There and Back Again

[pipchick]

I just wanted to start a post here that I can add to periodically as I make steps on this path. It's not necessary for anyone to read it at all. I just feel better thinking that I can make a visible record of my thoughts, and the logic I am having to employ. I'm thinking (hoping) it will make all of this easier to navigate. Like a series of reminders that will show how far I have come.

Right now all is confusion and doubt. I'm vacillating between believing my mother is NPD, and thinking perhaps I'm only contemplating it. This is for a number of reasons.

The first thing that gets me is doubt. Even though it makes sense, and even though some things my mother has done can probably only be explained this way, I still doubt. I don't want to believe she is incapable of understanding my suffering. I don't want to believe that the things she has made me endure were for her benefit all along. I don't want to believe that when she manufactures all the myriad slight arguments that she turns into massive great silences and atmosphere... I don't want to believe that I'm the only one of us that feels hurt and helpless.

Then there's the darker, more insidious doubt. With that little voice, and it says: how could you think that about your own mother? How could you ascribe those kind of nasty, mean spirited, cruel intentions to her? You could make those things fit for anyone - haha, maybe everyone you know is narcissist, or how about this? You're a horrible person! Have you thought that maybe it's you? This information right here says narcissists make themselves into the victim, but isn't that exactly what you're doing? Eventually I have to logic myself out of that. Because if it was me, I'd likely (a) be aware of it (b) wouldn't have been suffering all this time, and (c) certainly wouldn't be worried about it.

As I've gone into adulthood I've had to tell myself certain things about my mother, because her behaviour can't make sense in the context of complete normality, even if I'm not thinking NPD. So I've told myself she is very highly strung, because of the way she magnifies the slightest thing to defcon 1 levels of snarling rage.

I've told myself lots of things, to explain why the atmosphere is so thick you can cut it with a knife. To explain that fearful feeling just hearing her footsteps on the stairs (even to this day). And it's more than a feeling. I've noticed my guts churn as I've listened. You'd think it was a monster... I'm not physically afraid of her. But in every other way a person can be terrified, there I am.

I've told myself she didn't know what she was doing when I would sit at the top of the stairs at barely four years old, listening to her tell my Dad for hours how bad I was, and how I was doing it all on purpose, and how I didn't deserve anything, and how sending me to my room wasn't a good enough punishment because my books were there. The way that my mother would always refer to me as 'she' and 'her' with an snarl in her voice. I don't know what I did, but whatever it was I did it every single day. I was a quiet child.

Or when she told me at a family gathering when I was around nine that she wished she'd never had me while I was setting the table, and I distinctly remember the shocked gasp of my aunt on my Dad's side. I remember the sudden pain, and saying that it was her mistake, and her agreeing with me before walking off. The way that everyone melted away because they didn't know what to say to a nine year old. And as an adult, I look back on that and I want to hug the child that I was and tell her it's okay.

Or when she said it while the family was watching tv when I was around twelve, and I said I didn't ask to be born, so she drafted in my father who was studying infertility to confirm that babies choose the moment, so desperate she was to win that argument and make it my fault. My fault for being born. Even as I'm writing that I just... wow. I'm too shocked to even feel anything about it. The things that I've just accepted, and worse, internalised.

When I was a teenager and I was upset at maybe thirteen or fourteen, and she actually cuddled me on her knee (a very rare thing!), and asked me what was wrong. When all my childish teenage fears came out, she turned blank, turned me off her knee and told me coldly she didn't want to know that kind of thing.

When MH services had hold of me at eleven for depression, and I was forbidden to see them any longer as soon as they wanted my mother to become involved. I remember her rant in the car at the hospital to this day. How dare they want to speak to her?! How dare they imply that my "problems" were anything to do with her!

