Looking for help with my narc mum, LC/NC

[T-dog]

Hi Everyone, I'm new here and looking for any advice or experience that could help me decide what to do with my relationship with my undiagnosed but very narc Mum.

A lot of horrible stuff has happened recently and it's really brought out the worst in her. I guess I'm at the point where she's flown into a rage and hung up the phone on me once too often (I have explicitly said to her how much I hate that and that it hurts, it immediately got thrown back at me and I was told I hurt her).

I'm considering sending her a message or email that essentially is an ultimatum, although it kind of feels like a break-up letter. Have any of you done something similar? Is this a terrible idea? I really don't want to hurt her but I don't know how to get through to her reasonable side, or if that part of her is even accessible still.

I don't want to leave things like this as she's nearly 80 and I dread the guilt of not trying to sort things out. But I am also totally fed up of having to absorb her abuse and then always being the one to fix things. Everyone has been pushed away by her, including her husband who I think absorbed a lot of her most intense negative moods and made it just about bearable to be around her. Without him around things have become gradually worse yet I still feel kind of sorry for her and just want her to get help and see what's happening.

Is there any way out of this other than continuing the no contact? This feels worse than the very superficial relationship we had until recently.

Any insight would be gratefully received, thank you.

[Starboard Song]

I'm considering sending her a message or email that essentially is an ultimatum, although it kind of feels like a break-up letter. Have any of you done something similar? Is this a terrible idea? I really don't want to hurt her but I don't know how to get through to her reasonable side, or if that part of her is even accessible still.

Any insight would be gratefully received, thank you.

Welcome to Out of the FOG. I am glad you found us.

Run, do not walk, to our Toolbox, and specifically to our Boundaries page. Boundaries are your friend. I have written a message like the one you are describing, and have delivered another verbally. It can be a good and empowering experience. We raced into a crisis almost 8 years ago with my in-laws. It was a perfect storm, and we weren't able to navigate it: we've been NC ever since.

I hate to dive right in on your first post, but I'd like to say a little about good boundaries. Good boundaries are not about controlling others. They are not a fence to constrain others. Good boundaries are all about what we will or will not do, or engage with. We don't always even have to tell others about boundaries: we just do them. And good boundaries can be enforced without resorting to nuclear options. All that goody-two-shoes stuff said, sometimes other people make it impossible to maintain boundaries. And when that becomes destructive of our peace, we sometimes have to break away from a relationship altogether, going to LC or NC.

Anyway, you are contemplating a message to your mother you characterize as an ultimatum. I'd encourage you to paused a few days. Read here, and learn a little more, and let it settle. When the time comes, I'd encourage you to frame the message in terms of what you will do, what you will not do, and what you need. You don't need to state consequences, but it doesn't have to be binary: a choice between all-is-good or no-contact.

We've had people who had good success with such things, sometimes without ever announcing their boundaries. If they no longer wanted to hear hateful criticism of some family member, say, and such conversation resumed, they'd just say "hey mom, I don't want to talk about her anymore. She makes you unhappy...." And if that didn't do it, then in a very happy, chirpy voice, "mom, I really won't talk about that anymore, and I can see you want to. So I'm going to head out for today, and come back again real soon." One member really did train her mom out of several toxic behaviors very quickly. And in any case, she never endured such things ever again for more than a few moments.

How does this apply to your particular circumstance? I dunno. Maybe it won't. Our own attempts with my in-laws were made without having found this forum, or read about personality disorders, or boundaries. And we failed. Our boundaries became inadministerable in just a few months and we graduated to NC. I hope a better outcome for you. I know it is possible because so many of us achieve it.

Your goal is peace you can live with: you need to achieve peace and do so in a way you feel is healthy. I wish that for you.

Be good. Be strong.

[Gwendolyn]

 

Welcome to Out of the FOG.
I can identify with how you are feeling and it is definitely upsetting.   I am NC with my uPDmom and although it is a bit guilt inducing...especially around birthdays, holidays and anniversaries, it's definitely less difficult than being constantly exposed to her.

As I am working through some of my own issues stemming from family disfunction I am becoming more at ease with my decision.   It doesn't have to be forever.  It's one day at a time until or unless circumstances change. 

We can never know what causes them to flare up and emotionally drain us and irritate us and take up so much emotional space in our lives.  Sadly, their reasons will almost never make sense to us.

Probably more important for us is to understand why we accepted this torment for so long without a hint of compromise or genuine willingness for them to understand our side of a conversation.

I am detaching from the emmeshment of the family drama to gain for myself the time and space to learn and practice new and more adult responses and attitudes.  Without detaching from the drama, I wouldn't have been able to de-escallate the emotional turmoil enough to sooth myself and allow myself to process what had been happening in that relationship since childhood essentially. 

