Need some advice!

[liberty]

Hi all,

I would like to quote from Sam Vaknin:

Narcissists are polite only in the presence of a potential Supply Source. But they are unable to sustain even perfunctory civility and fast deteriorate to barbs and thinly-veiled hostility, to verbal or other violent displays of abuse, rage attacks, or cold detachment.


Nmom call to find out things about the grandchildren in such a hostile, rude and agressive manner that it takes every ounce of patience I have to remain calm.

Since my letter to her, the only thing that remains common for us is my children. And now I am thinking that perhaps even this should now be removed so that I can be totally free of her.

I don't feel that I should have to tolerate this kind of nonsense and I think that if she is so abusive to me then how could she be any different with my children.

Any advice?

Lib

[axa]

Lib,

Well, you sound clear that you do not want to engage with an abusive person.  I guess you have to decide what is ok/not ok for you.  You know what you are dealing with, if it was your best friend asking you the question  what would you say to her.

xx axa

[Bones]

Leopards don't change their spots and neither do N's.  If it were me, I would not expose my children to an N's abuse.

Bones

[liberty]

Thanks, Bone, Axa,

There is also another consideration. Lately I have been filled with an uncontrollable RAGE towards that woman and she keeps on harassing me and will not stop. My father once pulled a cutlass and tried to chop her. I came home that day to find the police parked outside my house. I can now understand why he tried to kill her. She is the Devil!

I feel that if I am in her presence, I may do something terrible to her.  I feel as though she is pushing me and pushing me to that point. It's a lifetime of anger and a lifetime of rage and now that her mask is completely off I feel that I am bing pulled to the dark side.

I don't think that she cares about my children (and I have thought about this alot) I think that she is using them as a way to attack me.

A very terrible showdown in approaching. I am going to face the Devil and perhaps only one of us will be left standing. After enduring what I did as a child, i have reached the point now where I will not stand it any longer and therfore will be forced to respond to my abuser in a way to make it stop.

One way or the other, it will stop.

[isittoolate]

Oh liberty, this is awful

Sam Vaknin will tell you No Contact. so will all the people who have had an N in their lives, No Contact

that will be the beginning of your healing.

No email
No phone calls
No letters
No face to face

It takes time for your soul to heal, if you feel it has been drained by the N. Time for self-esteem to rebuild. Time for the children to heal, if they have been affected. Time to realize Ns destroy everyone around them.

It took me 3 years to put the N out of my thoughts and life until he returned to the puff of smoke that was all he was--other than evil-- no contact, not even negative because an N feeds on attention positive or negative--they crave attention.

Good Luck to you.
Izzy

[liberty]

CB and Izzy you are right on target.

Thank you for your directness. I am not in control of my feelings at this time.

I have just had a long talk with my H and a good long cry. We both agree with you all that no contact is the only way. H says that he will inform her that I no longer wish to be contacted. I will hang up the phone if she calls and we will look into blocking her calls from our line should this become necessary. She has already been blocked from my email.

It frightens me, the rage that I feel. It is so terrible. I have always known that she was a monster. And now that she has been exposed she fights me even more ferociously, relentlessly. I don't want her to care about me. I just want her to leave me alone.

Thanks to all of you on this forum for helping me. You understand the nature of the beast. Your support is invaluable. ((((everyone))))

I will do some yoga tonight and if I still feel enraged by tommorow, I will set up an appointment with my therapist. I am a lot calmer since I cried but I am still not back to normal.

Lots of love.
Lib

[isittoolate]

Great liberty.

All of the above and if she comes around personally, then a restraining order would be the next step.

Everyone has a right to live in peace, but if you are USA, is it in the Constitution, the Bible, or just in my head? <grin?>

I am Canadian, eh? and I want peace so I make my own by cutting out the people who cause anxiety, stress, anger..............whatever.

Good Luck
Izzy

[Gaining Strength]

Liberty,

I'm so glad you have your husband by your side willing to stand up to your Nmom.  Of course it is painful to stand up for yourself because that means that you have to come to terms with the fact that your own mother, flesh and blood, who gave you life, is not a loving, caring, nurturing being who would give her very life for your well being.  That is a very painful acceptance to come to at any age.  She is not able to think of you the way you think of your own children.  But it sounds as though you do have a loving husband and while his love is not the same as a mother's love you are none-the-less fortunate to have that support.  Keep that in mind and lean on him while you take this risky move towards No Contact.

Gaining Strength

[CB123]

edit

[Hopalong]

Hi Liberty,

I am so sorry. I have been enraged only once in my life, at my mother...and it was a horrible experience. I am glad your husband is there to help you not spin away with it.

You will be okay. I think it is SO right to refuse contact with anyone who is attacking you.

Please let us know how you are.


Hi CB,

Your children are so very lucky. It is so clear that you know how to listen.
(Excuse me! Did I say perfectly? No I did not!  )

They really are. Really lucky.

Hops

[liberty]

Hi all,

CB you are correct. I am an only child and I was always the perfect daughter. I did exceedingly well in school. No one knew what was happening and most thought that I had a perfect life. My therapist has said that  from the time a child is so well behaved and NEVER gives trouble then it is a sure sign that something is wrong.