Or the time I told my partner about recently, when she and my father were arguing and I was ten, and he stood on the garden with his cases and told me I had two minutes to change his mind. And I realise now that he was a coward, and that he was saying to me what he daren't say to her. And how horrible it was to do that to a child, to your own child, and how that stress has been carried with me down the years. That stress of being responsible for the whole family at ten, when nothing I could have done warranted that weight being placed upon me.

A few of these things, my mother has flat out denied doing/saying. Some of them I've never brought up, but they are there in my memory. I wonder how many things have disappeared under the sand... how many things will come back.

For now though, my biggest enemy is doubt.

I don't want to believe that all of these ways in which I've been hurt were deliberate, were coldly done, were done without a feeling heart.

Because she's not like that all the time. It's not every minute of every day, but it's enough for doubt. It's enough that the terror of her moods is still there, and though I might deny it, in my heart I know I live my life around her and what she wants, and that I've grown so used to walking on eggshells I can't feel the pain in my feet anymore. In many ways, admitting that this is likely what she is, and coming to understand that, is as hard as the emotional abuse itself.

[Hazy111]

Because she's not like that all the time. It's not every minute of every day, but it's enough for doubt. It's enough that the terror of her moods is still there, and though I might deny it, in my heart I know I live my life around her and what she wants, and that I've grown so used to walking on eggshells I can't feel the pain in my feet anymore. In many ways, admitting that this is likely what she is, and coming to understand that, is as hard as the emotional abuse itself.

Youve described a Borderline mother to a T. There is another book about out dealing with a "Borderline Mother. See Resources and Books . Guess what its called......." Stop walking on Eggshells "

[Adrianna]

I agree. She sounds very borderline. Borderline personality disorder can go hand in hand with narcissism. I suggest the book Understanding the Borderline Mother by Christine Lawson. It's expensive but worth every single penny. I'm my case it's my grandmother and she is the "queen" type. Reading the book was so validating to me that yes, it has been that bad with her. The book explains the 4 types of borderline mothers. They can be one or a combination of types. You can maybe find it at the library if you don't want to buy it but read it one way or another. It will help so much on your journey.

[DreamingofQuiet]

Re: Understanding the Borderline Mother. Someone has put the audio book on YouTube. You can listen to all of it there.

DoQ

[WomanInterrupted]

Hi Pipchick - and welcome! 

I'm really sorry you had to endure all that, at the hands of somebody who sounds suspiciously like my "mom," unBPD Didi.   

I remember the days of doubt, too - was it me?  Was I imagining it?  Was I making too much out of nothing?  She's not like that all the time, she's just got her moments.  Is she really the one with the problem, or is it me?

I don't know what set me off - it was probably yet another figurative paper cut, in a long line of them, and I just started to cry, realizing my mother doesn't love me.  My mother was incapable of loving me.  My mother wanted to hurt me and see me suffer - that was the only thing that made her happy. 

She could act perfectly normal, yet flash that inhuman smirk at the least appropriate of times - one of our cats had recently passed away, at a young age, and I was still grieving.  I made the mistake of crying in front of Didi.

It happened so fast - and I remember thinking, "Did I actually just see that?  Did that really happen?" 

And I remember leaving about 30 seconds later, because yes, it HAD happened and I had to get out of there, because I just couldn't believe somebody could be that cruel - that my adoptive mother could be so cruel.

I didn't get remarks about wishing I hadn't been born, but I did get plenty of them indicating I was a factory reject they HAD to adopt, because I was so (fill in the blank), that nobody else would want me.   

Didi died nearly six years ago (time flies when you're not constantly being invalidated  ), and I'm fighting a curable form of cancer.  It's a PITA, but in less than 3 months, the doctors expect me to be cancer-free - and I've never been so glad Didi is dead, because I don't have to deal with her!   

That was honestly one of my first thoughts when I found out I had cancer - I'm so glad she's dead.  I don't have to hide it from her,  I don't have to worry about her making it all about her, and telling me I deserve it for being a bad daughter!   

