Month: May 2018

My Soul is awakened – a hugely important moment in my recovery process

~ twinkletoes2017 ~ 28 Comments

I’m both excited to write this post and nervous. I’m excited because I’m desperate to share with you this wonderful moment that I’ve had… and at the same time I’m nervous that I won’t be able to find the words to explain how important this moment feels to me. I want to do it justice.

I’m also aware it may sound a bit “airy-fairy” and “out there” but it’s my truth I suppose and so I’m going to do my best to explain it.

You’ll know if you read my post from Saturday night, that during the course of the weekend, it really sank in for me that I wasn’t and haven’t ever been my real self around my mother. That deeper, or perhaps more emotional, understanding felt important and significant and I spent a lot of time over the weekend thinking about how clear that is. As I said on Saturday, it’s another one of those moments in therapy when something really clicks on a deeper level. Something that you knew logically finally fully makes sense to you and you know life will never be the same now you know that particular thing.

It was good.

Then yesterday I went about my business, me and my fiancé went to the shops and then on the way home we popped in to see my sister’s new (and first) new pad with her boyfriend. She was casually telling us the details of the drama with my mother and cousin from the previous weekend and she said this sentence..

“And then mum just went “oh get me out of this room, I’m so f-ing bored of my daughter””.

My mouth fell open!!

She didn’t even seem particular upset by it considering. I was gobsmacked. Wow.

Anyway, we continued our visit and later I left to go home. I felt pretty happy. I enjoyed seeing my sister and I enjoyed seeing her living away from my mother and in her own home. I guess I felt quite content and comforted.

I decided to do some ironing (even though I hate it!) and as I was hanging something up, the plastic hanger snapped.

*flash of rage!!!*

I got a new hanger out the tub and….. SNAP!!

Oh my God! The anger! The hot, hot rage that went through my body! I threw the hanger across the room where it shattered into loads of pieces and I screamed “AAAGGGHH!!!!!”.

Wow. What was that?!

By now I felt very angry and agitated. I knew it wasn’t going to pass. Suddenly everything was shit and I was angry at the world. I kept hearing the words

“I’m bored of my daughter”

My god. (Note: as I’m typing this now my heart is beating really fast!!).

I went and had a shower and as the water hit my back, I cried.

I decided to get my notebook/journal out and write a bit to see if I could release anything. I started writing about how I’m therapy I’ve had 4 key moments of really understanding something and I was planning to write out my latest one. I kept randomly crying but they were angry tears rather than sad tears. I could feel the need to scream building inside me again.

What was going on?

I started to write this: (excuse the terrible handwriting!)

And then…. I decided that writing just wasn’t working. It wasn’t flowing how I wanted it to, it wasn’t helping me. It felt wrong because I was feeling angry, and that writing was trying to be useful or provide insight or hope or something. It felt …. kinda disingenuous.

So I just started to scribble. Here is what happened next. I hope you guys that read this are able to make some sense out of it. It may be that it’s only me it made sense to, it feels very personal, very raw, very, very important to me: I hope it makes sense to someone.

“WHO ARE YOU????” Is what she repeatedly screamed at me the night we had that huge argument which led to me going no contact.

“WHO ARE YOU?”

I took that to mean “what have you become” which, on the surface, is what she meant, I guess but now it feels like what she was really in touch with, what she was really FURIOUS about was actually that she couldn’t see me at all. I was confusing her. I was giving her one hell of a narcissistic injury. Who am I?

Not you, that’s who.

Who are you?

I’m me. At last I’m me! I’m me and not you! I’m my real self and not my false self.

The fear of annihilation is real. I’ve lived with it my entire life.

And all of a sudden in this moment it feels like something huge has happened… like a real awakening has taken place. A shift, a transformation? I don’t know the word.

It’s like my soul has just be rescued. I’ve been saved and brought back to life.

A piece of me has just been seen and understood and integrated for the first time.

Never to be killed off or banished again.

Here I am.

And it clicks…..

~ twinkletoes2017 ~ 11 Comments

Do you ever find yourself suddenly understanding something, like, reallyyyy making real sense of something? Just suddenly (even though actually it’s not sudden at all, it’s years in the making)?

