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Narcissist Moms and Mother's Day
sunblue:
Thank you BettyAnne for your shared experiences and kind words.
One thing I know for sure...is that an N mom will never change.....ever. Sometimes they even get worse as they age.
In think in the case of my N mom, while she didn't want to ever be a real mom, she was in love with the "idea" of motherhood. Throughout the house are paintings or pictures of a mother with children....always very small children. My N mom has one grandchild---a granddaughter----and she adored her when she was a baby. In fact, she would never allow me to hold her when babysitting, insisting that she be the only one to cater to the baby's whim. Once, when i asked to hold my niece, my Nmom refused, explaining that the baby was scared of me because I was wearing a black jacket. Imagine!
However, as my niece moved beyond the toddler years where a child starts to develop its own personality and individuality, my Nmom was no longer interested in engaging. When my Nmom would babysit, she would sit in a chair reading her newspaper, expecting my 6-year-old niece to come to her and engage with Her!...
And yes, she expected to be treated like the Queen every day of the year. And essentially, she was, thanks to my co-dependent dad who just wanted to keep the peace. I only purchased Hallmark cards....but she rarely reciprocated, explaining she believed it was a waste of money. She never bought my dad an anniversary card.
So now, like you, I look for the most generic cards I can find....because all those Hallmark messages simply are not true and I can't see my way to buying them.
It's also amazing to me that my mom takes such incredible interest in other people's children, can empathize with their situations, but refuse to acknowledge the pain or traumas I suffer in life.
Right now I feel stuck. My "golden child" sister and "sort of scapegoat" brother who all but abandoned the family (except in situations when it's convenient) are not there for my mother....and will never be. So, even though I have no right to feel guilt, I do because I know that the other two would not be there for her if she became ill or needed help. I'm the only one with any kind of heart in the family and i guess I feel a kind of human obligation.
I know others have gone no contact and it seems to work for them. I know I have to overcome this and accept the aloneness before I can move forward. So sad sometimes it makes me immobile.
Thanks for the listen and the sharing.
Meh:
--- Quote from: sunblue on May 14, 2017, 01:00:33 PM ---I never had a mom I could talk to or share my problems and fears. Yet my mom was and is still here. A mom, but not a mom. What I had was a marginal parent-----who fulfilled her responsibilities to feed, clothe and educate her children...but really nothing else.
Sunblue.
--- End quote ---
Yeah pretty much that is how it is. It's turned into a feeling of stale and faint bitterness for me at this point. I don't feel particularly in pain it's more of a feeling that something is wrong with ME, as all my relatives give me the odd person out treatment for distancing myself from them, oh they loved me so so Ferking much didn't they. Anyhow. I do keep up a fake relationship with my mother. I am ashamed to admit that even a fake deal gives me some kind of false comfort of not being totally alone. And I feel weak for maintaining a fake relationship? Because hasn't she won in the end. She is the winner. I am the loser. Also weak for not being able to replace it with something real.
Maybe fake is real. Shrug I almost don't know and don't care. I am over my self help phase since years ago.
There is no talking to her. I haven't tried to tell her personal stuff for many years. I had learned at some point that me telling her personal stuff and trying to relate to her sets her off, pissed her off resulted in a crappy convo every time.
Her personality is a maze of unpredictable crazy thinking. What are we going to do send them sarcastic cards that say exactly that.
"Happy Mother's Day for being the most wonderfully demented person in my life"
We are always barred from saying our true feelings if we want to keep the peace.
These days I don't hope for much from her. If things go sideways all my brain does is start listing exit strategies like a computer data output list.
I went through IT, this mental stuff with Father's Day. Feeling guilty. Seeing our father's day sale signs at work for a week.
It would be such a burden to strike up a conversation with my father. I'm afraid of being pulled into his world. At one point in my 20's I decided I needed to escape it and put space and distance between us. He hasn't changed at all. If he hasn't changed doesn't it mean he doesn't care enough to think about it.
Sometimes I wonder if I am the crazy one because HOW could both of my parents BE THAT BAD. And what if my father wasn't THAT BAD, what if he simply was incompetent as a parent and I needed to get on with my life. He was controlling that is a really big reason I decided to stop communicating with him. Also he pretty much did abandon me. I mean I don't think about those things much, I almost forgot why I quit talking to him.
I can never answer the question with confidence... "How are my relationships with my relatives supposed to be (and at my age)".... "How am I supposed to be doing in life".
At the moment I kind of accept it all and even in accepting life as it is, it totally scares the ice cream out of me. Life scares the ice cream out of me. It's like fighting dragons.
Just shaking my head. I can only speak for myself.
The biggest pain I have is the guilt that my father has health issues that he needs help with but of course he refuses to take care of himself. Literally I have the thought, "What if he is sick or laying dead in his apartment".
