The most amazing part for me is the propensity Ns have for cutting children out of their will.
They do, but I think you explained it very well in saying that money is of tantamount importance to Ns. My mother's world revolved around convincing people that she had "made it." Like your N, mine also communicated the importance of each child by giving them monetary goods (or lack thereof). When my brother was a teen, they kept buying him cars. He had no appreciation for these cars, never having invested a dime of his own money, so behaved recklessly and kept crashing them. They would promptly replace each one. Of course, none of these accidents were his fault, so he had a brand new high-end car within days, which he promptly trashed. I think he went through about 6-7 new cars by the time he was 25.
I only recently found out that I was removed from the will, but in talking to my Co-F, I got the feeling that he was puzzled as to why I was just now asking, as it had probably been this way for years. I'm pretty sure that I was also removed as a teen, when I developed autonomous thought, and could no longer be controlled. Like cantors.counter, I was also an honor student who got straight As, never took drugs or smoked cigarettes, and never "hung out" after school. My only crime was becoming a teenager, rather than staying a five-year-child, as NM had expected me to do.
My mother would tell me something and then say she didn't say that and punish me for doing what she said in the first place
Okay, this line is an absolute mind blower for me. This describes my teenage years perfectly. I could have written this line myself. My NM did the same thing. I would ask her if I could go to the school dance, and she would happily say yes, and even give me money to buy a dress. But on the night of the event, she would deny giving me permission, would run (crying) to tell my father that I was being a "bad girl," not to mention humiliating me in front of the friends who had come to pick me up. She always had my father punish me for my "disobedience." At the time, I thought I was a bad daughter, that I, too, was going mad. In hindsight, I wish I had tape recorded it all. Though in all honesty, if I had provided Co-F with a tape recording, he would have claimed that I doctored it and punished me anyway. This is gaslighting at its worst. Apparently I'm not alone in this experience. The teen years are our formative years, and being abused at that time is very damaging. I still have nightmares about the things she did to me in high school.