This didn't happen all at once.  Remember she was was once the age you are now.  Did she spend any time on self-reflection and relationship building then with "younger you?".
I can almost guess the answer.

So potentially she's unaware of your needs and the harm her lack of self-awareness has caused in your mother- daughter relationship. 

Taking some time to calm yourself....recognize she isn't likely to  change and quite possibly hasn't been very supportive, understanding or nurturing towards you might be your best plan for right now.  You can always decide to write something to her later but you can almost be sure it will have no impact.

I am so sorry for the disappointment you must be feeling.  Can you make a strategy to get through these holidays with very low contact and still maintain your personal dignity? That might be good enough for now.

Please take good care of yourself: good food, lots of rest, a bit of recreation and fun. We can feel so fragile when we are under the weight of these unfair and unbalanced emotional flare-ups.

Please come back and let us know how you're doing...this is a safe place to share and also a way to track our progress over time.   

Wishing you some clarity and peace.
We understand.

[T-dog]

Thank you both so much for your replies. I think one of the hardest things about these family dilemmas is feeling like you're the only one dealing with it. I don't know anyone else who has these kinds of issues so it really helps to know that I'm not alone and that there is still some hope, for now.

I really like the way you've laid out how to assert boundaries and it's not going too deep too quickly. My therapist mentions boundaries about 10 times a session and it's something I am working on- much easier to do with non-PD people, sometimes a literal battle with my mother, and I often get consumed by her emotions. My previous therapist was amazing at helping me to step back and maintain my cool and my boundaries but he died in June after 3 years working together. I'm still pretty devastated and feel like I might be coping with things a bit better if he was still around.

For a little more context, I've been low contact since around 2019, partly due to the pandemic but also because therapy brought up so much stuff I couldn't bear to be around her once I could see what was really happening. I think I've seen her once in the last 3 years, the last time we spoke was about 10 weeks ago, and I have not heard from her since. Of course I blame myself for this even though I did nothing wrong (I know in her mind I am at fault), and feel responsible for repairing the rupture despite not creating it. She is understandably hurt as she was not invited to my late sister-in-law's funeral. She called me to try to get details from me and was very angry when I said I couldn't tell her as my brother had asked me not to share them (there's obviously a lot more going on but it would take a while to explain). The frustrating thing is that even an insincere apology from her (to my brother) for various things would probably have been enough for a temporary repair but she just can't seem to do that so here we are.

My mum is a very angry lady and I feel for her on some level but I think I also need to explicitly lay out to her that if she talks to me and treats me the way she does then I won't engage. I think I used to be able to do this before but don't normally get a chance now as she ends the conversation as soon as I say something she doesn't like and then doesn't resume the conversation with me.

Gwendolyn- you're probably right when you say that writing to my mum will likely not have any impact. I think, for my own sanity I need to try at least one more time, for me and her but I'm not rushing into it. I have written so many things down that I want to say to her, I keep refining and revising it. 99% of it is for me and not for actually sharing with her and I'm trying to whittle it down to something much less emotional, more direct and more focussed on the here and now of our relationship rather than dredging up the past. My late therapist once explained to me that there is not much use talking about past events as my mother was a different person then and things have changed. My own experience is a mixture of my mother genuinely apologising to me (if I take a lot of time and emotional energy to explain it to her in a gentle and non-confrontational way) or denying/invalidating things that happened.

I would like to relieve my own guilt, at the same time my mother may be totally fine with how things are. I think she's the only person I know who I really struggle to empathise with as her whole internal world is so difficult to gauge. If she's ok then I can move on but if she's as lonely and sad as I would be in her position then I would like to try to relieve that a little. I can't help this urge to look after her in some way but I can definitely look after myself better while I try. And I feel a little more empowered to do things in a better way now. I will think about it a bit more and refine my message to my mum a bit more and will let you know how things go.

[Starboard Song]

sometimes a literal battle with my mother, and I often get consumed by her emotions.

Next page: My Stuff / Your Stuff

Her reactions are HER reactions. You needn't be angry. You needn't be persuasive. You need to leave. Calm, confidence. Like the parent of a toddler throwing their first tantrum. We don't get upset at that because we don't feel attacked by them. We feel no need to win their approval of our decision not to let them eat dirt or whatever. But with our parents, or other adult PDs, we do feel that need to persuade and to win-over. And that is an error.

[Srcyu]

Hi, there's a big clue in all of this about her behaviour and your guilt - her age.

She is elderly and that can sometimes lead to a further decline in attitude.  I would say that she is completely unable or willing to see your perspective.  Old age can bring on more selfishness like no other.

