Another demand to tell her why I'm "shutting her out"

[Lisa]

A little rant/vent and also asking for some suggestions on how to word a response.

As a brief update to people who might not recall my other posts.  I have been LC with my Mom since about last March/April and practicing grey rock.  Since July she has been demanding an explanation and keeps demanding it... my grey rock responses are not meeting her need.

On Friday while working I received a text from my Mom (she seems to like sending these messages when she knows I'm busy).  In the message she explained that since I have not given her my new address she went ahead and "winged it" (my address) and sent a valentines day card, she asked that I tell her when I receive it.  This is pure manipulation to find out my address since I haven't give it to her.  Which brings up a memory of her getting my husband's phone number from a sibling because I refused to give it to her.

She then said she wants me to call her, write her, something to explain why I am shutting her out of my life, that she is at a loss to understand what has happened. She said she's trying to give me space (which I've never asked for and we've never discussed being a thing) and she's hurt that I don't text her (I could point out I do, last text was 2 weeks ago).  She ends the message with ' you are my daughter and I love you dearly and you know that.  So I ask that you please give me an explanation" Mom xo

Over the past two days I have had moments of wanting to point out that I do text her, just not as much as she wants and pointing out the fallacy of her statement.
I've had moments of wanting to point out that I never asked for space
Moments of anger and wanting to say, why can't you ever message asking how I'm doing, genuinely curious about my life.. that never happens.
Moments of wanting to tell her why I have limited my contact
Moments of wanting to respond with sarcastic humour "mom you sound like a broken record, we've talked about this a lot the last 1/2 year, LOL" Or maybe fake confusion like "we've talked about this, don't you remember" "I'm confused why you're asking this again"
Moments of thinking I could grey rock or I could assert boundaries in a somewhat neutral way.  I did not receive your mail and I am not giving you my address because I did not like you showing up unannounced at my house twice in October.  I am not shutting you out, I am busy with the move and work, I have no other answer for you like I didn't have a different answer the other couple times you have asked. 
Typing that I'm really not sure I can think neutrally, I feel the hostility as I type.  it's really frustrating knowing I have to be so calculated in response to her, knowing how she can twist, manipulate and gaslight.  I wish there could be a way of saying, I am happy with our contact and I am not shutting you out. Or pointing out how my contact is never enough- she would say the same type of shit even when we talked every day.  Now I feel like I'm full on ranting   

Time to go journal and write out some more of this. The emotional and mental turmoil from one freaking text message!  Yeesh!

I'd be appreciative of any examples of how I could respond to her text.
Many thanks!

EDIT-
I just looked back at my posts here and realized all her text messages demanding to know why I am "harbouring hurt feelings, shutting her out" (her words not mine) etc all come around significant dates
1. a few days before my wedding anniversary
2. when I shared I was moving far away
3. a few days before my birthday
4. a few days before I moved away
5. a few days before valentines day

[daughter]

You could do more Gray Rock response mode, giving more intentionally neutral non-responses to provocations: "oh hi mom, saw your text. Hope you're staying warm -so cold here!", which you send several hours, if not next day.  It's important to remember that just because a question is posed, a demand is stated, doesn't mean you must obediently answer. Likewise, timing of your response, if any, is entirely per your own needs and comfort-zone, including not responding to any aggressive, or passive-aggressive messages.  There's no obligation to immediately respond to texts, or emails, or voicemail messages.

Many of our parents think they're owed an immediate answer, as a matter of parental self-entitlement and tool of control. Took me quite a while to realize I didn't need to always answer my cell-phone just because I recognized their phone numbers. 

[moglow]

You could do more Gray Rock response mode, giving more intentionally neutral non-responses to provocations: "oh hi mom, saw your text. Hope you're staying warm -so cold here!", which you send several hours, if not next day.  It's important to remember that just because a question is posed, a demand is stated, doesn't mean you must obediently answer.

