Guest guest Posted February 19, 2012 Report Share Posted February 19, 2012 In The Sorrows of Young Werther, a character describes the myth of the Magnetic Mountain. Hapless sailors wander into the mountain's straits and the nails and beams are suddenly ripped from their boat. They drown amidst a collapsing boat, sinking with the planks. I've often used various themes from literature to describe my nada--dementors (and/or Voldemort) from Harry Potter; Saturn devouring his children; the alter-mother from Coraline. This mountain myth--my nada tearing out my nails until I become undone--is my new visual for how I feel around her drama. I've been a member of this board for roughly seven years. I've dipped in and out and always take great comfort in the continuity, courageous voices and support of this group, and the eerie familiarity of posts. I've had a rough weekend and hit a patch of intense sadness so I felt the need to share my story. My nada has zipped through many men across the years, weaving an identical pattern each time. She woos them with her charm and beauty, wraps her tentacles around them, is worshipful and manically adoring until her cycles of anger escalate and eventually become daily. She splits them hourly--they are either angels or psychopaths (in reality they are normal, kind, confused and beleagured men). She convinces them they are insane, medicates them, deprives them of sleep, torments them, and eventually drives them away. She is very violent--hits, kicks, spits, punches, throws ice water on them while they sleep. She secretly taperecords their fights, cancels their phone lines or follows them in her car in fits of paranoia, smears them to friends and colleagues. She's an absolutely demon in her rages and I've consequently gone almost no-contact over the past several years. We talk briefly once a month and I see her one or two days a year. I am no longer the direct target of her BP behavior as I have basically removed myself from her life. She also mostly paints me as all-good as she sees me as a direct extension of herself. She can't hold a job, has alienated most of her friends with her frenzied, fabricated nonsensical tales of persecution and victimhood. Her newest beau (now ex-fiancee) kicked her out this past weekend and sent her formal eviction papers after a particularly wild escalation involving police. While the ex-fiancee is sympathetic and finally grasps her sickness, he wants her out. She is now essentially homeless. Her last house was foreclosed, my grandmother recently passed; she has nowhere to go and is penniless. My years of therapy have helped me realize there is nothing I can do for her so I am compelled to watch the drama unfold from several states away. Even if I had the money to house her, it wouldn't fix anything. She'll find a new man to torment soon enough and will be horribly needy with me in the meantime. It's so hard and sad. Her world is such a terrifying place. She's so frightened all the time and oscillates in and out of being a danger to herself and others yet I can't have her forcibly commited until she acts out in an extreme way. I don't know what to do with her. I feel powerless to do anything other than watch and try not to emesh myself with her drama and angst. I'm desperately trying to recollect my nails and not come undone but her power over me is so strong and ancient. I feel utterly filled with despair today. And angry. So angry at her. I realize she's deeply sick but she is ruining these men. It's horrible to watch. I have so much guilt and anxiety bound up in being her daughter and it gets all riled up during weekends like this. Not only do I not have a mother, but I have this wicked ghost of woman who looks identical to me trolling the earth, leaving a trail of chaos. I fear she'll eventually become too old to trap men and begin tormenting me, no matter what steps I take to avoid or even hide from her. Phew! That was cathartic. Thank you for listening. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 19, 2012 Report Share Posted February 19, 2012 JosoBak, I really like your metaphor of the Magnetic Mountain too. I think we need this symbolic language because what happens psychologically to us with a crazy mother is so PRIMAL so fundamental. For me it feels like the world becomes twisted and upside down but I can relate too to that feeling like the stability in myself can be threatened by too much contact like you describe the nails that keep you together getting pulled out. As KO's we work so hard to put ourselves together and stay that way yet it always seems to be under challenge. It sounds like your mother is really extreme and I hope you remember to always keep yourself safe. She's in the territory of commitment and social workers, nothing an normal mother-daughter interaction can fix. It really is tragic what she's done to herself and all those hapless men but none of it is your responsibility to fix. Eliza > > In The Sorrows of Young Werther, a character describes the myth of the Magnetic Mountain. Hapless sailors wander into the mountain's straits and the nails and beams are suddenly ripped from their boat. They drown amidst a collapsing boat, sinking with the planks. I've often used various themes from literature to describe my nada--dementors (and/or Voldemort) from Harry Potter; Saturn devouring his