a question

[Bloopsy]

Just wondering is it  a common thing among cjildren of n's to feel like their parents wanted to kill them?

[Marta]

I'e never felt that my mom wanted to kill me, at least so far -after all with Ns there's always some room for surprizes.  After all a living child has more potential for supply than a dead one. What she really wants to kill is my spirit. However, I've never been afraid that she'd poison my food or anything.

Why do you ask, Bloopsy?

[David P]

Kill the kids ? Maybe! However there is a more subtle variant which,for me, was a contant feeling of being in danger . It is now really hard to acknowledge that my parents hated me more that they loved or liked me .  I always had to 'earn' every morsel of acceptance( we never got close to the LOVE thing). My N dad created an atmosphere of fear in the house which said to me,"If you do what we say, we will let you live another day."
The greatest lingering problem for me is the feelings that come from being 'shamed' about every tiny thing that I did that irritated them. I still have a haunting fear that the shaming from even small transgressions will bring huge boulders down on me and crush me to death.
N parents try to make you pay for ever and ever. They are the worst holders of grudges and dig up the past to batter you with it at every opportunity. Shame on THEM!

DP

[Bloopsy]

That killing of the spirit thing makes a lot of sense, and so much horrible shame for everything--- it makes no sense they act like they are tyring to instruct you or whatever but really they are just shaming you. Ick!!!~! I just had this scary waking dream where my mom was standing over me with a knife and that is why I asked---- it is so crazy-making to live with her in real life--- she acts like she is so nice but I have all these horrible memories of her icky ranting and raving and the horrible feeling that she hated me when I was myself. I feel crazy because she acts so nice and sweet and all these peoploe tell me what a good mom she is and how jealous they are and stuff but I  just feel like that makes me crazy, and the icky hatefuyl scary feeling I always got from her, like she wished that I was dead. I hate when people say what a good mom she is, that makes me feel crazy and bad like it is my fault that she treated me so icky and could never handle any truth from me. Hi. Love Bloopsy Rose. But it's true I am more use to her alive and stuff .

[Marta]

I feel crazy because she acts so nice and sweet and all these peoploe tell me what a good mom she is and how jealous they are

Bloopsy, while I was growing up, allll of my friends loved my mom, went to her for advice, and envied me for having such a wonderful supermom! Only her brother, her husband, and her daughter saw through the act. I know it is really, really frustrating when your own friends start eulogizing your mom. Makes you feel like its an unfair universe or something.

she wished that I was dead.

If you felt this feeling from your mom, then trust your hunches. Just because my mom did not think of poisoning me doesn't mean that your mom didn't. In Scott Peck's People of the Lies, there is this example of a couple who gave a gun to a depressed teenager as a birthday present, and, and, and, this was the very same gun his brother had killed himself with! So parents like this do exist. Only you can judge severity of pathology in your parent.

Are you in regular contact with your mom?

Hugs, Marta

[Plucky]

while I was growing up, all of my friends loved my mom, went to her for advice, and envied me for having such a wonderful supermom!

Marta, I was, and still am, in the same situation.  In fact, I have even lost friends due to the fact that they either take my mom's side when I really need their support, or think that I am a bad person because of my mother's lies.
She brags about the fact that so many people want to talk to her, benefit from her wisdom, etc.
When I was a teen, she mentored a girl who had had a baby at 15, unmarried of course.  This girl was so wonderful and could do no wrong.  However, my mother had told me, not once but ad nauseum, that if I got pregnant, not to even come home again!
Yet, she went into mother bear fierceness mode if any other woman dared to be friendly or nurturing to me. 
Man, and I am going to visit her soon....not a good idea to stir all this up.
Plucky

[Bloopsy]

 I totally relate with what you wrote, Marta and Plucky!! Thank  you so much for sharing about that. My friends sometimes say "your mom  is really good Bridget" and it makes me want to punch them because I feel like maybe she seems good to them but they can just keep that to themselves and not spread the lie all over me!!!I am in regular contact with my mom, I live with her!!!!!!!!!!! She is not a mess anymore now that she is on antidepressants, they have helped her 100%. I have to remind myself of why I do not trust her and why I feel like I never had a mom and have to help myself to recover form that and stuff because she acts like a saint now. But there are still the things like telling her I was abused and her not even hugging me and saying that it is a tragedy for her. I admit that it drives me crazy to come home from a day of realizing how bad it was to feel so unloved and shamed as a child and come home and feel like i have to be nice to her. She gets such a sad look in her eyes and I feel like I can't escape. All my friends love her and think that she is the perfect mom but for me it is like having a little child for a mom!!!!!! I feel like I need to make it really clear for myself because if I don't I end up blamign myself and hurting myself and thinking that it is all my fault that i sufered so much in my life and felt like i never had a mom even though I have the perfect mom!!!!!!!! I hate that!

[Bloopsy]

I feel so guilty because ever since she has been on her antidepressants she really has tried and she has helped me a lot but I admit that I want to be healthy and when I don't let myself be angry at her for the way she treated me I just take it out on myself and that is worse and it is also a lie.

