Back to square one but at least now I know the game and rules….

[Lillith65]

I've felt like I've been hit by a truck for the last few days. Probably a stress-related fibromyalgia flare.

I am going to skip the next visit.

[walking on broken glass]

So you should, Lillith! Look after yourself.

[Lillith65]

Didn't skip the visit because my sister told me that my mum was even more ill. She was, and is, obviously declining.

The visit was the worst that I have had.

She dropped into the conversation that within a year of my divorce, custody battle and the conviction of my ex husband for actual bodily harm - my mother sat in the room and watched the police photographer take photos of my multiple and serious injuries - she and my Dad had him and his father to stay at their home.

This was the man who put me in hospital, abused me over the course of almost 7 years and tried to have my son removed from my care by claiming that I was an unfit mother. All that time they were apparently still in touch with him, while lying to me about what they really thought of him.

I am..........completely stunned.

I think it's going to take a very long time for me to really process the fact that they carried on a friendship with my ex husband after what he did to me. She clearly has no maternal feeling. Bizarre.

I thought that I had plumbed the depths of her cruelty and lack of love for me. I can remember her at the time, sitting ignoring me, reading the newspaper after the police photographer left. She never mentioned the injuries or attempted to care for me. In fact, the only reason that she was staying with me was because she didn't want to be on her own while my Dad worked away.

In addition, yesterday she exposed me to something else deeply unpleasant during the visit because she claimed that she didn't the help of a carer to go to the bathroom. I ended up getting one anyway because hell would freeze over before I did the kind of care she needed.

What I also find infuriating is that she is demanding emotional support and consideration that she has never, ever given me or my sister.

My sister also continues to complain about her health and how difficult her life is. And it probably is. But a lot of it is due to her choices and none of it is my responsibility. I acknowledge that she has also been damaged by our parents, but she has become like them rather than doing the work and gaining any insight. It's over between us. We are biologically related but nothing more. She reminds me of the overtly friendly, small dinosaur on Jurassic Park, the one that suddenly becomes a carnivorous monster with a huge ruff. I have learned my lesson.

I am hoping to work through the realisation that my mother is incapable of loving me. And it has nothing to do with me.

I am still sad about it all though, as well as feeling impotent rage about their complicity with my abuser.  Sickening.

[Tribe16]

I am hoping to work through the realisation that my mother is incapable of loving me. And it has nothing to do with me.

Lillith, I don't have much to offer other than support and virtual hugs. Your comment above may be the most freeing and healthy thing you can do. You are right, this isn't your fault, it's the fault of an adult who is incapable of considering her behavior impact on those closest to her - I'm so sorry that you have had, and will continue to do the work to get to that place of radical acceptance. The unloved daughter's club is not a fun one to be a member of, but you sure have a lot of women (and sons/men) who understand what you are experiencing. I'm glad you're here.

[Lillith65]

I am hoping to work through the realisation that my mother is incapable of loving me. And it has nothing to do with me.

The unloved daughter's club is not a fun one to be a member of, but you sure have a lot of women (and sons/men) who understand what you are experiencing. I'm glad you're here.

Thank you so much Tribe. I'm sending you a virtual hug too.

[Lillith65]

Well, it's official. She will die relatively soon as she has a perforated bowel (bowel cancer) with secondaries throughout her lymph nodes. They can't do surgery as she is too weak. Drs are saying days. Still being treated with fluids, pain relief and antibiotics and palliative care team will see her tomorrow.

I feel very strange about the whole thing. Went to see her after she was taken to hospital today. She is still quite feisty and combative with staff. What comes off her in waves is anger and bitterness. I'll see her every day, but once she's unconscious I do not want to see the bitter end. I've seen many deaths due to a previous role and I don't want to see her's. It all feels very surreal and I feel as if it isn't really happening. Weird.

[Liketheducks]

I'm so sorry Lillith.    Thinking of you.

[walking on broken glass]

I am so sorry Lillith. Please be gentle with yourself, with what you are feeling and thinking over the following days. The death of a close family member over whom we hold complicated feelings is difficult and it hits us in all sorts of ways. I will be thinking of you.

[Lillith65]

Thank you so much.

She died at 1am last night.

Collected my sister and got to the hospital at 12.30am. She was already unconscious and died half an hour later. Talked to her and said goodbye.

Pretty sure the morphine helped a great deal.

Surreal.

[walking on broken glass]

I am sending you lots of hugs. I hope it feels that you got some kind of closure.

[Lillith65]

The work I have ahead of me is complicated I think. Now she's gone there is no hope of any change, of a sincere and open dialogue about our relationship or of finding out what I did that made her so cold and distant.

I guess I already know the answer to that: nothing. She was personality disordered and I was the scapegoat.

[walking on broken glass]

My therapist told me this the other day: the only person who can answer your questions (questions such as yours) is your mum, but your mum's narrative is not reliable. Perhaps your mum's passing means that you can gradually come to peace with the idea that she couldn't provide any real answers, other than whay you already recognized: that her disorder made her target you.

[NarcKiddo]

I'm sorry that any last vestige of hope for dialogue is gone. Although as WOBG has suggested, it's likely that such a thing would have been impossible no matter how long she may have lived. Perhaps you need now to grieve fully the mother you deserved and did not have.

