Do N's realize the harm they have done ever? Maybe this will help...

[Sealynx]

Lucky,
I've given that a good deal of thought. I think most of people who "Bust" them on their N behaviors simply get ditched. Since they may see themselves as judged by society in terms of their maternal skills, we can't just be ignored. We have to be "explained". So if we go no contact, then something wrong has to be identified in us and spread to anyone who might be tempted to agree with our viewpoint. If we don't avoid them and won't conform we present problem number two...What to do with criticism that won't go away. Since the only way to get along with an N is to say yes constantly, the relationship can become actively adversarial.

[Ales2]

i want to respond to alot of your comments but before that here is a conversation w/ my NM on Friday, the day after TGiving. This is the second year that my NM spent alone (so did I, because at 41, I am single) because my brother (who is almost 40, going through a hard time, i.e possibly on his second divorce) and I no longer wish to visit her because its too difficult and unpleasant. As it also turns out, my brother and I had an argument about this situation and we are not on great terms either right now.

Here is the conversation:
NM: Brother tells me you are not speaking.
A: Yes, we had an argument.
NM: About what?
A: We are adults and its between us.
Nm: Was it about me?
A: Well, the content no longer matters because it became about his attitude toward me - he was being verbally abusive to me, so I stopped talking with him.
Nm: Oh, you are not talking with anyone because everyone is verbally abusive to you.
A: No, not true. I dont allow that anymore - people are not used to it, so I dont talk with people who expect me to respond like I used to. 
Nm: So, it was about me.
A: Like I said, content is irrelevant. When he asked you to join him and his wife in Therapy, why did you decline?
Nm: because his marriage is between him and his wife.
A: Okay, well thats your choice, but dont you think you have any contribution to what he is going through?  (brother tells me NM constantly berates and demeans his wife, even when she has done nothing wrong) Why wouldn't you go when asked to participate?
NM: No thats between them.
A: Okay, but no one in your family is talking, yet you have no idea why. 
NM: No, I have no idea.
A: Well, maybe you need to have your hearing checked (okay, this is an insult, not a nice thing to do/say here). Its been the same problem we've been arguing about for over 10 years yet you still dont know what the problem is?  Okay.........

Okay, I'm not perfect, I insulted her to make my point, I know thats dirty pool - funny though that she does not believe there is such a thing as covert verbal abuse so she wouldn't even recognize it.

Now that there are consequences, (i.e no visits on holidays, no phone calls, no conversations) she wants answers, but she still is unwilling to listen.  Ughh.... Not necessarily a display of Nism, but I realized I had more power to resolve this by walking away silently.  Probably by New Years my brother and I will be completely NC w/ her. 

[Portia]

Sealynx:

This suggests to me that N's don't really have persistent emotions like we do.

I read this earlier and have been thinking about it. I agree completely. I guess the neural connections are shorter,or connect to different places, or don't touch their frontal bits, or the emotion fizzes out with distraction? Dont know why, but I think it's true. Lots of observation backs it up.

[Sealynx]

Yes Portia and it makes allowing them to make us angry that much harder to deal with because they take up inordinate amounts of our emotional energy while we are just a dot on the ocean of their fluctuating perceptions.

Ales,
Your conversation reminds me so much of some I've watched my sister have with mom. I see her share some feeling about someone or reveal information and I want to cover my ears because I know what is coming.

I have a suggestion. Learn to lie really well and accept that when Brother reveals personal information to mother about you (like the fact that you aren't talking)you have the right to use all of your deceptive skills to evade and exit the conversation. Either your brother is trying to make you the topic of conversation to get sympathy or himself off the hook or he is just clueless about the price N's force you to pay for personal disclosures. There is no winning.

I probably would have told her, "I wasn't aware that we aren't talking. I'll have to call and see what happened." Now change the topic and/or walk to the front door and ring the bell. Tell her your friend has come over and  you need to go.

Good Luck!!
S

[Portia]

Sealynx
we are just a dot on the ocean of their fluctuating perceptions

poetry. 

[Ami]

Dear Ales
 I have had the SAME conversation with my NM(different players and subjects) but the same contentious  NM tone and the same "gotcha" always waiting in the wings.            xxoo   Ami

[Anastasia]

Again, an Nparent can go from raging at you or belittling you--then answer the phone in a normal, friendly voice--because, as has been brought up many times, it's all about the "show" to the outside world.  Makes perfect sense.
I think what most of us need to do is just get the hell away from these Nparents in order to be who they really are and get away from the "crazy."  Just my thought.
Today, I'd be a whole different person probably if I'd stayed around all that dysfunction...and a person not for the better either.

[Anastasia]

Ooops..I meant to get away from the Nparent in order to be who WE really are and not who THEY really are.  Big difference.

Sealynx hit it on the head:  If you "bust" the Nparent of their behavior and move away and don't have contact for a good length of time, the Nparent has to have an explanation of why you aren't coming around or think they do (because they are the center of the world and everyone will expect an explanation they think).  Anyway, this is so true. 
My Nmother must have told everyone that I was no good, a bad daughter, screwed up, selfish or something--and I don't even want to hear what she said as what's the point of hearing the lies she told now--because, when I came here, people came over to meet me.  I thought it was really odd until I realized that they wanted to see for themselves if I was this horrid person they had been told about.
I figured that was what was going on when they came over--I mean even the CPA, the stock broker and the attorney (people that surely have more to do than come over to the house to meet me)--and didn't take me long to imagine what crazy Nmom must have said to cover her tracks and, of course, make herself look like a saint.  Some things never change.
Of course, they know me now and all is well.  However, I would just love to know what they think of HER.

