Strange messages, letters, email?

[flower]

Hi everyone,
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Thanks so much for your insight and support.
 It aided my healing. Too much of my heart
was in this post to let it remain here for posterity on the web.
The post served its purpose and now it is time to
edit it or gently take it down.
 
To every thing there is a season, and a time
to every purpose under the heaven:  Ecclesiates 3:1

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[Ellie]

Hi all,

I get the real depressing, 'my life's not worth living since you didn't answer' sounding voice, no words used like that, but the voice says it all. You'd think my N mom was dying right there on the phone. But that's when she leaves a message.

Usually she lets it rings 2 times and hangs up. She used to have me convinced she didn't like leaving messages on the answering machine, therefore we would run to get the phone. But I know now that we just aren't worth her time and effort, or worth the pennies it will cost to let us know she called. I'm sure she feels if we are not there waiting on her call each time, running to get the phone before our 2 rings are up, then we are not worthy of her call.

[Yuki]

Could she have a cellular phone that was in her purse and accidentally got the buttons pushed? If she had your phone number programed in, the phone could have called you by itself. That's happened to me. I've also had my cat walk across my phone (one of those big desk kinds with lots of buttons) and step on buttons and activate the speed-dial and call people.   That happened many times, actually! Maybe it was something innocent like that? She could have been talking to someone else in the background, unaware that her phone was on.

[Anonymous]

She has tried to get my social security number. She has committed fraud against us in dealings in which she could have been prosecuted, but I forgave her.

Wow. This is really bad. I think it's very prudent to cut her off and not respond to any of her shenanigans.

bunny

[Yuki]

Wow, I'm sorry it's so bad, Flower. I don't usually play devil's advocate - the messages just sounded so crazy that the only way my brain could make sense of it was to think they might have been an accident. (trying to make sense of Ns doesn't work... why do I keep trying?)

I'm so sorry that she's so cruel and manipulative. She sounds much, much closer to "stalker" than "mother" and deserves to be treated accordingly.

My mom has never delved much into the weird messages. She can actually sound very nice in written cards and notes, which confuses me and makes me feel guilty in a whole different way. The closest I have to weird, manipulative phone stuff is one night I came home around 9pm and got a frantic phone call from her. She'd been trying to call me for the past few hours and since I hadn't answered, she thought I'd been in an accident. She didn't seem to think I could possibly be out so "late" at night. So she had been out driving around looking for me by the side of the road, repeatedly calling me from her cell phone. When I brought up this incident later, in an attempt to set clearer boundaries with her, she said that she needed to stop doing those things because they were so scary and painful for her... instead of hearing me saying that it made me feel controlled and guilty and anxious. (incidentally I've had anxiety about going outside of my home on and off since I was 10, sometimes to the point of keeping me housebound. In hindsight, the causes for some things can get so clear...)

Yuki