The N Parent and Curses

[Catherine]

I have a Judeo-Christian background and one thing that struck me most in realizing my mother is a N, along with several other females on her side of the family, is that almost every word out of her mouth is a curse.  Modern pop psychology would call her a negative person, new age would say she has "bad vibes/negative energy", but from a Christian perspective, all i can categorize it is a curse.

Parents are commanded to bestow blessings to their children (verbal, physical, emotional).  When this is not done, hardship follows the child through to the next generation.

Most of what comes out of my mother's mouth is a curse...

For example:

"You cannot trust anyone...including a husband" (upon announcing our engagement)

"You think you are so happy now...just wait and see what is in store for you" (after my honeymoon)

"I hope you have children as rotten as you are"

"Now you will know what it means to be a mother" (said in a completely dramatic NEGATIVE tone when my son was born - like ha! now its YOUR turn)

"I hope your children abandon you as you have abandoned me"

"you think marriage is so easy...you don't know anything...YET"  (after celebrating our 10th anniversary)


....which is why i have found myself avoiding her company as much as possible.  I do not disclose personal information about my life and goals b/c invariably she has something bad to say about it and i feel as if she is jinxing me.  Then she gets upset that she is the last person to know about anything.  I think to myself, if i don't tell her, then she can't say anything mean and nothing bad will happen. Better no blessing than hearing her spew her mean jabs.

[Hopalong]

Welcome, Catherine...

I'm so sorry about your toxic mother.

Someone so bitter isn't capable of blessing, is she?

Glad you're here.

(It's boggling how much hurt mothers can deal out...but this is a good place to start to get the distance you must, to be happy.)

Hopalong

[Overcomer]

Cat:  I believe this as well.  My doc told me not to say bad tings about myself because it is like a negative prayer.  I also believe that when my mom makes bad decisions and then will not acknowledge they are bad that she is showing pride and I do not believe God will bless her.  Our business is Christian and I believe God wants up to be good stewards of it and so often my mom makes decisions based on arrogance and a sense of entitlement.  Welcome Catherine!

[JanetLG]

Catherine,

Your mother sounds just like mine!

I'm so sorry you've got one like mine, though.

Mine would say things like'you're wicked and sinful, you've never done anyhting for anybody, I hope you can live up to your VERY HIGH standards (after I'd told her I would never consider having affairs in my marriage, as she had done)', etc etc...

I have been NC with her for 13 years now, which at least means that the list doesn't get longer any more...

Janet

[lighter]

I'm so sorry your mother hasn't been a safe supportive place for you all your life.

You sound like you understand what she's been doing.  Do you need to understand the why?

I guess most everybody does.

She couldn't do any better, or she would have.

Is your husband supportive and kind to you?

Lots of questions...... sorry about that. 

Welcome Catherine.

[steve]

Catherine:

I think your fat, ugly, and useless!

How does that make you feel? Maybe at first you may be somewhat upset but eventually you realize, who the hell am I to judge you. You throw out that opinion and you throw out my significance right along with it.

Why can you not do the same from your mother. You fell in to the trap that I fell in to. Somehow, call it the family system or human dynamics, I kept a special place for my fathers opinion in my head. I allowed him to be a judge over me. By doing this he not only caused me great pain but I also allowed him to have power over me. And what do you think an N does when he has power? He uses it to satisfy his warped sense of life. You become nothing but his possession to use and throw away at his will.

Now his opinion means nothing to me. Nothing at all. Total void. And how do you think I feel when I interact with him? MUCH better. He flounders to find that power he had before and when he sees that it is not forthcoming, he moves on to another possession. It is obvious that to him I was only important as a tool and not for myself. What can I do, such is life. But realizing it and accepting it has made my life so much easier.

If you have the strength you can even take it one step further. You can accept your mother for who she is and not judge her. You simply understand her dilemma, see that she too is a human trying to struggle in a painful and difficult world, and just accept that these are the only tools they have. You may even come to love her again. But never let her control you again. All the power lies within you.

Steve

[motheroffour]

Hello Catherine,

Great to have you on board! 

Steve,

I really appreciate what you just said.  I am in the camp of understanding that my NMIL and other relatives are doing the best that they can.  I don't have information to know if there was early abuse for her and can't possibly judge.  I truly believe that she is doing the best she can.  Seeing truth is not possible for her right now.  Too scary.  Not understanding the N thing has put me in the most vulnerable positions over the years as I try so hard to be a good DIL and give my best self.  I am in her power.  She knows it and I know it.  I love the idea that you have found a place where you can love you F but not be affected by his controls.  I must need to go back and read some of your other posts to try and understand how you managed it.  I would really like to make myself untouched by opinions and manipulations.  They come at me so fast and they leave me spinning and usuallly don't know what hit me.  Now, I feel like I have forgiven my IL fam for something I am not sure they can control.  The N culture is so aligned with their morality.  They will never see.....but I can't yet allow myself to interact with them because they still have so much power to lay me down and cause me to lose my self-respect. 

I also have trouble saying to my H, who has N tendancies and behaviors, that I no longer care about his opinion.  I do. And I want to care about his feelings and judgements and struggles with life or with my weakness.  I want to be the kind of person that CAN negotiate and work thru probs as we work toward mutually beneficial solutions.

It feels like a dilemma to me.  How do I determine that these people don't matter to me, when loving them makes them very important to me.
Want so badly to learn this balance you seem to have found.

Love,
mof4

p.s.  If you told me I was fat, ugly, and useless,  I must be honest.  It would hurt like crazy.  And I don't reallly even know you.  I may say that you didn't have the right to judge me, but I am not sure I have the capacity to throw out your significance.  Cause I think everyone on the planet is significant.  Make any sense??  But in the same breath, I wish that I could say that your judgement itself doesn't have significance in how I feel about myself.

