Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Overcomer on January 18, 2010, 10:33:34 AM
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Hey everyone......long lost Kelly here.
I was thinking about it. It is ironic. For so many years I took my narcissistic mother's crap because I figured in the end I would get a huge inheritance. I could take all the stuff for a big pay day. Then I got to thinking. I had cancer and now I have diabetes. My brother has had his heart valve replace twice. My mom will probably live a very long life. She will be the last man standing and the joke is on my brother and me for putting up with her stuff all these years.
On another note......guess what my mom got me for Christmas? You know how when you go to the department store and you buy some Este Lauder perfume you get a free gift? Yep. I saw the perfume in her bathroom for herself and I got the free gift!! Funny. I bought the perfume and free gift and gave her it all for Christmas!!
Also our business has declined so much that our current sales will not even cover the overhead. So mom has to continue to put money into the business to make it float.....so maybe the joke isn't on us at all. Maybe she will spend it all......
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((((((Kelly))))))
Sis and I know there'll be nothing but bills for us....even though she talks the enticement talk.
Take care of yourself.
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Dear Kelly
Life with N's is one irony after another. You give them all, they destroy you for your efforts. You love them and they hurl your love in your face. You give your trust to them and they break it as they laugh at you.
Ami
PS In many ways, I am doing with my H what you did with your M. I stay for fear of bad things happening in the big bad world IF I leave but bad things ARE happening to me cuz I stay.
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Another thought ... we as children of Ns need to take care of ourselves emotionally (including going low contact/medium chill/no contact as needed) because it WILL affect us physically if we don't. I would not be surprised if your emotional baggage from your relationship with your mom is a big chunk of the trigger for your physical issues.
I have had chronic depression all my life, and just last year when I was trying to go off the antidepressants, I had a severe depressive reaction when my mother verbally attacked me at Christmas. In the past year though, I have become a lot more educated about what to expect from her, and have been able to see much more clearly that her problems are just that, HER problems. I have been off the antidepressants for two weeks, NO SIDE EFFECTS from going off, feel fantastic, and I have even had a couple of crappy run-ins with my mom and was able to recognize that SHE has a problem rather than feeling depressed because I am such a crappy daughter. I am SURE that my physical and emotional issues are not completely resolved, but definitely are better than just a year ago.
I also have migraines, an autoimmune skin disorder, a sleep disorder, and probably Syndrome X (pre-type II diabetes symptoms). Stress makes all of those things worse. I can't keep my mom from being who she is, but I CAN keep myself from taking all the blame for her nonsense.
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Kelly,
I am so sorry to hear about your troubles. Please take care of yourself. I wish you healing & peace.
ann
PS: Here's a great website: http://daughtersofnarcissisticmothers.com/mothers-with-narcissistic-personality-disorder.html
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Don't fall into the money trap. It has been my experience that they sometimes use it to fake love but they are just as unable to understand your need for it (over theirs) as your need for real love.
My parents did absolutely nothing to insure our well being as adults. N's don't seem to think ahead very well and its all about them when they do.
When I made the mistake of casually mentioning the possibly of being forced into early retirement by our ignorant governors financial rape of higher ed, my mother flew into a rage and told me that I "couldn't do that!" She was assuming that I was going to ask to borrow money from her, which I NEVER have.
It was certainly not my intention as I have always known I was "on my own" and have retirement funds in place. After Katrina when I stayed with them because my place was destroyed and my job uncertain (and it was also almost impossible to find affordable places to live), I offered them the one small check I got from the government (they had a 4 bedroom house and could well afford to help me) and they TOOK IT!!!. They also didn't refuse when I offered to buy groceries and contribute toward the utility bills. They had no problem letting me know how much their bill went up with me there. These are people who routinely entertained guests from France for weeks at a time. But of course those were important people.
I know of no other parent, not even of those in much less affluent circumstances than mine who took the only income their child had after they lost everything to the storm. During the time I stayed with them I ended up working THREE part time jobs, one of which was starting to take advantage of me by trying to use me to finish a project worth several thousand dollars as a minimum wage contractor. When I balked, my father yelled at me saying I was lazy and needed to call the people back immediately and agree. Hadn't I worked diligently at the same job for over 25 years?? Since when was I lazy?
