Re: Hello from a newbie

July 30, 2011

I am reading the book " toxic people " and the author recommends confrontation for

the people who want to, she talks about doing it the different ways, on paper,

by phone, in person, etc. Your mom definitely sounds so thoroughly toxic that in

paper might be best.

This post sounds like a good start. It really does do something...I sent my

mother the letter about the cedar chest that I wanted back...I just completely

vomited up all the bile and resentment over a few issues just as you have done.

What is odd to me is that even though she apparently has me blocked on email, I

still FEEL as though I confronted her. I didn't know she'd blocked me and so I

processed through the writing of the letter, the hitting send, the feeling of

the enormous weight lifted off of me, the dreading her reaction, which never

came (long story short I'd sent her another email just prior with links to

videos of a pet bird given to me by a cousin, I know for certain that email

wasn't received because the view counter on the videos has not moved so it's

clear she's got me blocked somehow, the email should have been forwarded to

cousin to look at as she'd requested the links)...but anyway, it WORKED, it

moved me through the emotional process of having confronted her and I feel like

a completely different person now, even though I know she never read it. It's

weird. I haven't spoken to her in just over 2 weeks and even though I might

medium chill her now and then I know I will never let her back into that place

in my heart that she once had access too, never again. It feels wonderful. I am

so saddened to read about your mother's treatment of your children. She doesn't

deserve to ever see you or them again. I wish you the best in your journey.

Hugs.

>

> Greetings All!

>

> I've done a lot of reading (and thank you all) and I'm especially interested

in the idea of confrontation before forgiveness.

> I'm a little confused about just what my mother's diagnosis might be - I saw

somewhere a list of possibilities that ended

> with, " or you might just say she's a crazy bitch " ! I like that one. She has

never apologized for anything in her life or validated others'

> opinions or feelings (though she is quite well-versed in psycho-babble and

uses it a lot.) She does things like empty her car trash out onto parking lot

pavement because 'they pay people to clean this up.' That sucks. She's a

Republican. I'm a Democrat. She's religious. I am not. She was a Skinner box

kind of mother (and a disciplinarian fond of humiliating) - I am attachment

style.

>

> Sometimes I wonder if I have not deliberately made myself as 'not' her as I

can be - and if so, does that make me nuts?

>

> I'm worried that I might be on the spectrum due to my continued feeling that I

need to confront her about some of

> her past words and actions and have her sincerely apologize for them - not the

'I am sorry if you understood something I said to be hurtful' kind of apology,

but a real one.

>

> I've been low contact for years for (as I see it) my mental and emotional

health and to protect my children.

>

> Could write the usual volumes about my childhood (her 5 marriages, chaos,

alcohol abuse, physical and verbal abuse and a good

> degree of neglect), but it's the present relationship that matters right now.

>

> It was not until I met my husband and his siblings and parents that I saw (and

experienced) unconditional love and mutual

> respect within a family. It was then, for the first time, and increasingly as

I had children, that I began to call my mother on her behavior and insist that I

(and my husband and my children) be treated with respect. Since she never

accepts any responsibility for her words and her actions, this has resulted in a

very rocky relationship these past 20 or so years.

>

> Here is a small sampling of unresolved conflicts:

>

> 1. She offered to take the groom's cake home from our wedding and freeze it

for us. When we went over for it after our honeymoon, she laughed and told us

she had fed it to the neighborhood children - and it that it was awful, to boot!

We paid a lot of money for that cake - dark chocolate and cherries and rum -

meaning we wanted it (silly newlywed stuff!) and she laughed at my dismay! No

apology and ridiculed my caring about it.

>

> 2. One of her employees (one of her rare jobs) 'forgot' to lock in our loan

rate when we were buying our first house - the result being that we closed at a

2 points higher rate - which cost us for years. No apology. Her employee,

despite the fact that we made the phone call to her specifically to lock the

rate and no other matter was discussed, claimed we never asked to lock the rate

(probably afraid for her job) and my mother sided with her (!!!) and refused to

lower the rate! Said it would hurt her monthly numbers. We had no choice but to

settle or lose our deposit on the house (and the loan origination fee). She

believed the employee over her own daughter!

