My therapist has gone on vacation, and I’ve got no one to turn to. Maybe some of you here can offer some words of wisdom, advice, or even meaningless chit chat. I’ll take anything. I apologize for the length. Please, no one needs to feel obligated to read it. I just had to start typing to get some of this off of my chest.
I knew that I would be faced with this eventually, but thought it would be a long way off. In fact, I had convinced myself that my N mother was so evil that she couldn’t be killed, and would probably outlive me. But the other day I found out that she has terminal cancer with a six-month prognosis.
My mother’s heinous treatment of me could fill a novel, so I’ll try to give to keep it as brief as possible.
It started when I became a teenager. She could no longer possess/control me, and she wigged out. She spent two years trying to manipulate me, and sabotaged my every move while in high school, and when that didn’t turn me back into an eight-year-old, she disowned me. She plays this game - a foot-stomping temper-tantrum, in which she announces, “I’m not speaking to you,” which she follows through on, sometimes for years on end, until she has a use for you. I left home on my 18th birthday, and she refused to speak to me for seven years after that (though I got my share of nasty letters, and my relatives got an earful of lies about me being a drug addict, a prostitute, bla bla bla).
Through all of this, she remained incredibly convincing (as most Ns are), and would suddenly turn into June Cleaver at family get-togethers. On Christmas morning, all of my relatives saw a perfect, loving mother. Then the next day, I was disowned again. No one believed me. Only my grandmother (her own mother) saw through it. She was the ONLY one.
My father was so completely under her control that he was afraid to stand up to her. When I left home, I was living on the streets, and when I begged him to loan me the money for food, the response was “Your mother says no, I can’t help you.” He stuck his head in the sand the day this all began, where it’s remained ever since (I’m now 49). He has always, ALWAYS done what she tells him to do.
About 7 years ago, my Grandmother passed away, and the torment got worse than ever. (From what I’ve been told, when an N’s authority figure passes away, they kick it into high gear, as there is no longer anyone to keep them in check). I was breaking down from the stress, got anxiety disorder, chronic fatigue, depression, you name it. Both my therapist and my psych recommended that I cut ties with M, which I did. The more she lost control, the more she turned up the heat, and tried manipulating me through letters and emails to both myself and my husband (who she tried VERY hard to turn against me). At Christmas, beautifully wrapped gift boxes would arrive containing nothing but nasty notes. It goes on and on. When I’ve tried to tell my father, I get the same reaction . . .”lalalalalalala I can’t hear you.” I have a box full of nasty letters that no one has ever seen. I won’t lower myself to her level by passing them around to other relatives.
SO . . . now she’s down to her final months, and my father is coming unhinged. She raised a totally dysfunctional family, and he now has to deal with the consequences of her actions. I want to be there for my father, but can’t (and won’t) do some of the things that he expects of me, like asking me to call her and “mend our differences.” He made the same request of me back in High School, and when I tried to talk to her, the response was, “I have no daughter. You’re dead to me,” followed by some foot stomping. My father is clueless. He thinks we just "don’t get along."
I know that if I were to call my mother, the ONLY thing she would want to hear would be me apologizing for being a disappointment to her. No. I can't do that to myself. If anything, she should be calling ME and apologizing for "boycotting" my HS graduation, my college graduation, for showing up at my wedding and causing a scene, for selling all of my childhood possessions on eBay, for trying to sabotage my career, etc etc etc. But she won’t. It's the nature of an N. In her mind I deserved it. She's done nothing wrong.
The rest of my family is dysfunctional beyond belief. My sister (two years younger) freaked out so badly after watching me being tormented in HS that she crawled into a shell and became my mother’s slave. She lives next door to M, does whatever M tells her to do, has no friends, and has never dated. She never answers her phone, but does send me a covert holiday card once a year. She’ll probably be the one who gets guilted into dealing with most of this.
My younger brother was the golden child and was treated like royalty. He wanted for nothing. Subsequently, he grew up with no use for anyone who isn’t giving him money or gifts. He married a woman EXACTLY like M, who emailed hubby and I and told us they were cutting ties with us because they were disgusted by our “cheap” Christmas gifts, and that they were, in short, too good for us. Psycho-wife now won’t let my brother visit his own family, or even answer the phone, so M won’t be seeing much of HIM. (Side note: I just changed my posting ID because SIL has been stalking me on the Net).
So here I am with this mess that I know will only get worse.
Does anyone here watch “Rescue Me?” There was a recent scene with a dying WWII vet at the VA hospital, who was estranged from his son because he married a Japanese woman. He asks one of the volunteers to track down his son, so he can make peace with him. The son shows up, and the old guy immediately makes a racial slur about the Japanese wife, then says, “There. Now I can die happy.” When my father requested that I call or visit, hubby immediately reminded me of that scene.
Okay, I’m rambling like heck. Has anyone else gone through this, or is maybe going through it now? I really think I need to hear from others with N parents. I have a great therapist who I’ll be seeing on Monday, but only others who have lived with N parents truly “get” it.
If you made it this far, thank you for reading. I feel better just being able to vent.
Kathy
