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bearwithme:
Thank you all for your support. I really need/appreciate it.  I thought I saw a reply from Ales but now it's gone but I wanted to thank Ales for the advice....there was a book I think Ales mentioned but I don't see the post...?  Ales, are you there?

Gaining Strength, I would like to know how it feels or felt when your NM passed away....that's what I am scared of and so many feeling about that.

I am forging onward.  Sometimes I think, God, why did I get a mother like this.....why me?  Why did I have to go through hell growing up and now in my adult life I'm still dealing with it?  What's the point?  What is the lesson? what good could this POSSIBLY teach a person?  It's just truly horrid in my opinion, and so tragic.

Twoapenny, there are no care issues thus far with my mom other than she won't wear her hearing aids and she can't hear anything.  She lies about hearing me and she does a lot of lip reading at times.  I carefully told her that her hearing is essential to her quality of life and especially when she is watching my daughter., etc...still, she makes up stuff on why this and why that.  Her hearing aids are top of the line and have been adjusted to optimize her use.  i even put them on for about an hour and they didn't bother me.  When I sat down to talk to her about it she stood up and said, "you are constantly hurting my feelings!! you are SO judgmental and you are always trying to hurt me..."  WTF???  That's her.  Narcissistic her.  She has no ability to bond to me or understand care from another person because she was so neglected as a child.  She then made a big argument about it and I didn't take her bait.  She stomped off like a 5 year old and pouted. I refused to be the mother to her as I was all through my childhood.

***sigh*** here we go again.  Hops, so good to hear from you too.  I love your supportive words.

Ales2:
Hi Bear - I deleted my post after reading one of your responses, because my suggestions seemed inappropriate to your situation. You are far beyond me in your recovery.

The book I was talking about was by Dr. Karyl McBride - Will I Ever Be Good Enough. She talks about something called emotional collapse, not entirely the same thing as the "regression" you were talking about, more of an incident that triggers powerful emotions from the past.  Anyway, her site is here:

http://www.willieverbegoodenough.com/

Going NC is the way to go, I wish I could manage it myself.
All the best to you, Ales2

Gaining Strength:
I'm going to answer your question but it is going to take some thinking first.  I will say that it has been more difficult living with her behaviour than living without her.  But there is a well of sorrow and that sorrow is a tangled mess of conflicting issues and complex feelings.  But ultimately her death has slowly lead to an unraveling of tethers that kept me bound to her and to the debilitating family dynamic.

Had I known what I now know, I would have cut my ties with my family when I left for college and never looked back.  I thought I had too much to lose but in hindsight I was wrong.  Had I known, I would have had life and had it abundant.

I wanted my child to have "family" but even that was just smoke and mirrors.

I loved my mother, I never lost sight in her potential, I never quit longing for her nurturing, mothering, I never quit longing for her to care for herself, to enter into relationship with me but it simply wasn't possible. It was never going to happen.  Now I am able to move on, with sadness and sorrow but not so much longing for what she could not give (even though I needed it and in my estimate even though it is the essential of what a mother owes a child .)

Hopalong:
((((((((((Bear))))))))))
and
((((((((GS))))))))

GS, I felt as though I could've written your last paragraph. Such a tight and affecting summary.

The only thing I could've altered for myself was that by the very end, I really had stopped longing--I
had completely accepted her as she was. I still had sorrow, but not longing, which I think for me
expresses something more like delusion (if you know what I mean, no offense).

Sorrow that she hadn't been capable of the kind of nurturing I wanted. But no more longing,
which I also think (for me) meant yearning for something I believed she had and chose to withhold.
Really, she never had it. (She also was manipulative at times, but not very skillfully. So there were
times when she had-and-withheld, but that was never about love. It was just about shallow approval
and her withholding of that wasn't much of a motivator.)

Dunno why I'm playing semantics with all these need verbs. But it helps me if it's not a highjack
of your thread Bear (let me know if you'd like me to move this away to another thread).

Bear, your mother's infantilism...I can relate to moments like that too. I am so sorry you had
to parent a self-absorbed child. Or an emotionally incapable child (which probably looks/feels
like the exact same thing).

