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My T said my NM was ten years old mentally

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Bettyanne:
Just asking you to think about the above .....yesterday in therapy I talked about my NM decision making that affected our family.  So much when I think about her decisions were off....she would make decisions and run away physically and mentally.  When she was home she wasn't a family person....she was there but really NOT.....

I know she born into a dysfunctional family.  She continued this dysfunction with our family.  She assumed she knew all...and my dad and her mother who lived with us....just went along with any decision she made good or bad.
As I look at her today.....in my minds eye.....I see how really dysfunctional she was....she would never ask for help because she had all the answers.  I see my dad and her mother.....were just as dysfunctional as she was by going along with her.....I guess I could say nobody had any balls to stop the craziness going on. (the entire family was dysfunctional)

I am looking at this now with my eyes wide open.....how much of this dysfunction do I have? its all I ever knew as a kid.  I was a aware as a young child something was wrong with our family....as I could see when with other friends families they were different....not perfect but more normal then my home.   She was not affectionate ....she was good outside the home acting like a sweet kind....all together person...a fake ness I came to see and realize she had like two personalities.

My Ten year old mentally mother was a workaholic and worked full time until she died at 100......It could have been anything she was addicted to hers was office work...I know some people drink...drug...gamble etc...she used work and church to get away from the family or life?

I am working on feeling better about who I am....as like most N parents never give you what a child needs because they didn't have it to give.   Also I am an enabler with my own kids...and have other faults I haven't address . Thanks to Dr. Grossman and all you kind members here.....I am very grateful to be able to express my feelings and story here. :lol:

Hopalong:
It makes sense to me that Ns are immature, Betty Anne. I think whatever has damaged them (genetics plus some experiences) breaks the development of empathy. The clever ones learn how empathy looks, but they honestly don't know how it feels, at least not in normal amounts. Without empathy, people get stuck in a childlike state.

I also think a lot of Ns are survival obsessed, feel alone (because they don't understand intimacy or deep authentic connection), and so it makes sense that ambition, obsessive work, that kind of thing...would always take precedence over family.

The wishes, feelings and nuances of others? Not in their wheelhouse.

It's good that you're unraveling the patterns of your family, and never too late to change your own.

Bravo,
Hops

Twoapenny:
Yes, everything that Hops said!

My mum has the emotional maturity of a two year old (and interestingly she loves kids - and is brilliant with them - until about that age.  Then she loses interest).  She is the entire centre of the world, the only people she will keep in her life are those who love her unconditionally (what that means for my mum is that people fall into two camps - those who permit her abusive behaviour and those who permit her permission of her husband's abusive behaviour, if that makes sense!).  If she doesn't get what she wants, behaviour wise, she has a tantrum, but instead of having a screaming fit and throwing toys she has an adult style tantrum and will find ways to punish, usually by spreading around untrue information about you or doing something nasty that you don't find out about until later.  She's very, very sneaky (think kid making the dog yelp so that they can steal an extra biscuit from the plate whilst everyone is looking at the dog) and completely incapable of acknowledging her own behaviour or taking responsibility for it (think child who covers her eyes to play hide and seek, the idea being 'I can't see you, so you can't see me'.

I think one of the things I've found hard is accepting that that's how things were.  I was very angry for a long time and didn't want to accept her failings, I wanted her to accept her failings and change so that I could have a lovely mum and we could look back and laugh about the days when she was a nightmare.  Obviously that never happened and slowly I accepted she is how she is and I could either put up with it or cut her out of my life, so I cut her out.

I do agree with Hops that it's never to late to work on yourself, or to work towards finding some peace in the way you feel towards your mum, or working out your own feelings that you never got a chance to express.  It is very tough and it can be heart breaking at times but personally I have found that some of the broken bits started to heal and some of the muddy stuff starts to get sunshiney again :) x

sKePTiKal:
Bettyanne, we can't help but be affected growing up in that kind of environment. We come up with a lot of ways to cope - to try to find what we instinctively know we need - and yet, still deal with the craziness & upsidedown-ness of "home". There's no right/wrong to those methods, IMO. It's what we have to do until we're adults and can do things differently; be different.

And that is the difference between someone with a PD and those who've been affected by them: we can change ourselves and grow and get "better" -- they can't.

Bettyanne:
Hops, Twoapenny, Skeptikal,
I can't thank you enough for your responses.  I have read and reread your responses the last few days.  I know the you all know how hard growing up and living and having a relationship with these women are....non of it is normal because they have no sense of normal...or average how ever a relationship should be!! It has taken a lifetime for me to find myself and I know now.....she took any self-esteem away from me.....no one and especially me being her daughter had no say in anything.....but I do know  now and she is dead and I wish I could dig her up and tell her off...but the time has passed.  I feel so angry that I let her away with so much she did to me and our family.

As Hops says no empathy and she was stuck in a child like state for most of her life. It makes so much sense of who she was. Truly that is biggest part of the problem.....no empathy.  No nothing except herself wanting constant attention.....We all like attention at some point.....but we don't live our life everyday expecting it or want it!!

Skeptikal....your right the PD is the right diagnoses and we are the only ones who can change. But you can't change until you see it....as the child its the only thing you know.....Even as an adult it took me a long time to figure it out..she was the boss and look out she was in charge.  I said to my husband how you wish RIP for the dead in her case I don't.....but I do need peace for myself, to let go of the anger and live even at 73 for the first time.

Twoapenny, I see your Mum was age 2 in maturity.....how sad is that.....how sad for you and your family dealing with a two year old mother....who will never change.  At 100 in the nursing home as I went to see her everyday after she fell at the office and she broke her hip....she pointed her pointed finger at me as I walked in her room, she never said a word....she pointed to something on the bed and then to the dresser!! I stared straight in her face and said nothing.....she looked at me and said WHAT DO YOU WANT? I still said nothing......that bitch had decided she didn't even need to open her mouth to ask me nicely to do something for her.  My husband who was with me moved the piece of clothing from the bed to dresser....I wish he hadn't done that.....but a few days later she died in her sleep....I never went back to nursing home to see her dead after she died....I saw her at the funeral parlor. 

I do agree with you.....I do need to find a peace within myself.....it has eaten me up!  I was her only daughter besides a brother who was born with cerebral palsy.....which she said your not going to blame me.....no one was blaming anyone....she wanted nothing to do with him either and left him in the care of her elderly mother who had no say in anything either.  He was left in a small chair with rubber sheets under it and towels in the middle of the living room....he had seizures starting at age 9...so you can just imagine how all of this worked out with her at the office. 
Thanks so much for listening to me above ....I appreciate your stories I have read too they give me hope. 
Bettyanne

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