I don't have to worry about her ignoring my doctor's instructions and telling me I'm faking - while insisting I have a cigarette,  and to shut up and stop whining when SHE'S got real problems. 

Didi was the kind of person who'd see my shaved head and tell me to buy a wig, because she doesn't like the way it looks, and she'd accuse me of being *dramatic* - she wouldn't believe that chemo was making it fall out, because that might mean having a thought about anybody that wasn't herself. 

If you've *ever* had a thought about hiding something serious from your mom (health, taxes, relationship, job, kids, any of the other number of serious subjects that befall  us, and we need support) - it's DEFINITELY not you that has the problem. 

In time, as you read more and more on this site, and start to see stories that make  you think, "Holy crap!  Was I posting in my sleep!?" - you'll accept  your mom is the one with a problem, and you didn't cause it, you can't control it, and you can't  cure it.

Understanding the Borderline Mother is indeed on YouTube - and it's *rough.*  I suggest tissues and taking frequent breaks. 

The other book I'd like to recommend is, "Boundaries" by Cloud and Townsend.  Your mother didn't teach you the necessary boundaries you need to get along in life - this book will help you establish them, and separate yourself from your mother, who will HATE your boundaries - but tough noogies. 

Your boundaries will not be to hurt her, but protect yourself. 

Didi railed against every one of my boundaries, but I managed to hold fast to them, no matter what she threw at me.  I surprised myself at how strong I was - Didi called it forgetting she was my mooooooother, and she'd do anything for her moooooooooother.   

Please remember you are not alone on your journey - you've found your tribe. 

[SunnyMeadow]

Didi died nearly six years ago (time flies when you're not constantly being invalidated  ), and I'm fighting a curable form of cancer.  It's a PITA, but in less than 3 months, the doctors expect me to be cancer-free - and I've never been so glad Didi is dead, because I don't have to deal with her!   

That was honestly one of my first thoughts when I found out I had cancer - I'm so glad she's dead.  I don't have to hide it from her,  I don't have to worry about her making it all about her, and telling me I deserve it for being a bad daughter!   

I'm so thrilled to read you will be cancer-free in 3 months WI!!!  I've been wondering how things are going with you. I'm dealing with a similar thing and have to wait to find out my diagnosis. My uPDmom is still alive so I'm going to hide it from her. Any medical issue I have, she has had worse. All her issues are worse than anyone else. Anyway, I'm so happy for you.

Sorry for the thread-jack pipchick. I'm glad you're here to learn about PDs and make your own determination if it applies to your mother. When I first arrived here it was like a dark, heavy curtain was flung open. I mean, people had the same weird, troubling experiences with their parents and it was actually a "thing".

It put so many experiences with my uPDmother into perspective. It wasn't me thinking she was just mean and ridiculous, she had the same Personality Disorder handbook and was doing all the steps over the years. She's still writing mean and nasty things to family and friends on facebook (she's old and didn't turn into a sweet old lady) so I deactivated my account and don't have to see it anymore. The less time I spend with her, the better.

Welcome to the forums.

[pipchick]

Thank you, Hazy111 - I am definitely looking into uBPD now as well. Good recommendation!

Thank you, too, Adrianna. It is way too expensive for me, but other people on this thread have said it's on youtube. (nods)

DoQ - you are awesome, thank you so much. While I've been hiding away upstairs this afternoon, I've been listening to it on my phone. I knew I couldn't afford to buy it.

Hi WomanInterrupted,

Firstly I am so glad that you are beating cancer... go you! It happens more and more now that people get cancer free. We are so going to win.

But ahh... the doubt! You get it. And she does sound very similar. The things she would say are the things most calculated to hurt you. Or she will see a moment of weakness and it's literally like seeing her come in for the kill, and there's nowhere to go.

