Releasing the past in order to find myself

Monday, September 17, 2012

Stalled

Cal's Sis checked in on me today.  I can't tell you what that meant to me.  For someone, even if it is from blogger-land, to reach out and want to know if I'm OK.  Do you know how rarely that happens in my life?  I mean, in the "general" times when people are supposed to call, they mostly do.  But for someone to reach out, just out of nowhere meant a lot to me.

I have been stalled.  Or paralyzed.  Just stuck.  These last few weeks have been hard.  I laugh at myself from earlier in the summer.  Truly not believing that things might have changed.  That there was peace on the horizon for me.  Maybe the relationships would never be what I wanted, but I thought I could live with what I was left with and come out on the other side.  But I knew.  I knew deep down that something was coming. That it was a calm before the storm.  That it was only a matter of time before the shit hit the fan again. Sometimes I feel paranoid.  I've been told that I am always looking for trouble.  That I'm always anticipating bad things with little reason to.  But the thing is, that's life for an ACoN.  Living life on red alert.  It's not paranoia.  Because these damn things DO keep happening.  There is always crazy being lobbed at me.  It happens like a broken record playing over and over.  It's almost to such regularity that I can predict it.

What I didn't expect was that it was going to be war on all fronts.  That I would be like a narcissistic-zombie apocalypse of shit.  You know, like in the scene of the movie where the girl is running up to the old abandoned house.  Alone, isolated, and with a minimum of resources.  And the zombies are dragging them selves up the hill to the house, ringing her in from every angle.  Closing in with suffocating relentlessness.

So, to start with, I've had to people die within the last few weeks.  One a family member I loved and the other a family member of a very close friend.  Both were so sad.  Both got me thinking about life and family in very different ways.  I found out my son might need surgery (somewhat routine, but still a bit scary), attended a wedding, went on vacation, attend a funeral, and traveled twice with my young kids a significant distance by myself.  Back-to-school, a nasty throwing-up cold with my kids, and dentist and doctors appointments for two young kids.  I've had very little time to process anything and I've been exhausted by trying to deal with life on top of all the other crap.

You'll remember that my BIL and SIL were complete asses at my son's party (see "So, How did it Go?").  This is not unusual for them.  They are self-absorbed and spoiled and thoughtless.  It didn't seem to bother them that they were causing obscene amounts of drama.  DH and I wondered if we had upset them.  Two days later we all were at a family get together.  DH and I wondered if they would bring up whatever the hell they were so upset with us for.  But they said nothing.  They acted like nothing was unusual with DH.  They were friendly and talkative.  But they ignored me.  No hellos.  No goodbyes.  No, hey, how's it going.  Completely ignored me.  It's been that way for the next two weeks.  No communication.  No talking.  BIL hates confrontation and it was clear he was hoping that by ignoring me, it would all blow over.  That he would just push it all under the rug.  Like we've always done.  Whenever someone acts like an ass, we just ignore it, move on and never speak of it again.  It frustrated me.  I couldn't help but see the hypocrisy as my BIL (a minister) spoke at one of the funerals about "family" and "memories" and "good times".  I finally approaced my BIL at another family even a week later.  He was nervous and treated me like I was a great-aunt.  In a distance, general small talk way.  It pissed me off.  It added tension to situations that didn't need, and shouldn't have been that way.  It confirmed to me that any delusion of "family" with my in-laws was just that, a delusion.  The relationship with these people has eroded and eroded the last few years and I can see that it has little hope of coming around.

My sister, with the cancer, has not contacted me at all.  I continue to get "updates" from NM, but even she admits that she is "still learning" new information about it all.   She gives the impression that NSis is not being fully up front.  She updates me daily, but she also lets it slip that NSis is hardly talking to her at all.  NSis has removed all ways of communicating with her except by phone.  I did try once to call.  I tried to think about what I felt I needed to do, outside of her behavior.  She didn't deserve a call.  She hasn't acknowledged anything in my life lately.  She is sitting waiting for me to beg her for information, to be her complete sounding board, to spend hours hanging on every sob.  She wants all of my attention, time, and devotion.  She's waiting for me to prove to her she's important.  But she hasn't called, or told me actually what in the hell her diagnosis is.  She won't communicate with me (or anyone).  I hear tale that, after publicly outing herself, she's sick of all the people trying to comfort her.  But I was trying to choose a behavior based on what I felt was right, not on who the recipient would be.  So, I called her.  No surprise she didn't answer.  Or call back.  So, I'm still in the dark.  I vacillate between sadness, apathy, and anger with the situation.

