Intellectual Anger versus Emotional Anger

This last month has not been easy with NM.  Not that anything particularly out of the ordinary has been going on.  It's just been a lot.  I'm not sure if the winter blues are making her worse or what is going on.  I almost feel like a storm is brewing. 

A little background.  Almost two years ago this spring, NM and I were having a conversation about how hard it is to talk on the phone with young children.  At the time, NM called several times a week and often was on the phone for over an hour with me.  These conversations were often painfully negative and if I tried to get off the phone, she would do anything to STALL getting off.  Rarely did we talk about me (unless you count her questioning me about the kids about me), often she ranted and begged advice (that she didn't actually want to hear), and when I'd try and get off she'd say "let's see...let's see...what else is going on?" in order to hold me hostage on the phone. 

So, as my kids were screaming in the background, the conversation of how difficult conversations were came up naturally.  I said that I usually only had a half hour or so.  I wasn't actually trying to set a boundary or make a point or anything.  But she took it as such and quit calling.  I'm sure I was supposed to make any effort to call her.  I'm sure that she expected that, after not calling me for awhile, I'd pick up and dial her.

But I didn't.  I found the time off from her liberating.  And it wasn't like she didn't have ANY contact with me.  I still got daily texts, emails, or FB messages (often many and often from several different mediums).  I haven't called her, save a handful of times on birthdays and holidays, since then. 

A little more background: my mother has always seemed anxious and overprotective about her kids.  She endlessly "stresses" and "worries" about us.  Everything sends her into a tizzy.  But if you tell her you are concerned about her stress, then she back tracks and says how "strong" and able to deal with things she is.  She loves to be the martyr of stress.   Several weeks ago, she sent me a message detailing her latest medical appointment in which they did tons of tests as "something doesn't feel right".  All the tests came out fine and NM said she believes it's all the "stress" she's been under.  I suggested a therapist in response.  She immediately told me how wonderful everything was.  So.  That was that.  Stress seems to be a sport with NM and worrying about her kids (and herself) seems to be a favorite past time. 

Earlier in the month, NM came to visit.  It went OK.  As well as could be expected, I suppose.  She pulled some shit with my son that I've had to deal with and address.  And that sucked.  But nothing else major happened.

Then, I got the "something's wrong but nothing's wrong" message. 

Then, I got a load of messages as she looked through old photos on her computer (copying them and her commentary and emailing them to me.)  Included was her insane idealization of my grandmother.  (See this post). 

Last week, my family got a horrible cold.  One of the worst colds we've had.  Several weeks before that, we had a horrible stomach virus.  It's not been a good month for us.  And then, last week, a blizzard hit our town.  I live in a place that is used to snow, lots of snow, but this storm was complicated by bitter cold (well below zero), freezing rain, sheets of ice hiding under record amounts of snowfall, and raging winds creating zero visibility.  Several times over the weekend, HUGE drifts of snow (over 4 feet tall) blocked the road to our home and we were snowed in.  On Saturday, we were able to get out of our home but the snow had drifted so badly by the time we got back from the grocery store that we got stuck several times (including in our own driveway).  We were then snowed in (again) until a front loader construction truck came and dug us out.  (We live by ourselves at the end of a loop and so we were a bit isolated.  Not completely without help if we needed it, but it was a bit anxiety provoking.)  It wasn't the worst thing ever, but it was not a fun weekend.  Add to that we are still all sick and we've been stuck in the house for most of the last two weeks (me, hubby, and our two young kids.  It's enough to make anyone stir crazy).

NM also got some bad weather (but not like ours) and has to commute a distance on relatively isolated highways to work (however, it is possible for her to stay home.  She wouldn't lose her job and has something like 6 weeks of vacation.)

So, over the weekend, I updated my FB status a couple of times about being snowed in.

Within an hour, NM had posted her OWN status about having to drive on the roads.  It almost felt like she was one upping me.  I don't know why.  I've discussed with my blogging friend Kara how I just know my NM (and my sister).  I can feel the tone of their voices in posts.   I know their patterns and ways of behaving.  So, while I may have no proof of her trying to one-up me, the timing just felt too coincidental.

On top of that, she was messaging me about noticing a condolence I had posted on a friend's page (she must have been closely monitoring my activity on FB to see that).  She went on and on about how "short life is" and how "sick" the story made her.  And on and on.  About her.   And then, at the end, she tacked something on asking about how the kids are feeling.  She didn't ask how I was feeling, despite knowing we were all sick.

