So this is it. My abusive mother likely has days left-and never faced justice.

[BrightMoon]

My abusive mother had a severe stroke after a fast onset of bad memory issues, and is now in hospital with days or a few weeks at most according to the doctors. Not once did I get to really tell her, with confidence in myself, that I knew she abused me. Cos by the time I reached the age where I could recall nearly everything and make sense of the jumbled mess of my past abused and confused memories, and the gaslighting she created, and the lies she spread-by the time I reached an age where I was finally able to confidently KNOW she abused me, and that I was innocent and not to blame, she had lost her memory. And then by the time I had decided to write a letter to read to her that was very short and to the point (because of her memory), she had this stroke. Now I can't even do the letter. Now she can't likely take anything in.

her whole life she was enabled by everyone else in my family in all ways. she gaslit and manipulated her only friend, her siblings, her partners, the family-and violently and emotionally and in some ways sexually abused me.

All I ever did was show love and because of the gaslighting, trusted her because I was too young to recognise lying. So I blamed myself, because she made me blame myself. So I hated myself for most of my life, until I finally started putting the jigsaw pieces together of my past, and began to see she was the evil one, not me.

I have been too terrified by years of her bullying, screaming, lying, manipulating, violence to confront her. In some ways over the years, I did-but lacking complete conviction because there were still pieces of the puzzle I couldnt see, and I feared maybe she was right and I was still to blame.

Its only now, in the last few months I see I played no part in what was done to me. I was not to blame. I was a loving, trusting, honest, kind, scared little boy, who just wanted love and interest and someone to trust.

But it hurts me so much that she never faced any sort of justice or karma or repercussions. Yes, she is now in a bad place-but no more so than most of us will sadly one day likely go through physically.

She escaped justice, payback, karma-everything. 

She should have paid for what she did to me and to many other people.

All posts of advice, or support, or thoughts are welcomed.

[TimetoHeal]

Big hugs to you, BrightMoon, if you want them. 

I am sorry for all the strong and I'm sure mixed feelings you are having at this time.  I can only imagine how I will feel when it's my mother's time.

It really is so, so frustrating and infuriating that many people don't seem to face justice in this life.  It's hard to accept.  What do you feel about any form of an afterlife?  Reincarnation?  Purgatory?  Karma, since you mentioned it?  Anything after this life?  I know that's personal, and you don't have to answer, or you may be unsure.  My spiritual beliefs have been in flux for a number of years now, and I'm not quite sure what I believe anymore.  But I still have a strong sense that there must be some sort of justice in the end somehow.  I think so many human beings have this internal sense that there must be something to it.  To me, just feeling like somehow, somewhere, it's all made right in the end helps me cope just a little better.

Anyway, I hope you will be able to heal and find peace even though your mother never acknowledged what she did to you.  Even though you never got to confront her.  A lot of people say writing a letter even though you know they will never read it helped them.  I hope you have complete freedom and peace once she is no longer able to hurt you again.

[looloo]

Hi BrightMoon,
I'm not on here very often lately, but when I am (to quote a beer commercial, haha), I hope I can offer some bit of comfort and understanding. My mother died in early April of this year after probably about 15 years of progressing dementia and other declining health.  I also didn't find the vocabulary or my own insight into "what happened" (her malignant narcissism, cruelty, etc.) until she needed someone to at least manage her care, if not hands on care.  That was me.  Her history sounds much the same as your mother's, where she was enabled, boosted, scaffolded - you name it - her entire life.  She never had a reckoning.
In my case though, I was so focused on finally feeling "safe" from her than in getting her to admit to her actions.  I'll never forget the last time I saw her.  I HAD to go to her facility for some administrative reason, I was so tense/anxious about possibly interacting with her.  But by that time, she had declined to the point she didn't recognize me.  And it was such a relief!  So freeing!  That's a moment I really hold dear, where finally, I was released.
I hope there are moments to come for you (and there will be, I'm sure), where you are also released from All Of It.
Take care...

[Rebel13]

BrightMoon, I am so sorry for what you have suffered. You are right, none of the abuse of little you was your fault.

She escaped justice, payback, karma-everything. 

Very gently, I want to push back on this, because none of us really knows. Like TimetoHeal, my beliefs are in flux, and have been for a long time, but recently I have started reading about the unknown (including death) which, though it sounds paradoxical, is giving me quite a bit of comfort. We just can't know what someone else's internal experience has been or will be, or even what our own futures hold.

It's also possible that, as one of my favorite bloggers ChumpLady often says, the punishment for these people is BEING THEM. I know I feel grateful to have had opportunities to heal from my parents' abuse, and to receive love and connection that my mother is not capable of. In no way would I wish to trade places with her because I don't think a happy, fulfilled, connected person would be able to behave in those ways.

