feeling guilty

[Dazza]

When I called my N mother a few weeks ago (after a three-month break due to her inappropriate behavior) she picked up the phone and immediately started crying when she heard my voice. She said that she might need an operation and that she "probably won't be around much longer."

She then chastized me for not calling or seeing her for three months. Foolishly, I tried for a moment to explain that her actions toward me were wrong (I also caught her in several lies and broken promises), but, as usual, she didn't hear me. It was as if it were speaking Swahili, so I gave up.

The purpose of my call was to tell her that I got married, and she feigned interest. "Oh, how nice." (Meanwhile, neither my so-called sentimental N mother and two N sisters - who both had big, lavish I-am-the-center-of-the-world weddings that cost me a bundle to attend - could muster up a $1 to send us a card to commemorate the milestone.)

Anyway, my mother went for a test four days ago, and I haven't called her to see how the test went. On some level, I feel a bit guilty. (The more that I think of it, one of her trials and tribulations has always nagged at me!)

I’ve thought about calling her at work to rid myself of what I think is an obligation (I know that I don't have to do it), so that I know she won’t go crazy on the phone or just not calling her at all. Like every interaction with a N, it's a lose-lose situation.

I know that any contact with my family puts me in a vulnerable position. I think my feelings of “guilt” are because I feel empathy toward others - something my N family is incapable of.

Dazza

[Brigid]

Dazza,
It is certainly your choice as to how you want to handle the relationship with your mother, but imo, the best thing to do is to break all contact.  I tried for many years to maintain the relationship with my parents out of guilt and obligation, but every contact I made, either over the phone or in person, took a little piece of me with it.  Some visits would be so stressful that it would take me several days to recover.  I finally decided that it just wasn't worth it to my peace of mind and sense of self.  It also wasn't healthy for my children to observe and that was what really made the decision for me.

If you can develop the skills necessary to maintain contact and not let her eat you alive, more power to you.  After all the therapy I have had recently, I may have been able to do that, but my parents are both dead now and I'll never be able to test the theory. 

Congratulations on your new marriage.  I think the healthiest thing you can do right now is put your energy into that relationship and make it the best it can be.  I wish you well.

Hugs,

Brigid

[Marta]

If you can develop the skills necessary to maintain contact and not let her eat you alive, more power to you.  After all the therapy I have had recently, I may have been able to do that, but my parents are both dead now and I'll never be able to test the theory. 
Brigid

As someone who felt compelled to test the theory to the limit, I can vouch that it does not work. At least with my Nmom, there are simply so many mind games, so many twists and turns are involved, that for a normal person to learn skills to deal with all that crap would take several lifetimes. No matter which way, she makes me feel greatly manipulated.

Still, when we break contact with out parent, we also break contact with a piece of ourselves.

Dazza, please do not feel guilty. I agree, when you are beginning a new life with marriage, you ought not to look back and let your energy be sapped by destructive relationships.
Dazza, please, please don't feel guilty.

[longtire]

Dazza,
Your mother is clearly not ready to have an adult relationship with you.  She immediately started in just from hearing your voice.  Congratulations on getting married! I wish you and your new spouse long life and all the happiness in the world!

Is it possible that you take on feeling guilty when you have done nothing wrong to avoid feeling the abandonment by your mother?  If that question's too heavy right now feel free to ignore it.

[Dazza]

Hi Longtire,

Thanks so much for your kind wishes!!!

At first, I discounted your suggestion about abandonment. But after thinking about it I  had an epiphany. I’ve known for some time that I was emotionally abandoned by my parents at an early age (we even traded roles a few times where I acted in the parental role), but there is a deeper, darker issue at play for me.

My mother told me practically every day of my life (often in hysterical crying fits during bouts of depression) about her beloved mother, who died when she was 14. “I always wished that I had a mother,” she’d cry, mostly at the most inappropriate time in order to get attention. "You don't know what you have until it's gone." Growing up (and even now) she told strangers, people she met at a store, anyone who’d feel the social obligation to be polite enough to listen to her rant.

The story goes that her mother was a saint and her father was a womanizer who left her. Some time later, her mother became sick, was misdiagnosed in the hospital and died. “Doctors always bury their mistakes,” my mother always said.

Apparently, her father, who had already left to be with another woman, didn’t want anything to do with my mother and her older sister. Her aunts and uncles didn't act "appropriately" and she stopped talking to her family.