The few months I spent with them was highly instructive. For the first time I got to compare how I was being treated in a true emergency versus how others I knew who were really loved by their families were treated. All their constant talk of not seeing me enough (lip service since they only visited me 5 or 6 times in 20 years) was revealed for what it was.... Talk to sound "normal."
You may also find that when they get old and become frightened that the end is near they will be even more difficult to deal with and leave you a mess to clean up (like trying to liquidate a business in default) . My mother's house is now in reverse mortgage because my father refused to spend the money for an umbrella policy, then got into a minor accident which resulted in his death. The evil PI attorney sucked every cent out the house. Personal Injury attorneys know that most elderly people have homes that are paid for and that is the first thing they go after when the old person has an accident. I begged my father to put the house in my name when he got older, both for estate reasons and because of just what happened. He refused, even though I have never been anything but responsible!!
The older they get...the worse it can be. Good luck
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Thank you for the website ((Ann)). I can see from the intro page that they GET the NM. x o o x Ami
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Hi Ami,
Yes, it's probably the best NM web site I've ever seen, very helpful. Read it & weep, right?? Then, celebrate because someone "gets" it, we aren't alone & we may be able to break free.
I see you're really getting to the bottom of a lot of stuff. It's fabulous, you go girl!!!
Ami, (& all), I'm reading a fantastic book called "The Flight from Intimacy: Healing Your Relationship of Counter-dependence - The Other Side of Co-dependency " by Janae B. Weinhold & Barry K. Weinhold
The book discusses finding our "Self". I think it's a great read for a D of an NM.
Sorry, didn't mean to hi-jack the thread.
Much love & healing to you, Kelly. And much love to Sealynx & HoP.
xoxo,
ann
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I will get the book right now, Ann. Thanks! x o Ami
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Excellent, Ami!!
I hope it helps you as much as it's helping me.
xoxo,
ann
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Don't fall into the money trap. It has been my experience that they sometimes use it to fake love but they are just as unable to understand your need for it (over theirs) as your need for real love.
Absolutely! Ns are extremely good at using money as a weapon. I, too, spent most of my life trying to suck it up and get along with my NM, thinking that one day I would get restitution in the form of an inheritance. I was also told repeatedly that I was being willed my father's dearest possession - his Emmy award. M got to me do things I never would have considered doing based on these false promises. I even gave up an entire year's pay, and went to work for M's business, for NO pay, because I was promised a future payoff. I, too, believed that she would live a very long life - that she was so evil she couldn't be killed.
Well, last summer my mother got diagnosed with terminal cancer. The first thing she did was to go back on her word, and made sure that I inherited NOTHING. She had my father call me to inform me that I had been removed from the will because I had "been mean to her." She also had my father take his Emmy to my brother, the GC. I'm quite sure that she had it delivered to the GC while they were both living, so it couldn't be contested. It his now his possession, and no one can take it from him. My father also gave him most of their remaining savings, as he believes he will have a "sympathetic death," and pass away shortly after M does.
Well, here's the irony in THIS story. My brother was raised to take take take, but never give back. He would show up at Christmas, collect his presents, and never give a gift to anyone himself. He would never even say thank you. He took money from my parents for numerous cars, college education, and eventually, his house. BUT, now that he's received the last of it, he no longer has any use for them. My mother is starting to go downhill, and may only have a few months left. This Christmas was to be her last. And her precious baby boy, her SON, the golden child, didn't show up. There was nothing in it for him, so he blew off his mother's last Christmas. This is going to sound cruel, but I laughed out loud when I found out about it. She got EXACTLY what she deserved. She raised him to care only about himself, and that's exactly what he's doing. He threw her out with the trash, much the same way that she threw me out with the trash 48 years ago. Let that be a lesson to the Ns out there. You can manipulate your children all their lives with money, but in the end, it's going to come back to bite ya.