In my entire school life, there was only one teacher who noticed that something was wrong with me and when she asked I broke down into tears but I could not tell her what it was. Everyone thought that both my parents were fantastic. My mother was a teacher and eventually retired as a principal. My father was a charmer and everyone who knew him found he was such a nice man. He was a teacher as well.

I was never allowed to be angry because then perhaps I would have been dead. My father was very violent and my mother was a vindictive N, so I stepped lightly so as not to awaken the monsters.

I never could have kept a journal because my mother would have read it. Our house was divided literally but not in a straight line. There would be areas for each of them with furniture piled high and doors locked. I had to be very careful about where I walked because to walk on "his" side of the house would infuriate Nmom and we didn't want to do that!

I eventually stopped talking to my father. I was probably about 11 or 12. I did not speak to him for over a year. Yet he would curse me and threaten me every day that he carried me to school. My mother knew and did nothing. Eventually, another parent noticed the abuse while driving his child to school and he spoke to my mother about it. She then took out a restraining order against my father on my behalf, yet we all lived in the same house.

There was one time only I remember getting angry that was when the crazy man took me to see a priest but instead of going in to see the priest, he stopped in the car park and cursed me for what seemed like an exceedingly long time. Then he dropped me home. I lost it, grabbed a knife and screamed that: "I will kill him! I will kill him". My mother still did not divorce him.

We only left the house when he pulled a cutlass and threatened to kill her.

What anger me the most now, is that I realize that she used me to attack him. She was the one who placed me in the middle of their war. She was the one who would say (when I was about 5 or 6): "Darling don't you want your father to stay home on evenings? Well then you shoould write him a note" I wrote: " daddy please stay home". The following day he cursed me in front of her for being rude and she did nothing to protect me. I think now that she must have known what his reaction would have been. She used me as a weapon to fight him.

Since I have joined this group, I have gotten the courage to stand up to her. As bad as my father was, I still think that she was worse. He has never tried to contact me and I'm glad. But she won't leave me alone.

The anger that I feel is the anger of that little girl who had to fight adults in adult battles. It is the anger of a child who lived in silence who was not sure if she would live while things were smashed and broken around her. It is the anger of a soul who stood alone in a place of madness and no one ever knew. I've been keeping it in all my life. It is white hot anger, like a nuclear explosion.

Perhaps, this anger is just a feeling that has to pass through. Thank you all for telling me that it's ok to feel this way.............. I need to know that this anger is justified. It makes all the difference in the world. ((((everyone))))

Lib

[Gaining Strength]

Liberty - what a horrific experience you lived!  There are so many levels of rage  you must be experiencing as  you finaly are safe enough to acknowledge the inhumanity heaped on to you by your mother.  You must be experiencing a very complicated mix of emotions.  I am so sorry that you are going through this but I am also glad that you are finding a way to get it out into the open and begin to process these dark experiences.

Sending you a heart full of compassion, sympathy and understanding  - Gaining Strength

[Hopalong]

Wow, Lib, she's still trying to stir the pot and make people explode.
That is very sick!

I think the way you win is absolutely no contact. You deprive her of the "oxygen" that fuels her own inner rage, that she expresses vicariously...by trying to spark your father's madness, and now that he's unavailable, literally trying to drive YOU mad.

You win by cutting her off, imo, not by confronting her.

It will exasperate her and she'll ratchet up her efforts for a while, but when she really, really, really catches on that she's encountering a new and high and well-built wall, she really, really, really will leave you alone.

What HAS to happen first, imo, is not her stopping bugging you. It's YOU stopping allowing her to, by:

--speaking to her on the phone
--letting her in the door
--reading her letters or receiving her emails

That's it. You CAN stop doing all of those things, you really can.

I think it would help you a lot to focus on THOSE THINGS as your goals. Those actions that you can take (that don't require one thing about her to change). These actions ARE possible goals, they're achievable, and you can do it, and they and only they really will completely heal this situation.

You may always carry some sadness, but you do not have to live with rage.

That would be letting her curse carry on in you.

And beneath all that, the deepest thing, I think, is you letting the sweet air in to your mind where you sit in deep listening to this thought: you do not deserve to carry on this sickness. There is no diviine or genetic blueprint that requires it of you. That was just brainwashing, and your brain is waking up. You are smarter than habit. That kind of toxicity is really just...a habit. You do not have to accept the legacy she is trying to hand over to you.

And I don't think you will, not for a moment. You are an unusually brave person already. It's the people who truly seek help and change who come here, for the most part...I know you are one.

You are brave enough to change those three behaviors in your own life.

(Her nature and her issues and her own destiny are her own. You can let go now. It's safe to liveyour own life.)

love,
Hops

[liberty]

Hops, CB, Gaining,

Thank you. Thank you sooooo much!

I am so glad that I found this board! Your support means the world to me. You have made a very big and positive difference in my life.

Just knowing that you care gives me courage and hope. ((((everyone)))) I think that now I can manage a smile 

Lib