NM made excuses for NSis not calling.  Her phone was off, she never saw the calls, she's tired, she's worn out, life's rough.  You know the drill.  Even when I explained that I left a message, so claiming ignorance wasn't going to work for me.  And for the record, I don't even know if NSis came up with these excuses or NM is just making them up for her.

NM has been in a tizzy.  Another bout of medical issues has befallen her.  I've been getting paragraphs-long emails describing the "horrible" details of her and several family members medical maladies.  It is exhausting.   Plus, she's supposed to help me out with something in the next few weeks.  She begged me to let her help me.  We had made firm plans.  Now, when I asked her about this favor, she's chosen to ignore me emails.  The lady who emails me twice a day at times, suddenly has "lost my number".   More fucking games.  I'm she's trying to teach me a lesson.  Trying to get me to see how she feels when I don't get back to her right away.  Trying to let me swing in the wind awhile.  Maintaining her power and feelings of control and revenge.  Drawing it out, so she can suck ever last morsel from the drama.  I'm ready to call her out on it but I wanted to see how long she'd play her little game.   I know she's seen my message, as I've seen her on social networking sites since.  And I'm guessing that in the end, she'll back out of helping me.  Claiming that she may need to be there for NSis or that someone else will need her or that she can't take any more on right now.  Whatever.  It makes me angry.  That she would play such fucking games.  That, knowing that this is an important favor, she's going to use it to hurt me.  That she doesn't give a shit that the favor I need from her is actually an honor because I chose her to do it.   That she can only be a parent to one of her kids at a time, and that kid will never be me (unless it benefits her.)

Throw in a couple of intense discussions with some friends who have been less than supportive lately.  Then a discussion with a fellow friend with a NPD mother.  She was supportive and nice.  But it was the wrong place and time for such a discussion.  I would up feeling like emotional and exposed and a bit sheepish about the whole thing.  I had never broached that personal of a conversation with her in person before (although I had on email) and I couldn't tell how she received it.  She's been great since, but I still feel stupid.

It's just all so damn overwhelming.  It's been so overwhelming for the past month.  I have dishes and laundry and mopping piled up high.  I have chores that I have no energy to do.  I haven't even had the energy to blog.  I have had stuff to say, but I've been so fuzzy that I can't get a coherent thought flowing (as evidenced by this post.)  But, everyday I'm putting one foot in front of the other.  I'm getting out of bed.  I asked DH to help pick up some of my slack.  To give me some breaks.  It's just all so much.

14 comments:

  1. Jessie, please let me tell you what I hear in your post above. It's offered because I've been where you are emotionally, I recognize myself in it. I believe you are way too enmeshed with your mother, dependent on her responses to you, which is why she knows, she KNOWS, she can mess with your head. Precisely because you asked her for a favor. You're still trying to get her to treat you like a daughter, whereas she just wants to keep showing you that your NSIS is the important child. This is a losing game for you. Why do you let her email you twice a day? Forgive me here, but I'm upset on your behalf. You should be restricting contact with her. You left a message on your sister's machine. Your sister is withdrawing from your mother as well, and that makes your NM clutch at her power as the disseminator of information all the more tightly. If your sister wants you updated, she can do it herself. If she refuses, you are not responsible for what you don't know. But please stop letting your mother play intermediary. She loves this role, she derives all her power from it. Meanwhile, it's slowly killing you. Please hear this in the spirit of love and support with which it is sent. My emotional well-being used to be mortgaged to my mother's treatment of me. Not any more.

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    1. Thanks CS for your support! I think sometimes we need a good shake up (and I really have rarely had someone willing to say, hey, stop letting them treat you like shit).
      What you say is right. I guess a lot I feel like I've been drugged. I come to, see the reality around me, struggle to get up, but then get dragged back down with the drug of narcissism.
      NM loves triangulating. She also loves drama and wallowing in things. And if she can't focus that energy in the direction it should be (at NSIS) she'll throw it at me. It doesn't matter to her. I've been working at ignoring her little "information" passing. Which has caused NM's currently being NC with me. I can see the connections, it's almost too obvious. But I sometimes am still stunned at her blatant and horrific behavior of me. And it leaves me paralyzed and weighted down. Old habits die hard I guess.
      But I'm trying. It's just all been so damn much lately. I try and remember that Nsis has an obligation to me too. That she can keep me in the loop. That withholding all of this information is childish and petty and selfish. But that "big sister" in me, the part of me that almost felt like I had responsibilities to her as if she was my own child pop up. I'm trying to let go of that part of me. That feeling of obligation to her. It's just SO DAMN HARD.
      Thanks again for your thoughts and support!