children; the alter-mother from Coraline. This mountain myth--my nada tearing out my nails until I become undone--is my new visual for how I feel around her drama. > > I've been a member of this board for roughly seven years. I've dipped in and out and always take great comfort in the continuity, courageous voices and support of this group, and the eerie familiarity of posts. I've had a rough weekend and hit a patch of intense sadness so I felt the need to share my story. > > My nada has zipped through many men across the years, weaving an identical pattern each time. She woos them with her charm and beauty, wraps her tentacles around them, is worshipful and manically adoring until her cycles of anger escalate and eventually become daily. She splits them hourly--they are either angels or psychopaths (in reality they are normal, kind, confused and beleagured men). She convinces them they are insane, medicates them, deprives them of sleep, torments them, and eventually drives them away. She is very violent--hits, kicks, spits, punches, throws ice water on them while they sleep. She secretly taperecords their fights, cancels their phone lines or follows them in her car in fits of paranoia, smears them to friends and colleagues. She's an absolutely demon in her rages and I've consequently gone almost no-contact over the past several years. We talk briefly once a month and I see her one or two days a year. I am no longer the > direct target of her BP behavior as I have basically removed myself from her life. She also mostly paints me as all-good as she sees me as a direct extension of herself. > > She can't hold a job, has alienated most of her friends with her frenzied, fabricated nonsensical tales of persecution and victimhood. Her newest beau (now ex-fiancee) kicked her out this past weekend and sent her formal eviction papers after a particularly wild escalation involving police. While the ex-fiancee is sympathetic and finally grasps her sickness, he wants her out. She is now essentially homeless. Her last house was foreclosed, my grandmother recently passed; she has nowhere to go and is penniless. > > My years of therapy have helped me realize there is nothing I can do for her so I am compelled to watch the drama unfold from several states away. Even if I had the money to house her, it wouldn't fix anything. She'll find a new man to torment soon enough and will be horribly needy with me in the meantime. It's so hard and sad. Her world is such a terrifying place. She's so frightened all the time and oscillates in and out of being a danger to herself and others yet I can't have her forcibly commited until she acts out in an extreme way. > > I don't know what to do with her. I feel powerless to do anything other than watch and try not to emesh myself with her drama and angst. I'm desperately trying to recollect my nails and not come undone but her power over me is so strong and ancient. I feel utterly filled with despair today. And angry. So angry at her. I realize she's deeply sick but she is ruining these men. It's horrible to watch. I have so much guilt and anxiety bound up in being her daughter and it gets all riled up during weekends like this. Not only do I not have a mother, but I have this wicked ghost of woman who looks identical to me trolling the earth, leaving a trail of chaos. I fear she'll eventually become too old to trap men and begin tormenting me, no matter what steps I take to avoid or even hide from her. > > Phew! That was cathartic. Thank you for listening. > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 19, 2012 Report Share Posted February 19, 2012 WOW, Joso, your post just floored me. my own nada does a less extreme job on the men in her life. First my dad, then her second husband, who genuinely loved her and made her an easier person to be around, I've never seen anyone that could " handle " nada the way he could. Unfortunately he passed four and half years ago. This latest one she married about a year and a half after the second husband died. Boy has he had the full funhouse experience. He was wonderful perfect, sent by God and her late husband to take care of her, then he was a horrible chauvinist, they divorced about six months after they married and he moved out then moved back in this went on god know how many times then he was back for good and they remarried, because it is scandalous to live together you know! She and my dad did this too way back when. they divorced and got back together and lived together for a while til nada bullied him into marrying her again. I think the latest husband is like you describe your nadas ex-fiance, a normal confused and beleaguered man. I can't even imagine what this all must look like from his perspective, but he went back to her even knowing she was a piece of work. Personally I think he puts up with her so he has a place to stay. I think his own family is so much worse that this seems like the lesser of all the evils he has to choose from. C > > In The Sorrows of Young Werther, a character describes the myth of the Magnetic Mountain. Hapless sailors wander into the mountain's straits and the nails and beams are suddenly ripped from their boat. They drown amidst a collapsing boat, sinking with the planks. I've often used various themes from literature to describe my nada--dementors (and/or Voldemort) from Harry