After her mother’s death, she was left to live with her older sister (16) with very little food, no money and often with no power. The story never made sense to me. I mean, back in the ‘50s there were safeguards to protect children. What about when nobody showed up for parent-teacher conference or when a document had to be signed by a parent? A landlord wouldn’t allow two jobless teenage children to live on their own. Her mother didn't leave much money, so how did they pay the rent?!

“I laughed on the outside and cried on the inside,” my mother always said."Nobody knew what I was going through."

While I am not clear on what happened, I think she transferred her feeling of abandonment to me and that's why I feel guilty for not calling her. Truth is, she doesn’t care about me, feels no joy for my marriage, can't have an adult relationship with me and calling her will only open up a can of emotionally harmful worms.

Longtire, you have given me food for thought. I feel much better now!

Thanks again!

Dazza

[daylily]

Hello Dazza.

I am in a very similar situation, but I came to a somewhat different conclusion.  I'm going to share some thoughts with you simply to provide another perspective.  I'm not trying to tell you what to do, so please understand that up front.

A little background on my situation:  My mother is 75 now, and I have helped her through lung cancer, bladder surgery, a cataract removal, and a number of other health problems.  She is a textbook narcissist, not just self-centered but self-reflexive.  That is, I really don't think she is capable of empathy, since she views the world entirely through the lens of herself.  Her primary care physician, whom she professes to like very much, died last week at 59 from a rare form of cancer.  His death caused a tremendous outpouring of sympathy from the community; this doctor was well-known and much-loved.  My mother registered it primarily as an inconvenience to herself, and kept asking me to feel sorry for her because she had to find a new doctor.  You get the picture.

I have two sisters, both of whom keep their distance.  My mother has affected all of her children strongly.  We are all depressed, or have been.  None of us feels truly worthwhile or capable.  We manifest this in different ways, but the problems are the same.

I have given a great deal of thought and prayer to my behavior towards my mother.  On the one hand, I know that contact with her is harmful to me.  On the other, I know that (a) my father (who has been dead nearly 16 years) would expect me to take care of her, and (b) everything I believe in points to the idea of having a duty towards her.

I don't want to spend the rest of my life reacting against her, feeling guilty about her, or, for that matter, engaged in a passive-aggressive battle with her.  I have chosen what I would define as the difficult middle course.  I help her with time and money, I talk to her almost every day, I maintain a genuine interest in her well-being, but I also step back and re-erect my boundaries when I need to.  It's very hard, but it is the way that I think is best.

There's a wonderful old movie, "Now Voyager," in which Bette Davis plays a woman who gets over the mother of all difficult mothers.  Her psychiatrist, Claude Rains, summarizes the situation beautifully:  "Remember, she is your mother.  Stick to your guns but don't fire."

I try to live by those words.  It is very, very difficult, but for me, it is the only way I can maintain both a sense of doing what's right and a sense of doing what is right for me.  Those are not always the same thing.

As I say, I'm not trying to tell you what to do.  Your relationship with your mother may be beyond repair, or it may be so harmful to you that there's really no choice but to break off contact.  I don't know.  But I do know that sometimes you have to think very carefully about who you are, what you stand for, and how you want to be able to think of yourself.  That "bigger picture" is at least as important as what works in any given moment or during any given conversation.  When my mother dies, I want to be able to say that I did my best for her, I didn't abandon her, but I am healthy and whole.  Keeping to that standard is difficult, but I believe it is worth the effort.

I wish you well.

best,
daylily

[Dazza]

Daylilly, I sympathize with your situation and can only imagine how incredibly draining to handle so much responsibility. You have an inner-strength that should be admired. I only hope that your mother can somewhat appreciate all of the time and energy that you have invested in her well being.

I have thought about my parents' mortality. During a four-year break from them, my father had emergency heart surgery. I was in London ob business at the time and found out when I checked my voice mail that he was in the hospital. This was the call that I always dreaded.

When I got to my hotel, I called to see how things were, but there was nothing that I could do and I couldn't fly right back home. There was nothing that I could do and he was stable. On the phone, my mother said "if you come here everything will be okay." While I understand that she was upset, but it was a childish thing to say and she wouldn't take no for an answer even though I am not a surgeon by trade. She never "forgave" me for this.

At the time, I thought about what would happen if my father didn't make it. I think that I've been a good son, despite all of everything he's done and said to me. (My father once wrote an angry letter where he threw up taking me on vacation as a child and said that I was dead to him.) I am not dealing with grounded people here.