Yep! Remember too, were you to actually answer her question it would at best lead to more questions, argument, twisting and nitpicking. You know, thing like: Why have you never told me that? That's not what happened! I never said that! Why are you saying those things about  me? And my personal favorite: That's not what you said before. (Oh. So I have told you and you heard me the last time, you're just shooting for another answer.) And round and round we go until someone really gets their feelings hurt and/or gives up.

My point? Even acknowledging that question is likely to land you in a world of hurt and isn't likely to end well. I'm guessing you've told her plenty of times, asked her to stop doing/saying certain things, etc. I actually like the "I'm confused why you're asking this again" followed by abrupt change of subject to any neutral territory.

Keep writing it out, getting it out of your system and off your mind. I promise, it'll help!

[Call Me Cordelia]

Yep! Remember too, were you to actually answer her question it would at best lead to more questions, argument, twisting and nitpicking. You know, thing like: Why have you never told me that? That's not what happened! I never said that! Why are you saying those things about  me? And my personal favorite: That's not what you said before. (Oh. So I have told you and you heard me the last time, you're just shooting for another answer.) And round and round we go until someone really gets their feelings hurt and/or gives up.

I like the, "I don't understand why you're asking this again."

If she responds it's likely to be but, "There's nothing to explain. So how about that snowstorm?"

Interesting pattern with the ramping up the "But what about meeeeeee," around dates that are important to YOU. Petty and typical.

[Wilderhearts]

That must be exhausting, to deal with these constant attempts to cross your boundaries  Good for you for catching onto her need to make herself the centre of attention any time you should get to celebrate yourself or your life.

One thing my therapist has gotten me to do is figure out what I would say to a person and how I would say it (letter, to their face?) if there were no repercussions.  I find if I do that I don't constantly have an internal tug of war about saying how I really feel and what I really think to the person.

[Maxtrem]

My psychologist has already told me that these kinds of messages from PDs are just provocations. The proof is that she send you messages to cause you anxiety before events that are important to you. It's a way for her to revenge, you don't do what she expect you to do, your events are going to be ruined, it's pure egocentricity.   

[Boat Babe]

 

Absolutely classic PD behaviour. There's loads of threads here about PDs ruining any and every occasion.  Undermining, calculated malice.

Nobody deserves that. Sending hugs.

[Cat of the Canals]

There's a classic Skinner experiment where they set pigeons up with a dispenser of birdseed. The pigeon pecks a button and some food comes out. The bird quickly learns to hit the button whenever it wants food. Eventually the food is taken away, so that when the button is pressed, nothing happens. But the bird has been conditioned to expect the birdseed.

The first thing the pigeon does in response to not receiving the reward is to peck the button again. And again. It will furiously peck the button over and over and over, hoping the birdseed will magically appear.

This is a classic PD trait. You are the food dispenser. The narc resources she gets from your attention (positive or negative) is the birdseed/reward. You have taken that away (by doing gray rock), and now your mother is furiously pecking at you, trying to figure any way possible to get that reward again.

The good news is that this phenomenon is called "extinction burst." The "burst" is the flurry of activity where the animal peck-peck-pecks in a desperate attempt to get the reward. "Extinction" is when the bird stops pecking, after resigning itself to the fact that the button no longer produces food. And your mother will do the same. If you continue withholding resources, she's bound to go find them elsewhere.

The not-so-great news is that the extinction doesn't usually happen all at once. It is a slow fade. In the case of PDs, the conditioning has probably happened over the course of your entire life. Decades of pecking at you and getting what she wants. So she is going to be very reluctant to give up on those resources completely. It might mean that she'll never truly stop the behavior. But if you continue giving her nothing but gray rock, the frequency of her attempts should decrease.

(The other reason she contacts you around important dates is that in reality, she's probably forgotten about you in the interim, and then your anniversary pops up on the calendar, and she suddenly remembers that wonderful button -- I mean daughter -- that used to give her all those tasty resources...)

