My T said my NM was ten years old mentally

[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.

[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

[Twoapenny]

It is tough, Betty Anne, I do feel for you.  Personally I found writing a great way to get out the things I couldn't say to her to her face (as you mention wanting to tell your mum off now but she's passed so you can't).  Other people work their feelings out through art, gardening, long walks, voluntary work so it's worth trying different things to see what helps work things out of your system.  I've recently started trying to meditate daily and I've found that helpful as well.  But yes, it's a tough and lonely road, but not an uncommon one, I think a lot of people have difficult relationships with their parents but people don't tend to talk about it too much.  People here understand x

[sKePTiKal]

I found writing cathartic too. I could "go back in time" and do all my telling off of my mom on the page... in my 12 yr old voice, writing real large, all caps, large shaded letters. I could ask all the why questions I wanted - and then shift my voice to being my own analyst. Pages & pages & pages of that until I was done; it was water over the dam and I wasn't angry anymore. Typically, I'd have a ceremonial bonfire to dispose of all those... but I just threw them in the trash and let them go to the landfill to be buried along with a lot of other toxic waste.

[JustKathy]

My NM also had the maturity of a child, almost a toddler. I saw this most often in her tantrums. These were physical tantrums, where she would actually fold her arms, stomp her feet, and stick her tongue out. Often it would be followed by "I'm not speaking to you." You'd then get the silent treatment for a few hours or a few weeks, depending on how angry she was. It was surreal to see my grown mother having an actual tantrum, while my adult father looked on as if it were a perfectly normal thing to do.

she used work and church to get away from the family or life?

I find it very interesting that your NM was a workaholic. I'm curious about the kind of job (or jobs) she held. My NM was never able to hold down a job because she couldn't take orders from others. She was highly uneducated and only qualified for entry level positions, which she'd quit after a few short weeks. She'd walk off the job in a rage after someone with experience and a college degree got a promotion instead of her. She did love volunteer jobs where she had perceived power, or could be "in charge," like being a scout leader, president of the PTA, and later in life, President of the Homeowners Association and "senior citizen volunteer officer" at her local police station. She loved any job, paid or unpaid, where she could make the rules and/or enforce them. After reading your comment, it occurs to me that one of her reasons for doing this was quite likely to get away from family or life. When she was in those volunteer positions, she was getting the respect (albeit perceived respect) that she felt she wasn't getting at home.

Kathy

[Twoapenny]

My NM also had the maturity of a child, almost a toddler. I saw this most often in her tantrums. These were physical tantrums, where she would actually fold her arms, stomp her feet, and stick her tongue out. Often it would be followed by "I'm not speaking to you." You'd then get the silent treatment for a few hours or a few weeks, depending on how angry she was. It was surreal to see my grown mother having an actual tantrum, while my adult father looked on as if it were a perfectly normal thing to do.

she used work and church to get away from the family or life?

I find it very interesting that your NM was a workaholic. I'm curious about the kind of job (or jobs) she held. My NM was never able to hold down a job because she couldn't take orders from others. She was highly uneducated and only qualified for entry level positions, which she'd quit after a few short weeks. She'd walk off the job in a rage after someone with experience and a college degree got a promotion instead of her. She did love volunteer jobs where she had perceived power, or could be "in charge," like being a scout leader, president of the PTA, and later in life, President of the Homeowners Association and "senior citizen volunteer officer" at her local police station. She loved any job, paid or unpaid, where she could make the rules and/or enforce them. After reading your comment, it occurs to me that one of her reasons for doing this was quite likely to get away from family or life. When she was in those volunteer positions, she was getting the respect (albeit perceived respect) that she felt she wasn't getting at home.

Kathy

The idea of a grown woman actually stamping her feet and sticking her tongue out sounds quite funny but I know when you're the one having to deal with it it's anything but!  We used to get the silent treatment as well, usually without even knowing why (and when we did find out it would be some tiny misdemeanor such as not making her a cup of tea when she got home from work or not walking the dog for long enough).  My mum refuses things like a child; I was getting myself a glass of milk once and asked her if she'd like one and instead of just saying "no thanks" she went into this elaborate retching and pretending to spit sort of pantomime, just as a child would.  And I actually said to her, "no thank you will do!" as you would to a child.  There's definitely a developmental stage they stay stuck at.  It makes me wonder if we should have schools that focus on emotional development rather than academic so that someone can help you through each developmental stage so you don't still have the mind of a three year old when you have kids of your own

