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Boundary setting vs attempts to change the N

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Discounted Girl:
Whoa Jaded -- tell it like it is girl !! Well, giving up that last little shred of hope that a light bulb will go off in their minds and they will think -- oh my God !! What have I done !! I must hurry and tell my daughter I love her. That is never going to happen, I know it, but every now and then a stray hopeful thought pushes forward and then I remember. Each day I think of her less and less. She is already dead of this earth as far as I am concerned. But, like I said in another thread, it's the mourning of what I never had that pains me so. I see women my age with their elderly mothers all hugging and being together and tender and such, and I think, wonder why I didn't get that? Well, it's easy to be a baby crier - I save that for when I am alone because I am still very much ashamed to admit to many people how badly I was treated. Even though I was the one with blinders and others could see what a rotten person she was for years. I dreamed about my Dad last night and he was laughing and we were having fun like we did when I was little, or whenever she was not in the room to spoil things. He used to take us to the movies and read and sing to us and he taught me to dance with me standing on his feet. He used to swing me by one arm and my brother on the other arm. If she was there the mood was always tense and everyone walked on eggshells. If my Father had left her, he could have come to live with me and my family and we could have had such wonderful times. She just ruined so much for so many. Oh well, now I am sad again and I have so much work to do in preparation for the holidays. God bless each and every one of you.

catlover:
Thank you all for your words of validation and support.  I must admit that it is hard to give up the hope that my mother will have the "lightbulb" go on in her head and she'll realize how crappy she's been and try to make it up to me (although nobody could ever begin to make up for taking away your childhood).  It seems like it's especially hard with my particular Nmother because she has always been into talking about her own crummy childhood and resulting emotional wounds in a way that makes you think she must understand this in general and be able to perceive it in others, but she does not.  Actually, I take it back:  she DOES perceive it in people's lives for whom she is not to blame, which is what really kills me.  She'll be talking about my half-brother's teenage girlfriend, what a hard life she has because of X or Y, and then I'll bring up how I experienced X or Y, and she becomes a brick wall and says "I don't see how that's the same thing at all."  There have been several times when she has shared some deeply personal hurt, and I have sympathized and then tried to share one with her, and then BAM, she hits me up side the head with an emotional two-by-four.  I used to cry or break things almost every time I got off the phone with her, and my husband would ask me, "Why do you let her do this to you?"  Good question!!  I have mostly gotten beyond that stage, but I can see that I am still in danger of being suckered again.  She has been going to "Emotions Anonymous" and one day I called her when I was very frustrated with emotions I was feeling that I did not want to feel and she WAS sympathetic and said "You know, if all that (job, etc that's been driving me nuts) really gets to you and you feel like you can't take it anymore, you can always come stay here with me.  I'm your mother, and whatever I did or didn't do in the past, it was the best I could do at the time, and you're my daughter and I will always love you."  So I'm starting to think there's hope, but based on my past experience and the things I'm reading on here (which helps me recall my ugly experiences) it's probably not a good idea to go chasing after it.  Because if there's ever one iota of my problems that I describe as being related to her in any way, the two-by-four will be ready and waiting.  Plus, I'm now realizing that going to her with my difficulties as if she's some kind of mentor is feeding right into her as a source of N Supply.

I had really hoped that she would "see the light" as a result of my step-father divorcing her.  That was a joke - instead she now has yet another person she can use as a twisted source of "negative" supply.  (Actually, she almost always used him that way, which is why he FINALLY gave up after 15 years of marriage.  I realize much of his mistreatment of me when I still lived with them was a result of her henpecking him and talking to him about me as though I were the demon spawn.  Hey- that makes HER the demon!  Guess he didn't think of that at the time.)  Her latest outrageous statement related to their divorce goes like this:  My step-dad asked my youngest half-brother (who's now 16) if he wanted to come live with him and his new wife in Chicago (about an hour away from where my brother lives with my mom).  His reasons are not altogether altruistic, as he wants to sell the house he keeps near my mom so he can spend time with my brothers.  However, his reasons have very little to do with my mother (he said he would continue to pay her child support even if my brother came to live with him).  My mother's interpretation of this was to say "That man never stops finding new ways to try and hurt me and make me suffer."  Yep, sure, he wants his SON to live with him just so YOU can suffer.  Well, it's not hard to see why she thinks that, since SHE spends a lot of time thinking about how to make her "enemies" suffer.