>

> 3. When my oldest was 5 or 6, she once deliberately teased him and goaded him

(he was very very shy) at a family gathering until he blurted out that she was

being 'stupid' - which was actually a pretty accurate description of her

behavior - though 'meanie' might have been more politic. My husband and I were

around the other side of the house at the time. She pulled down his pants in

front of everyone and spanked his bare bottom, all the while saying very hurtful

things about him (not his behavior - him). We left, after telling her to never,

ever, touch one of our children in anger again or speak to them so! She said he

deserved it for being so disrespectful and it was her right as a grandparent and

she would not hesitate to do it whenever he needed it. She added some snide

comments about our mamby-pamby parenting style and that we'd be sorry when he

was a teenager. (He turned out just fine.) He was never alone with her again.

>

> 4. She offered to pay off my student loans with $10,000 her mother had given

her as a surprise (another dysfunctional relationship). I think she meant

offering it to me to be a slight to her mother. She then reneged, as I refused

her demand that my husband pitch in the $1000 he had been given. The debt was

mine, and only existed because I could not get Pell Grants due to my mother and

step-father wrongly claiming me as a dependent throughout college. I paid my own

way entirely with work and loans. I even went home with friends for vacations

and holidays and worked summers at places with boarding.

>

> 5. When our children were 3, 5 and 8 we were visiting at her home for a

family birthday. The party started winding down after midnight and our children

and their cousins were settling down. She was very drunk and sitting in the

sunroom smoking and listening to (very) loud music. Everyone else was trying to

sleep. My husband several times asked her to at least turn down the music

before finally turning it down a bit himself about 2 a.m. She flew into a

spitting rage and we decided to leave. Before we got out of the house, she

leaned down and hissed in a super-evil voice directly in each of my children's

faces, that she despised them and wished never ever to see any of them again.

She then punched my husband in the face - an act my daughter sadly witnessed

(age 5.) Would that her fellow DAR members could have seen that! Since a lot of

the family was there, she had to acknowledge the incident to some degree, but it

was token and dismissed as her needing to relieve a little pressure and our not

respecting her right to do as she pleased in her own home. No apology to anyone.

>

> 6. When my daughter finished high school my mother asked what she needed for

college. We told her a new laptop (and this is what she had given our oldest

for his graduation.) She asked for a suitable model and where to buy it. Before

she purchased the computer, she received her invitation (a proper 2 weeks out)

to the celebration we were hosting. Having had to coordinate several

out-of-town families, we had settled on a date that suited everyone - and it

turned out she had a cruise planned that conflicted. She had not mentioned the

cruise and had, in fact just returned from almost a month in China. She had also

just returned my birthday gift to her (restaurant gift certificates for places

near her home) because she 'never went anywhere or did anything and so they were

useless to her' She was very angry that I had not consulted her about the date.

I am ADD and screw up a lot - but, as I told her, I had no idea that she could

possibly be traveling again so soon - and she lives nearby and does not work -

so? I was horrified and offered to host an entire 2nd crab-fest upon her return

(or at any date whatsoever until crabs went out of season in October). She

ignored every invitation and punished my daughter by withdrawing her offer of a

computer, saying she had no idea they cost so much (really?) and she certainly

could not afford one (really?), but would send $200 toward one, and then sent a

$50 check without even a personal message about her grand-daughter's

achievements - just a note about life being hard and wishing she had had such

opportunity. (She does not even accept her own life decisions!)

>

> There's more, of course - much of it very similar to the experiences I've been

reading here.

