Ami - something you said helps me get a handle on where I am today. I am not hurting but I am tired I am so very, very tired.
Hops I am always thankful for you comments. I feel heard by you and understood. I will keep your experience in mind until I find the right expression of that. I don't so much need anything from her except that I find a way to not get sucked in by her neediness. I have a fatherless son who does need me and who should need me and should expect that I meet his needs. Part of my struggle with my mother is that not only does she demand from me but she simply refuses to acknowledge that I need support and help in providing for my young son. Instead of acknowledging that my obligation and responsibility is for my son she in a N way is self-centeredly asking for 100% of my attention. But only when she isn't otherwise occupied.
Overcomer - The one thing that I continue to hope for you is that you get to a place where you give up hoping or expecting for your mother to get it. Even if she does read the book she won't get it. It's not possible for a person in a state of Nism to get it. It is impossible for them to care or have empathy for anyone else - even (and maybe especially) their own flesh and blood.
As long as we hope for that insight to dawn in them we remained hooked, our lives dependent on their getting it. Only when we let go of them can we really claim our lives. To me, this is the most extremely difficult task of someone growing up with one or two N parents.
CH - you've nailed it. It is functioning under the unexpressed expectations that has killed me. When I am able to identify and call by name these expectations then I am able to unharness myself from them. The phone conversation from my brother actually brought to light this expectation that somehow had remained unidentified by me. The Ns expectations are malicious and self-centered and they shift. But if we are engaged with an N we are functioning in response to them. The description of this mechanism is the best part of Nina Brown's (otherwise unoriginal) book Children of the Self Absorbed.
Dear Beth,
You're really `speaking to me' with this topic, and I can totally identify with your struggle with your mother's unstated expectations of you, as well as the fear of punishment for `failing' to meet them.
Wouldn't you just love to have a family meeting, where your mother came clean about her widely varying expectations of everyone? In my family, the conversation would go something like this:
`ok, boys, by token of your gender, I regard you as superior to your sisters, so I will love you no matter what you do. It would be pretty good if you said I was pretty as often as possible, treated your girlfriends casually, and did my bidding to get your troublesome sisters into line sometimes. But apart from those little terms, you can carry on as you were.'
`Now, girls, you fall into one of three categories: you are grossly inferior to myself, and deserving of ongoing verbal flaggilation and slavery, you are my clone, or you are my competition, ok? If you are my inferior, which is any female who is not perfection personified, as I define it, you are to creep around as my inferior, and preferably act as my hand-maiden. You are to take my criticisms good naturedly, and do my bidding according my shifting emotional needs. At the end of the day, you are an emotional prop- someone who constantly reminds me of my superiority, constantly praises me for existing, and who always regurgitates my actions back to me in a favourable light. Do not presume yourself to be worthy of better treatment, or you're out of the will, ok?
If you happen to outshine me, by token of intelligence, beauty, success, then you may choose, also, to be my hand-maiden which would further my sense of superiority. However, if you fail in this, then understand that you are my competition and will be treated as such. Its basically war. If war doesn't get you into line, then I will cease all contact with you.'
Now to those of you who are my clone, I will dictate your every thought and action, or you may act alone so long as they are actions that i would take myself. Failure to comply will result in further attempts to clone you, or eventual abandonment for failing. You were my best hope! I have the highest of expectations of you!
SO how would the conversation go in your family, Beth, if it were all revealed openly?