The letter you want to write, if you send it then bear in mind that she can and will show it to others. If she responds it will be gruesome. My mother started the letter writing first. The things she said were diabolical. I kept those letters for some time, they acted as a good reminder to me for  not going  back. Everything that I ever suspected about her attitude towards me was there in black and white. Breathtaking really.

Boundaries as mentioned by others would be far less painful and traumatic.

[Big Bear]

 

I would agree with the previous responses.  I would consider writing the letter for yourself, but then never sending it.  I basically did that with my uNPD sis.  I journaled about my experience, but kept it private.  This helped me process what I had lost.  It also kept me safe and protected.  I thought it was better this way.  Sometime less is more.  Less letter writing, more peace. 

Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries are your friends.

I also like the 3 C's: I didn't Cause it, I can't Cure it, I can't Control it.

The 3 C's really helped me with my elderly FIL.

I know this can be hard, hang in there.  We have all gone through something similar, otherwise we wouldn't be here!  Each story is different, and some are more extreme than others, but we have all gone through some kind of challenge in life.  Stay strong!



Big Bear 

[T-dog]

Someone on a different thread mentioned how this stuff all seems to come in waves. There's the waves of grief, pain and guilt; followed by waves of relative peace and clarity. Neither are particularly easy to bear at the moment but I'm trying to look at my mother's recent behaviour and see it as both a sign from her that she can't respect the boundaries I have tried to establish, and a gift of silent treatment that allows me to slink away from her.

The difficulty at the moment is that I feel like I am now giving the silent treatment to her, although I am not the one who hung up the phone and I have been explicit to her about this being an issue for me in the past. I realised this is now the third time she's done this and then not initiated any further contact, and that it's ok for me to not try to fix it this time. As the days go by it makes me more sad to see that she isn't going to try to pursue a relationship with me. At the same time I don't want a relationship with someone who cuts me off when I say anything I'm thinking or feeling. The many years of being told I'm too sensitive, or I'm being dramatic, or that I shouldn't feel a certain way about something are starting to make more sense now that I can see that these were likely my mother's projections. I hope I am slowly breaking free of the ongoing madness of constantly thinking I'm at fault, that's it my role to fix things and that her feelings and actions are my responsibility. But it is hard and it mostly feels bad still.

Maybe I will still write that letter but I don't need to do it now. I also don't want to invite what has become known as my mum's 'poison pen' letters into my life right now. I don't think she is quite as horrible to me as she is with my brothers (she and my sister have been NC for years) but I'm seeing a side to her at the moment that is more extreme than I have known since I was child/teenager, and it's pretty scary sometimes. I have to remind myself that I don't have to endure her emotions any more, my survival is not dependent on her moods any more.

[Gwendolyn]

Thank you for your update and especially for sharing your insights. Coming Out of the FOG certainly requires periods of reflection and discernment.

Sounds like you are becoming more aware of patterns and recognizing your various options as an ADULT decision maker.

As an aside, I saw my very difficult mom at a multi generational family meal last week and I was able to see her as a sad old lady.
She'll never acknowledge her roll in the estrangement and I don't trust her with any emotional information.  I will attend events where children are present so they can have a sense of being part of an extended family.   From a practical perspective  I want my nieces and nephews and their spouses to see auntie Gwen being normal and polite and interested in their lives.

My mom (their gran) has a different relationship with them and that is not my business.
I have created a few new boundaries  that allow me not to get too emotionally jangle when I know mom is going to be at an event.

Ie: I never stay long
I sit with a younger relative
I move physical location if she gets too close
I answer in very short sentences

This took me 3 years of hard work to regain my confidence and trust myself not to do harm to my own growth by rushing.   I am okay operating in a very superficial  operating mode for very short periods of time.

We are all on different paths  but we are most definitely not alone.  Take time to recognize your progress and reflect on the wisdom you displayed by not reacting while under emotional stress.

That's a very big deal and these new behaviors will add up to new 'ways of being around' our old and painful memories and their  consequences.

Take care of yourself.

[T-dog]

Thanks Gwendolyn, I'm glad you've also found a way to navigate family events that works for you. I hear you with the 'sad old lady' description. I think I thought the same thing last year when I visited my mum. Her house seemed cluttered and kinda weird and dusty smelling, she was small and seemed frail, and that pang of additional feelings was unexpected and quite hard to deal with. The other thing I remember from that visit was crying non-stop for about 2 hours as I just felt so awful there- I can't explain why and my partner was a little confused by it too.

I do miss large family gatherings but there won't be any more that include my mum now that she doesn't seem to talk to any of her 4 adult children. I am trying to arrange a meet up with my siblings, their partners and children, and a cousin and I'm hoping that will give us all a nice family Christmassy feeling. We're not as close as I think we would all like to be but I am grateful that I'm not entirely alone with the mum issues and that we do have eachother.