Oddly enough I remember a weird dream about my father that I had during my childhood. My father was being eaten by crabs and I felt some terrible guilt over it. Same feeling now to this day. Whatever. Who knows if I'm wrong and terrible. If he is wrong and terrible. Two wrongs sure as heck don't make a right.
It's all I can do to take care of myself though. Remembering years back YEARS back when I was deep in the mire and went to a group therapy session regarding co dependence. I feel that nothing good would come out of me striking up a convo with my father NOW that it would just encourage codependency weirdness that he has which creeps me out.
I think I wrote it on here before. He literally lives in some sort of low income housing. He was so harsh on me at one point I was like 19 or 20. He was telling me how I was flailing and how I should and needed to become a computer programmer and that was the ONLY path in life bleh bleh blehhhhhhh.
Computer programming was never for me. He tried it, actually did it and he still ended up living in low rent area in one of the crappier neighborhoods where people are likely to get mugged in. Should I feel bad for him.
I don't know how I should feel. I simply believe my survival requires me to not be in a codependent relationship with him.
JustKathy:
--- Quote ---I went through IT, this mental stuff with Father's Day. Feeling guilty. Seeing our father's day sale signs at work for a week. It would be such a burden to strike up a conversation with my father. I'm afraid of being pulled into his world.
--- End quote ---
Hey Garbanzo,
Tup and I were just talking about this on another thread ... the guilt. Why, why, WHY do we feel this guilt?
I also find myself asking if my Co-Father was as bad as I think, or just incompetent, but deep down in my heart I know the answer. I walked away for a reason. They were BAD PARENTS. Messed up parents, with personality disorders.
If I sit back for a moment and think of all the horrible things my father did, the guilt turns to anger, but it always turns back into guilt again. I think it may be his age. Like you, I also wonder if his health is failing, if he needs help. Even though my GC sister is caring for him, I still feel guilty over that.
But should I feel guilty just because he's gotten old, and is now alone most of the time? I don't know. I mean, one day I'll be old too, and will also be alone, having lost my siblings because of N-mum's triangulation. I, too, have no normal relationships with other relatives. They all saw me as the "bad seed" that my parents made me out to be. They knew my NM wasn't right in the head, but didn't want to get involved. My family (all of them) should be the ones feeling guilty, yet I'm the only one who does.
Maybe we feel guilty because we have normal hearts, and they don't. Simple as that.
I do feel strongly that resuming contact with my father would result in more pain than the guilt I'm feeling. I don't imagine that I'll ever speak to him again. I have nothing left to say at this point.
--- Quote ---It's all I can do to take care of myself though.
--- End quote ---
Absolutely. It's hard to live this life, and by that I mean the life of coping with the emotions that eat at us. We can occupy our lives with work and other activities, but living in a constant state of emotional torment is such a drain. It never goes away. Just never. It's exhausting, even with them out of my life.
Twoapenny:
--- Quote from: JustKathy on June 27, 2017, 02:23:30 PM ---
--- Quote ---I went through IT, this mental stuff with Father's Day. Feeling guilty. Seeing our father's day sale signs at work for a week. It would be such a burden to strike up a conversation with my father. I'm afraid of being pulled into his world.
--- End quote ---
Hey Garbanzo,
Tup and I were just talking about this on another thread ... the guilt. Why, why, WHY do we feel this guilt?
I also find myself asking if my Co-Father was as bad as I think, or just incompetent, but deep down in my heart I know the answer. I walked away for a reason. They were BAD PARENTS. Messed up parents, with personality disorders.
If I sit back for a moment and think of all the horrible things my father did, the guilt turns to anger, but it always turns back into guilt again. I think it may be his age. Like you, I also wonder if his health is failing, if he needs help. Even though my GC sister is caring for him, I still feel guilty over that.
But should I feel guilty just because he's gotten old, and is now alone most of the time? I don't know. I mean, one day I'll be old too, and will also be alone, having lost my siblings because of N-mum's triangulation. I, too, have no normal relationships with other relatives. They all saw me as the "bad seed" that my parents made me out to be. They knew my NM wasn't right in the head, but didn't want to get involved. My family (all of them) should be the ones feeling guilty, yet I'm the only one who does.
Maybe we feel guilty because we have normal hearts, and they don't. Simple as that.
I do feel strongly that resuming contact with my father would result in more pain than the guilt I'm feeling. I don't imagine that I'll ever speak to him again. I have nothing left to say at this point.
--- Quote ---It's all I can do to take care of myself though.
--- End quote ---
Absolutely. It's hard to live this life, and by that I mean the life of coping with the emotions that eat at us. We can occupy our lives with work and other activities, but living in a constant state of emotional torment is such a drain. It never goes away. Just never. It's exhausting, even with them out of my life.
