Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: Nonameanymore on October 12, 2011, 04:09:34 PM
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Hi all, it's comet Rania passing by this board yet again.
I was wondering, is there anyone here who managed to forgive their NM?
I am starting to believe that I suffer from NMtourette, when at odd times I go around the house shouting 'b**tch' towards what I think is her direction (am NM happily fr 16 years although it makes zilch difference to her).
I just need to vent again.
I don't know where this came from today, this memory and don't know if I shared before that I am a screenwriter, but NM aged 60 went to film school and made sure I found out about it, because according to her she wanted 'to get into my spirit' (creepy, creepy, creepy) and that's why she did it.
I hate her, I really hate her again, I don't know why, I thought I was done hating her.
She destroys every good thing in my life, even in her absence. She spreads her poison from a distance, with her deadly acts.
Thanks for reading this random rant
Did I mention? oh yeah, in case you missed it: I hate her
Rania
(that's my real name y'all)
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Hountini,
Ever thought of writing a screen play about it?
One thing I've sensed in the things you've shared is your mom's bizarre and endless ingenuity at inserting herself into your affairs. Is my sense right that her actions explode in your life like a grenade without warning? Sounds like she's maximizing the 'surprise effect' catching you unawares. I can see how forgiveness under such a circumstance would be difficult. You no sooner gather your wits (and perhaps think on forgiveness) before she throws another grenade.
tt
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Hi Rainia,
I was able to forgive, though as I struggle now with the difficult circumstances she left me, I am repeatedly aware of how little care she put into her plans.
In the deepest sense though, I forgive her. It became easier to do as she aged, and suffered at the last year of her life. I could not choose not to forgive, as she was vulnerable. Compassion took me to forgiveness and I am glad.
(Doesn't mean I don't still feel exasperated, when i'm worried and exhausted and she could have secured my home...but chose to let Nbrother destroy my security. That was a betrayal. Still...I forgave her anyway.)
I don't want to carry the anger into my future. It is also easier because she is gone, and so her power is gone too. I let it go with her.
Hops
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Thank you both tt and hops.
I have recently taken a course on Theta Healing whose concept is that there isn't good and evil but good and mistake that we can make up for, make things right. Ok, even if I will be able to live by that, which I quite like, how can a narcissist fix a mistake when they think they make no mistakes and are infallible?
And as for forgiveness, you forgive someone who did something to you, did, as in the past. What happens when an NM keeps on doing things?
This is the concept I have the most hard time with.
I guess things will be easier when she passes, but being an N, she is really, really healthy as far as I know, and only 60 and I m 41 and I don't want to wait till I am 90 to start living. Enough is enough.
(tt, you're absolutely right, you never know when the grenade will explode. I am pissed off at myself for having had to shrink, took my writing website down so she has nothing to aim at which proved to be a major setback for my writing career. this is one of the things, but yes, things like that. boom!)
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What happens when an NM keeps on doing things?
Well, with someone more normal... one could separate the action/behavior from the person. It's what she DOES that's so infuriating, right? And there would longer periods of at least a truce, between inflammatory acts... which one could forgive, while still maintaining really strong boundaries and not "being fooled again".
I didn't go the straight/narrow route to "forgiveness". I played around with the idea for awhile; tried it on to see how it fit me... and it just didn't. There is another option, however! I think it is harder to define... typically we sum up that process as "letting it go". I had a really hard time deciding what that meant for me. What did it consist of? One of the big things was not letting what my mom does affect me so much, emotionally. 100% awareness that she is never going to change or be any different... I might as well give up on any little girl hopes of that... and invest my time, energy, and emotion in other people... who are capable of returning that and who appreciate it. People who can share a space of time with other people and care about each other. It's pretty clear to me that perfect strangers have her number, too, now. The big fear I used to have about her fooling others - and getting away with it! - has evaporated. I'm getting bolder about "calling" her on her craziest delusions. It's hilarious how quickly she changes the subject! (and what the subject gets changed to...)