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PS: Here's a great website: http://daughtersofnarcissisticmothers.com/mothers-with-narcissistic-personality-disorder.html
Wow! This site is FANTASTIC. I just read page after page, and every single word hit home. This is extremely validating. Thank you SO much for sharing.
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Justkathy,
They seem to love those who don't even try!
My sister isn't as bad as your brother, but she has been a money pit and she and her husband have shown zero financial responsibility in the past. They've borrowed well over 100K from my parents and his family over the length of their marriage. To my knowledge they never paid a cent back before taking on more debt. He has also "refused" to let my sister work when they badly needed money. Meanwhile I have worked without pause and nary even a major vacation for decades. At one point when I was subjected to some horrendous sexual discrimination at work and was being harassed daily my father blamed it on me and just said, "Hang in there." No offer of any kind of support for me if I wanted quit and look for another job.
I think N's are definitely attracted to the ones who don't love them. This was driven home to me again recently. I have had both an aunt and uncle die within the last week. The aunt was my mother's brother's wife. She was a really nice fun lady who could be counted on to show anyone in her company a good time. The uncle was my father's brother, a man who frequently cheated and misled my father in ways that were embarrassing. We were treated like second class citizens by them.
When my aunt died, I found out through my cousin and didn't hear from my mother for two days. When my uncle died she called both my sister and I (neither of us ever want to see these people again) and insisted we take our aunts phone number and call to express condolences!!!! Not a word about expressing anything to her own brother!!!
The difference is that my uncle was filthy RICH and socially important. It didn't matter that they laughed in our faces!!! I hope the Devil picked him up in person!! I'll call them the day hell freezes over! At my father's funeral during their "token" visit, his daughter cut me off while I was talking about my father to say that I should buy some herbal remedy she was selling that kept her young!!! Nothing like being put down at your father's funeral by someone who has had her face lifted so often the circles under eyes are now on her forehead.
!! She is an N just like her father and that is who my N mom loves best!!!
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My sister isn't as bad as your brother, but she has been a money pit and she and her husband have shown zero financial responsibility in the past.
I have to wonder what happens to these children when the N parent dies. I have a pretty strong feeling that my brother is going to end up with extreme financial hardship. He has no idea how to manage money. Through his entire life, when he's needed money, he went to my parents house and they wrote him a check. He has his credit cards maxed out from buying high end electronics and toys to fill his house, and when the bills get to be too much, there's M with another check. Now that he's exhausted all of their money, he's headed for trouble. His wife is an extremely controlling N (even worse than my mother is). She refuses to work, and spends his paychecks as fast as he can bring them home. They're going to crash and burn once the bank of Mom and Dad closes its doors. And to be honest, I'm going to enjoy every minute of it.
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Well my bro has had his eye on my mom's sister and her family......they camp at my mom's door and take and take anad take.....my bro protests loudly and my bro is considered the bad guy. The dynamics are crazy.....
I have started looking for jobs again......the family dynamics are a stressor on me and I am sure it is why I got cancer......it killed my dad and will kill me if I let it.....
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I don't get it either Kathy. I just know it can't come from me! I just heard from a friend that my mother has guilt tripped my cousin into driving her the 100 miles to my hateful uncles funeral, leaving her own family who have assembled for my aunts funeral!!
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Overcomer,
Put all the distance you can put between them and you. Release ALL thoughts of them good and bad. Do something you would love to do, even if it is a daily walk in the park. Sending healing thoughts your way.
S
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Today we are having a meeting to decide what the course of action is for our store. My mom lives in denial land and I wonder how she is going to proceed. She cannot sell the business or close the business because she has to take care of my aunt's family and she thinks mine. I know I can go get something else.......of this, I am sure of.
The stress of working with my mom is too much. I see the anger in her when people don't bow as she walks by. She cannot take anyone questioning her authority. Problem is, her authority means nothing. It is a fascade. A hoax. She runs the business with smoke and mirrors.
Meanwhile I am seeing a little passive aggressive tendency with our manager. She considers my mother a liar and she has no respect for her.
We both want to leave. If we did the business would surely fall apart. I told my mom I want to be loyal to family but it is hard when I do not agree with them.