One thing that really bugs me is that my brothers don't see her AT ALL for what she is.  They are still at the stage I was at before my eyes were opened (at least some) at 13.  I wonder if they will ever figure it out?  Of course, she is still much nicer to them than she was to me because she is more desperate for supply sources as she gets older.  But, the signs are there if they paid attention.  Like when she made my brother wait an hour in her living room with a broken leg so my step-dad could take him to the emergency room because why should she always have to take them to the doctor?  Their father was coming to spend his weekly time with them, so she reasoned it was only fair that he take care of it on his shift.

She did get scared during the divorce that she'd lose my brothers as a supply, because she actually said something about wanting to keep her options open to possibly bear MORE children if she found a new husband (she was 48 when she said this).  Obviously any children I might have would be used by her in the same sick way.  (Though I don't think I will have children, because I feel like Nic who described in another post that he feels his own childhood precludes him from being a parent.)

Thank you all so much for opening my eyes even more.  I was starting to feel hostility toward my therapist for being so certain that I have a terrible mother who I need to protect myself from.  I was starting to go into the mode of protecting HER from my therapist!!  What a f*ing crazy hold these Ns can have on us!  THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for opening my eyes!!

Oh - I just thought of one more awful experience that I feel the need to share:  When I was 22 I had cysts removed from both my ovaries - it was my first major surgery and I was scared to death.  The surgery was scheduled many months in advance and my mother knew about it, yet she chose to go on vacation with her new "family" during my surgery and most of my recovery (she lived nearby at the time).  When I pointed this out to her she yelled at me about how she hadn't been on vacation in over three years and it had already been scheduled blah blah blah.

But I have to wonder, is bringing all this stuff back up, getting angry all over again, really going to do me any good?  I guess it's good if it stops me from getting suckered again.

How do you live with the fact that you were raised by a mentally ill person?  How do you ever learn how to live when you were given such a hideous example?  How do you ever trust your own judgement when there's a chance it could be your N mother's voice?  Many questions for my therapist (or anyone who cares to share their take on them).

catlover:
One more question - and this is the biggie: How do you stop from feeling that you are hopelessly f*d up from being raised by a narcissist, that there is no chance of being happy, and no point in continuing?  No, I'm not going to kill myself, just indulging in the big 'ol pity pot.

Jaded911:
Gwyn,

You learn to trust yourself by listening to your gut feelings.  I don't know how I survived my childhood but I do know this, I know every damn time I do something that I am going to regret.  I know because my gut instinct tells me so.  Later I think to myself, damn I remember feeling uneasy about .......or I think I knew this........wasn't going to be ...........

You ask how you live a  happy life after being raised by a F** up person.  I think of it this way, whatever the damn freggin crazy lady did, I do the opposite.  I also figured that she wanted me to live a miserable life like hers, I will show her she has no hold on me and I will live the complete opposite of what she wants.

It is F**d up and I hate that I had to begin life under this womans wings.  But ya know, she made me a toughy and in this world ya just have to be.  When you just plug along in life with a "whatever you want or say" attitude, you run into carbon copies of my mom.  I am not saying I always have to be the boss or always have to be right.  I am saying that I do not back away from my gut instinct and whenever someone proves theirself to me, they have equal standing in my rank department.

Life sucks but ya just have to play the game a different way then what your mom taught you.  It is fun after you learn that.

Anonymous:
Being raised by a narcissist isn't a hopeless deal. It does cause problems, for sure. But it doesn't make you what she is. We're all unique, not clones of our parents. Don't think you are as screwed up as your mom, because you aren't.

bunny

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