I moved to the south, and there's a saying that's just so appropriate - Bless Her Heart. This is like some encoded message of support from others, to me... it means: yep, I know just what you mean about him/her! It's an acknowledgement of the reality of the situation... that there's really nothing to be "done" about it... let it go... move on to more interesting or pleasant topics. It's used other ways too... but I was really taken with this one... I think perhaps you can relate, Rania! It's sort of a socially acceptable pressure valve for letting off the kind of steam that builds up from dealing with the Nish.
If one can get past the auto-pilot on the anger button; stop it from engaging without a manual action/thought... then, the absurdity of the assumptions Ns make and what they try to get away with and the weird logic used to justify it, is unmistakably obvious. And, I might add... great material for humorous stories, that maybe still have a bit of sarcasm or bite to them. If we could concoct an N movie - a comedy - I think the laughter might heal the tears, soothe the anger & outrage, and show us where the door is to "letting it go". Sort of the inextricably intertwining of tragedy and comedy... and how the purpose of the N-mission in life is always doomed to failure to fulfill that totally unrealistic expectation. I dare you to try to plot that! (I don't write... at least I have minimal training... or I'd try...)
It may not be exactly the same as "forgiveness" in the spiritual sense... but it's not chump change, either! LOL.....
((((((((((((Rania)))))))))))
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Thanks Phoenix. Thanks for the long reply and input, I really appreciate it, as well as your point of view.
I do think people have her number and I am not in a place where I have to make excuses for her behaviour anymore - at least not like I used to when I was younger, when I felt like I had to make people see how she really is - to a layman, these issues are about me having to deal with what was done and still carrying these issues with me, which is not the case, because she keeps doing what she is doing.
That film school thing is a classic and I found she shot a movie about love that is on youtube - how ironic!
Yes, I could make a script or so but right now I feel that narcissism is so darn boring so I prefer to use other subjects.
Interestingly enough, I have an electronic copy of the book a Course in Miracles and somewhere it talks about things that can be taught and that pretty much everything can be taught except love - irrelevant or not, her last words just before I went NC, 16 years ago were 'I don't know how to love, I never loved you, it's your responsibility to learn how to love and teach me that' (how annoying that she believes that I can't love either). Anyway, maybe all this came up now because to be able to do theta healing work on others, I had/ve to work on myself first and I was able to clear a sexual abuse incident with her when I was 3 and I am so darn angry about this and so many other things.
The point is, I want to move on but she keeps doing things, in my face sort of thing, as to make sure that I will still spend time dealing with her, even in a negative way, instead of focusing on my own s**t, or life. Some people, including me in the past, are ok with having any type of attention, even if it's that of the negative kind...
I know this is going to sound weird, but since I have done this work and my intuition and 'clairvoyance' are kind of tuned (not the psychic kind of type but rather an awareness), I can almost sense her frustration of not being able to get to me like she used to. Very strange.
Maybe I just needed to vent - I feel much better today.
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Phoenix, I think you should write - there is a lovely and natural flow in your writing!
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Have I forgiven the NWomb-Donor? In a word: N-O! I'm not there yet! When I'm alone, I still have outbursts of cursing that Nb*tch, where-ever she may be rotting in HELL for what she did to ALL of us, not just me! Nb*tch forcibly f*cked all of us, mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, even pimping out others, for her own self-gratification and attempted to justify child-rape with the excuse: "Well, all children are naturally whores so they deserve to be raped!" She also KNOWINGLY aided and abetted in the victimization of other neighborhood children. HOW DO YOU FORGIVE THAT?!?!?!? :evil:
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Bones, I was secretly hoping for a reply from you - I love you!
Honestly, one of my goals re all the Nabuse is to be able to live with what happened (despite of it) but at the same time, just as my personal opinion is, to acknowledge what happened, not be in denial of it/them. This is my goal.
It's like, I don't want to be at a place where I constantly talk and deal with the abuse but not denying it either, but also not making it a habit to talk about it everyday. Hope this makes sense.
