If the N parent called us defective-HOW do we know that they weren't right?

[Ami]

Dear Carolyn,
  My friend helped me to see how my close interaction with my M was reinforcing my "inferior" view of myself. So, I really pulled away from my M. She just called, and I did not "engage", emotionally ,with her.
  I feel many feelings from breaking away from her. I feel emptiness, sadness, fear ,feeling alone amd  feeling disconnected from a ever present connection(in my mind AND  in real life)
 I feel very alone and responsible for myself. I am afraid of this, even though it sounds silly. She has been in my head,directing "traffic" since I turned myself over to "her " in my teens. I gave myself over and wherever I was , she was in my head, keeping me "company".So, I was never alone. Now, I feel kind of "freaked". I know that someone has been there.
  However,I see what my friend says,that she MUST keep me "unbalanced" and essentially "destroyed". Why is life so sad?
 Why does it have to be this way? I just wanted a close connection with a M .
She can't help it. She invited me to Boston,to come home and stay in my old room. She said,"You will have a computer." Ann says,"Get OFF that computer(lol)."
  Oh,life has so many "lemons", doesn't it?                   Ami
 

[Certain Hope]

Ami,

I can imagine that you walk away from interactions with your mom feeling so much less than. I still go speechless when I hear my mother's voice. Even on voice mail. It's like a withering inside. She left a message 2 Saturdays ago and I have not called back... and that concerns me, because I have not made a deliberate, conscious decision to have no contact, so I must be still operating in avoidance mode. To me, that is a very bad sign, as I want to be totally conscious of what I'm doing (and not doing) and not just operate by remote control. I had not even thought again of her message though. That is scary, how I am so totally blocking her out... even with our recent opening of their pile of mail, I didn't think again about her phone call.
And so... all of that is to say - I can relate to what you've expressed!!


And yet the absence of her in front of my face (or in my ears) IS helping me to separate out what are my own thoughts and what are her leftovers in my head. I believe it would be the same for you... as you allow yourself to fill the emptiness with your own affirmations of who you are, still standing, apart from her. (hope that makes sense) You are still standing, you know.

I hear you about feeling alone in being responsible for yourself, too. The thing is, you've always been responsible for yourself... you just didn't know it. She's an illusion... and that's what is so freaky. But you've been doing your life all along, maybe by remote control, to an extent, like me... but it really was you, just building on someone else's frame of reference. (again, I hope that makes some sense, I know it's iffy)  My mother's frame of reference is what I'm trying to cast aside, because it's false and it does not fit me. I think it's the same for you?

As for the rest, well... I will have to think on the part where she wants to keep you unbalanced and destroyed. I think it may be more like she wants to absorb you... at least that's how N has always felt to me. She wants her mirror back... but I cannot explain the difference there, it's just a feeling. My M invited me back "home", too, when I was married to NPD-ex. To this day, I would rather go through all that I did with him than to have been with her again... and I cannot explain why. He was, in many ways, more honest than she is... at least his rage was outright, and not so icy.

And those are my rambles for now... hope something of it helps. Guess we just have to keep making lemonade... : )

Carolyn

[Ami]

.. but it really was you, just building on someone else's frame of reference. (again, I hope that makes some sense, I know it's iffy)  My mother's frame of reference is what I'm trying to cast aside, because it's false and it does not fit me. I think it's the same for youbout feeling alone in being responsible for yourself, too. The thing is, you've always been responsible for yourself... you just didn't know it. She's an illusion... and that's what is so freaky. But you've been doing your life all along, maybe by remote control.



Oh My Goodness,
  This is so true,about the frame of reference. I, also, would "feel" like she was WITH me all the time, wherever I went. If I went to the mall ,or out to eat, I would feel that she was with me.  Whenever I was out,OR in the house, she was always next to me ,almost like an actual presence.
  I read on a PTSD website that people who have had PTSD will feel as if "ghosts" are with them.
  Anyway, you are right. It was an illusion, BUT did provide a "comfort", false though it was.
 However,  tonight,I feel a deeper sense of peace b/c ,maybe, I faced some of what you are saying, that it WAS an illusion.
                                                              Ami                           

[Certain Hope]

Ami, maybe her presence with you seemed so real because of the way you've carried the suffering of all she demanded of you in your stomach? I mean, you can't very well go anywhere without that!
and I think, when you'd go to the mall, for instance, maybe shopping for clothes and such is so intertwined with her desired image for you... I can kinda see how that would magnify the level of... well, I don't mean in the Biblical sense here, but it's almost like a form of "possession".  I'm trying to understand and relate and the closest I can come is with regard to my mother's housekeeping rules, for instance. Took me years before I could accept the fact that I really would wake up in the morning if I left a few dirty dishes in the sink overnight...  her ways were so engrained in me. AND - even once I pretty much got past all that, within myself, I can still feel the dread when I see my husband do something that I know SHE wouldn't like.
It is so bizarre....

like when we were visiting their house, last spring, our one and only visit there together... and he dared to ask for a hamburger bun... and I expected her kitchen floor to open and swallow him up. 

For many, many years, I'd get my sense of false comfort from continually trying to ensure that I and my household abode by her standards.... and very nearly drove myself mad (didn't do much for those around me, either.)  Seems like what you describe of the ptsd is what popped out in me in the form of obsessive compulsive tendancies. Everybody's different, yet it's all springing from the same bitter source, I guess.
I'm glad you're feeling some more peace!

