Joan Crawford like Mommy Dearest

[Overcomer]

Hello Alll...........has anyone here seen the movie, Mommy Dearest???  Well, I live in a world similar to that...............not exactly, but similar.

My mom is a narcissist who has accomplished something.  I have read the characteristics of Narcissists and a lot of times they have illusions of grandeur but cannot back it up (kind of like my ex-husband who thinks the world of himself, his abilities, his IQ, etc. but doesn't have a house, car, furniture or job - he finds woman after woman after woman to take care of him.........but that's another story........).  My mom, however, got into Direct Sales in a company that was brand new (40 years ago) and was on the ground floor and made lots of money...............she also invested wisely and is loaded.  She was endeared by the masses in that company.  She wore minks and huge diamonds and drove a Cadillac (before they were thought of as old people vehicles.................)

When she retired and we opened our bookstore it took off....................people started noticing.................no one grows like that!!  (Well, it wasn't that we were so good, our town needed a store like ours and anyone who had the capital could have pulled it off......)  So we went to convention and all of a sudden, low and behold, people were looking our way...........asking us how we did it, etc.  Well, we have always been partners.  In fact, the original intent was for the business to be mine and my exs.  We needed another woman as partner to be a minority so she signed on to make it over 51% minority owned to get a lower interest loan.  But mom started calling people and asking to be on boards and wanted to be really involved.  She made a huge effort to network and be well known in the industry.  Suddenly, everyone was talking about the owner of the store named Nmom.  Somehow I was dumped (we dumped my ex when we got divorced...........)  She signed everything President and Principle owner, Mrs. N.  Welll I was VP and had some ownership but every time she put money in the business she made it stock so my piece of the pie got smaller and smaller......

So you get the picture............but in the end of her career, Joan Crawford was let go from Metro Goldwyn Mayer.  She was a stand in for her daugher Christina on a soap opera.  It was clear that she was losing her edge.  She was high and mighty and an awful mother.  But she fizzled at the end.  When she died, she stuck it to her children and didn't give them a thing.  Christina got the last word and wrote Mommy Dearest.  If it isn't true than I feel sorry for the ghost of Joan Crawford because Fay Dunaway's career fizzled after she played her.  Everyone hates Joan Crawford whether she deserves it or not.

Part of me wants to write a book when Nmom is dead telling everyone how awful she was.  Or stand up at her funeral and expose her selfish ways to the world!!  To ruin her persona!!

[reallyME]

I have seen the movie and read the book Mommie Dearest, and that mother was anything BUT dearest to her daughter, Christina.  She was unbelievably BEYOND CRUEL as some of your so-called mothers and parents were.  That is why I do not understand people even having anything to DO with such creatures, as far as dwelling with them.  That is not God's best for anyone and it is basically a form of self-abuse and self-punishment to stay in a situation you need to get out of, providing that escape is possible.

Do write your book!

[Magnolia44]

I know how you feel. I want to do the same about both of my parents, although a lot of people know what bad parents they have been. I think what I may do is write about NPD in parents and maybe they will read it at some point.

One of my exboyfriends is claiming that he invented something that is helping many third world countries; when in fact he got the plans from someone in Eurpoe and the original inventor is probably dead. Anyway, I have been outing him on related websites. He also took a book idea of mine and was in the process of publishing it with his new girlfriend and I wrote and told her about it. It has been fun and frustrating to do this 'cause people do not like to hear the truth about 'heros' as it were.

If you do this, you will become an outsider and you have to be prepared for that. As for me, I had nothing to lose really, so I went for it.

[jordanspeeps]

Hey kelly,

I saw Mommie Dearest first when I was a child.  That movie really haunted me throughout my life.  I didn't know my own mother was an Nmom as yet, but I knew there were some odd similarities between my mom and Joan Crawford.  Mostly that whole dynamic that she was such a sugary, over-the-top actress with the outside world and was a miserable, grumpy, yelling, over-reactor at home. I, like Christina had the Christmas where we received all these gifts, which were then taken and given away to needy children. The scene with the clothes hanger terrorized my dreams for some odd reason.  In my re-curring dream, I could feel my mother beating me with the wire hanger as I fell into the small closet.  I saw the movie for the second time several months ago and I was just as disturbed, however watching the movie this time really empowered me.  I watched it during a time that I was worried about the end of my mother's life and being the executor of her Estate, (like your mom, Kelly, my mom was at one time EXTREMELY financially successful).  Seeing the way Joan Crawford left her daughter with nothing, especially after she spoke so highly of her at the Academy Awards Ceremony, I was convinced that if I didn't let go of this drama with my mother and try to move on with my life, then I was going to be sick with regret and bitterness. It was also then, that I decided that the book I was saving to write and publish after my mother's death, will be the very one that I write and publish today.  Of course, I plan to mask her identity and build the story in such a way, that it only "coincidentally" mirrors my hellish childhood, but I think it would be both cathartic and relieving to put my story out there and free myself from that imaginary chain that swore me to secrecy so many times.  I no longer wish to allow the terrors of my past to fester inside me until I erode from within. Shoot, if it's any good, maybe the book proceeds will replace my lost inheritence.  Kelly, maybe you, too?

Later kelly

Tiffany

[Overcomer]

Sometimes I really think it would be soooo cathartic to write it - even if the names were changed to protect the GUILTY.  I met a man a work who was helping us with some business related matters...................he told me that his father would never say a good thing about him no matter what.  He told of a story of mowing the lawn and being so proud.............and when his father got home he made him get the clippers and walked him around the yard and made him trim any that were not perfectly even......he related to me!!

So his father never said a good word about him until he published a book.  Then he overheard his father say to someone, "my son is a published author."

We went to convention this summer and they asked me to teach a class....in fact, three classes.  I don't think - not once - my nmom said to a soul, "my daughter teaches classes........"  SHE wanted to be asked.  But I was.

Also she was on a gift selection committee, once.  THey never asked her back.  Someone at work has been asked back six times.  Mom called the company and told them she didn't think that person was qualified to be on the committee and she wanted to send aunt.  Funny, they asked the same girl who has gone six times back - AFTER mom called and told them not to!!!!  THat's as good as writing a book!