Mud has written crystal clear truth here Sunny
BUT I really do know only too well that it is so hard when those last few puppet strings are yet severed, and the guilt feeling is awful, because you see we have a healthy working conscience ..... difference is ....... they don't!!
(what does FOO stand for - you can PM me with answer if it is secret user code .... I still can't guess what it is
)
My belief is that because they don't have a conscience .... they don't have any sense of accountability or responsibility for their words or actions.
In fact my Nmother said to me more than once in all seriousness "I am not going to change" "why should I?" "I can do what I like"
When my son was a teenager I finally had enough and did NC ....... a few years later, feeling guilty, as a Christian, I tried to help get the family together, I had gone to her home, and, she seemed remorseful, weeping! so I forgave her ....... few months later she turned on me ....... NC
Few years later, discovered that Nmother all on her own ....... NC with siblings ........ felt genuine compassion for her ....... this time she was repentant and crying ........ so I forgave her again! ........ result being that she manipulated me and organized to move hundreds of miles on the basis that she needed to be near her daughter, as I was living in a far nicer area etc., ......... after she had settled in and she had got me to do all her back breaking garden landscape gardening in the heat of summer ................yep, when everything was done, all ship shape and pretty ...... she turns nasty ....... again! and I am dumped!
Now she only lives a few miles away, and so to everyone, it looks as though I am the cruel daughter who has lured my poor mother all those miles away to live nearby, then cruelly ignore her, leaving her isolated and alone!!
So my life story will no doubt have been totally invalidated once again, by whatever my Nmother says behind my back ...... again!!
She said to me on the phone that I was the one crying and saying sorry ........ not her ......... my imagination again, she says "your exh was going to have you put away" "I am not mad - it is you" ........ GASLIGHTING experince again!!
Now I have never ever said to my Nmother that she is mad (yep, I have thought it.........lived it......and know it) but I never told her that I thought she was mad. Many times she has said "you think that I am mad don't you?" and I would look at her with a genuine love and compassion, as one would for any human being.
Being a Christian, last Christmas i sent her a card .......... and I received a Christmas card from ...... her pet cat to me!!
So my Nmother sits all alone, and is actually housebound, whilst, I sit here feeling Guilty ........... as my witness as a Christian suffers, which means more to me than anything ............... and my Nmother knows it!!
What to DO?
Leah