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    2. I understand entirely. The effects of a pathological narcissist (like your mother) are DEPRESSOGENIC. They cause depression. You are struggling to comprehend what you're seeing, and the depression arises to keep you from fully knowing what you know. This is why it feels drug-like, being on the receiving end of narc tactics. The thing is, Jess, Narcissists ARE horrendous. They may not hit you; they may have fed and clothed you and they may "check in" with you every day. But if they are Narcs, you exist for one reason only: to serve as narcissistic supply. To feed their vampiric egos. Yes it's horrific. You are struggling to believe what you already know deep down. it causes depression. I've been there. I've been climbing out of that trough of disbelief for thirty years.

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    3. I have to say that with triangulation, you are the only one who can make it stop. You can insist that you will no longer send, or receive, information from a third party. Period. You can make that the one single thing that you do to change the pattern. You will find out who these people really are, believe me. Your NSis can communicate directly with you if she wants to. Your NM can find something else to talk about. But don't expect her to be interested instead in you, or your son, or anything you care about. What she cares about is showing you how much MORE she cares about your sister. That's her way of tormenting you. You can stop her from doing it by making it the one topic that is off limits.

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    4. This makes perfect sense. Thanks for sharing it with me.
      And I agree. Sometimes, finally glimpsing reality, seeing it, can be horrifying. And sometimes I really have to force myself to keep taking it all in. I do know it deep down. And it seems so ironic that I'm mourning for something that wasn't there in the first damn place. But I think it's like trying to pull two universes together, the fake one that had been created for me (and which I helped to create) and reality. Pulling them together is exhausting as them seem to defy each other. And the reality I see after all of this sometimes feels like I'm viewing a war zone. Casualties, carnage, and bombed out former "homes" litter the horizon.

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    5. I understand, again. Think of it like "The Matrix." You are unplugging the tubes that linked you to the false world, the one with implanted sentiments that aren't real, and roles assigned to you by someone else. The thing is, Jessie, that once unplugged the "other" world isn't a hollow bombed out place at all--it's got freedom in it. It is frightening to confront such freedom, because our subjectivity, mind and thoughts have been "filled" for so long with the materials of enmeshment. What will we do with all that newfound mental freedom once we "release" ourselves? If you wait for your NM, or your NSIS, to understand or to help you disconnect, you'll be stuck in there forever. It's not your fault your sister has whatever the actual diagnosis is. Your mother's physical ailments are not your fault, nor your responsibility. Your only responsibility is to create a stable subjectivity for yourself. You owe that to your own children. Everyone in your FOO system is continually waiting for everyone else to 'make them feel important.' Just be important to and for yourself. And never forget, you're the most important person in the universe to your son. Last lecture of the day, I promise.

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    6. Lecture away! I need it and I found this dialogue immensely helpful. Thanks.
      I think I should clarify one thing though. I think I meant that by the war-ravaged world I meant the one I left behind. That fantasy world of a perfect mom and perfect family and a loving home, now seem to be hollowed out ghost towns and ghosts of people. The relationship I wanted so badly with my mom is dead and on the ground. The relationship I tried to believe in with my sister is destroyed.
      I do see that my new, true world is a much better place to be. I think sometimes, though, as I try to focus on it, it is so bright with the light of truth that it blinds me. Like coming out of a dark tunnel into the light, one has to move slowly and let your eyes adjust.

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  2. Oh, I LOVE this dialogue between Caliban's Sister and Jessie!

    Jessie, I understand so much of where you are in your life right now. Been there! And I thank GOD I'm not there now!

    Cal's Sis, I agree with all that you are saying.

    I just have one thing to add, from my own hard personal experience: When you've had ENOUGH of this sick family dynamic, Jessie, then you will make it stop. You will set your healthy boundaries. But only you will know when you've had enough. Only you will know when it's truly hopeless to keep trying to have the Hallmark Christmas Special type family we all wish we had.