>

> I'm sorry this is so ridiculously long. Flash forward to the present. She

has just returned from an island cruise, to which my siblings and their children

were treated, in celebration of her 70th birthday. I was initially to be

excluded, but when I contacted my brother and sister a couple of weeks ago to

ask about our pooling resources to get her a very nice birthday gift, they asked

her to reconsider. I had no idea until then. She then left a voice mail

'inviting' us to come along at our own expense, as she did not feel comfortable

paying for us as I refused to attend counseling with her to 'establish

guidelines for healthy communication'. Though that's not exactly true - she

suggested it to my brother - not directly to me (triangulation?) - it is true

that I cannot see how I can ever trust her sincerity without her addressing and

validating (truly) my feelings about these incidents and others. My feeling

right now is that she is only making the offer for appearances, so that she can

sigh and tell everyone that she tried to help me - that she reached out.

>

> We could not put together vacation requests for everyone in time - much less

afford $7000 for a 5 day cruise! So now everyone else had a great time and has

all these wonderful memories while my family was punished because of me! They

kids are all 18 or older and so she could have invited them without inviting me.

I have been a very good mother because I knew firsthand how not to do it - and

spent a lot of time educating myself. I was a La Leche League Leader for 10

years and took care of our group's library for all of those years so that I had

access to all of the great parenting and nutrition books - Dr. Sears was my

hero! I think maybe she (correctly) assumes that hurting my children is an

excellent way to hurt me.

>

> Mom has renewed the invitation to meet with a therapist, but her attitude is

that she is doing this to help me (she bears no responsibility) and she wants

only to establish guidelines for contact so that I can be welcome to enjoy the

family and perhaps participate in future celebrations. She does not want to

'dredge up the past', as that would in her opinion, be 'a waste of time and not

effective'.

>

> That's why I am intrigued by the idea that some people maybe need the

confrontation before the forgiveness. I'm relieved somewhat, too - as I think

it means maybe I'm not crazy to let these unresolved things bother me so much.

>

> BTW, my siblings have both had similar relationships with our mother,

including long periods of no contact. She had a poor relationship with her

mother and there is open animosity between her and her only sibling, my aunt.

Now that she has come into gobs of money and is flinging it about, my brother

and sister are now okay with her. They lately seem to be more able to just

brush off her crap. My brother lives very far away, but my sister lately is

like Mom's best friend. I swear they remind me of Mean Girls sometimes. For

instance, they called on Mother's Day and left a message telling me they were

treating themselves to a full day at spa and hoped someone was doing something

nice for me (all the while giggling insanely!) WTF?

>

> I'm allergic to wheat (2 epi-pens allergic) and she sent me Mrs. Fields

cookies for my birthday... and so on.

>

> I'm worried that my continued need to be seen and accepted as I am is extreme.

My husband, my in-laws, my children and my friends all find her behavior

disturbing, and I do sometimes have to remind myself of that.

>

> Sorry so long - did not know there was so much simmering!

>

July 30, 2011

Hi Alice.

Welcome to the Group.

Wow. The behaviors you describe sound more like npd to me, but I'm no

psychologist. If you've read " Understanding The Borderline Mother " , I'm

betting that you would place your mother into the Queen category (borderline pd

with narcissistic pd traits) and sometimes even the Witch (bpd with antisocial

pd traits). Also, it sounds to me like you have been designated as her

" scapegoat " child, the child who is the cause of all the problems in the family

and in your relationship with her. (Those with personality disorder can't

accept responsibility for any problems; its everyone else who is the problem,

never their own self.)

But it also sounds like you are able to stand up for yourself, able to give her

reasonable boundaries and not let her run roughshod over you. She retaliates

by designating you as the problem, by claiming that you have a personality

disorder (projecting, on her part) and by doing hateful, ugly passive-aggressive

things to you that includes hurting your children. (In my opinion, that's a

deal-breaker. But that's just me.)

