Was she a bad mother or not a mother at all to begin with? Do N's Love?

[reallyME]

Izzy:

When she was dying she whispered "I love you" to me and I didn't believe her!

I have to say, those of you who had TRUE N MOTHERS...and I'm talking about the ones who NEVER CHANGED NEVER CARED NEVER FELT A DEEP FEELING IN THEIR ENTIRE LIVES...NO, they did NOT love, COULD NOT love...I can't stress it enough, that someone with NPD never learned one iota about what LOVE is...therefore, they can NOT love.

Was your true N mother a "bad" mother?  How about, that person never even deserved the label of "mother"...The word "mother" encorporates certain ACTIONS, as does the word "LOVE"

A woman who resents you for spending time with your friends, because SHE wants all your attention...is NOT A MOTHER...it's a selfish creature.

A woman who tells you to do something and then insists she never said for you to do it, is a DISTURBED human being, but NOT a mother.

A lady who turns your own sisters and brothers against you, because she has to APPEAR RIGHT, even when she is proven wrong, is NOT A MOTHER...she is a cruel human.

Someone who is more concerned with their own appearances than with your feelings, is NOT SHOWING LOVE...they are being self-centered.

The person who tells you they love you and then replaces you with the "next best thing" is NOT LOVING...they are EVIL and DISTURBED.

If you want to take it Biblically, you can read about the pharisees or you can remember the scripture that says "Can sweet water and bitter flow from the same fountain?"  The OBVIOUS answer would be NO!

SO, it's time to re-read what Izzy wrote, feel her feelings and admit to yourselves that NO, you were NOT loved, and NO, you did not have a real mother, if she did all those crazymaking things to you and NEVER CHANGED>

Now, can an N change?  YES, if GOD gets ahold of them and changes them.  Otherwise, NO.

That's all there is to it.  End of story.

~Laura

[oc]

Maybe I should call her Betty instead of mom then.  I did not have one friend in this town for years.  Friends are suspect, that is why bookkeeper became the enemy-she was my friend.

[towrite]

It took me three decades, but I finally got a card from my N mother saying she was "proud" of me - actually Proud! But we all know what that means - she was proud b/c I'd made her look good by something I did. She keeps a picture of me when I was very small, sitting on the back porch with her, a look of despair on my face just like hers. She suffers from oral Herpes and the pain gets bad, as it was in that pucture. She thinks it's so sweet that I was copying her look of pain. No thought of what a child that age should be doing!

Yes, you're right - N mothers do not love. Mine thinks she does, calls it love, but it sure don't look or feel like love. Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck ....

Towrite (Kate)

[OC]

You know, I think my mom truly feels for people.  She is always wanting to help people who are less fortunate.  Not money, but those with alcoholism and anorexia....................but she never feels for me.  I am supposed to be super woman..............do everything at work, keep my house clean, drive my kids all over the universe, deal with an autistic child, deal with an alcoholic woman, live paycheck to paycheck and jump when she tells me to jump.  My dad told me, "if mom tells you to put the glass down like this, put the glass down like this........"  And I said, "Hell no!!  There is no way I am going to be her puppet!!"

[WRITE]

Do N's love?

I once worked with a teenager who was diagnosed psycopath. He certainly felt love, but in a conflicted way. At the same time I worked with another teenager who was not diagnosed but who certainly was on the far end of ani-social/ narcissistic PD scale. He was remorseless, manipulative, cruel and never once did I ever see him show a shred of decency or compassion. He almost killed himself ina  car wreck ( he stole the car and almost killed the people he ploughed into too ) and I wondered if I was discompassionate wishing he could have a merciful release at that point, for his life has surely been full fo pain for others, probably himself too. I think he's the only person I have not managed to reach on any level in all my working years and every other staff and family member felt the same.

The norm though I guess is more like my ex- he definitely loves me.

But he's broken somewhere inside, and a cruel and shame pattern emerges from time to time particularly if he feels slighted in some way. Since my success and happiness often makes him feel diminuished it's a particularly painful experience to be involved with him.

I love him now and let him love me where he can, but do not trust him with myself or rely upon him- his love is patchy and inconsistent and sometimes it disappears altogether for a while.

He's much better on a/d s by the way.

My mother couldn't love us and she wasn't NPD. SHe was alcoholic and very troubled, I feel sorry for her now, and hope she rests in peace. But boy she was toxic.

Love to you.

~W

[isittoolate]

This is rather long, but personally generational, and I’m aiming at those who might never have known love.

Does everyone believe that only a Narcissist, (or a Psychopath, or an Antisocial Person) does not have the ability to love?

One must feel worthy of Love to receive Love, and in receiving Love, the child is learning to Love.

Let’s take my Grandmother, who did nothing but Criticize and Shame my father. Would he have felt worthy of Love? When she Shamed him for having so many children, wouldn’t that trigger his already existent rage and anger (at his mother) to take it out on the children his mother said he shouldn’t have? Maybe he was an N like his mother and did not Love his children?