I find myself sitting here tonight and suddenly it’s so clear:

I was NEVER my true self around my mother. I tried to be what she wanted me to be. I tried to be her. To please her. I tried to be all of the things she approved of.

And now I AM.

Like it’s that simple.

Because I was her little mini-me, clone, puppet on a string ….. she was happy.

And now I’m not…. she’s not. Simple.

And so of course it makes perfect sense that she would hate my fiancé/my therapist for “changing me” because she’s never seen me enough to know who I actually am – who I’ve always been really.

I’m kinda blown away and yet some of this (maybe even all of this) is old news. It just suddenly feels as though i now deeply understand it on some deeper level. Emotionally rather than logically perhaps?

I was putting some buffet food out earlier tonight for my stepson’s birthday, after spending the day playing board games and cooking food and lighting candles on birthday cakes and I thought to myself “who wouldn’t enjoy this stuff??” Like what parent wouldn’t want to do these things for their child?

I don’t know quite how I’ve managed to find my true self again (again or for the first time?), but I have. I like being home with my fiancé and stepkids. I like playing board games with them and making dinners and baking cakes. I like going to the gym. I like chucking on trainers and a jumper some days, I like going for walks. I like our caravan holidays and making memories.

I’ll never, ever, again be who she thinks I am and who she wants me to be. Who I was for a while whether that was real or not.

The whole “extension of herself” never made sense to me – until now.

Xmas presents…

~ twinkletoes2017 ~ 17 Comments

Last night my mother text me asking if I was available this weekend to get my Xmas presents. She said that way she wouldn’t have to put them in storage (as she’s moving house).

This made me feel very awkward for a few reasons:

1) I don’t want to accept presents from her:

2) I don’t want to have to thank her:

3) I don’t want to be “brought” which is what money is to her. It’s power.

4) I don’t want to go to her house at all but especially on my own:

5) I don’t want to have to see her husband:

6) there will likely be presents for my fiancé and the kids and my fiancé doesn’t want to take them from her OR to thank her/make contact himself

I could go on…

So I decided to be honest and I replied saying that as grateful as I was, I didn’t feel comfortable accepting presents from her st the moment after such a long time of us not speaking and having only met once. I suggested she saved them for next Xmas or something. I apologised and said I hoped she wasn’t offended…

The message has been read but.. no reply.

What do people think of this? Was i right or wrong? Is true likely to genuinely upset her or just piss her off?

Narcissistic drama

~ twinkletoes2017 ~ 6 Comments

Hi guys, I hope everyone’s doing okay. I don’t feel like I have much time to write these days. I often question whether that’s truly down to a lack of time or something else. I’m in a bit of a weird place at the moment. Not a bad place but a bit …. well, the way I described it to T on Tuesday was “a no man’s land”.

I haven’t seen my mother since that Sunday nearly two weeks ago, I haven’t wanted to see her either so that’s not a bad thing. Being back in touch with her is very… nothing really. It’s very empty and pointless. I knew that would be the case so I guess that’s not a surprise but it does feel weird.

She’s still creating all her usual pointless drama mind, just not for me. For example she called my sister on Sunday night when she was at a “family” bbq saying she had to get there ASAP – it’s an hour and 15 minute drive away from where my sister lives and this was at 10pm. My sister asked why and my mum wouldn’t tell her and so she drove all the way there late at night to arrive to nothing more then a load of shit. My cousin had broken up with her husband of one year and as soon as he had left the house to stay with his parents, she invited some new guy over and was all over him. This divided members of the family. Some people thought this was a really shitty thing to do, others supported her regardless.

My sister is very seriously against people that cheat after having her heart broken in the past and clearly voiced her opinion. She also said that it was crappy to have not been invited.

Anyway this is all stupid but the point is, my mother manipulated the situation to get my sister there. For what reason I genuinely do not know. She just wanted to keep the drama going I guess. How sad is that?

Anyway, I knew something had happened as I saw on Facebook that my sister was on her way there late at night and so I text her asking her what was happening. She said she would tell me the next day (how annoying!).

