It's done

[Stormchild]

Only
9
more

'chopping'

days

till

"Kiss This"

!

[tayana]

Can we make them go faster?  Now, she's going to come with me Sunday to help me clean.  Her real purpose is to just come so she can turn up her nose at my place.  Arrggh!  She bought me some glasses today, and now she's decided to go buy her some just like them.  Arrgh!  She's getting rid of her old stuff so she can buy new stuff.  Arrgh!  And I thought she was just being nice.

I did discover something the other night.  I used to listen to see what sort of things she was saying about me, but I heard her talking about me the other day.  I just didn't care.  She could have said I was a saint, and I still wouldn't care.  I'm sure her words would still hurt, but I just don't care what she thinks anymore.  It's my space.  I'm paying for it, even if she does think I have NO MONEY FOR THIS.  I just let her go on thinking that.  Go on thinking that.  My budget says, I have plenty of money if I'm a bit more frugal.

[CB123]

Now, she's going to come with me Sunday to help me clean.

Just say NO!

She's a piece of work, Tayana.

CB

[tayana]

Well, she didn't actually say she was coming, only that she might.   I'll never get a straight answer from her.

I found out today when I took some boxes over that I know my upstairs neighbor.  We used to work together.  Small world, huh?

[Ami]

I agree with CB.Limit the time that you spend with her -- the less the better   ,          Love  Ami

[Stormchild]

Do you have to let her in your place now, tayana?

I'm very reclusive, so consider that when you assess my input. [And in all honesty, I wasn't reclusive when I was younger. It's something that developed as a result of being stalked. Nobody, but nobody, knows where I live until I am convinced that they are SAFE.]

Honestly - if I were in your place - I'd be reluctant to have her even know where the apartment is, for at least a few months. I mean, how likely is it that she's going to start showing up on your doorstep, constantly, as soon as you move?

On the subject of honest to god not caring what she is saying about you, that is GREAT! And the fact that your response is complete indifference is very very good... either extreme anger or extreme 'understanding' [overforgiving, aka enabling] would mean that you weren't really unhooked from that, not yet.

And yep. She's not being nice; she isn't capable of it. She's trying to dominate and control your move, and put her mark all over your new house. Think of it, if you can, as being like dogs peeing on fire hydrants. The less you let her 'pee on' your stuff, the less her presence will be hassling you mentally in your new home. And of course she'll have fewer excuses to want to come over to 'see how the ____ looks' etc.

Think boundaries and walls.

[tayana]

Stormy,

I think I would rather have her come now and turn up her nose than have her barge in later on.  I'm going to have to make it plain to her that I don't want her camping out all the time, and that we don't need nightly phone calls, or more likely hourly phone calls.

I feel really great that I don't care anymore what she says.  I only really care what she says to my son.

Your example is excellent.  That's exactly it.  Marking her territory.  I intend to get rid of the ugly lamps as soon as I find some tables and lamps that I like.  And I might just save up to have the couch recovered with something I like.

She just informed me that she wants to have the necklace I'd made for her, and she gave it back to me and told me she wanted another bead added, back.  Since I was so busy I wouldn't have time to string, and she also wants the ring back that I have for sale in my internet shop.  I'm thinking what the . . . and then I realized, oh, she thinks I won't ever fix the necklace and she's afraid the ring will get stolen.  I'm so glad I'm going to be away from this paranoid nonsense.

[Stormchild]

I hear you... I just hope you don't end up with a sobbing screaming crazy old lady pounding on your front door at midnight when you have to be at work the next day. That's the sort of performance my mother would have put on, if she'd been physically capable of it.

This business with the necklace and the ring is also a way of interfering in your ability to concentrate on the move. Divert your attention to HER. Keep you occupied with busywork for HER. Those things could wait, and she knows it. They are geniuses at this kind of stuff. Suck up your time... suck up your energy... then kick you in the teeth...

Hang in there, you're on the way out.

[tayana]

Oh, that's exactly the sort of thing she would do to me too.  It's insane.  She would do that especially if I didn't answer her phone calls, and I'll bet she calls every F'ing night.

The ring is no big deal, in fact, I'm just going to delete it out of my store while I'm thinking about it.  The necklace is a little more complicated.  Once I was settled it would be no big deal to do this.  She says, "Oh you're busy.  I'll do it."  Of course, she'll never do it. 

Here's a good one.  I decided last year I was going to make a lot of my Christmas gifts.  I made a gift for almost everyone.  I spend a small fortune for real turquoise beads to make my mom a bracelet and necklace.  I was also knitting her a blanket.  I picked out the yarn colors so they would match her living room furniture.  I spent well over 100 hours knitting this blanket.  She proceeded to tell me how much she didn't like handmade blankets because the yarn pilled and after they were washed they ended up looking nasty.  I didn't get the thing finished by Christmas although I was almost done.  I'd planned to give it to her on New Year's.  When I finished it, she made some comment about not liking it again.  So I kept the blanket.  It's super soft and warm, and I use it when I sit and read.  I didn't want to give her something that I'd spent so long on, that she was obviously going to dislike.  Instead I made her a bracelet and necklace with the expensive turquoise beads.  Well, she won't wear the necklace because it's too heavy, and she won't wear the bracelet either.  It was such a slap in the face to have spent so much time planning and making these things and then to never have her wear them.