I guess what happened to me by the very end (thank God she lived to be 98 because I needed
many years to get there) was that my heart was so affected by her decline and death, and her
real vulnerability...that caring for her compassionately got me past my own child-need-love
and into a larger love. And then forgiving her was nothing, it was a release.

That said, for all the emotional ups and downs, my Nmother never overtly abused me.
It was more like being confused to bruises, if that makes sense. My ability to think
was bruised by her Nism. Though she never cursed or raised an angry hand.

How old is your child that your Nmother is watching, Bear? Is your child enjoying her
and do they get along?

love
Hops

sKePTiKal:
Awww Bear. I'm afloating in the same boat - off & on. (You'll remember me as PR, perhaps.)

First, let me say you haven't "failed". Even though it might feel like a win-lose proposition. What Hops called delusion, I'm going to rephrase as "wishful thinking". Those of us with moms like "that", still cherish that small hope that perhaps by fixing ourselves "enough"... growing "enough"... becoming "strong enough"... that we can find a way to finally establish a relationship with that mom, no matter how meager the actual facts of the relationship. We hope that those "moms" - over time - see what they've denied both of us and at least regret it; apologies aren't really necessary as long as change happens. It's not a rational choice. It's an emotional one - based on the fact that we can love and want to - and that's plain old "human".

What GS said:
--- Quote ---Had I known what I now know, I would have cut my ties with my family when I left for college and never looked back.
--- End quote ---
...
I did that. My mom mentions that all the time - like it's the crowning achievement of my life. I always think: WHY do you think I left & never looked back??? I just never say it. No point. She's getting up there in years and of course her health is declining - and we've been playing the "telephone game" again. She is fishing for me to come parent her and thinks she's set the hook. Except I don't want to. She's trying to imply that she might die before "she gets to see me again". Ayyyup. And that comes with the whole toxic bag of feelings: primarily guilt.

I should've forgiven her more; I should've tried harder; I should've been more tolerant... all Stockholm Syndrome kinds of reactions. Hell, I just wanted her to be a human with normal maternal feelings toward me. All the reading I did about "Attachment Theory" - seemed to focus on the child in that relationship. I'm thinking these days, that while one probably has a greater chance of success - helping the child-adult child feel whole - putting the focus on the parent instead, just might open up a whole new way to "work through" things.

Why is the parent with holding that relationship, denying their responsibility for things that "went wrong" in the relationship? Do they BLAME the child for something? What are their limitations as a person and how whole, or human are they? How healthy? And do they have any desire for any reason to learn to be different? Then... they need to learn x, y, and z... and try a little bit from THEIR side of the relationship. Old dogs learn new tricks all the time.

For starters: drop the emotional blackmail. A healthy relationship, that is based on mutual trust doesn't dangle the object of our wishful thinking in front of us... and then insist we accept THEM, as they are, warts and all... and adjust ourselves to that. Meet me half way, after a 1/2 century of shutting me out. That's a fair offer. It's hard work and it takes both parties being willing to work at it, or you're just wasting time. With my mom, I feel as though she's blowing her last chance. She STILL doesn't get it. I don't hate her - she is my mom; but at the same time I have absolutely no basis, no memories; no point in my life that I can relate where we bonded; I felt accepted and loved; where I was seen as a separate human being from her with my own quirks and warts, and that could be just fine. She's always insisting I'm just like her; even now. She's someone I've known for a very long time, but I'm not real close to. End of description.

And it's not all my fault. Therefore it's not all my job to fix it.

Every time the phone rings, I hope... this is the time it changes. Every time: it's not. At least she doesn't leave me messages anymore, saying: Why aren't you home? And bitterly answering her question with - I suppose you're travelling. (Which I don't do by the way -- that's HER wish.) It's odd; it used to be that she would call when I was already upset about something - insult to injury, you know? Like she had ESP... and no matter what, I had to pick up and listen to HER tale of woe (which hasn't changed in 50 years). But now I'm just out running errands... the mental telepathy link is broken... and I'm not taking her bait either. That's an acceptable level of "freedom" for me.

I think (one can only guess) that when she dies, I'll be sad that she didn't really live a full and fulfilling life. That we weren't close; because she has no idea what that is. And then I'll be relieved that I no longer have to pretend that I'm holding up my end of a non-existant relationship.

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