I think I'm currently trying to work out if this is NC, the silent treatment or something else. I have some time to think about it but I don't even know whether to acknowledge my mum at Christmas. I would normally send a card at the very least but this time it feels different. I feel like any reconciliation will have to come from her and, if we're being realistic, that won't happen. 

[Gwendolyn]

Hello again.

It is confusing for sure.

The holidays are especially fraught with expectations even if during the rest of the year there is very little contact.

During my therapy I am realizing I miss a mom I never actually had. For instance she stopped sending me birthday cards so why do I feel bad about not sending her cards?

Truly my journey requires me to look at my old beliefs around duty and obligation....ie "the FOG" effect of mom's earliest training of me.

I'm pet sitting at a friend's house today and she has pictures of her and her sibs camping with their mom as well as photos of her own grown children with their arms around her smiling.   Ummmmmmmmmm.

We didn't get to our respective Revelations overnight nor without reason.  Minimum my mom is a difficult person who has imprinted me with her long list of daughterly expectations and she would rather cut contact and act 'hurt' than examine her roll in our estrangement in any way.  Somehow my job now is to feret out these unrealistic and un-earned expectations and allow myself to see the actual truth of my situation.

My mom is not my greatest fan.


TRUTH.

take good care of your heart and spirit this holiday season.  We don't gain anything by beating ourselves up.  If your mom is like muly mom, they know their treatment of us is cruel and they fully expect us to cave in and get in line because withdrawal of their motherly support and understanding (no matter how insincere ultimately) is so dreadfully painful. 

[moglow]

My mum is a very angry lady and I feel for her on some level but I think I also need to explicitly lay out to her that if she talks to me and treats me the way she does then I won't engage. I think I used to be able to do this before but don't normally get a chance now as she ends the conversation as soon as I say something she doesn't like and then doesn't resume the conversation with me.

TDog, you sing the song of my people. If anyone dared speak to or treat mommie dearest the way she does others, she'd lose her ever-loving mind. They don't of course but she ensures that preemptive strike of supposed hurt feeling is communicated via blistering rages. Any indication she's out of line, full on wrong or needs to reconsider her actions, she'll melt you down, hang up and go silent. It never ends well and she doesn't allow discussion. Because of course, YOU are in the wrong for daring suggest she look at herself rather than point fingers at others. Mother is always right because "she's the mother". Period.

Mine is/was a past master at the hang ups, the height of rudeness to my mind. For years, I'd call and call trying to get through after she hung up on me, to explain myself to her. She knew id call back and keep trying so she kept doing it. Until I didn't this last time. And I got six months silence from her.

That time was actually good for me, gave me time to think things through and clear my mind. I finally saw that I'd actually been discarded, probably long before I realized. Nothing I said or did made any dent with her. We'd both made choices and I was simply never a consideration for her. Harsh realization, that.

So I get to be who I am, not who she makes me out to be in that limited mindset she's chosen. I've written plenty of letters over the years, only shared a few with her. I got much more out of the ones I never sent, found clarity I'd never had when trying to find reason with her. She'd told me outright she was tired of hearing my thoughts and my feelings "and all that crap!" (yes, her words) and I finally took that to heart.

I suspect like mine, yours would disregard and dismiss anything she doesn't want to hear. I suggest you write and write then write some more. Say whatever you need to say - and burn it all. Didn't waste your heart and energy trying to get a response from her, but do what you need for yourself. THAT, my friend, is your boundary. Deny the opportunity to hurt you.

Sometimes a timeout is a needful thing, choosing to remove yourself from hatm while you regroup. That's not silent treatment -punishment- but healing time so you can decide what you want going forward. And no, you don't have to announce it or ask her permission. Her hanging up indicates she doesn't want to talk - so granted! Your boundary may be as simple as allowing yourself this timeout for as long as you need, no explanation required.

We're here with you!

[T-dog]

Moglow and Gwendolyn, thank you for helping me work through this a little more objectively. I've read some more of everyone's posts on the forum - I wasn't expecting it to be so very validating and to provide so much clarity.

Moglow- your experiences indeed sound very similar to mine. I hate that you also have to deal with these things, but I'm so glad you and the others on here are able to share your stories as it's so incredibly helpful.

I'm more comfortable that I'm taking a time out rather than retaliating with silent treatment. Ooooh how I've tried to maintain that mother-daughter relationship but I am seeing more and more than I've been trying to do the impossible. The 3 month 'deadline' I originally set to just leave things before making contact has now come and gone and I'm still hearing nothing except crickets. If this is a discard that is ok, and I think it makes it easier than me having to make the decision for this to happen. I do wonder how the next few weeks will pan out yet I am trying to focus on myself and my own compassionate self-care; this time it's not just because my therapist suggests it but because I need it.

Sending you all peace and love x