The following morning I text my mum and asked what had happened and why my sister had to go there. She replied saying she didn’t “have” to go there, she wanted to join them at the bbq and that my cousin and her husband had split up and how sad it was because of how nice of a guy he is….. (no mention of the rest of the story).

Later my sister told me the extra details about how certain people were crying and some were angry….

Drama, drama, drama……

And then yesterday my sister text me to say she was upset with our mother and was having an argument with her by text. It turns out that my mum is going to a party on Friday night and has invited my brother’s girlfriend and said cousin above. She then invited my sister (saying they were all going and did she want to go?).

My sister flew into a rage via text about how shit it was to be asked last and asked after those two. My mother said she doesn’t have to consider my sister whenever she goes somewhere or accepts an invitation.

On paper you may agree with my mum on this but the problem is, my mum has dangled girls our age in front of our faces our entire lives. She’s always got a BFF who is our age who is the best thing since sliced bread. The unsaid message is very clear “they are better than you”. It has caused an untold amount of bitterness and jealousy in me in the past, in fact it’s probably one of the reasons I dislike this cousin so much.

This cousin is a year or two younger than me. My brother’s girlfriend 2 or 3 years younger than me. I’m 30 in a few weeks. My mother is 50.

The other thing which I have to laugh at is that whilst my mother and sister were having this text row about the party, my mother text me on our group chat (me, my mum and my sister) saying “all okay??” And then she added this new pet name she’s created for me which genuinely irritates the living shit out of me. It’s part of my name with “pops” on the end. So, for example, “Twinkypops!”. She’s said it constantly since we got back in touch but had never said it before then. What the actual fuck is that about?

Anyway, I thought it was a weird message to send to me on the group chat, it insinuated I hadn’t replied to something or a conversation was going on that I was not taking part in… I replied at the time in my very boring way saying I was fine and eating dinner. Little did I know she was having the text argument with my sister on a private message.

I guess I should be thankful that an invitation to this party didn’t come my way. I wouldn’t have gone anyway. I’ve not quite made my mind up whether she hadn’t asked me because I told her us drinking together isn’t a good idea, whether it’s because she wants to leave me out so that I feel jealous or what. It could simply be because I bore her nowadays.

On that subject, I posted a link to an article about the gray rock method the other day. For anyone that hasn’t heard of this method, the idea is that when you have to see or speak to a narcissist or a personality disorder person or any kind really, that you make yourself as interesting as a gray rock. It’s all about not being emotionally reactive, not letting them see when they are pushing your buttons, not giving them any drama whatsoever. The idea is that they get so bored of you, that they go elsewhere. It’s the relationship version of letting someone dump you by being a shitty partner I guess? LOL.

I knew that Sunday when I met with my mum after 6 months of no contact that when I said we needed to see each other in healthier ways, that didn’t involve drink, she was furious. She tried to hide it but it was so clear. She told me that until she had moved house she couldn’t afford to do those things, however it’s no surprise she can find the money to go to parties with her new twenty-something year old “friends” (are they even friends if they are family?).

I was there for my sister when she was texting me about their argument but had to stop myself from saying things I wanted to say, I did however say that my mother would want her to react how she has and that I wouldn’t want to go in a million years. I also said, I wouldn’t worry, I haven’t been invited at all ha!! I told my sister that we are boring to her and that if my sister drank more, she would be invited more often. My sister agreed but clearly she’s still extremely hurt by this.

None of this stuff directly impacts me of course, but just witnessing the madness and seeing the dynamics play out is shit. I feel for my sister and yet I know that I can’t help her whilst she’s caught up in it all. I’m glad me and her are talking mostly every day and I’m happy my mother is not inviting me to any of these events so I guess all is not lost. It just feels a bit weird that’s all. There will be photos on Facebook tomorrow night of the 3 of them out drinking together and I hope it doesn’t bother me, although there’s a tiny part of me that gets angry – even though it’s not my scene. Is that stupid?

Anyone that’s made it this far I thank you! Sorry for the word vomit!