Take my mother who was a disabled person from birth, operated on as a baby, didn’t walk until age 2, and with scoliosis and spina bifida, a crooked body, might not have felt worthy of love, and was known to have said she married my dad as he might be her only chance. She became subservient to an N and was the dutiful wife who never talked back.

I have to wonder if she had ever known Love, or felt she was unworthy of it.

Being a farm wife and churning out babies and helping with the farm chores, I expect there was no time for this ‘crippled’ woman to play ring around the rosie with the children, no time to get to know their individual needs, was unaware that all would have different personalities, and that maybe just One of those children (Me) was overly shy, painfully sensitive and required as bit more protection, attention, acknowledgement and never even noticed this one child withdraw into herself at a very early age.

So I felt unworthy of Love, I never felt Loved, and began to feel nothing else either.

I grow up not knowing what is wrong with me.

I know I loved my daughter, in my own way, but did I act in such a way that she didn’t feel it and can “easily leave me behind”? She doesn’t remember her first 5 years, but in that time she was taken from her father at age 2½ (about which i felt enormous guilt re her) and then I was in a car crash when she as 5 (about which I felt she would forget me) I was gone for a year, as she was moved around to 4 different places (no stability) and returned when she was 6 and I was not the same mommy. I was in a wheelchair.  Would she still love me?

She is now 42 and never had another partner, and I believe she never loved her N husband. I believe she was just a naïve 18 year old who was charmed by an older man, 31, who led her to believe he was rich, when he owed $250,000.00, and who pulled the divide and conquer, at that time.

How could her great-grandmother dare do this to my daughter!!!!!

I wonder how many more generations will suffer fron N-ism or unworthiness?

Izzy

EDIT: I forgot why I decided to write this. I read about so many of you, maybe my daughter's age group who have N mothers. The No Contact rule is the best rule. It works. It feels as though my daughter has enforced a NC rule for me! I am beginning to wonder if I am an N? No! --I can't see it? Does anyone "see"/"feel" that from my posts?

[isittoolate]

Was I a bad mother or not a mother at all to begin with?

you just caN'T WIN 'EM ALL

I nursed my daughter and sat on the floor to play with her and took her to the playground, and to other people's places to play/or fight, with other babies/toddlers her age.

With her dad at work we had plenty of time together to learn her colours, numbers and letters.

I danced ballet to Swan Lake when she was 2 and she laughed so hard until I wished I had a video camera. She wasn't a doll/cuddly animal little girl. She liked trucks and trains. She took doorknobs off with a kitchen knife, and crawled under a friend's car with him to see how it worked.

She had a schedule…. Bath, bed, a story, a song a prayer, a hug and a kiss goodnight and turn out the light and to sleep. Always hugged, kissed and was told that I loved her.

Now I were on our own and every Saturday was A&W lunch and DQ ice cream. Every birthday was a party and birthday cake for breakfast to beat the sitter.

She” had pretty white teeth”, I told her and she replied “and you mommy have pretty yellow teeth”

She had $4,000.00 worth of orthodontic work. We talked and I always answered her questions. She toed in- so I suggested ballet, figure skating, gym, baton whatever she wanted for a “fun” thing. She chose gym and baton and stopped toeing in.

School suggested she skip grade 7. I gave her all the pros and cons of this move….being too young for the class. (I was 2 years too young) She had a choice and chose to take grade 7. She graduated from Grade 8 with 4 awards. She graduated Grade13 with honours.

She had swimming lessons., and sex/menstrual talks--even asked me what a blow-job was. I told her.

I could go on and on about her accomplishments, all, I expect from a healthier, more normal, upbringing than mine, because it all came to her naturally and she liked her teachers and they all liked her.

She let me know when the time came for her to choose her own clothes.

I know part of my behaviour was to never have her criticized or ridiculed by her schoolmates, and all the while I wondered what was wrong with me. I smoked and drank, watched Soap Operas and did bookkeeping at home. I told her to never smoke and she didn't When she would take a drink in later teens I reminded her again that her father was an alcoholic so to keep in mind that it could be hereditary. She got drunk on her 18th birthday. I didn't brush it off, but we talked and she cleaned the vomit from the living room carpet.

Her father killed himself when she was 15. I believe she had a fantasized image of who/what her father was. We hadn't seen him for 7 years, no cards, no support, ever but went to the funeral.

She had church and summer bible camps until age 16 when I said it was time for a summer job.

She cut the grass while I weeded and planted in the flower beds. She cleaned the windows when I swept the garage and vacuumed the car. She brought all the laundry to me and I looked after that and the mending. She started at one end of the house and I at the other and we met in the middle for housecleaning. She vacuumed. She took the garbage to the end of the driveway, but I had it packed up. She wouldn't make her bed, so I stopped fretting and just closed her door. I did the cooking, and then the dishes when she went to her bedroom to practice , squeak, squawk, her violin with the door closed.

She begged and begged for a puppy and I finally gave in. I had to train him. He was just house trained and she was running with him. I told her to keep the leash on him, but she didn’t. He was killed by a car. We got another puppy and he more or less ended up as mine too, but we had to give him away when she left home for University.