She also didn't ask how we were doing in the weather.  She didn't ask if we were OK or if we had help if we needed it.  It seemed SO strange.  So strange for this woman who frets and stresses and worries constantly (she has said in the past that she couldn't deal with me being pregnant because it's so stressful FOR HER.)  I'm guessing, and again this is conjecture, that I was being punished for not "checking" in with her (because, you know, she has it HARDER in the weather because she has to drive the roads).    I did make one comment on her picture and update about how bad the roads were.  She clearly was DRIVING while taking pictures and posting to FB so I told her to keep her hands on the wheel.  She responded by saying "I know these roads so well after driving all these years (do you hear the sob story there too?) that I know every bump on the road."  Hmmmm.  So, the roads are SO bad that you feel you can take your hands off the wheel?  Just because you know them well?

So, back to my point of punishing me for not being concerned about her.  Things started to click for me in a new way.  It's sunk into my head that she makes everything about her (obviously).  It's not lost on me that she changes everything around to herself.   But, when it sunk into my head that she was withholding love and concern for us as punishment, I hit a whole new level of anger and sorrow.   It finally dawned on me that this "overprotective, stress" is all manufactured and can be turned on and off depending on how much I'm catering to her.  If she feels love and concern for me, she'll mirror that back to me by being all stressed out and concerned for me (her definition of love).   As I've moved myself to safer distances from her, she's pulled her attention and concern for me.  She doesn't call and ask how I am, she doesn't ask how I am feeling (only the kids), and she doesn't seem interested in anything that I do.   The little trickle of concern she seemed to have for me has all but dried up.  So, when I didn't text or write to make sure she was safe on the roads, I could almost feel her bitter resentment shooting back at me.  I can almost hear her say "fine! If she can't be concerned about me, I'm not going to be concerned for her."   I can almost see her foot stomping and rage that I'm, somehow, making the storm (centered over MY town) about me.  That I'm not concerned enough for HER.  And for the record, I hadn't really thought about NM.  I had other things on my mind and the roads, while a bit dicey, seemed relatively "normal" for this time of year.  It didn't seem like anything she hadn't dealt with all winter. 

It wasn't until this situation last weekend that the full realization of how little she actually cares and how her "concern" is an act came slamming home.  Memories of my teenage years came flooding back (I really dislike this part of the process.  It's not like I've suppressed them, but when things like this happen, the memories come back very vividly.  And they suddenly "reorient" themselves into ways that make much more sense to me now.  It's like I had categorized them differently, and as I come out of the FOG, they 'line up' differently in my mind.  It's sort of hard to explain.)  I remembered how NM would make a huge deal of me being home when she called.  She'd be spending the weekend with her boyfriend and call at 10 to make sure we were home.  It never occurred to me to sneak out.  But I look back now and wonder why it didn't occur to her.   Once she got that phone call, she didn't have any clue what happened to me and, clearly, she didn't really care.   She had satisfied herself that we were alright and then it left her mind.   When I lived off of my boyfriend's couch in my senior year of high school, she never knew where I was most of the time.  She didn't know if I made it to school, or got fed, or got my homework done.  She just expected I would.  And I was such a good kid, I took care of all of that myself.  When I went to college, she had no clue what was going on with me.  Her concern and "stress" only seemed to pop up when it was useful to her.  Or when she needed something to do.  Some drama to live off of. 

She makes huge deals about stressing over NSIS.  So much so that she "wound up in the E.R."  Yet, when she goes on vacation, she suddenly doesn't have any worry.  How in the hell can she just shut it off like that?  Because it wasn't real in the first place.  It was trumped up and created for her own entertainment.  She freaks out and expects me to soothe her as she stresses about my kids, or death, or her health.  I used to believe that she had real anxiety and I sympathized with her.  But the fact that she can turn it off has lost her all my sympathy.   If her daughter can be snowed in (with her precious grandkids) and she doesn't feel the need to see if we are OK, then her "concern" in other areas is all an act.  Her concern is not a real feeling at all but a "product" of her feelings about me at the moment.  She can only be as concerned for me as she feels "filled up" by me. 

After all this work studying narcissism, this realization isn't totally new to me.  But as my friend Kara put it, it's one thing to "know" it intellectually.  It's a whole other to finally "feel" it emotionally.  And I am angry.  It hurts like hell to (again) have to accept that my mother's concern and love only extends to me when SHE feels like it.  When I've done what she wants me to do, acted how she wants me to, and when I've given HER the love and attention and time she wants.  It hurts that her love for me is in direct correlation to her views on how good of a daughter I've been.  I can not fathom, as a mother myself, how in the hell she can just "turn it off".  How she can withhold love and concern as punishment.  How does a mother DO that to her child?