My mother was probably the best mother she ever was when I was a really young child. I don't remember much about those years, obviously, but I seem happy and content in photos. I know that she read to me a lot, helping to inspire in me a love of books. I have seen her with my son when he was really little. And although she was doing harm to me in her attempts to snatch him away from me, she was very loving and attentive to him. She often gets down on the floor to play with him. She spent endless amounts of time focused on him. It's one of the reasons he likes her so much today. I can remember her being like this with my little sister and I believe she must've been like this with me as a child.
As my son grows older (although he's only in preschool), I have seen the change coming. She becomes more irritated with him. His stories and idiosyncrasies are annoying to her at times. Her patience is eroding. It's clear that as his individuality and his independence have emerged, she has begun to take that personally. As he no longer is a little doll to play with, but a person, she's struggling to maintain her level of devotion. I suspect she was trying to transfer it to DS2, but as I've limited contact, that hasn't been much of an option.
I remember when I started to become more and more independent. How she pulled away. How she punished me with indifference. How she forced control onto me whenever she could. That "mother" that somewhere lives in my unconscious memory was fading away. I was left with a selfish, distant, annoyed mother. One who found the menial chores of motherhood beneath her and infringing on her life. One that viewed me as a weight around her neck. One that seemed very unhappy with her life most days. One that seemed bothered by me.
As I grew older, my mother has grown worse for me. Things growing into a fever pitch when she divorced. Me being tossed aside like an old newspaper. Then her decision that she wanted me back into the fold. And her desperate, abusive, angry attempts to get me back under control. Her manipulations, her triangulation, her lies, her pushing. DH was even more of a threat. She attacked him, as subtely as she could but often she was outright hostile. Her attempts to triangulate him from me by trying to align herself with me as "long suffering wives" of idiots. Her attempts to be my friend, to buy me out, to hold out bribes to lure me back in. These wounds go deep too.
Her behavior in recent years has wounded me the most. I've just recently given up the idea of calling my mom for support. I used to have some fantasy, when I'd had a bad day, that I'd call mom to talk about it. The conversation never left me feeling better. Often, I felt more burdened, and definitely more alone, than I had before I called. She never helped resolve my problem, lighten my load, but instead heaped on guilt and sorrow and pity for her problems. I began to awaken to the reality of our relationship and that reality frightened me and hurt me. It isolated me and made me a motherless child. Her acts of the "NM Show" during my sons' births, her lack of real regard for me during my pregnancies, her jealousy, spitefulness, anger, and expressions of betrayal have wounded me to my core.
As unfortunate as she was when I was a young girl, my recent realization that she was far, far worse to me as an adult came as a shock. The idea that this was getting worse, and probably will continue to get worse, was frightening. Waking up to the reality that I really had to mourn and grieve for my mother. Mourning a woman who is not dead but feels that way. Mourning an idea and a lifeline I thought I had. I'm not sure if I even know how to do that. I'm not sure how you grieve the loss of someone you still hear from all the time. Letting go of the idea that the mother I had constructed in my head, was just that. Something I'd constructed in my head.
I can relate to this post so much! When I was reading it it was like as if you were writing exactly about my life. The happy childhood photos, the content childhood.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I don't have children yet, this is almost exactly what I can expect from my mother: being absolutely adorable when they are little, but being increasingly annoyed by them as their independence grows.
As she grew to hate me when I became more myself and less her.
And the last part... exactly how I feel. There are moments in my life when I feel that 'this is the point, when I would really need a mother'. Then the images from my childhood emerge, and then I realize that my mother, the one I miss so much only exists in my head. That I will never have a real mother that books, movies and some friends talk about. And then I cry.
This is the worst part of mourning a relationship with a narc. You miss someone who never existed. You miss things that were never real. You miss emotions, connection, heart-to-heart talks that never were there. And the time, when you believed with all your heart that all these were there, deep inside her soul. How can you make yourself understand that she is dead, when you see her day by day? I don't know either.
I know how impossible it seems to digest this, I'm also in the process right now. I guess this is one of the reasons why No Contact makes it easier over time, at least you can pretend they are dead.
And what I feel now is that I would really like to hug you and tell you that you are not alone.
:hugs:
Scatha: Thank you for the support and sending you a hug right back.
Delete"You miss emotions, connection, heart-to-heart talks that never were there." This speaks volumes to me. Not only were they never there, but my hope that they would someday be there, if I just tried hard enough, is gone too. And to discover the "reality" of my past, and to feel so duped (I guess would be the word, maybe cheated?).
Also, "That I will never have a real mother that books, movies and some friends talk about." This is hard too. The delusion that society has that everyone has a "mother" and the assumption that they are all good. That I must have serious issues if that is not what my mother is (an assumption of society that it must somehow be me. That I'm just a bitter daughter). That so many people take for granted that all mothers love their kids, unconditionally and only want what it best for them. To not believe that mothers are this way, goes against some fundamental "truth' that society holds.
Jessie,
ReplyDeletethis seems to be a pattern with NM. What you describe about your mother being a "mom" in the early years parallels my own experience to a "T." Her "true" personality switched on as I began to individuate. Between 12-14, she changed completely toward me. of course, she recently claimed, and I quote, "something malevolent switched on in you when you were a teenager. I kept waiting for you to outgrow it but you never did." What an amazing thing to say to a woman in her 50s, who is a teacher/mentor by profession! She projected her own dislike of me onto me, and became withdrawn, gave me endless silent treatments, became stingier as I entered my mid-teens, lobbed endless derisive comments at me about my appearance and behavior, but more, just radiated her dislike of me, after I went through puberty. She's right that "something switched on"; but as you describe with your own mother, it "switched on" in her.
Yes, so true and so sad for all of us. The time when a girl could really use a mom, an ally, and all we get is an attack.
DeleteRecently my mom and I were talking about having girl children versus boy children. She told me she had told someone that "having boys would be so much easier when girls hit puberty. Teenage girls are horrible to live with." She said it as if she was talking about someone else, not referring to me, her former teenage daughter. And on top if it, she wasn't around for most of my "teenage" years. Sure, my sister was very difficult but I wasn't. I was so busy surviving her abandonment, taking care of myself and my sister to do the typical "teenage" crap. I also think she attributes my anger at her (justified anger about her divorce, etc.) to just normal teenage hormones.