    As for me, looking back, I wish that I had said ENOUGH, years before I did. But I had to keep trying until there was no try left in me. Why? Because I was being true to who I am.

    But... it almost killed me, all that trying. I am deadly serious about that, Jessie. I hope your personal level of "ENOUGH" will happen long before you get to the point where the pain almost has you dead and buried.

    Oh wait, I have a second thing to add: As a 59 year old woman with 2 sons and 1 daughter ranging in age from 31 to 41, I can tell you for sure that a true mother cannot stop loving you, no matter what you do. A true mother with a real human heart and soul will love you even if you pull the plug and go full No Contact. Being human and imperfect, she may rant and rage and be all pitiful for a while. But if she is a true mother.... in other words, if the potential to have a genuine mother-daughter relationship with her is there, your going full No Contact will absolutely NOT "kill the relationship." In the long term, if there is any potential in your mother to BE your mother, you going No Contact will ultimately MAKE a healthy relationship possible, because it will force her, after she gets over her mad fit, to look long and hard at herself, and do something about her character defects.

    Again, I'm speaking from the hard personal experience of having gone through some really tough times with all 3 my adult children.

    Take care of yourself, Jessie. A truly loving mother would want you to do that, above all.

    Charity

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    1. Thanks Charity. I've taken all your words to heart and I appreciate you taking the time to share.

      It's ironic, that when I've distanced myself from my mother before, she has taken the time to look at herself. Guess what her conclusion was? That she needed to focus MORE on herself and that she would just write us off as the ungrateful brats she felt we were.

      I'm working so hard at letting it go. I have long, long ago let go of any hope that we could have a perfect Hallmark family. That ship has sailed. I guess, I was (am) hoping, I can figure out a way to maintain a very LC relationship, while still protecting myself and being NC with my emotions towards them (meaning that I know longer allow their petty crap to get to me and live a life not defined or influenced by them.)
      But I do see how completely "unmotherly" my mom is. Having my kids has so greatly clarified my perceptions of what a good mother does. About what a mother's unconditional love really is. How loving one of my kids, does not preclude me from loving the other. That just because one of my kids needs something or requires more of me, I don't take it out other kid's allotment of me. That they owe me nothing.

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    2. I'm glad you were wise enough to give up on the Hallmark Family idea. Took me forever to do that!

      I like what you said about how being a mother yourself has "greatly clarified my perceptions of what a good mother does."

      Years ago I read of a woman who had a large family. When she was asked how she managed to divide her love between all of her children, she replied, "I don't divide my love, I multiply it."

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    3. That's exactly it, Charity. I never divide up my kid's mother between them, doling myself out to whomever is most "deserving" or "needy" at the moment. Tending to one does not excuse me from tending to or loving the other. My NM seems to forget that.
      As for the Hallmark family, well, my FOO has always made it pretty impossible to ever believe in that. I never, ever really believed we were "normal". Not even "quirky normal". I knew we were messed up from a very early age. We were never close knit, or lovey, or connected, even when I was little. And I had no delusions we ever would be. I had just hoped we could get along. That I could have some sort of family. Some sort of support system. But, I'm working on giving that up too.

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  3. Jessie, no wonder you have no energy, no one would having to deal with so many narcs on one front. I think Cal's Sis advice is very good. I was also thinking whether it'd be an idea to deal with one narc at a time. Maybe focus on the one you think is draining you the most.
    I really understood every single feeling you expressed in this post. We have all been in similar situations ourselves. I'm really sorry you didn't have a chance to have a proper discussion with your friend and I so know what you mean about feeling exposed and sheepish and stupid. It's a horrible feeling.
    We are all here for you. Hugs.

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    1. Thanks for the support Kara! I think it's a great idea to try and deal with one narc at a time...unfortunately, it's kind of out of my hands. With the in-laws, I've been forced to deal with them due to several important family events. And unfortunately, we are entering a season where my in-laws show up in my town all the time. I think DH will help me maintain some distance.
      I'm also trying to focus on some other things outside of all of this stuff. Doing activities that I find re-energizing and that help fill me up again.

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    2. Doing things that make you feel good. I'm trying that too. I've been spending time dealing with the extra work on the house (decorating, gardening, etc) that I had been putting on hold all these years because I couldn't think straight and had no energy left with all the stuff going on with my FOO.
      In-laws-show-up-season, yikes! Let us know how it goes.

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