I think, "I'm confused why you're asking this again..." is actually a decent gray rock response. She's expecting you to either respond angrily (resources!) or deny her accusations (which she can then argue with - more resources!) or to succumb to the pressure and remove the boundary you've put in place (endless resources). Doing none of those things leaves her in an awkward position of either escalating the argument or leaving it alone for the time being.

It reminds me of the way we play dumb with Flying Monkeys. When my brother suggested I needed to call my unBPD mother more often, I said, "I don't understand... I just talked to her yesterday." He backed down so fast I almost laughed out loud.

I'm sorry you're going through this. It's so frustrating. Just remember that your mother is nothing more than a frustrated pigeon, and that she can peck all she wants, but you don't have to give her *anything*. And the more consistent you are at giving her nothing, the faster she will grow bored and move on.

[WinterStar]

Lisa,

You have already gotten some great advice here. I just want to focus on how tough the situation your mother is putting you in right now. I mean what can you say? There's no good answer, and that's kind of by design. She is making it uncomfortable to do what is healthy for you in the hope that she can get what she wants. It's manipulation, and it stinks.

My mom is sending me similar emails. She wants to talk in the phone like we used to, wants to have a heart to heart conversation, wants to spend more time together since she would like to understand me. Ugh. She wants, she wants, she wants. Has she asked me what I want? No. Not even a single question was asked in the whole email. An email where she said she wants to understand me. She never asks about me.

So, I looked through the whole email and found the closest thing to a question and only responded to that. She proposed talking through the past, and I replied that I don't have anything I need to talk through with her and then commented on the weather. It was so awkward. I still feel awkward about it months later. I want to explain! But we have all tried explaining, haven't we? And we know where that leads. It never increases their understanding no matter how hard we try.

I do feel really good about letting her know that I don't want the heart to heart she has proposed several times. My healing doesn't come from her, thank goodness! I'm working on it myself, and I know talking about it with her would only hinder my progress. It's been healing to let go of all the time and energy I used to sink into working on things with her.

Good luck with your response to your mom. The healthiest response for you might feel really awkward amd probably won't be well received, but it will be the best you can do from the corner she's tried to paint you into.

[Cat of the Canals]

My mom is sending me similar emails. She wants to talk in the phone like we used to, wants to have a heart to heart conversation, wants to spend more time together since she would like to understand me. Ugh. She wants, she wants, she wants. Has she asked me what I want? No. Not even a single question was asked in the whole email. An email where she said she wants to understand me. She never asks about me.

Wow. I've always struggled to put this particular aspect of my relationship with my mother into words, and you just summed it up so perfectly. They say it's about knowing us/being close to us/etc. And yet it's always really about what they want.

Thank you for this moment of clarity. 

[lavalove]

How completely draining and unfair that she is dumping all of this on you. Gross.

I am going through something similar right now. The person has been having a lot of anxiety related to the pandemic. That's fair, we all respond differently. They are retired and bored. Suggestions of new activities are dismissed for x y z reason. My job in education has been requiring double time during the pandemic.  With less free time I have to focus on me and those of highest priority. Friend is sending nasty messages accusing me of ignoring, cutting off communication, what have they done?, and my silence is abuse. Twice I have directly stated that I am really busy and will reach out when I can. At the same time knowing that no amount of reassurance or action will fill the void that is not my responsibility to fix. Their behavior is self-defeating and not about me at all. The pigeon experiment reference is spot-on.

[Lisa]

Thank you everyone for your responses.   It really helps to remind me that the best response is basically no response.  It's taken me a few days to come to terms with that.    I keep thinking, why couldn't she just send a message saying, happy almost Valentine's Day, any fun plans this weekend?  But no, instead I get....I sent you a valentines day card, I had to guess at your address, you have to tell me why you are shutting me out.
The pigeon analogy is exactly right.  And of course her strong desire to control me, something I have been reflecting on a lot recently.