[lighter]

I thnk you'll have to change your expectations about your mother, bc she's not going to change. 

You'll continue to be dissapointed by her until you do. 

[JanetLG]

Tayana,

That's heartbreaking about the blanket. After all the work you put in - what an ungrateful cow (but only to be expected of an N).

I remember making an embroidered picture for my NMum once, when I was about 15. It was a tapestry of a large white cat, sitting on a table with a (complicated!) vase of flowers next to it. I chose that kit to do, because we had a cat just like the one in the picture. Took me hours to do, all in secret in my bedroom. When I gave it to her, all she said was ' Our cat's got GREEN eyes - this one's got YELLOW eyes - that's not right'. So I had to unframe it, unpick the yellow and do green, then frame it again. She put it on the wall in her bedroom, but - and here's the REALLY N bit - whenever she was annoyed with me, off the wall would come the picture, and under the bed with it. Sometimes, it was like a bloody yo-yo, it was up and down so often. I got so that, as I walked past her bedroom, I'd glance in to see the 'barometer' of her feelings about me that day. Just like she planned, I suppose.

They don't appreciate anything artistic, Tayana - it's too much of a threat.

I think it's great that you made so many presents. People should do that more. It'd take some of the tackiness out of Christmas.

As for letting her come round to help you clean your new place...

NO! NO! NO!

Janet

[Hopalong]

Tay...this is the core thing, and it will follow you hon, if you don't screw up the determination now:

Now, she's going to come with me Sunday

It sounds as though she makes a lot of declarative statements that go unchallenged (I know, hon, it's exhausting to challenge them all, but this is what it takes until you disengage):

you need a toaster
I'll go over with you Sunday
I don't know whether your son is going to Bible school
I'm giving you the necklace to fix

All of these require that you utter and repeat as needed the word NO, and this word will be your friend and protector for the rest of your life.

love
Hops

[Ami]

WOW Tay,
  MY mother hated every present that I gave her,too. We could all get together and write a really good and "unique" list of N mother traits. Some of what we say here, I have never read  any place else.
 Tay, we are ,unfortunately, in a small fraternity of people who have  N mothers. It is a group of  soldiers ,who have fought the same long war .  If it has a brief cease fire,it is only brief.It is usually a ruse.
     Yesterday, when I talked to my aunt, I saw how it was to talk to a 'normal" relative. . It was a peaceful "flow". I really saw the difference in an N "conversation" and a 'normal" one.Things were "real". There was not a "hidden" agenda that you end up having a fight about.
  A monkey wrench did not fly out at me from nowhere. It was a give and take situation where I did not have to be on guard .
   I see how I got hyper vigilant. my mother screamed, raged and decimated  me for no reason that I could see. I guess that there was a reason in her 'warped " head. I ,now, am waiting  to be "ripped to pieces" by others
    I don't know how my aunt came out so good. She is the younger sister. She has 3 great kids .
I think that my mother's mother  was "too close" to my M. I don't think that my M had 'active abuse". I think that she had to 'be perfect" to make my grandmother look good.
 My aunt, still is real. She can talk about mistakes and weaknesses. I was amazed how she admitted 'real" things. I guess that this is "health"  . She does not have to be perfect.
                                                                                                    Love  Ami

[tayana]

It just gets better and better.  This morning she was mad at me again.  She's decided that she is NOT going to come with me on Sunday to clean and take more boxes.  She doesn't want to "rain on my parade."  I guess this is some sort of sick game.  She thought I was excited about her coming, I guess, and so by deciding that she's not coming she thinks she's hurting me, only she's not.  I just let out a little internal sigh of relief.

M was up early this morning, and he has a new interest in phobias.  So he's rattling off different phobias, and when he asks her if she knows what one of them is, she tells him, "You already talked about that earlier and all day yesterday."  Then he was reading a dinosaur book.  "Why don't think you think about something besides dinosaurs?"  I just wanted to slap her.  She told him at the breakfast table this morning that he has gotten rude because she was nitpicking on the way he was eating his breakfast, so he told her, "Let me take care of the eating."  That was rude, apparently.

[Ami]

Dear Tay,
   One things that I forgot to tell you. My sons had all sorts of "obsessions" ,if you want to call them that. They had imaginary  playmates(animals). They have diferent "periods' when they are in to different things. I would use my "mother's intuition". if you feel thta it is "nothing", then it probably is nothing.
  Also, about your mother "not" wanting to go  to your apartment in orderto punish you. You have to use "reverse psychology" with them. If you need them , they run away. if you don't want them, they come. CB was talking about this in another post.
   It is a good tool ,especially for you,now                  Love    Ami