Kind of like 'Rania, you went through this, there is no denying it, good on you for making it this far with such a set of faulty tools, some of which were missing, but also, move on, create new things in your life, rather than trying to make something out of the past'. I don't think it works that way, unless of course I can use the past to be of service to someone in the future...
I would pay big bucks to be completely desensitized of any future NM annihilation attempts...
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Hountini,
As to auditing and clearing and alpha healing...
they will relieve you of so much money.
I respect people's free choices in spiritual matters, and I think you deserve
a spiritual community that exploits no one and bullies no one.
Are you deeply involved?
Hops
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Hi Hops,
It's not alpha healing - lol!
I am on a spiritual journey for quite some time now and theta is just a practice together with everything else I have done in the last 5-6 years. I actually got a full scholarship.
Did any of what I wrote you made you think that I was being bullied or was exploited? My teacher's view - not that I was forced to under any circumstances take it as mine - is what I mentioned, about good and evil, doing good and making mistakes, based on her personal experiences and in all honesty, I quite like it because it is easier to forgive myself also, not seeing myself as 'evil', just because NM for many, many years, wanted to make me believe it. Under this light I can include myself in this, just as they say, these are things we did, not who we are. And make amends accordingly.
The reason I have a spiritual practice (I am talking about being Greek orthodox), aside the fact that I truly believe in God is also related to NM - she has been practicing witchcraft for 35 years now and at times I wanted to understand what motivates her, not in the way that I believe that she actually achieves anything or if witchcraft exists etc but in the sense that she will go into all this trouble, whatever that is, to get what she wants, overriding any sense of free will on the other person, at least that's what she thinks she is able to do, lol! But that's what narcissism is in the first place - overriding the other person's free will or not accepting/honouring it, right?! How ironically suitable, come to think of it now...
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Hi Rania,
I am an idiot. I heard the word "theta" and the word "clear" and plugged
in the thought "films" and leapt, nay rocketed, to the assumption these
might be references to Scientology vocabulary.
My brain is not working very well.
Sorry!
:oops:
Hops
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No worries hops! hahaha!!!
You know, I thought you meant something like scientology too!
In all honest, theta is a wacky practice but pretty much anyone who has strong faith and an intent to achieve/change something, is already doing it anyway...
Rania xx
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Phoenix, I think you should write - there is a lovely and natural flow in your writing!
Thanks Rania! I think I should write - or paint - or make prints - or handmade books - or........ also.
But I "can't". Can't in quotes... because my creativity is all so wrapped up in my own mom issues. And I've not really attempted - yet - that untangling. I've been a "maker" of one sort or another since I was a small child and when all my issues started to come together to a crisis-point... I gradually stopped "making" this, then that, then that too... even though I held on to (without a good reason) all the tools necessary to return to those techniques and mediums. Someday.
Simply explained - mom would always criticize everything I made... and almost always with a preface of "I would've/wouldn't've..." and nothing I did could ever stand alone, without her touching it -- and spoiling it for me. When I chose to give up music for art - she started painting... she always "knew better" what would work - despite the fact that in reality, there were things I did much better than she did and would paint areas for her to submit for judging. Sewing was the same way - but it's not nearly so tainted now, because my MIL was a professional seamstress and she was able to undo the expectation I held of my work never being "good enough". MIL had enough confidence in my ability to give me beautiful fabrics for projects she was no longer able to fulfill.
Now, I've sold art. Paintings, prints... and the success of that always generated the fear of retribution from the usual suspect. I've endured countless monologues of what she thinks I "should do"... now that I am not working. Her dreams of a studio... her dreams of being a successful artist (ha!)... all pushed at me with the expection (familiar to you, I think) that I'll be able to teach her how to do it. And that this is the only reason for pursuing this - I don't have a right to my own ego-satisfaction of a job well-done - only she can bestow that honor, you know?
So, like a two-yr-old, I turn the tables on this power play by saying NO - I don't have to! You can't make me!! Sigh. I have convinced myself of this, too - even though I really enjoyed some of the work involved... and understand that my "way of working" can be different now; I don't have to be the hermit in the cave sans all human contact to create anymore... not eating or sleeping until the image hits a natural stopping point.
