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Fundamentalist religious background

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mighty mouse:
Less,

Just wanted to add that Tom Hapur is very prolific!

MM

Less:
My apologies to you Ellie for appropriating your thread here to answer MM -not sure how or where else to respond. Looks like a lot of threads weave in and out of different topics so maybe it's ok.

Funny you should ask the question - do I think I will miss HER.  Funny because up until this week I have begged the cosmic forces to take her NOW! My anger and violent fantasies have really scared me at times.   New headline: ''Quiet middle-aged woman goes beserk. Kills mother in most hideous way. Neighbours say they can't imagine how this gentle ordinary person could do such a thing. Co-workers are shocked.  However, husband says he's not surprised and plans to visit his wife regularly at the nearby facility for the criminally insane. One punk grandchild says the pyschopathic bitch had it coming. (I hope the RCMP aren't swarming my door as I write)

But yesterday was different, still bizarre, teeth grindingly difficult but manageable.  I held my ground for one thing.  And I even felt some compassion for her.  For example, I was helping her swipe her bank card and put in her PIN number ( like helping a baracuda) and I asked her what not wearing glasses was about (she can't see the screen) She thought about it and then with her oh so charming wink and grin she said,"Perfect baby syndrome." This may be one of the only times she has appeared to have any insight into herself. (On the other hand maybe not!) She has also started to turn some of the perfectionist anger that spewed my way back on herself.  Instead of calling me stupid, moron etc she will direct it at herself - "Come on stupid!" if she can't get her seat belt off instantly. or find the right card in her wallet (who can) For awhile now I have been telling her it's ok, there is time, take it easy. As an older woman she can't accept any diminishment in her abilities. Talk about raging against the dying of the light.  Let me see, What was the question? I think I will sprout wings when she's gone but I can see too that the rare moments of normalcy that we have had may haunt me somehow.  And how about you?
You may have already addressed this question in other posts but I'd be interested to know how you feel about it in your case. Les(s)

mighty mouse:
Ellie,

I too am sorry about co-opting the thread.

Les(s),

To answer your very last question, I'm not sure if I will miss my Mom. I don't really miss her now. For a long time I missed what I'd needed her to be and wanted her to be.....that was my mourning.

Like Bunny said on another post, some people just need to be gone already. Sounds harsh to say, but sometimes I feel like Sidney Poitier in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner". He said something to the effect of needing to get the dead weight of his father's generation off his back (paraphrasing). I'd like that as well. It's not that I don't like older people in general, I just don't like Ns in particular.

Your post was so funny. You could probably write a sitcom based on your Mom's absurdity. But it must be hard to get old also. My Mom is only 75 and it looks like she'll bedevil us all to a ripe age (just out of meaness). It seems like the mean ones always live to ripe old ages.

MM

Less:
MM

 Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if N's live a long time - no guilt, no remorse, no self doubt - the stuff that chews other people up.  I still need to read up on it all - maybe there is something very destructive going on inside - I think I caught a glimmer of that with my mother. It must be a very tight little box to sit in - always having to do everything just right, always needing someone to blame, not being able to take ownership of the smallest "mistakes."

Here's one example I imagine many can relate too! Two years ago my mother was still driving. One day the Super of her apt. asked her to move her car a bit because the wheels were on the yellow line dividing her spot from the next. My mother was in a rage for days. The only possible explanation for the "parking problem" was that some teenaged boys had broken into the garage and taken her car out for a joy ride and then returned it. Or perhaps I had forgotten to tell her that I borrowed her car. (never have) She called management, security and made a right royal fuss. It was inconceivable that SHE - Perfect One could have done this.  Good grief and it is the same for absolutely everything.

I'm afraid  it will only get worse as she ages."I gave you that form and you put it in your purse!!!!" she said hotly last week.  "Ok mother that may be but why don't we just look in your desk too." It's very taxing having to be involved in this game of protecting her dignity at all costs - like dealing with a 3 year old really.

Your comment about missing what you needed her to be- absolutely.  I think I was always trying to find that in my mother's craziness. When I gave up I felt much better.  Do you ever get anything close to normal mothering? A sympathetic phone call maybe? I gather you live a long way away.

"bedevil us  all to a ripe age...just out of meaness" - reminds me of the story about a woman in France who told her nephew he could have her house when she died but not before (I may have some of the details wrong) Well she lived to be 117 or so - it would seem to keep him from getting the house.  Nephew died first.  Ah me.

I'm burbling on here. Ciao for now. Less

yuki:
(sorry, coming into the thread late) My N mom had a lot of chaos about religion when I was little.

She was very religious but my dad was very against religion. The attitudes were very strange. She'd tell me about all of the things that good Christians had to do, but then she'd say that my father didn't approve so we couldn't let him know about it. She'd take me off to church every Sunday with a quiet resentment of him while he stayed home. I always got the impression that he thought we were stupid for being religious - but my mom probablly encouraged me to believe that about him. This was just one of the ways in which she forced me to pick her side over his.

She wasn't really a spiritual person either. She used religion as an excuse to be very strict and controlling with me and to forbid me things (music, make-up, clothes - the kinds of things little girls like - they were all "bad"). It ended up back firing on her in a way... I got something positive and spiritual out of going to church. Just as I was starting to really connect with the spiritual aspect of it and to some people at church (I was in my pre-teens then)... she renounced religion entirely.

I can't help thinking that she did it to stop me from getting something positive in my life. The reason that she gave was, well, basically to blame the church for a lot of her problems. She said that she'd only stayed with my dad because that's what the religion said was the right thing to do, so she was blaming the church for not helping her get away from my dad in the past. (and yet, even when she was free from the church, she never left him) She is still against religion. I've even heard her complain about just the thought of going to church (when visiting relatives who attend church regularly).... and I was thinking... wait, YOU made ME go to church with you for years, even though it was putting extra stress on me because my other parent didn't approve!

I think she must have borderline personality disorder too because of her sudden switch about religion.

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