After 10 years of marriage she was divorced, on her own with 3 kids and went to University and worked, earned her Health Degree and is now a partner in her midwifery practice but lost one of her children to the father. She has been hurt too.

[isittoolate]

Thank you CB for :I think we all love imperfectly:

As with anything else, no one is perfect at it! I feel better now with that. I was mired in "good mother, bad mother"

"I recognized how shut off I was from my emotions.  And I came up with ways to heal myself by my parenting" I wonder if I had realized back then that I was shut off from my emotions if I would have mothered in a different way? I do know I was also unaware that my mother was likely shut off from hers too, and my goal was to be a kinder, gentler, more informative parent than I had had.

Right. Nothing comes naturally and I struggled to get it as 'right' as I could.

Only time with tell about the long-range outcome.
Thanks again for the post.
love
Izzy

[dandylife]

My mother was not an N. My dad was an N.

But, one thing that my mother told me that helped explain our life (she stayed with N man through thick and thin) was:

When she decided to marry him at the ripe old age of 18, her mother (my beloved grandmother) said to her: "If you leave now and marry him, just know that you can't come back!"

And she took that as gospel. She had nothing to fall back on.

I would never in a million years tell my daughter that. I'd say, "Life hands us many mistakes and miseries. You are always, always, always welcome back home with a bed and food for as long as you need it."

So, that's the root of the reason my life ended up as it did, my mom's as it did. She sure took her mother's words seriously.

Dandylife

[Stormchild]

Dandy, was your mother's mother an N? That sort of 'if you choose him you can't ever come back to me' ultimatum sure sounds like it...

[isittoolate]

Thanks Dandy

No one is given a script for life or any idea was is forthcoming. We just go aimlessly into it and learn from those before us whether to follow their path or take another.

I can understand why your mother did what she did. I think my mother might have been of the same mindset. Stick it out! But my mother never told me anything about her mother, who died before my mother married (1934)

I sense that I took whatever my parents said, as Gospel! My therapist is thinking I was "misled with unsuitable answers to my questions and I finally stopped asking".........to that effect!.

When my mother was washing up to go to the hospital, I , at 4, asked and she said,"I'm going crazy". Wrong answer Mom.
When my daughter was about 4, she was fingerpainting Cowboys and Indians (I never had TV then so must have come from sitter's TV) and the Indians were  bad.

I said, "NOT ALL INDIANS ARE BAD. YOUR GREAT-GREAT GRANDFATHER WAS AN INDIAN CHIEF.

OH? WHERE IS HE?

HE DIED

OH! HE'S A DEAD INDIAN.

...(end of conversation as I stifled a laugh)
Love
Izzy

[dandylife]

Stormchild, my mom talks about her mother (who I have only experienced loving things with myself) as a self-centered, pampered woman. The things my mom said about my grandmother (except for the statement above) I had never experienced myself. Either I had the wool pulled over my eyes, or she was selective about who she revealed herself with.

Izzy,
you are so right, we do step into life with only the skills that were passed on to us.

I remember one really good thing about my mom when I was a kid. She took the time to answer all my questions and really never got frustrated with me. She really had patience in that regard. I remember as a five year old asking her what is "literature"? And she explained to me what it was. this led to question after question and she just kept answering. I appreciate that. I try to do that with my son.

I tell my daughter all the things I have regretted as a sort of warning what she might encounter. I don't know if that's apprpriate?

Dandylife

[reallyME]

I still disagree with some of the posts here.  A true N can NOT be termed a "mother," whether she gives birth to a child or not.  Mothers are NOT selfish, manipulative and controlling.  Those are monsters not mothers.


I'm not referring to a woman who lacks parenting skills...I'm talking about a human with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  These people never were, never will be considered mothers, fathers, friends by me.  The two words are totally oppositional...mother/narcissist.  Just the truth.

~Laura

[isittoolate]

Yes dandy

The skills /info passed on to us is what we can sort and take the good and leave the bad in raising our own children, and still we will be imperfect, and they too, as parents can do the same thing, separating the good from the bad for their own children, and will also be imperfect---somehow it might have to be with what is going on in the world at the time.

i.e I escaped drugs, as did my daughter, yet there was Woodstock and all those kids going wild on dope?

Hi reallyME

Any woman who gives birth is a mother. After that it is up to "someone else" to decide if she is an N mother, a monster mother, a working outside the home mother,  a working on the streets mother, but whatever she does she is still a mother. JMHO

Many of these posts are upsetting to me as well since my daughter and I have been estranged for 16 years. Her world was turned upside down by her N husband who banned me.

We email on eggshells with one another. I think she is remembering how I tried to stop her from marrying him. She is likely thinking something else. We live 2000 miles apart and nothing can be straightened out via email.

But she is 42 and has her own therapist and problems. I am going on 68 and have my own therapist and problems.

I sense you have decided to never bend, but I forget your original story.

Blessings
Izzy

[Hopalong]

Oh Iz,
I admire you so much for still sending her love, still being sure you respond to her emails.
Your carefulness is just caring.

You are a mother, dear, and one day, I think you and your D will be meeting and it will be good.

with much love,
a daughter,
a mother,
Hops