Meanwhile, I am having some really weird disturbing dreams.......I think it has something to do with some new meds I am on but I do not feel refreshed when I wake up.......frustration was happening last night as I was working in a restaurant and my c0-workers would not help me on the computer that I had never been trained on,,,,
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Are they psch meds ? Ami
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I always had weird dreams when coming of antidepressants, and also I used to have weird (often of violent situations that would upset me terribly) during the PMS part of my cycle.
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Overcomer,
I hear you! My NM is 851/2, has complained all her life of SOME malady, had open heart surgery in 2000, and just keeps on ticking. My 56 year old sister died last march of lung cancer, I have had cancer and God only knows how long my baby sister will last, given the stress she is under. Personally, I don't want a red cent from her, nor do i want any keepsakes from her. Don't want any reminders of her around the house. The biggest and best gift I could ever get from her, is to be free of her! Hugs, Judy
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About my last post: I meant I also had weird dreams during the PMS time. Left out the crucial word.
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The stress of working with my mom is too much. I see the anger in her when people don't bow as she walks by. She cannot take anyone questioning her authority.
Ns are not capable of running a business. The nature of their disorder makes it impossible.
My NM opened her own business 20 years ago, and I got hoodwinked into working for her. She opened her own business because she was unable to work for anyone else. Being better than everyone else, she wasn't capable of being an employee and taking orders from someone. She had taken a job with a talent agency, with an agenda - she had big dreams of making my brother (the GC) a child star, so took the job at the agency so she could promote him. After two weeks of being an assistant, and being treated as such, she walked out in a huff and declared that she could do it better by herself.
My co-dependent father mortgaged the house to buy this business for her. She had NO idea what she was doing. I took care of everything, because she was so lacking in education that she couldn't balance the books. She wouldn't take my advice on anything, claiming that she had years of experience in the business and knew what she was doing (even though I never saw her work a day in her life when I was growing up). She would blow up at people who didn't treat her with respect. She would throw tantrums when things didn't go her way, or sometimes cry and put on a sympathy act. She was losing money because people were out to get her, not because of her incompetence.
Then she got a hair brained idea of bringing in other agents to work as private contractors, sort of like a hair stylist who pays to rent a station at a salon, but isn't an actual employee. I advised her against it, but she told me that it would bring in easy money. Well, once these people came in, used her office supplies, set up shop, and didn't bow to the Queen, she wanted them gone. All this time, my father continued to take out loans to keep her afloat. She never paid me a dime, saying that the business was losing money. However, every time the GC showed up needing money for his private acting lessons, private schooling, yada yada, she wrote a check.
After a year without pay, I couldn't survive on food stamps anymore, and went back to a paying job. She went out of business a few months later, and BLAMED ME. To this day, she blames me and the people who were working for her for sabotaging her and undermining her efforts. She was "an expert in the industry," and everyone else was out to get her.
Ns are not capable of holding down jobs, because they cannot take supervision. But they also can't operate their own businesses. Yes, being the business owner places them in charge, but that's not enough. If employees don't behave as expected, they fly into a rage. Don't mean to ramble, but this is my experience, anyway. Ns do not belong in the workplace, in any capacity, especially one with a very severe case of narcissism like my mother had.
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wow....i think you were talking about my mom, Kathy!!!!
And Ami, I am on cymbalta and am weaning myself off but not enough yet to make a difference. The doc put me on two new sugar lowering drugs and a cholesterol lowering drug. The statin makes me ache all over and I just hate it. He also told me that maybe my body is getting it's equalibrium back after all the chemo and steroids and this is just how I will feel. NOT!@! I cannot. I am exercising and am planning to get more physically fit and healthier.
Being a Christian, I prayed while laying in the tanning bed (going to Hawaii on Saturday!!) I just have to seek God's will. Can He really want our business to fail when we sell Christian stuff?? My mom is the money behind it all so I think she has made bad business decisions for years and then blames others......it is so much easier to place blame than to accept responsibility. I think she may be done. In a way I am so glad. I just want her to stop supporting my aunt and her family and I feel like my psyche will be so much better if I am not joined at the hip with nmom.....