I haven't responded yet and it's been 6 days.  The other day she sent a group text to me and my siblings- just a picture of the weather.  I think instead of responding to her individual message I will just respond to that mundane message.  If she calls me out on that, then I will say I didn't respond because we've already talked about it and I was confused why she was asking again.

[Lisa]

Well, I responded to the weather, a nice three word response in the group chat.  She sent back a couple paragraphs further about the weather.  I responded a few hours later with two words...... Then she left group chat and messaged me immediately in our privately  messages to ask "well did you get my valentine"?

Uggggggghhhh for so many reasons uuuughhhhh!

I didn't give her my address for a reason and I really don't want to have to spell it out and tell her I am intentionally not giving it to her because she crossed my boundary showing up unannounced at my old house.  I feel far too uncomfortable refusing to give my mom my address but perhaps even more uncomfortable with the idea of her having it and showing up unannounced again.  I don't want to respond at all to this message.

[Cat of the Canals]

I once saw someone explain that children with a lot of trauma in their background tend to read into/respond to subtext. She asked a simple yes or no question (did you get the valentine?), but your instinct is to respond to the unasked question, which is "why won't you give me your address?"

Don't play her game. I'm guessing you didn't get the valentine (because honestly, who "guesses" at someone's address?  ). So answer the direct question she asked. Did you get the valentine? No. That's the question she asked, that's the answer she gets.

(Even if you did get it, I'd still say no. She shouldn't have been able to send it, since she shouldn't have your address.)

If she tries to use this as a guilt trip maneuver (well you didn't get it because you won't give me your address!), ignore it.

Out of curiosity, has she asked why you won't give her your address? Or has she just hinted at how she wants it and how you haven't given it to her? Because the PDs in my life generally won't ask direct questions like that. I think they do it on purpose. They don't want to ask directly, because they'd probably get too honest of an answer.

[WinterStar]

Yes, Cat! Subtext is the language of PDs. We get the "message" and respond to it. And since it was never said outright, the PD person maintains plausible deniability and can make you look unreasonable when others don't hear the message.

My mom's most recent email was a tale of her most traumatic events, all happened at least 40 years ago. Their common element was grandparents. She was traumatized when she moved away from her grandparents and she told me I never had a close relationship with mine (not true, she had to ignore the fact that I've made a priority of visiting them as an adult). She was warning me that my children will be traumatized if they don't see her. Nevermind that the reason she hasn't seen them is COVID!

Since I stopped responding to my mom's subtext, there's very little left to say.

[Lisa]

Yes!  This is so true.  They communicate through sub context so no wonder we are hyper aware of the hidden messages.  I will remember this in my communication with her and try my best just to respond to the questions asked.

[Lisa]

update-

I responded to the question.  "No we didn't get your mail".  She asked straight up for my address.  I said we prefer e-cards.  She then started asking about my job, a situation she knows changed 6 months ago and has never cared to ask about until this point. I should have caught on to that.  I gave her an update, then she said she googled me and found my business page... which has my address in the contact me section....... 

I also feel yucky that she viewed my business website.  Something I've had for at least 5 years.  She's never cared before, why now?  It almost feels like a violation of privacy that she has seen it.  I think the feeling is that she has no right to any parts of me.  My business is something very personal to me, something she never asks about and now she can see all parts of it.

[moglow]

So she baited you, even though she already had that info. Nice. I'd be hard pressed to not tell her to just stop the f'n games already and just leave me alone.

[Cat of the Canals]

So she ignores the original boundary, finds a new boundary to cross (cyberstalking much?), and then has the gall to brag about it? Yucky is right.

I'm really sorry, Lisa. My unBPD mother is constantly trying to join a group I run on Facebook related to my business and that's just a big hard NOPE. Every few months she requests to join and I deny the request. You think she'd get the hint, but no. I cringe every time I see her name in the request list.