And my favorite excuse - or rationalization - is that I have nothing to "say" anymore. Well, duh... if there was a word-counter here on the board, I'm probably in the top 20 for sheer number of words. To write still feels dangerous, because what I have to say gets very autobiographical and even after all this time, work, and breakthroughs I feel I have no right to air the family's "dirty laundry" and that I'll be punished via instant karma for "telling it like it is - to me". I toyed with the idea of doing the story in fiction - but it seemed to be a cheap trick, too transparent and perhaps even more dangerous because even if I work hard not to be autobiographical - she'll attribute something to the past in the wrong way. I don't feel too confident with writing dialogue, either - all that punctuation gets in the way... (I know, that's what editors are for)...
... hubs has suggested a childrens' book - completely different, fun, subject matter. And I'll admit to drooling over the prospect of illustrations of a simple story... and then up wells the pain and I don't want to put my self through that anymore. That pain has to do with having simple joys ripped right out of my fingers and heart and ripped to pieces and set on fire in front of me, with the admonition of how I should never, ever imagine that I am capable of or allowed to... experience this... because it's not part of my stupid, delusional mom's reality. Play and simple joys are wrapped up in a grief-hairball that I choke on, every single time... even though I don't fear grief or loss anymore (I simply don't want to be there, if I can help it...).
And I don't want to make ugly, angry, cathartic art anymore. Even if it in vogue.
I want to finally be able to re-create that happy, sunny, simply joyful safe place again... and share that through making things that others can have. I just don't quite know, what is required... beyond "permission", confidence, forgetting the "rules" (or emotional taboos)...
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Hey Phoenix. Please forgive the 'should', I don't like it as a word either. I meant you're good at it and totally understand your frustrations. my NM had to top up everything, the last being as I already shared, going to film school and because she had money, she written, directed and produced more that I have been able to do in my 11 years experience (although I KNOW that I am a professional screenwriter)
I don't know if this would help but I came across a promotional series of lectures for a book launch called 'Big Fat Lies' by Amy Ahlers, a life coach, and she had women give lectures on their expertise exposing the various big fat lies women tell themselves and it was really helpful and had me writing again etc. The lectures are not free anymore but at the end of each lecturer there is a free gift, a subscription to their site and they had a variety of these gifts on muse and creativity etc. One I loved was a woman called Sark (www.sarkplanet.com I think)and another Samantha Bennett that she sends daily writing prompts. I just thought I'd share with you
My memoir is pretty real, so real that people who read bits of it don't believe it's true because as 'they' say, it's not possible that I can be so honest about things, because I talk about her shortcomings but also mine. I don't care, it's been published - I found out - in spring. And you know, like you, I was made or forced to believe that I don't have the right to write like I write which is for some philosophical and introspective etc (a.k.a. dark and autobiographical like ALL writing is, at least the autobiographical) but I learned in drama school that with such works a) the reader (or audience) feels good to read that someone else went through what they did and are and you ok and b) the reader (or audience) has not had it bad but exactly for that reason feels how good their life is compared to yours, and feels better! It's a win-win to me! (and to a lot of art/drama/writing scholars).
You cannot change who you are to please the reader, you cannot use a different voice to write or to create art, it wouldn't be right anyway because who you really are is that counts, and because you are who you are, you have something important to say
Much love
Rania
ps I love your phrase 'fear of retribution from the usual suspect', it made me laugh because I know that feeling very well, I mean I did take my site down among others because I couldn't take all the war
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The thing that a line you wrote made me laugh dear Phoenix made me want to share something with you. Maybe your writing like mine is deeply painful but because of so much pain, it can be funny. What I mean is, even last time that I was asked to say the prayer in one of the seminars I recently took, I said something in the most serious of tones and generated a lot of laughter. The same if I shared things in Coda. And it's not because I am ridiculous or taken lightly but because of the deep pain that inevitably brings laughter. I don't know how I do it, it just happens. The same with my memoir and to be honest in the beginning, except for a passage, I couldn't see it but some pointed this out. Right now, when I go back and read it, I find bits of it hilarious because some of the things NM did are pretty ridiculous and some of the things I did in response to NM are also funny.