My suggestion is that doing a major confrontation with such an aggressively

dominant and hostile mother is something to engage in ONLY if you are completely

OK with the idea that its likely that she will cut off contact with you

permanently. AND she will very likely use the confrontation to vilify you:

she will cast you in the role of her evil attacker, and she will cast herself in

the role of your pathetic and innocent victim. She will have

reasonable-sounding explanations and justifications for every hurt you list, and

will claim that you are either lying and making them up, or that you ignorantly

or deliberately misunderstood her intentions or words in each case.

If you are OK with that, then, confront away. Your open, honest, heart-felt

letter or words describing how she has hurt you over the years will (in my

opinion) probably not have the result you are hoping for. Your mother will not

have an epiphany of true remorse, and she will not fall on her knees and beg you

for forgiveness. Instead, your open and honest communication will be received

more as an open declaration of war.

My advice (which may or may not resonate with you) is to not go through that

exercise, and instead just try to let go of your need for her acceptance and

approval.

It hurts really badly to realize that for whatever reason, for no good or

reasonable reason, your own mother actually does not love you. For whatever

sick, twisted reasons of her own she needed for one of her children to carry her

unwanted, negative feelings she has about herself, and she chose you for that

task. Through no fault of your own, she targeted you to project her own

self-loathing and negative aspects onto, back when you were too young to even

understand what was going on.

And yet, you survived. You not only survived, you were able to develop a sense

of healthy self-esteem, you were able to give love and be loved, you were able

to marry and you had kids that you mothered well. Kudos to you!! That is

remarkable, particularly considering that you were probably raised as a

scapegoat. I think that is due to your own inner strength of character and

your innate resilience; you have a core of steel!

But each of us has to figure out what we need, what we can tolerate, and want

will work best for us in our own individual situations. There is no one way or

only way to handle it. If you believe that confrontation and granting

forgiveness are what you need to heal and move on, then that's what works for

you.

-Annie

>

> Greetings All!

>

> I've done a lot of reading (and thank you all) and I'm especially interested

in the idea of confrontation before forgiveness.

> I'm a little confused about just what my mother's diagnosis might be - I saw

somewhere a list of possibilities that ended

> with, " or you might just say she's a crazy bitch " ! I like that one. She has

never apologized for anything in her life or validated others'

> opinions or feelings (though she is quite well-versed in psycho-babble and

uses it a lot.) She does things like empty her car trash out onto parking lot

pavement because 'they pay people to clean this up.' That sucks. She's a

Republican. I'm a Democrat. She's religious. I am not. She was a Skinner box

kind of mother (and a disciplinarian fond of humiliating) - I am attachment

style.

>

> Sometimes I wonder if I have not deliberately made myself as 'not' her as I

can be - and if so, does that make me nuts?

>

> I'm worried that I might be on the spectrum due to my continued feeling that I

need to confront her about some of

> her past words and actions and have her sincerely apologize for them - not the

'I am sorry if you understood something I said to be hurtful' kind of apology,

but a real one.

>

> I've been low contact for years for (as I see it) my mental and emotional

health and to protect my children.

July 30, 2011

Funny how money being flung about can snap people to attention--this is just an

added complication to what was already a horribly toxic situation to begin with.

Your mother is playing the queen to the hilt. She is paying a T to agree with

her to not discuss the past. She pays your siblings to not give her any grief.

From your description, it sounds like she is trying to blame you for all the

family woes. Is this correct? If she is intent on making you the fall guy, no

amount of meetings/negotiations with her is going to change that. She seems to

want to have you in a position of always having to 'chase' or 'rise up' to meet

some bar or standard that she will never allow you to reach. None of your other

siblings are expected to go to the same lengths for the same payoff.

You are not defective, you are not a " lesser model " version of your siblings.

And every time you let her know you don't want to be treated that way she tries

to 'put you in your place' again. What a witch.

It sounds like you have a lovely (immediate) family. Your husband/kids have had

to put up with a horrible MIL/grandma. I'd tell the old bag to get bent and

concentrate on the ones who love you and support you unconditionally.