I don't know about anyone else's Nparent, but mine will easily make me the "bad" guy to relieve herself of any guilt over anything.  It has always been this way and will be until she dies.  If I eat one cookie too many at someone's house THAT will be her object of ridicule in front of others, and, yes, it is THAT extreme.  Now you get why I stayed away I'm sure.

[gratitude28]

((((((((((((((((((Anastasia))))))))))))))))
To an N we are just possessions. They don't see us as human. I don't think they even know what human means. If we can garner them attention in some way, then we are useful. I am so sorry you were used like that. And I believe they rewrite all the past into a little fairy tale to keep in their minds. My NM remembers our childhood completely differently from how it occurred. It is ridiculous.
I don't know if your NM could feel shame. I am not sure why she would be quiet about it.
You have survivied and blossomed. You are a whole person at last!!!!!!
Love, Beth

[Anastasia]

Interesting...you say your mother doesn't remember your childhood as you do?  Well, if this helps you:  when I was single and living in Chicago and my Nmother would visit, I remember telling her some of the things that happened to me that my stepfather did that were horrible.  She flat out denied it ever happened.  I thought to myself, "one of us is crazy."  How could she NOT remember him breaking my nose or any of the other horrible acts he did.
Now I realize she was flat-out lying for him.   She was just trying to make him look good and YOU look like the crazy liar.  She cried how she "stood up for him" and took care of him to me--remember I'm one of the victims here--and how he didn't care about her. 
Now she has lost that ability to lie and says, "well..you think you're in love..." blah, blah...  In other words:  YOU are the victim.  YOU are the one Nmother/parent SOLD OUT for the benefit of another.  YOU and YOUR happiness were sacrificed for the one she felt was WORTH more--note I did not say love as an N really can't love--to her. 
What can I say?  You understand it, you accept it...and you move on. 

[Anastasia]

When something very traumatic happens often people don't remember and it's legit.  In my case, it wasn't. 
This subject came up when I came here 6 years ago--40 (forty) years later.  I mentioned about my stepfather punching me in the face and breaking my nose and the response was a casual and flippant, "oh, yes...that was bad."  That was the ONLY comment I ever got from either my Nmother or my stepfather (now dead) EVER from my 17th year until today--and I'm 65 now.
"Oh, yes..that was bad?"  I wish she didn't remember as I could make excuses for her, but no....not in this instance.

However, I understand what you are saying there. 

I'm just happy I've worked thru the trauma of all this and come to where I am now...now matter how old.  At least I won't die all confused and questioning still....but with a 91 y.o. mother still alive and a father (who did everything wrong more-or-less healthwise) who made it to 90, I'm hoping I have a good 25 years to go.

[CB123]

Anastasia

No excuses.  That was the tricky thing with dealing with the N's that I have dealt with.  We may have talked about this here, but every N I have had in my family has an incredibly bad memory (of course, they think I have an incredibly GOOD memory!  Have you ever had that thrown at you?  "why do you remember every bad thing that ever happens?") 

For so long, it seems reasonable to make concessions for them because they dont remember.  But after awhile (a long while, perhaps) you start thinking: wait a second. This is convenient for them.  Abuse, and then immediately put it out of your mind.  Then look blankly at the victim and say you dont remember.  How can you be held accountable if you dont remember?  Whether it is a conscious tactic or a mind like a black hole, you still cant continue to have a relationship like that.

So, I dont consider lack of memory an excuse for abuse.  But it does show the depth of subterfuge in an N.  It makes any kind of confrontation pointless, when they have so retreated from the truth that they cant even find it anymore.

CB

[Anastasia]

After I left that house at 19, for the next, say, 8 years or so I'd get from Nmom things like:  "Can't you forget the past?" and "You can't run away from your problems." and being gifted with books like, "How to be your Own Best Friend" as if "I" was the problem and crazy.  Just total non-acknowledgement of their cruelty and abuse, and inferences that "I" had problems and they just "didn't know what to do with me."  It was all games and none of it was real (that I was aware of) as it was just Nmother's way of trying to manipulate me into thinking I imagined all the abuse and was, frankly, crazy for thinking they were anything other than the wonderful parents she wanted outsiders to think they were.  Again, it's ALL ABOUT THE SHOW to the outside world!!!!!!
And, as we all should know if you read this board, the show to the outside world is more important than anything else.....cause it certainly isn't the children's mental health that's important.
These Nparents are truly crazy makers of kids...truly!!!

[Hopalong]

Those stories of memory holes ARE chilling. Eek, CB.

I imagined as I read these that what might be happneing is that the huge massive soul-engulfing SHAME which is actually the deep core reality of the N psyche rears up when they're confronted with actual facts of their past trauma OR past misbehavior.

And the shame is so massive it literally paralyses their minds. They can't think, can't remember, can't be present.

Or accountable.

It really is a horrible thing.

Hops

[Anastasia]

You have a kinder take on all this than I do, Hopalong.   My take has always been that Nparent just doesn't give a crap about my feelings much.    Two different outlooks I guess.