I need to concentrate on myself and being around positive people. Living in their world is too dark for me. My mother always says that "life is beautiful," but she doesn't know what it's like to live, have fun, and enjoy life. She is scared of everything—she doesn't fly, swim, drive, try different foods, etc.

Like I said, it's a lose-lose situation. In keeping my distance, I at least keep more of my sanity and can avoid getting swept up in their whirlwind of 24/7 drama.

Dazza

[miss piggy]

Hello Dazza and all,

I was just beginning to post when you replied:

In keeping my distance, I at least keep more of my sanity

Yes!  As a teen, I watched my mother take on the obligation of my bitter, mean-spirited, selfish queen grandmother.  She worked like a dog because she promised her father she would "take care of" the queen.  It didn't have to be so hands-on and my mother suffered a lot during those years.  The silver lining is that I won't repeat this mistake of staying so close to my aging N father while he wallows in all the geriatric drama.  I can make sure he is taken care of without getting pulled into the padded cell myself.  Ns can be like magnets and you have to stay far enough away not to get pulled and stuck to them.

One thought, if you need to acknowledge your mother's whatever, there are greeting cards.  Just don't get a paper cut!    Sounds like you are on the right track.  Good luck, MP

[vunil]

Hi, Dazza--

Happy marriage!

Why can't your mom call you when she wants to tell you something?  Why do you have to call her and check on her test?  She can use the phone, right?

My mom has N tendencies, too, although she isn't as far "gone" as some people's parents on this list, or at least isn't yet, so my advice won't help everyone (or maybe anyone!).  But... She does respond somewhat to the kind of truthful bluntness that I'm trying to develop.  So, when your mom asks why you didn't call, just say, sweetly "I assumed you would call me if there was important news."  Is she says you should have called, you can say "you also can call me.  I'm sorry if it seemed like I don't allow phone calls here or that I always want to be the one to call."

No idea if that will work.  But she seems to like to manipulate you, especially with guilt.  She isn't big on the taking of responsibility, it seems.  You could try suggesting that she does.

This won't be a magic solution, of course.  But it's something to try.  I've had a little success with it-- my mom isn't as big on the guilt as she is on the very intrusive charging forth over boundaries (although she does like guilt too, as an added accessory).  She feels her opinion as if it were god's truth and will absolutely not back down on things that are none of her business.  And a lot of times her opinions are based on utterly made up stuff (self-aggrandizing stuff) and false memories.  She will honestly keep the same theme going for months, sometimes years, about how she was right about something, or how her opinion (the Truth) should be followed and (especially) how utterly flawed and awful XYZ person or action is in comparison to her truth.   In this way she sounds like your mom-- never letting go even of the most ridiculous thing (e.g., you could magically cure your dad just by being there).

So, my new thing is to sweetly say "I don't want you to spend any energy on that.  In fact, it's not something I'm wondering about or taking votes on" or even more strongly "I'm sorry that it seemed as if I was asking for your opinion or making it seem as if there were options around this [this works best when I never brought the subject up in the first place]"  That last tack might possibly work with your mother-- something like "I'm sorry it seemed as if I was going to call you about all of your tests-- honestly, I assume you know I want what's best for you and that you'll let me know if you need something from me or want to tell me something."  Or, with your dad "I'm sorry it seemed that I was saying I could just fly back immediately.  I wasn't saying that.  I will be flying back at [whenever].  You know I love both of you."

Just something to try. I am having moderate success with it, after NO success with anything else for 40-odd years.  I know she then calls my sister and expresses her outrage at me for hours, and they have a field day with how superior they are to me, but whatever.  I don't have to deal with it.  She has even apologized (!) for interfering, albeit with sort of a "I'm sorry I try to tell you the absolute truth even though you don't want to hear it" tone. It makes out conversations much more reasonable, which is what I most want.

Oh, as a caveat-- I did try about 6 months ago having a big discussion about my childhood, where we finally talked about a lot of bad stuff that (I thought) was just sitting underground, undiscussed, to no one's benefit.  Without going into detail, it wasn't the best childhood on the planet.  Kind of similar to everyone else's here.  But..That kind of discussion doesn't work one little bit.  No way can that kind of stuff be faced by an N parent-- it's too much.  The most I can hope for is to not have to deal with the little irritations-- anything more than that and I think N defenses really kick in and things get messy. 

Take what you can from this