[motheroffour]

Sorry, just have one more thought.....

Maybe this shows the depth of my dysfunction....hope maybe some of your insight may help me see..... but sometimes I feel that if I choose to give myself all the "power"  that it prevents me from trusting my world.  I want to trust the world. I want to trust the best that is in people.  Even the best that comes from the N's in my family.  Hmmmm.....Maybe I trust the world to much.  Or I trust the world with the wrong things.  But when I take all the power, I feel like am out of balance in the other direction.   But at the same time I need to take back my power and "own" and trust myself and my instincts and rely on myself to meet my own needs and not let others control me.  Don't know if I am clear.....trying to explain......

Anybody else struggle with this confusion too??

mof4

[Ami]

Dear Mo4,
  This is just an intuitive feeling. I think that you might feel more afraid of your strength than of your weakness. .. I remember if I wanted to "disarm" my M, I had to act really weak. Then, she would stop the scary NPD  behavior and act"normal". That must have been a pattern for me.When  stronger dog comes along, the weaker one rolls over and shows it's underbelly.I saw that when I was walking my Standard Poodle. A puppy ran out of a house and saw my poodle. It immediately rolled over on it's tummy-- right in the middle of the driveway.
 I feel  uncomfortable 'being strong". This is a pattern which I need to change.
   This may be an issue for you.                                            Ami

[Ami]

Dear CB,
   That is incredibly profound. It is exactly what I needed at the moment..I am "waking up" to the real world. That was what my "birth" of dizziness was about. I was letting go of the world that made "sense" in a childlike way and seeing the real world The 'childlike" one followed rules like if you are kind,others will be kind.Also, if I am trying to please you, you will treat me well in return. It also had rules like being  strong was wrong, somehow. It did not look 'nice". Being nice" and pliable was good.It had so many rules that "don't work. It is that simple. They may sound good and "nice",but they don't work.
I think that a really big step is focusing the trust in yourself, rather than in the outside world.  I am just at the beginning of CB's discovery. Thanks so much for sharing it. It is a "shift" in perception that is really, really big .                                    Love  Ami

P.S. I wanted to add that(IMO), the shiny people and the 'dull" people and the" middle of the road "people all are made up of many different and even "opposite traits.  I see myself as having 3 parts. There is my Spirit, where God lives. there is my body( the physical) and there is my mind and emotions. The Bible calls the last two the "flesh". The flesh does not want to do what is "right" . You have to override it with the Spirit. Anyway, people may not agree with this model ,but it brought me to an understanding of myself as multifaceted and helped me to realize that when I have "bad" thoughts and emotions, it DOES not mean that I am bad. This is so big for me
   .
   

[steve]

Mo4:

First apologies to Catherine for hijacking this post, I hope you can get some value from it regardless.

Mo4:

What i hear from you is these people here and those people there. Where is the I. The I is the most important. Put yourself first. Do not fear putting yourself in front of everyone else. They are all creatures in your comedy of life. The world is yours to see as you will. Choose to see it from the only perspective that makes sense. The perspective is meant to serve you first and foremost. if you can take this ride in the company of others, enjoy it even more so.

But tear down those expectations. Tear down the absolutes. Take what is there and create what you want. Start from yourself and move out. When you are totally accepting of yourself you learn not to care about what others think. When you no longer care what others think, they are so much easier to accept, and even love.

From within will come all your power. Do not rely on crutches. Proclaim yourself here and now. Say I exist, this is MY life, I totally accept myself without restriction, I judge myself only. All others exist in another dimension.

Look out the window. What do you see? Is it beautiful or is it ugly. What do you want to see. Whatever that is, then create it. This life of yours slowly but surely is melting away like a stick of butter in the hot sun. Take that butter for all it is and enjoy it while it is still here. Because when the sun is through with you, you will no longer have anyone to appeal to. Appeal to the only one who can truly listen, and that of course, is YOU.

Steve

[lighter]

::gulp::

Steve...... I hope you hang around a bit. 

I'm working on the things you seem to be mastering, lol. 

[Ami]

I want to give my experience about "getting to " where Steve is. Many people want to be there. It seems to go without saying that he is at a great place. The question is "How to get there?"
   IME, I can't just "get there"by trying to "follow" what he is saying.  I am getting there,but it is a letting go of old ideas.I am shoveling out the garbage. Then I seem to "know" what Steve is saying .It just comes to me. I think that I "knew" it before I started accepting N ideas(or had them thrust on me.)
   I think that where Steve is --is an unlearning of old ideas . Then. we will be able to use our intuition properly. When we can do this, we will be healthy and just 'know what he is telling us. This seems to be working for me, anyway.

[Hopalong]

Dear Steve,

Your therapist must be amazing. 

Seriously. Wow.

But the credit for the epiphany goes to you, because you were open to healing.

Hops

[Certain Hope]

Hi, Catherine

You've reminded me of another book in my stack of "I really need to read these..." 

I'd just started it when some minor upheavals forced my attention elsewhere, but it's a good one and I thought you might be interested.

It's called  The Blessing,  subtitled "Giving the Gift of Unconditional Love and Acceptance", by Dr. John Trent and Gary Smalley.

(Says there's an online community and interactive course available at www.TheBlessing.com... I see excerpts listed there, too)

I'm sorry that your mother and other family members overflowed with such cursings. My first thought is - "not by might, or by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord"... the Spirit breaks every curse. I hope you'll continue to post and share.

Love,
Hope