Disclaimer.....mom and I are getting along so much better. I really think she is getting better@@
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I agree, thx for posting the website. How validating!! I thought I was dreaming all this up, and I'm really horrible.
Swimmer
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Swimmer, that's how I felt reading it. VERY validating, especially the parts that talk about the abuse being done in secret, so that no one believes the child. The story of my life. It felt great to read that, and say, "My gosh, it WASN'T in my head."
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I also felt it was a very validating web site. I feel elated because someone 'gets' it, but, then I feel down because it verifies how bad things were & that I gotta lota work to do in order to heal. So,for me, being validated is a 2 sided sword, like "yes, it really happened & it was bad, but, what are you going to do about it? If you want to heal, you've gotta work at it & it won't be easy." I guess this is why some people stay in denial: it's too painful to face the truth & once you face the truth, you must chose to either re-bury the truth so you don't have to do the work or do the hard work in order to heal.
Kelly, sorry to hijack again. Have a wonderful time in Hawaii. Good to hear you & M are getting along better. Just take good care of yourself. (((((Kelly)))))))
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wow....i think you were talking about my mom, Kathy!!!!
And Ami, I am on cymbalta and am weaning myself off but not enough yet to make a difference. The doc put me on two new sugar lowering drugs and a cholesterol lowering drug. The statin makes me ache all over and I just hate it. He also told me that maybe my body is getting it's equalibrium back after all the chemo and steroids and this is just how I will feel. NOT!@! I cannot. I am exercising and am planning to get more physically fit and healthier.
Being a Christian, I prayed while laying in the tanning bed (going to Hawaii on Saturday!!) I just have to seek God's will. Can He really want our business to fail when we sell Christian stuff?? My mom is the money behind it all so I think she has made bad business decisions for years and then blames others......it is so much easier to place blame than to accept responsibility. I think she may be done. In a way I am so glad. I just want her to stop supporting my aunt and her family and I feel like my psyche will be so much better if I am not joined at the hip with nmom.....
Disclaimer.....mom and I are getting along so much better. I really think she is getting better@@
In what ways is NM getting better? I would love to have some hope for mine! Ami
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CAN they get better, or is it smoke and mirrors? I recall several times in my life when I thought my NM was getting better, but it was all an act. On several occasions, she started behaving in a more civilized manner towards me, and I thought that she was changing, and that we were getting along. Then BAM, she'd attack in the worst way. Kelly, I really hope that your M is changing for the better, but do approach with caution. I don't mean to sound like I'm doubting you, but from everything I've read, Ns are not capable of changing. Just be careful not to get comfortable with it and let your guard down.
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Yes , friends, I have had hope so many times and gotten my head cut off. Down deep, I may still have hope. Maybe it is pure stupidity BUT there are always possibilities in life beyond what is expected .I want everything the best for you, Kelly . Vaknin say some N's can change as they get older. Ami
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I thought my NM got better for a couple years. Oh no, I got "hooked" like a naive fish again. For my wedding, my NM was terrible... showing no overt warning signs before hand of course. One thingshe did.... She pulled my new husband aside right before we left for our honeymoon and informed him she might be divorcing my step-dad before we got back in two weeks. My husband didn't tell me for 2years, ohh she is sick!! Now my husband is finally disgusted after she pulled a bunch of "tricks" on me after my daughter was born. Let's on she will behave, states she will when asked.... then disgraces herself and loses contact with her only daughter. Hope for this narcissist?? No way!!!!!!!!! These people dig a grave for themselves to step in, they just THINK we push them in.
I'm so disgusted with the way my NM leads her life, I don't know why she bothers to get up in the morning.
Swimmer
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I thought my NM got better for a couple years. Oh no, I got "hooked" like a naive fish again.
Hooked like a naive fish - that's a perfect way of saying it. Each time that my mother started acting as though she were improving, it was because she wanted something from me. Probably the best example was when she wanted me to work for her business for free. She was SO nice to me, acting like nothing bad had ever happened between us. But when the business didn't work out for her, she went right back to her old ways, and yes, I was left feeling like a sucker. It's amazing how they can have these sudden recoveries when they have a use for you.