I hope someday, in some way, you find peace about this. As one of my favorite musicians, Carrie Newcomer, sings in her song "Let It Go," "I held anger like a coal / burning hot, did not let go / with the thought that I could throw it at someone / such a hard lesson to learn / my own hand was what got burned / breathe it in, breathe it out, let it go."

You deserve peace and compassion in this, as in everything.

[Adria]

BrightMoon,

I'm so sorry for how you are feeling. I think a lot of us have been there. It's hard to know, but my dh always says, "They get theirs every day . . . every time they look in the mirror." Personally as much as they have tormented us, I believe they are seriously tormented souls, and as they approach death, all their dirty deeds are brought back to their memory. That is why most of them go down fighting hard. 

I feel it is time for you to try and lay some of this down because none of us ever really get the apology, acknowledgement or closure we want.  You can't let your mother torment you from the grave.  It sounds like you are a very good person and you need to focus on that. You will never be able to change who she is or was.  Not to get preachy, but the Bible says, "Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord."  God keeps the score and one way or another I feel justice will be served. If not in this life, the next. That puts the onus on Him, so we can hand it over, pick up the pieces and move on to a better life.

So, for me, I find it very important to work on myself and try to be the best person I can be despite my narc family. Healing and moving forward can be a long arduous road, but the benefits are well worth it. Staying stuck cannot be an option, it will swallow you alive. Be patient and kind with yourself right now moving forward. Sometimes it's two steps forward, one step back. That is okay. Embrace your healing journey. Don't fight it or beat yourself up when you have a bad day. In time, things will shift in your mind, and the work you do will free you and make you a more empathetic and compassionate person. You will be rewarded for that. Hugs, Adria

[1footouttadefog]

This will be a great time of grief. 

You can grieve not having the mother you deserved.  You can grieve the lost years of your life.  Perhaps lost opportunities while you were dealing with things.  You can grieve the lack of fair ess and the injustice of it all. 

Hopefully you can on the other side lay it all down to rest and take the lessons you learned on this journey with you into a new chapter.  I hope that you can quickly find yourself healing and on a path to the best possible rest of your life. 

Take care of you and allow yourself healing and rest and time to process.  But know that you are still you.  You came out intact and with integrity despite it all. 

[footprint33]

All I ever did was show love and because of the gaslighting, trusted her because I was too young to recognise lying. So I blamed myself, because she made me blame myself. So I hated myself for most of my life, until I finally started putting the jigsaw pieces together of my past, and began to see she was the evil one, not me.

I have been too terrified by years of her bullying, screaming, lying, manipulating, violence to confront her. In some ways over the years, I did-but lacking complete conviction because there were still pieces of the puzzle I couldnt see, and I feared maybe she was right and I was still to blame.

Its only now, in the last few months I see I played no part in what was done to me. I was not to blame. I was a loving, trusting, honest, kind, scared little boy, who just wanted love and interest and someone to trust.

Hi Bright Moon,

I see that you wrote this post exactly 5 months ago, so perhaps you are not checking the board these days. However, I just wanted to chime in because your post really hit home with me. I'm so sorry that you endured so many years of your mother's abuse, pain, and then gaslighting on top of that. You were a loving, innocent child, completely unaware that a parent could do these things to you and so normalized the treatment in order to survive. When we're raised in this, it's often so hard to see through the weeds and come Out of the FOG. I too struggle with having lost so many years being the "good daughter" while living in fear and having been abused throughout my childhood and then on an emotional and psychological level well into my adult years.

Both of my parents are now nearing the ends of their lives, which is one of the reasons I've been looking at this part of the forum. As their main scapegoat, I lived through horrors behind closed doors. I haven't seen either one in person in over 13 years, and am NC, though have had several moments in the past decade where I broke NC, I suppose in the hopes that they would acknowledge something and express remorse.

One of the main things I struggle with is that there seems to be no justice. My parents got away with sheer cruelty, treating me so abusively that I still can't fully come to terms with how a parent could treat a child that way. Indeed, it was in having children of my own that I realized how badly I'd been treated.

It does seem to me that their masks fell off in their later years, but I still never received any apology or expression of regret, remorse, etc. from them. My dear husband tells me that the justice is how I was able to see the light and get out, create a wonderful path for myself with him and our kids. We live in a great city thousands of miles away from my parents and FOO, my work is going very well, and that all is a beautiful thing. Still, the injustices of the past are sometimes on my mind, especially as they approach the ends of their lives and I know that they'll not only never acknowledge any of their cruel actions towards me, but that they will smear me all the way to the end and will to their graves make me out to be an ungrateful daughter and horrible person.

Hugs to you,
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