The sooner I accept that her problems are hers, the sooner I can get on with the work I need to do, and living my own life away from her shadow. And damn I think that is going to loom long. I can already imagine all the: but after everything I've done for you... etc and so on as soon as she wants something from me. Though right now she's in a new relationship so I am surplus to requirements. I'm getting a lot of 'Flowers in the Attic' vibes from her right now... i.e. I think we should move the computer upstairs out of the way for when we have visitors... (it's mine and where I sit a lot, since I am a writer) What do you mean I'm trying to get rid of you? I'm just thinking of tidying the living room up! (Yes, by making sure I'm no longer in it. I know.)

Anyway I have been listening to youtube today, and I recognise a lot of us in those stories. I'm not sure it matters all that much what it is, as long as I can get a strategy together for surviving it in the right way, and beginning to recover so that I can eventually get away for good. It's been occurring to me why I feel so good on holiday, and why I don't feel that way when she insists on accompanying me.

Thank you for the rec on setting boundaries too... that is very important.

I'm really glad you're going to be okay, and I'm very pleased to meet you. Oh, and you are an ex-smoker too? I stopped just over four weeks ago now.... then I stopped vaping this week, lol.

Hey SunnyMeadow and no worries

Yes, that dark, heavy curtain has been suffocating me for a long time. I feel like even with all the doubt and anger and worry... I'm also so full of hope and optimism. I can escape this. And if I can do that, I can do anything, because I know I am strong. I've faced some rough things down. I can do this too.


Thank you for the welcome, every one 

[pipchick]

Happy Christmas to everyone...

Adding an entry because after a relatively more peaceful period, my mother hit me with it full force today. One of those where they make you look bad in front of others, knowing if you try to defend yourself you'll look completely crazy, and even when you have to escape from the room they get the extra bonus of making you look petty.

I talk to my partner about it and he says I have to develop some shields... but I guess I just wasn't expecting it. And it hurts to be belittled and hurt in front of others, and for those others to just enable it.

I've been feeling pretty horrible since then, even though my partner has asked me not to think about it. I went out for a walk in the cold for two hours. Now I'm still getting the accusatory: "What's wrong with you?" all the time, like machine gun fire.

It's just gaslighting. I know it is. I just... ouch.

My partner thinks that as soon as I am out of the picture (I'm planning to move to be with him), then the enabler will get a taste of it, because he thinks she needs to get other people down to make herself feel good, and I am her target because I'm her daughter, so she knows exactly and precisely how to make me feel bad.

Anyway, I thought I should put it here, and I have to say, from glancing through the forum it seems the holiday period is a favourite time for our narc parents. So many posts about christmas here. It just struck me, that's all. Maybe we all let our guard down at this time of year? And that allows them to get in?

[pipchick]

I've been listening to an audiobook: The Narcissist in Your Life: Recognizing the Patterns and Learning to Break Free by Julie L. Hall

Some more things are occurring to me. Like the fact that I will never reclaim my lost past. That there are things I will never see clearly because I was too young. All I can do is work with what I have now. I notice that she's been running an extensive long running smear campaign against my Dad, almost from the moment he passed. He committed suicide when I was 25. But I'm also seeing that he enabled her, sometimes in horrific ways.

I'm trying to employ medium chill, but it feels so incredibly lonely. Yet I'm aware this loneliness is always there, I'm just looking at it now instead of turning away from the part of me that has always been lonely.

I had a dream last night where I saw her for what she is. Not a monster. She still looked like her, but the events in my dream, she was manipulating them so she could enjoy watching me try to right everything, celebrating my losses in her heart, but at the same time unwilling to let me go.

I realise that all the bad things she has ever made me feel are things that she feels about herself. My body, my illnesses are her Dorian Grey portrait. No more. I will continue with medium chill if it kills me. One way or another, I am going to escape from this Hell on earth she's made for me.

But every now and again this seems so impossible. As if I am walking in the dreary rain, and someone has told me that if I can only fly up beyond the clouds I can be in the sunshine.