--- End quote ---
Kathy, I think you're right, maybe we feel guilty because we have normal hearts? My family are just the same, I'm the one that's been pushed out because I refused to keep taking the crap for all of them. But then that's how dysfunction works, isn't it, everyone has to play their role and if one person doesn't, the others can't stay in their comfort zone and carry on avoiding whatever it is they're trying to avoid. I think whether someone is a 'bad' person, or whether they are ill, or incompetent, or lazy, or whatever else it is that makes them the way they are, it still isn't right for us to maintain a relationship if it hurts us and yet, yes, we still feel guilty! And yet I know no-one in my family feels the slightest bit of guilt over the way I've been treated. And yes, it is tiring to cope with, although I have found I am coping better as life moves on. Perhaps the saying that time is a healer has some truth to it?
Twoapenny:
--- Quote from: Garbanzo on June 27, 2017, 02:29:41 AM ---
--- Quote from: sunblue on May 14, 2017, 01:00:33 PM ---I never had a mom I could talk to or share my problems and fears. Yet my mom was and is still here. A mom, but not a mom. What I had was a marginal parent-----who fulfilled her responsibilities to feed, clothe and educate her children...but really nothing else.
Sunblue.
--- End quote ---
Yeah pretty much that is how it is. It's turned into a feeling of stale and faint bitterness for me at this point. I don't feel particularly in pain it's more of a feeling that something is wrong with ME, as all my relatives give me the odd person out treatment for distancing myself from them, oh they loved me so so Ferking much didn't they. Anyhow. I do keep up a fake relationship with my mother. I am ashamed to admit that even a fake deal gives me some kind of false comfort of not being totally alone. And I feel weak for maintaining a fake relationship? Because hasn't she won in the end. She is the winner. I am the loser. Also weak for not being able to replace it with something real.
Maybe fake is real. Shrug I almost don't know and don't care. I am over my self help phase since years ago.
There is no talking to her. I haven't tried to tell her personal stuff for many years. I had learned at some point that me telling her personal stuff and trying to relate to her sets her off, pissed her off resulted in a crappy convo every time.
Her personality is a maze of unpredictable crazy thinking. What are we going to do send them sarcastic cards that say exactly that.
"Happy Mother's Day for being the most wonderfully demented person in my life"
We are always barred from saying our true feelings if we want to keep the peace.
These days I don't hope for much from her. If things go sideways all my brain does is start listing exit strategies like a computer data output list.
I went through IT, this mental stuff with Father's Day. Feeling guilty. Seeing our father's day sale signs at work for a week.
It would be such a burden to strike up a conversation with my father. I'm afraid of being pulled into his world. At one point in my 20's I decided I needed to escape it and put space and distance between us. He hasn't changed at all. If he hasn't changed doesn't it mean he doesn't care enough to think about it.
Sometimes I wonder if I am the crazy one because HOW could both of my parents BE THAT BAD. And what if my father wasn't THAT BAD, what if he simply was incompetent as a parent and I needed to get on with my life. He was controlling that is a really big reason I decided to stop communicating with him. Also he pretty much did abandon me. I mean I don't think about those things much, I almost forgot why I quit talking to him.
I can never answer the question with confidence... "How are my relationships with my relatives supposed to be (and at my age)".... "How am I supposed to be doing in life".
At the moment I kind of accept it all and even in accepting life as it is, it totally scares the ice cream out of me. Life scares the ice cream out of me. It's like fighting dragons.
Just shaking my head. I can only speak for myself.
The biggest pain I have is the guilt that my father has health issues that he needs help with but of course he refuses to take care of himself. Literally I have the thought, "What if he is sick or laying dead in his apartment".
Oddly enough I remember a weird dream about my father that I had during my childhood. My father was being eaten by crabs and I felt some terrible guilt over it. Same feeling now to this day. Whatever. Who knows if I'm wrong and terrible. If he is wrong and terrible. Two wrongs sure as heck don't make a right.
It's all I can do to take care of myself though. Remembering years back YEARS back when I was deep in the mire and went to a group therapy session regarding co dependence. I feel that nothing good would come out of me striking up a convo with my father NOW that it would just encourage codependency weirdness that he has which creeps me out.
I think I wrote it on here before. He literally lives in some sort of low income housing. He was so harsh on me at one point I was like 19 or 20. He was telling me how I was flailing and how I should and needed to become a computer programmer and that was the ONLY path in life bleh bleh blehhhhhhh.
Computer programming was never for me. He tried it, actually did it and he still ended up living in low rent area in one of the crappier neighborhoods where people are likely to get mugged in. Should I feel bad for him.
I don't know how I should feel. I simply believe my survival requires me to not be in a codependent relationship with him.
--- End quote ---
I don't think there's anything wrong with keeping up a fake relationship, G, we all have to take our comfort or our line in the sand where we can. If my mums actions hadn't been harming my son I probably would still have some sort of 'getting together for tea' type relationship with her. It's hard when you want a lot more than they can give you (at least in any healthy sort of way).
Sorry that your dad causes just as many problems. It sounds like he tried to live his life through you with all the computer programming stuff. It's hard when our parents want us to be an extension of them rather than just letting us be ourselves.
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