Carolyn

[Ami]

Oh Carolyn,
 This thread is really helpful. I do not try to please my M in "household" things. I rebelled(lol).
 However,in "image" things like clothes, etc, I conformed.
 Last night, I had a strange experience. I felt an actual "sense " of s/thing leaving me(oppression, possession??), I don't know,but a "weight" left my chest and I feel  freer today.
  My friend helped me to see the pattern that I was in with my M. I was always trying to reach perfection(SO "high" in any endeavor) and then,never reaching it and being a failure. So, I was "high"( reaching) and low(faling) in most everything.
  I said to my friend,"HOW could you like me?". My question reflected that I had to be "perfect" for s/one to "like" me.
 I saw the Catch 22 that my M put me in. I was always failing ,in everything. I was an UTTER failure to her. As I said,on other posts ,I had impossible standards to meet and even if I met them,I did not meet them "right", and so failed. For example, I was suposed to get good grades BUT if I studied, it was a failure b/c I was supposed to be so smart that I wouldn't need to study---bleh. That was just an example of my  double binds.
 When I write about it , it seems daunting . I had  perfectionistic standards  in most areas. I was supposed to look good,but spend NO time or effort ,on it etc.
  I was  supposed to be perfect or I WAS a failure--black, black.
 I saw this on Sunday, after Ann, with the help of my friend.
 It was one of the biggest things I have ever seen b/c I saw it ,with my heart.
 Last night, my M called,but I did not let her in to my heart. I could hear  the part of her that sounds like Jack Nicholsen (sp) in The Shining.
  Oh, how I wish I had a decent mother,but it is a "wish" like wishing for any dream , that you will never have. I have tried to get close to her since Scott died. I wanted the comfort of a mother,but I was bitten ,one time too many and I had to take my poor begraggled self to s/one who loved me for "first aid".
 I really, really want a mother's comfort BUT it is like wanting a different color skin, it can't be---bleh.
 
                 Ami

[Certain Hope]

Dear Ami,

It's so strange... you were not supposed to even have to try or study or work hard at being "perfect"

but, with my mother, she gives more credit (at least, to herself - not sure she gives others credit, at all) for doing something the most difficult way possible. Just over the past few years, I've begun to wake up to the fact that not every speck of life needs to be this dire struggle - - that sometimes it's okay to do things the easy way!

It's funny (peculiar) too, how for you it was image stuff and for me it was more lifestyle/homemaking stuff. But I rebelled in that, too, by always having many pets/critters... when she wouldn't have anything to do with animals, and never, ever, inside the house.

I don't know how, yet, to hear from my parents and not let them into my heart, Ami. Even if I think I can manage it, there is still always some damage done. At the very least, it starts off another round of my comparing myself to them... and I think that's one of the very worst things I can do. Comparing.

About comfort... that is something my mother has never given. Not ever. I only know what it is because of my own instinctive giving of comfort to my own children. Now I have a couple friends from whom I can receive such comfort and relief... but that is a very new development. Before, I never even knew it was okay to need comfort. It was not allowed before. God is the God of all comfort... when I first learned that, I was amazed. I thought He only wanted to belittle me for my many faults and whip me into shape. But He's not like my mother.

Thanks for making me think, Ami... although it's not always pleasant, it does resolve some more of what's been in an uproar in my own mind for some time. I hope you have a peaceful day.

Carolyn

[Leah]

I really, really want a mother's comfort BUT it is like wanting a different color skin, it can't be---bleh.
 
                 Ami

Dear Ami,

When I read of how you yearn for a mother's comfort, it reminded me of how I USED to feel -- mercifully, that has passed.

I know that I have posted this before, farily recently, but, I felt led to post it again, in reference to God's Comfort:

God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble
with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” (2 Cor. 1:3-4)

[I had that verse on the footer of my profile for quite some time
 - it has burned in my heart during my quiet time this morning]


WHAT GOD HAS PROMISED


God has not promised skies always blue,
Flower-strewn pathways all our lives through;
God has not promised sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.


God has not promised we shall not know
Toil and temptation, trouble and woe;
He has not told us we shall not bear
Many a burden, many a care.


God has not promised smooth roads and wide,
Swift, easy travel, needing no guide;
Never a mountain, rocky and steep,
Never a river turbid and deep.


BUT God HAS promised strength for the day,
Rest for the labor, light for the way,
Grace for the trials, help from above,
Unfailing sympathy, undying love.



“Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and God our Father, Who has loved us and has given us everlasting Comfort and good Hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and establish you in every good word and work.”  (2 Thess. 2:16,17)


And may “the God of Hope fill you with all joy and peace in the believing, that you may abound in Hope, through the power of the Holy Spirit.”  (Rom. 15:13)

God's Comfort and Truth, with His wisdom and discernment (perception) enabled me to walk away and let it go.   

... Lot's wife looked back and remained stuck ----- personally, I could not, cannot, permit myself to do that.


His Comfort, Peace & Wisdom for your precious heart, Ami

Love, Leah

"Shalom"

[Ami]

Thank you. Amber, for your response.
 I think that I am talking about enmeshment.
 Today, I feel a peace, after my friend helped me. I must have heard the same thing before,but sometimes you really have to trust a person and KNOW that they have your best interests at heart ,in order to receive.
  Today, I feel able to live ,without "punishing " myself for the great "crime" of not being perfect. I feel "strange" like I have lost a "body part". I feel lighter..My identity seems different.
 I feel like I "became" something  that I wasn't.
 Well, my friend said what you said Amber: that we have to parent ourselves. It feels like a "bleh", but maybe it feels that way ,in the beginning,right?
  Anyway, I am glad to have people who love me and the board to share with.                        Ami

[Ami]

Dear Leah,
  Thank you for that thread on comfort. I need it ,desperately. I really appreciate the words of wisdom and kindness . Thank you so very much, Leah.                           Love Ami