How can I fly?

[PeanutButter]

Pipchick. I am so very sorry! Im glad you are here. I think your plan is a good one. I look forward to witnessing your journey.

[pipchick]

Thank you, PeanutButter

There's a battle ahead, that's for sure. But I have a plan... it goes something like this:

Go home, get the dogs and pack some stuff, get to the club, lock the doors and shutters, then sit down with a nice cold drink and wait for all of this to blow over...

Wait... this isn't the Brexit forum, is it?

I have a strange sense of humour. Death will do that to you. But in a way it's helped me. I've been through worse grief. I can go through this too. I will survive it. And I will have a life in the end. Seeing others like you who are further along in the journey gives me a lot of hope.

[doglady]

Hi Pipchick
Your childhood and mine sound uncannily similar. I can really empathise. My updM told me from a very young age also that there was something wrong with me, that I ruined her life and would rant to my father about me. She'd tell my other siblings to stay away from me. I recall standing in our garden at *two years old *struggling to figure out what I could do to make her like me. Like you, I was a pretty quiet kid, and my younger golden child brother was the favourite. I reckon I had depression all through my childhood and adolescence (untreated, obviously, because they didn't notice? Or I was simply an annoyance). It's an understatement to say my childhood wasn't great. Yet she could always present well enough outside the home and was (still is) a pillar of the local community. So no one ever got my point of view, which, like yourself, cause me to doubt my feelings, all of which were suppressed anyway as she would rage, cry and become ill if I expressed them.

I agree with WI about being glad that Didi isn't around to hear she had cancer. I recall saying to one of my sisters, 'god, I hope I never get it, mainly because M would make it all about her and turn it into some sort of cottage industry of martyrdom.' You know something's wrong with someone when that's your first consideration.

Anyway, I really feel for you, Pipchick.  I wish I'd 'got out' much earlier in life. I kept trying for too long at too much cost to my physical and psychological well-being.  A dark sense of humour will certainly get you through the tough times though. I wish you well on your journey and I feel that in time you will rise above it and fly.

[pipchick]

Hi doglady... I'm so sorry for everything you've been through

It does sound very similar indeed, and I hope you are recovering well now. It's amazing how well we internalise the idea of our feelings being annoying, isn't it? I apologise for existing so many times each day, to everyone, and now I have to consciously catch myself doing it.

The things is though that now, no matter how long we stayed or how bad it feels... we get to choose our own 'normal' and I want mine to be relaxed, chilled and laid back. I want the people that surround me to be reasonable, rational human beings. I want to give and receive. And even though I might still have to live with her right now, it doesn't seem so impossible any more. That's got to be a good thing.

You matter.

[pipchick]

The One About the Cheese...

Thought I'd bring this memory up in my thread, because we've just had Christmas, which is one of the rare times I will eat cheese. It's not usually high on my list of foods.

Over Christmas I was grating some cheese, and the same memory came to mind as it does every single time.

Picture the scene. I'm ten years old, and I've been given a Very Important Job - that of grating cheese. It's the first time I've ever done it. It's harder than I imagine, and I work hard at it while my mum and dad ignore me. We have an old fashioned grater, and it's too big for my little hand, given that I have to hold the cheese with the other. Maybe I'm not even as old as ten.

As I continue, it occurs to me that maybe I shouldn't be doing the whole block, but no one told me how much to do. I look up and around for guidance, and I swear I feel the breath my mother inhales when she sees me. Then my mother uses that breath to scream at me.

I'm stupid. I'm useless. Why did she bother ever having me?... "Philip! Look at what she has done now! There are fingermarks in the cheese!" I look and, sure enough, I can see the indents of my own fingers where I was holding the cheese to grate it. I feel so horrible and guilty... and dirty. My mother is looking at me like that again. Like I am the most disgusting thing she has ever seen. I don't know what to do. I start crying, but my Dad doesn't help me. He doesn't say anything. I don't know how to make the moment move to the next one. I don't know how. I don't know what I did, at the same time as I do know what I did.

