me how I'd feel.  I was so mortified at the thought of three people not liking me that I thought she'd gone a bit mad, the very idea of me not being able to mould myself into what someone else wanted or expected in order to make them like me was just unimagineable to me.  That was a really big turning point, seeing how little of myself there was and how I saw myself completely through other people's eyes.  So yes, I'm waffling now, but I do think a good T can do incredible things and it is very frustrating when you meet someone who thinks you just don't 'get along'.  Good luck with finding someone.

[sKePTiKal]

Kathleen:

Hiya! I can definitely relate to the: things are more important than people; and people are just things... and not mattering to my mom. (And she is some variation on a hoarder, for sure). I've had my hubs watch the show with me, so that he would finally understand my continuing issues with clutter. It did help.

I've been quiet here for awhile... under my old moniker "PR"... and am back with a brand-new rodeo, with a different family member. Oh the joy! LOL...

Just wanted to share something I'm working "on" or "with" or "through"... however one thinks of it. These people that have hurt us, are not "normal people". Part of the difficulty, is that our expectations of these people are based on "normal". So, we go through the motions of our own reactions to outrageousness... as if it we were hoping to reach out with that reaction, to a normal person... who'd then respond: OH - I'm sorry!! Did I do that? How can I make it right??  (Like Hops has tried so many times with her D.)

The not-normal people don't even notice we had the reaction, OK? That's how not-normal they are.