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Which one has the personality disorder?

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Singer:
Thanks, Michelle

There’s a great big chunk of my life where I thought things would never get better, but I’m beginning to realize that much of the reason I felt that way was because I thought in order for things to get better, my Nmother had to change. She had to change the way she saw me, the vision she had created, or I would always be that person.  Awkward, sullen, nerdish and clumsy, and later escalating into actual evil.

I looked so much like her that it was scary, but to her I was a perversion of her image, a receptacle of everything she must have disliked about herself, projected onto me and thereby kept at a safe distance. To this day  I hate catching a glimpse of myself in a mirror or a store window and seeing her face.

But it was the pushing and pulling, the rejection and the neediness, that in a way opened my eyes. Once, not too long ago, I had taken her to buy new eyeglasses. When I prevented an unexperienced clerk from overcharging her by half she gave the clerk a self-satisfied smile and lovingly referred to me as “my daughter, I don’t know what I’d do without her.”  I think my jaw must have hit the floor. This from the woman who routinely banished me from her home and couldn’t wait to get on the phone to report my latest “crime” to whichever family member would listen.

So, Michelle, as you know she will never see the light. But I hope you won’t let as much of your life get away from you as I did waiting for the impossible to happen. I had a fantasy that one day my Nmother would become the person that she always claimed to be. So in that sense, I was as delusional as she is.

Anxiety is a warning that things just aren’t right, so I hope you can accept the warning and use it as a means of getting at the truth.

Your friend,
Singer

nassim:
Hi Singer,

I'm new here so I don't know your whole history. Can you tell me why you engage your Mom at all? I mean knowing how she is. She seems very destructive. And I guess that question applies to everyone here who still has or initiates contact with these people.

I know some of it might be to an aging parent who can't take care of themselves or whatever. But even then arrangements can be made to have groceries delivered, etc..

Just like some feedback. Thank you all.

Nassim

Singer:
Hi Nassim,

You’re right that it’s not about groceries, or not being able to find someone to take care of her when the time comes. Maybe I just don’t want to accept how things were or how they are now, so I keep going back just to see if maybe I was mistaken.

Or, more likely,  it’s just because I can’t accept it.  I’m having a hard time bringing myself to abandon someone who was at the heart of everything I grew up believing. Sometimes I’m angry; sometimes I want to turn my back on her, and maybe someday I will.  Or maybe I’ll just keep giving it one more try.  She always told me I was a stubborn know-it-all and no one could tell me anything.   :(

Singer

Portia:
Hiya Singer:

--- Quote ---She always told me I was a stubborn know-it-all and no one could tell me anything.
--- End quote ---
But you're not are you? What else did she tell you that you were, that you may have unquestioningly accepted as part of your personality?
(Me: According to mother I'm a party-girl, always out all night given the chance, very strong, independent, motivated by sex and not emotions. What a legacy. I'm actually more like a dependent introvert!)

I too struggle with breaking the bad emotional bond. Because any contact, any acknowledgement of my existence, still seems good to me. Even when it's pitiful and damaging. I keep trying to see her more clearly, but it's not easy and it doesn't happen quickly. But it does happen!  :D P

Singer:
Hi Portia,

My sister received the party-girl label.  Actually my sister is a rather reserved, person who lives alone and has taught elementary school for thirty-six years. Who knows where the label originated? Probably just part of the N tendency to see things as "either-or" and the bookish nerd label was taken.  

Be that as it may, I think I'll just lay low this weekend and tend to my own business. Violet's thread on the approaching visit from her N father has put my little once a week dilemma into perspective and maybe I can just let the guilt go for awhile and be thankful that things are not presently at a crisis point.  (Hello Violet, nice to make your acquaintance, albeit under stressful circumstances  :( )


--- Quote from: Portia --- I keep trying to see her more clearly, but it's not easy and it doesn't happen quickly. But it does happen!
--- End quote ---


I hope you're right about that. Maybe it would happen more easily if I'd think and stop reacting.

Singer

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