[JustKathy]

My mum refuses things like a child

My mother did that too! She had a very limited menu of items that she would eat, all things from her childhood. Everything had to be "plain." Salads with no dressing, pizza with no toppings, burgers that were only bun and meat, soda with no ice. When we moved from Canada to California, restaurant dining was very different because Mexican food was so popular in L.A. (and non-existent in Canada). Rather than try something new, she would refuse to eat it, and say that she hated it. Whenever we had a Scout meeting after school, everyone would want to go out for Mexican food. She would immediately say, "I HATE Mexican food." She also told me to tell my friends that I hated Mexican food, something that I was constantly ridiculed for in school. Many years later, when I was an adult, a relative came to visit and wanted to go out for Mexican food. I remember NM throwing a tantrum, stamping her feet, and telling my father, "I told you - NO MEXICAN FOOD."

Funniest thing was her refusal to eat cheesecake. Having never tried it, she thought it tasted like cheese. Hearing someone say they HATE cheesecake is just nuts. Oddly enough, she loved rhubarb pie, something that most people dislike. My grandmother used to grow rhubarb and make pie when NM was a child, so that was the only thing she would eat for dessert. Her food tastes were those of a very young child, and she remained stuck in that place for her entire life.

[Twoapenny]

It's sad, isn't it?  And worries me a bit because I find myself realising at times that I'm thinking like the child I used to be.  I'm trying hard to get rid of it, though.  But how sad that so many aren't able to catch themselves at some point and realise that what they're doing isn't really working out

[Hopalong]

Wow. Those are visceral images of arrested development.
Sad, repellent, and pathetic.

But then again, there's something really beautiful that both of you ((((Tupp, Kathy)))) now see those behaviors as exactly and only what they are, reality based and clear.

That's a triumph in itself...that you've learned over time to see that stunted behavior as the kind ... I dunno, unfortunate brain damage ... it actually is. Rather than describing it as a personal affront.

That says mountains about the hard-won maturities you've each achieved, from all that observant suffering.

Color me impressed,
Hops

[JustKathy]

Maybe it's become easier for me to accept my own NM's infantile behavior because we're seeing so much of it on public display now, in far worse forms. We have people like Kanye West, throwing childish tantrums and walking off stage over the most trivial things. Then we have the nightmare in the oval office, with tantrums being recorded during press conferences and airing around the world. And people are accepting it as normal!

The idea of narcissistic tantrums becoming "normalized," is disturbing on many levels, but it does manage to make my own mother's actions seem mild in comparison. Her tantrums may have been the only personality trait she had that frustrated me, but didn't actually harm me. Seeing Ns with power, wealth, celebrity (or all of the above) who throw these childlike tantrums is unsettling at best. The only power my NM had over me was to stomp her feet and demand that we go to McDonald's instead of Taco Bell. No one was hurt by it. With other Ns, not so much. Trying not to get too political on this board, but you know what I mean.

Actually, what I just wrote is pretty messed up ... that I'm now able to laugh off one of my NM's mental health issues because there are people out there who are worse. Ugh.

[JustKathy]

But how sad that so many aren't able to catch themselves at some point and realise that what they're doing isn't really working out

Tup, I think the reason is that it IS working out for them. When my N-mother would throw a little tantrum over the dinner menu, the people around her would simply back off and agree to another restaurant. She always got her way, and no one ever told her to GROW UP. She was allowed to remain a perpetual child, so in her case, it worked out just fine.

[Twoapenny]

But how sad that so many aren't able to catch themselves at some point and realise that what they're doing isn't really working out

Tup, I think the reason is that it IS working out for them. When my N-mother would throw a little tantrum over the dinner menu, the people around her would simply back off and agree to another restaurant. She always got her way, and no one ever told her to GROW UP. She was allowed to remain a perpetual child, so in her case, it worked out just fine.

Wow, Kathy, you saying that has just set off a huge light bulb for me!  You're absolutely right, everyone does just go along with them, my mum's exactly the same.  Quite a large circle of sycophants who also have an amazing capacity to ignore reality and, as you say, no-one ever has a stern word with them.  I did!  I begged her to change her behaviour and she refused to even acknowledge she was part of the problem, in any way.  She has always blamed my therapist for poisoning me against her.  How do they get so many people onside?