I am 43 years old, and I cannot grate cheese without feeling that sense of deep shame, humiliation, and rejection.

I am 43 years old, and I don't eat cheese very often. It's not high on my list of foods.

[pipchick]

I'm not meaning to spam my own thread or whatever... it's just... I felt so unbearably sad this morning that I was crying on the way to the gym.

And tonight I am not a million miles away from it either.

I'm not sure how well I'm doing at medium chill... but I'm not getting drawn into disputes. I'm remaining coolly aloof without being unpleasant. I don't know what it is that's making me sad. I guess the mother I want would sense the change and ask me about it, but it's not quite that. The mother I want would sense the change and ask me about it because the distance would feel bad to her. That might be it. Yet, clearly... that's not who I'm dealing with, so why does it hurt like this?

Today I put a lock on my bedroom door. To me it seems like a reasonable boundary, especially since her new man is living in the house. But I'm hoping she doesn't catch me going in.

EDIT: To elucidate, I'm feeling bad for treating a person who doesn't exist... badly.

[pipchick]

Today:

Well, yesterday I took my elderly greyhound to the vet because her leg was swelled up and she was limping. He gave her a bottle of the anti-inflammatory painkiller that he has given her before. Mom was out all day, even though she knew it meant I'd have to drag both dogs to the vets.

I gave her the double dose in weight that the vet told me to with her tea.

This morning I went to the gym and shopping for dinner tomorrow. She doesn't say a word all day, then tells me she gave the greyhound some more painkiller this morning. She doesn't even know how much to give her and reads the box wrong (reading the 1.5mg of ingredient per ml as the dosage).

She's overdosed the dog.

And all she can say is: "Stop shouting at me!" I'm not even raising my voice, but I'm amazed that she doesn't understand (a) that no dose whatsoever would have been due this morning because she only ever has that painkiller once a day, and (b) that she can't even read a veterinary direction on a box.

I'm going to miss tonight's dose and hope that is okay.

I am so fed up of this. I can't be in the same room as her. Not even for five minutes. Because there isn't any way that she doesn't xxx with my life and the lives of the animals I care about.

She does understand what she's done.
She's purposefully waited until she's seen me for long enough to deliver the blow.
She's deliberately careless with the lives of the animals.
She has done this to stress me and then deny me the opportunity to display any emotion whatsoever, because I am being "horrible" to her.
I am not being horrible to her.
She is being horrible to me.
And particularly horrible to the greyhound.

Now she is downstairs talking to the flying monkey partner she has moved in with us about me.

[pipchick]

Well now she is throwing me out of the house and I have nowhere to go. So life is over

[PeanutButter]

Hi pipchick. Im sorry that your beloved pet is feeling bad. I want to validate you that it is horrible that your M waited untill you were gone to dose the dog again. She should be ashamed and no amount of selective intelligence would suffice as an excuse for me. I would tell her the next time she does that you will report her to the aspca for animal abuse/negligence. It sounds like she did this to punish you and to get a reaction.IMO
Im so glad you put a lock on your door. 
Hang in there. It sounds like the MC is working if you are not being drawn in to disputes. She may escalate or change tactics in response. Regardless of that IMO you will need to grieve the mother you never had. I hope posting here is helping. We are here for you.

[PeanutButter]

Well now she uscthriwing me out of the house and I have nowhere to go. So life is over

Oh no! Take a moment. Lets think. Can she legally do this? Maybe she will have to evict youto do that. I hope so. Shes escalating because of your MC. And her new supply.

[pipchick]

Thank you peanut butter.

I got the medication to lock away without her seeing and then I went down to make sure the greyhound ate her tea as loss of appetite is a symptom  of overdose.

Then she told me to stop being funny with her,and that I know where the four us. The she told me to Xxxx off.