Potter; Saturn devouring his children; the alter-mother from Coraline. This mountain myth--my nada tearing out my nails until I become undone--is my new visual for how I feel around her drama. > > I've been a member of this board for roughly seven years. I've dipped in and out and always take great comfort in the continuity, courageous voices and support of this group, and the eerie familiarity of posts. I've had a rough weekend and hit a patch of intense sadness so I felt the need to share my story. > > My nada has zipped through many men across the years, weaving an identical pattern each time. She woos them with her charm and beauty, wraps her tentacles around them, is worshipful and manically adoring until her cycles of anger escalate and eventually become daily. She splits them hourly--they are either angels or psychopaths (in reality they are normal, kind, confused and beleagured men). She convinces them they are insane, medicates them, deprives them of sleep, torments them, and eventually drives them away. She is very violent--hits, kicks, spits, punches, throws ice water on them while they sleep. She secretly taperecords their fights, cancels their phone lines or follows them in her car in fits of paranoia, smears them to friends and colleagues. She's an absolutely demon in her rages and I've consequently gone almost no-contact over the past several years. We talk briefly once a month and I see her one or two days a year. I am no longer the > direct target of her BP behavior as I have basically removed myself from her life. She also mostly paints me as all-good as she sees me as a direct extension of herself. > > She can't hold a job, has alienated most of her friends with her frenzied, fabricated nonsensical tales of persecution and victimhood. Her newest beau (now ex-fiancee) kicked her out this past weekend and sent her formal eviction papers after a particularly wild escalation involving police. While the ex-fiancee is sympathetic and finally grasps her sickness, he wants her out. She is now essentially homeless. Her last house was foreclosed, my grandmother recently passed; she has nowhere to go and is penniless. > > My years of therapy have helped me realize there is nothing I can do for her so I am compelled to watch the drama unfold from several states away. Even if I had the money to house her, it wouldn't fix anything. She'll find a new man to torment soon enough and will be horribly needy with me in the meantime. It's so hard and sad. Her world is such a terrifying place. She's so frightened all the time and oscillates in and out of being a danger to herself and others yet I can't have her forcibly commited until she acts out in an extreme way. > > I don't know what to do with her. I feel powerless to do anything other than watch and try not to emesh myself with her drama and angst. I'm desperately trying to recollect my nails and not come undone but her power over me is so strong and ancient. I feel utterly filled with despair today. And angry. So angry at her. I realize she's deeply sick but she is ruining these men. It's horrible to watch. I have so much guilt and anxiety bound up in being her daughter and it gets all riled up during weekends like this. Not only do I not have a mother, but I have this wicked ghost of woman who looks identical to me trolling the earth, leaving a trail of chaos. I fear she'll eventually become too old to trap men and begin tormenting me, no matter what steps I take to avoid or even hide from her. > > Phew! That was cathartic. Thank you for listening. > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 20, 2012 Report Share Posted February 20, 2012 Wow, drawn from your post, below is a summary of my Nada s life ( she passed in 2009) eerie familiarity of posts. > My nada has zipped through many men across the years, cycles of anger escalate eventually drives them away. > > She can't hold a job , has alienated most of her friends with her frenzied, fabricated nonsensical tales of persecution and victimhood ..will be horribly needy with me in the meantime. .. Her world is such a terrifying place. She's so frightened all the time and oscillates in and out of being a danger to herself and others yet I can't have her forcibly commited until she acts out in an extreme way. > .. I feel powerless I feel utterly filled with despair today .. And angry. So angry at her Yes. You ARE powerless over her issues. She will not accept help or change, only enabling. You know the result of doing that. You can only choose the things that are healthy for you. I had to as well. I won t say there is never guilt for those decisions, but I think I had no good alternative. You cannot rescue her without swirling down into her madness with her. And that you must not do. I am an advocate of hope, I never tell anyone to give up. I believe there is hope that they will finally choose true help. Mine did not. She made small and incremental changes with one T, but never any orders of magnitude changes. And all those gains vanished when he took a teaching job and stopped seeing clients. So, my thoughts for you, hold onto hope, but protect yourself first. A KO who is victimized and drawn into the web with Nada can be of help to no one. I hope you heal. Doug Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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