[Marta]

Bloopsy, the way I saw it after my dad died, it was a choice between loving myself and loving him, and I had chosen to love him. I am not going to make the same mistake with my mom.

Girl, I think you need some distance from your mom. I don't think that you can live in the same house or talk to her on the phone everyday, and maintain perspective on how things are. If you are trapped in a situation where you have to live with her, make it a priority to slowly work your way out of it.

Plucky, OMG, my mom did the very same things!! When I was 14, mom mentored a maid servant of the same age and played us off against each other. In fact, she'd tell me things like I will drop her off first to her school and then drop you off. Sometimes I'd suddenly see my favorite shoes on her feet, and it made me feel sooooo angry. Whne I'd protest, the family would tsch tsch over my tantrums and make fun of me. The maid was asked to address my mom as mother and me as sister (against my wishes). She was encouraged to put me down, and I howled over it every single night for like two years. For this, I became the joke of the family and a crybaby. Mom funded her education for a while, made her dream great dreams, but her story ended in a tragedy. Nmom dropped her like a hot potato when I stopped being jealous of the maid. The maid was unable to adjust between her own world and the dreams she'd been shown which she had no way of achieving without support and guidance, so she was majorly messed up. Last I heard was that the maid had become a professional hooker and once even came to our house hoping to solicit attentions of my dad, much to his disgust!

I am also in the same situation back home, where everyone still raves about mom, which is why I've chosen to live continents away. I hope you too have some geographic distance between you and your mom. I'm so sorry that you had to lose friends over your mom -- that must be infuriating. I've never really ventured to discussed the abuse to anyone except one friend. I am almost too ashamed to  disclose what is going on right now, like I feel in someways it'd refelct on me too, for this is the seed from which I sprout.
 

[Bloopsy]

 Marta. I know that you are absolutely right. It's good to hear it from you, that helps me a whole bunch.  It's too hard and is impossible. I don't have any money except my disability check but I can get food stamps and just get on a plan. Also, if I fix up my art I can sell it on the street. I feel like it will take a long time---- I think I will have to make a one year plan. It is my goal in life to have my own home and not have it be hers or her abusive n boyfriends, and I know I can do it if I take my baby steps.

[genuine]

Bloopsy I know I have felt that way and even felt I was in danger just before I left the family home. I even will go as far to say that I think they wanted me to commit suicide, that they wished I had, to prove all along that I was ill. I rang up nmother recently for the very last time, and after I told her my current health problems she was trying to twist things to say that its because I am unwell that I am like this and at how she could "help" me. Yeah right!

[Plucky]

All my friends love her and think that she is the perfect mom but for me it is like having a little child for a mom!!!!!!

Bloopsy, I feel precisely the same way.  I was the capable hero in my family.  At the age of 8 I felt like I was the man of the house.  Now, when I have small children my mother competes with them for my attention.  There I draw the line.  And she moved far away from us, to punish us I guess, but it hasn't worked out that way!  I feel much freer!
Bloopsy, if your mother is still wanting you to take care of her, by looking at you with those doe eyes and expecting you not to express any anger towards her, she is still abusing you in her own special way.    Now it is even worse, because it is more subtle and you have no obvious complaint against her.

The anger you feel is real and justified, and if you have to hold it in because of her, that is not good for your health.  Get out of that situation.  But before you even do that, give yourself permission to feel what you feel and be who you are.   
Plucky

[Bloopsy]

okay. I always felt like I had ot take care of her. I would lie in my bed and couldn't get up she would come home and tell me about her job. I felt like I was going crazy. I did break down and start going to her out of desperation, and she always was burdened. I jsut feel like I absorbed her depressing rants my whole life and never complained, I always had to take her Sh88888t, and she never taught me anything and then would shame me and act bewildered when I did something wrong. Once I could have died of alchohol poisoning while she was visiting with her friend in the fancy suburbs, right in front of her, and she didn;t even notice. I refuse to feel guilty for being angry. Thank you for your encouragemen. It helps me a lot.

progress
I have amassed my bank statements of the last 3 months so i can get food stamps.

yay!!!!!!!!!!

hi!

[Marta]

Once I could have died of alchohol poisoning while she was visiting with her friend in the fancy suburbs, right in front of her, and she didn;t even notice.

I think you are justified in feeling that she wished you were dead!!!!!

progress
I have amassed my bank statements of the last 3 months so i can get food stamps.

yay!!!!!!!!!!

Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If I were you, I wouldn't share with mom what I was planning; she'd do her best to sabotage your efforts; you don't need that.

Once you get out of her orbit, you'll discover possibilities within yourself that you didn't know existed. Of course you are right at being angry at her!!!!!!!!!

Marta   

[mum]

I see my exN "parentify" our children all the time.  They feel responsible for how he and his wife feel.  I don't think the children feel that dad wants them dead, actually, but I do know that they feel that his love for them is tenuous and conditional, based on them doing what he wants them to, feeling what he wants them to, and generally attached to his having control over them. I do my best to teach them that love and control are not the same thing. ...Hope it's getting through....
You still are doing sooo well, Bloopsy.  Keep on keepin' on!