I give you a for instance. I wrote about an incident when I lost my keys. NM was really superstitious and she considered the loss of keys as a curse that would befall us in the form of bad luck for a year. When I forgot the darn keys, we were living on the 4th floor and the balconies were not adjacent but had about a meter distance from each other. I was with a friend from school, I was 9 or 10, and I decided that I would jump. Anyway,when I got to the balcony, the neighbor was shouting fearful and my friend was hysterical, laughing and crying at the same time, pulling me back not to jump. I threw my bag over, then I jumped. So I wrote all this and added 'I know this doesn't make sense to the reader but I would rather crack my head open than to have NM find out that I forgot my keys'. When I went back to edit the book and read this passage I was laughing with tears!
Ok, maybe it's not funny, but my 'logic' at the time was hilarious!
So you see, something as dramatic can generate laughter!
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Laughter is sweet relief - like a soft rain after months of scorching heat and drought - to the pain we walk with, all 16,000 tons of it until we are ready to heal. Yes, I have always been "funny" this way too. Unintentionally, seeking a way to be able to go on from the present, (sometimes) painful moment as my self to another self in another moment.
I've been thinking about what I've shared with you over this supposed creative block... and there is another aspect to it. The other stuff was where I've been. Where I am now, is different - more laughter, less pain, way more freedom of the "why not?" kind, and a lot less feared risk. The real risks - consequences - remain; they don't really scare me... but they would be irritating and time wasters; some might be more serious than that.
There is something I want to say - and it's traditionally been the art community who've said these kinds of things with books, poetry, paintings, cartoons, music and posters. However, I'm fully aware that "in real life" there are consequences for saying these kinds of things in public - even in a society that supposedly protects "free" speech. People in general - including my self - aren't overly comfortable with some truths.
I'm not sure I'm ready to accept all those consequences... I don't have the option of picking and choosing which ones happen! Yet, I have been the kind of person who decides: "well, someone HAS TO DO SOMETHING" and so I accept that I might be making a total fool of myself... and dive right in. And yes, even now... I'm dancing all around the topics, the words, because I'm not sure I'm the right person... that the time is right... nor even that what I have to say has any merit or usefulness or would generate the kinds of results I want.
I suppose that's why I've always resorted to saying those things visually. There's an aspect of hiding in plain sight behind the image - plausible deniability - about the meaning and significance of an image. The viewer always brings their own "stuff" to an image and sees what they want to see or what they know, in it. That is a valid and true meaning - even if it's the complete opposite of what it means for me. The more different kinds of meanings that can exist through one static image... the more "life" that piece of art has; it speaks to many and says many things... not some simple, one-off slogan or sound bite. I don't provide "clues" via artists statements about what it means for and to me; that's private... so there's also a deliberate falseness, a lie of omission perhaps - in the presentation of an image without a personal context attached to it. For some time, that was a big issue for me. Now, maybe not so much. I got really hung up in trying not to believe my own "bullshit"; those of us who have experienced gaslighting cling for dear life to anything that appears to be solid, factual, immutably true. But the problem is, truth just isn't one-size-fits-all, applicable to everyone all at once, at all the different times/places... because everyone is always at a slightly different time/place... and each person is different. We have to try to find what truth is, within the context of a present moment... so almost everything can be true, at one time or another. [If you follow that, and it makes sense to you - you win the prize! What I wrestle with - and it's eel-slippery - is that I'm not sure it makes sense to ME.]
Just because I'm not sure what's really "truth" anymore, doesn't mean I "should" remain silent artistically, I guess. There are enough things people have experienced - at one time or another - that they can connect with whatever image I'm using to convey an idea.
Sorry - I guess I've wandered way off-topic again! How did we get here??