I wish you well as you navigate this period of your life.

[Tribe16]

I guess I already know the answer to that: nothing. She was personality disordered and I was the scapegoat.

My condolences to you Lillith - I hope that the path forward for you is a good one, and that you have lovely, caring people in your circle. One thing you can tell yourself is: "I'm not her scapegoat anymore." Thinking of you and wishing you peaceful passage as you navigate this new chapter.

[Lillith65]

It's been a very strange five days since my mother died. Surreal. I'm not sleeping properly and everything feels 'off.' Struggling to read or do the things that I love doing.

My sister told me yesterday that I am not in the will - I genuinely don't mind: her money, her choice - and she is sole beneficiary. And really, I think that it would have been a poison chalice if she had included me because of our difficult relationship.

However, what I wasn't prepared for was that according to my sister she (my mother) dictated a letter to a neighbour (she was losing her sight) to make sure that I couldn't contest the will by explaining why she stated that I was to receive nothing. So, my mother sat down and wrote a letter to blacken my name and continue the smearing after her death.

Just so strange that she would say how much she wanted me and my sister to get on, then writes the will anticipating more conflict! Apparently she and my sister both expected me to 'kick off' about it and to contest it. I told my sister that clearly neither of them know me because anyone that knows me knows that I wouldn't react like that.

And for those weeks that I was seeing her she knew what she had done. I mean, she didn't appear to be pleased when we reconnected and she remained as cold and distant as ever with me, while according to my sister she was open and vulnerable with her. I wonder why it was my sister who was the chosen golden child and why I was the scapegoat. Now I will never know.

I've decided that I am going to write her a letter and have the funeral director put it in the coffin so that when she is cremated, the letter (my feelings and questions for her) will also be cremated. I hope that is possible.

I was also able to retrieve a couple of things that my sister didn't want, but I did from my mother's home. I was left alone in it after my sister left so I sat in my mother's chair and said a few things out loud. That helped.

[Rebel13]

I'm so sorry for your pain and struggle, Lillith65, and for all of you in this thread, and for all of us who didn't get the parenting, guidance, love and care that we deserved. Thank you for sharing your experience of the loss of your mother -- I know it will be coming up for me one day soon and hearing how other people handle/manage/cope with the logistics and the feelings is so helpful. It really helps to know I'm not alone in being the scapegoat, wondering why I wasn't loved and my brother was (not that I think it's been much of a boon to him in the end).

And the fact of your mother writing a horrible letter about you and going along with you as though she hadn't done that -- it's just awful. She can't even let you have any peace in her death. I hope you didn't have to read it or know very much about the contents. You already know the big picture -- I don't see how those details can do you any good.

Lots of love and compassion to everyone today. We need it, and we deserve it.

[Rebel13]

I also meant to say, I love your idea of putting a letter in the coffin if you can. There are lots of traditions where that kind of thing has a lot of power. If you can't have it burned with her, you could also burn it yourself. All those molecules mix in the end, and that might bring you some comfort, to think of her essence not being able to escape the molecules of your thoughts.

Anyway, maybe that's too weird and witchy, but anything that might help is worth doing.

[walking on broken glass]

I am so sorry Lillith. I cannot imagine how difficult all this must be. Try to take things very slowly. Give time to yourself to process everything and heal. As Rebel said, I can imagine myself being in your place sometime in the future. I don't know how I would act and feel. I like the letter idea too because it gives you a chance to let go of all the feelings you are holding in regarding how your mother treated you. It might feel like you are purging yourself of all the toxicity.
Sending hugs to you.

[Lillith65]

I also meant to say, I love your idea of putting a letter in the coffin if you can. There are lots of traditions where that kind of thing has a lot of power. If you can't have it burned with her, you could also burn it yourself. All those molecules mix in the end, and that might bring you some comfort, to think of her essence not being able to escape the molecules of your thoughts.

Anyway, maybe that's too weird and witchy, but anything that might help is worth doing.

I have had an interest in what my husband calls 'witchy doings' so it just felt right and not weird to me!

[Lillith65]

After reading a woman's account of renewing contact with her mother after six years and how both she and her mother were in tears, but also so pleased to see each other and wanting to give explanations, I realised that the prevailing attitude of my mother to me was hostility, resentment and anger.

She never once put her hand out to me or offered any physical or verbal affection. I often took her hand, which lay inert in mine - no reciprocal pressure or stroking as I stroked her's. She never once leaned towards me to kiss me or attempted to give me a hug.

I realise now that my reconnecting was partly due to an ongoing desire to have an affectionate, loving mum and that seeing her reawakened that need.

This realisation has also dawned on me because I found some poems that my mum had written. They were all about my dad (deceased) and the dog (also deceased). They expressed feelings that indicate that she was deeply bonded to both of them and that she deeply missed them both. Is the fact that I am upset and disappointed that she never wrote a word about me indicative of me being 'self absorbed and self pitying?' Is it narcissistic to have those feelings?

Anyway, I am going to write the letter tomorrow and have decided to write it at the same place that I received her phone call leading to us reconnecting. That has a fitting symmetry I think.