She has a whole arsenal of zingers and emotional triggers to use. Keep telling myself not much longer now, but also keep wondering if I will make it to see her living somewhere else. I know I keep posting pretty much the same thing on here, but I have not one person who knows what this is really like. My counselor is ok, but I need more help. I've started withdrawing from life and that's not me. Unable to work, so I'm going to try to get disability benefits but I think I could actually bounce back if she wasn't here. She can't use me anymore and I need to also stand on my own feet as well. I'm 59 for heaven's sake. But it feels like I'm trying to stand back up with her on my back-the mental weight. Anyway, she has gone back to her ways of accusing me of whispering behind her back with a neighbor who visits us. This neighbor is nice to me and Mom gets so jealous. She does this thing called triangulation. Only I think I'm the only one who sees it.
Nobody understands the dysfunctional dynamic, nor the stranglehold, these women have over us as long as we maintain contact with them. That's why it's impossible to set boundaries....they won't allow it and they constantly change the rules of the game to keep us off guard.......so the only real answer is to go no contact.
Most of us can't feel okay doing that, so we wind up accepting the abuse. We allow the constant mind games and zingers to go on and on. An on. And we wind up waiting for them to die, but they live on and on, coming up with new ways to hurt us on a daily basis. Just when we think they can't possibly find yet ANOTHER way, they do. So we wind up drinking or drugging or needing anti depressants just to function. Right?
I maintain low contact with my mother who has dementia and gets more foul on a daily basis. I've gone from calling 2x a day to once, and am considering going to every other day now. I used to visit frequently, now it's once a week if that. When she goes off on me, I leave or hang up the phone. I don't take half the shit I used to take, but I still take way too much. But I'm the only child, unfortunately, and starting to feel like she's my punishment in life for the past 62 years. I wonder if I'll be 70 and still resenting every moment I have to spend dealing with her. I hope not.
All of her siblings are dead. Her husband of 68 years is dead and shes glad, since she always disliked him because he was never enough, just like me and everyone else in her life who's disappointed her.
It is what it is. I've written all this just to tell you I Get It. I feel your excruciating pain. She doesn't live with me because I put my foot down hard on that subject many years ago. I'd literally shoot myself first, honestly. So I know you have it a lot worse than I do and my heart hurts for you. Take care of YOU, my friend, because she sure won't be doing it.
I hope there won't be a bunch of negative backlash over this comment, or comments about hate or things like that. It's not about hatred...its about exhaustion and never feeling like enough. And it's oddly about Love, too, in a strange way, and wanting a loving relationship but never feeling it or knowing what closeness feels like. Or the mother daughter bond, because narcs are incapable of true love or closeness.
Its all very sad, how they destroy everything they come in contact with, or within 100 yards of their toxic presence. Yep, I really do understand where you're coming from, from one who's Been There Done That
Well-she hasn't been by in a few days. If it was me-my feelings would have been hurt. Anyway. Another example is another neighbor right beside me gave us some fish-fresh caught, cleaned and ready to cook and she said-I wish they had been_____fill in the blank (the type of fish they weren't.) Anything but what someone offers and I think that is so selfish.
When she moves out of my house, I will be able to have some control over how much she belittles me and I will be leaving out of her earshot too when she starts. I will be able to be myself around people without having to watch what I say or how I act around them. You know, like a normal human being.
Again thank you for understanding how it feels.
ive just read this entire thread and it just breaks my heart to the core.
its mind boggling to me that there are so many like this.....its up to us, our generation, to stop the abuse and insanity.
Read the book, Act Natural, Jennifer Traig. It’s fascinating. It is a historical account of parenting. Not new behavior and in the past it was really bad.
The ‘good old days’ weren’t all that good.
When I started to set boundaries all hell broke loose. She pitted my brothers against me. We didn’t get along to begin with because my brothers are so self centered.
I burned out. I got so much criticism that I told mom to go live with my brother and his wife if they thought he could do better. She stirred up so much crap that he threatened me with turning me in for elder abuse.
Hadn’t spoken to them since she left because I needed to regroup.
Yesterday was my birthday and I tried to reach out to mom. Calls kept going to voicemail. It upset me so I asked my daughter to call. Same thing happened to her. My daughter called my godson, my brother’s son and he gave my daughter mom’s new number.
I called. She was cold as ice to me. I may not even know where my mom will end up living. She’s 94 in November and I am pretty sure my brother will place her somewhere. That’s what he said he was going to do.
She wasn’t even going to give me her number. I won’t know when she’s dying or when she’s dead.
I am struggling to process her rejection. Grieving for a mom that isn’t even dead. It’s horrible.
For me, it was hell. She had pitted my brother and I against each other all of our lives, and our relationship fizzled, so we will never see each other again.
I'm 63 now, and I'm relieved my mom passed away. I'm cofused a lot about my grieving. I think I grieve for a mom I wish I'd had.
Your mom isn't going to change. Mom's doctor told me to stop visiting her so much. To visit just once a week. That's what I did. She became angry and agressive with the caregivers, but I stood firm on the days I would visit. I didn't abandon her, but I didn't play into her manipulating ways.
Now, I have PTSD, because of the years of hell that she put me through. I guess what I'm trying to say is, keep your distance from your mom.
Adult protective services had to come out to our home once because mom assaulted me and I called the police. The police had to call APS, which was fine, because I'd already been talking to a case worker. They're the ones that advised me to have her admitted to the hospital.
My husband and I went away for a weekend a few times, and mom was so angry that we did. I didn't feel bad about it either. We have to have time with our spouses, or LO, right? Right. You have to reclaim your life. It's a fight, but it's worth it.
So, call APS, DSHS, and get them involved right away. They aren't there to prosecute anyone, and they will help you find a solution for you. I'll never be sorry for getting them involved with my parents.
Depending on the state you live in, there's options for putting your mom in a home. My parents were in an Adult Family Home, which was much better than a nursing home, or ALF. You do have options for getting your mom out of your home.
I hope you can find peace somehow.
Thanks for posting.
Probably I need to take a little break from here and turn my attention to other things. Meaning go walk on the beach or the mall. Yeah, that's it. So maybe if we all collectively go out and live in the moment in the sun or even rain it will be like sending positive vibes to each other to know we are living instead of just surviving. take care and love to all. I will be thinking of you all.
I finally hired two aides who she fought for the first few weeks. She now accepts them in her house and she’s sweet as pie to them but demanding and agitated all the time with her children .
I know the pressure and anxiety of carrying them on your shoulders. I started working out and that helped. Part of me hopes she dies in her sleep and than I’m guilt ridden for thinking that . It’s just two much for one person to handle.
Sending some strength your way.
hang in there.
My mother was a manipulator and an abuser. I have not spoken to her for 8 years this time and 9 another time. The happiest times in my adult life, I will never go back to her. My boundary is set...no contact.
Boundaries don’t always work out. Sometimes people have to get outside help. My daughter had to get a restraining order on her ex boyfriend after he abused her and her little dog.
He kept tormenting her even though she set boundaries. She had no choice but to take him to court to get a restraining order. She won the case! It’s amazing what defense lawyers will argue to defend abusers.
I think, and it's just my thought, we get so conditioned to feel bad about ourselves and how we always come up short-in our Mother's eyes that it takes a while to get back to knowing we were doing all we could and can. Let the others deal with it. It hasn't been that long.
You are absolutely right. We are programmed to see things as our fault. It’s horrible. She erases all of the wonderful things I did for her. Nothing was ever her fault.
It’s an emotional struggle for me. I don’t think she will call. My brother is a bully! She will be submissive to him. She fought me but won’t with him.
He will keep her away from me out of spite. It’s a long, complicated history between us. It’s just sad. Let me just say, with brothers like mine, you’d wish you were an only child. Even my brother’s kids despise their dads.
My MIL had non Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Her mom, horrible woman, told everyone that her daughter didn’t even have cancer. She told everyone that her daughter made it up to get attention! How sick is that?
First of all, my MIL was not vain at all and didn’t do anything for attention. Secondly, she didn’t have to do anything for attention because everyone loved her for being a lovely woman!
Get this, my MIL was an only child and I swear I think her mother was jealous of her, competing with her only daughter instead of caring about her, being interested in her life and so forth. It’s sickening. Who gets jealous of someone with cancer?! That’s how crazy her mom was.
Her mother wrote hate mail to all of us before she died while in the hospital. She had nothing but hatred in her heart. My MIL used to say she hoped to never to become her mom. We all told her that wasn’t possible. She was nothing like her mom.
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