Miscommunication?

I spoke to my husband last night about how I was feeling yesterday and my worry that I was upset that my mother wasn’t contacting me but that maybe she was thinking the same as me. He listened to what I said but then said “I know you want this all to be a big miscommunication/misunderstanding but it’s not”.

Instantly as he said it I knew he was right. That was exactly what I was doing. I was telling myself that it was just bad communication and that if one of us (me) were to point that out, things would be magically fixed!

Hubby said “we could jump in the car right now and go and drink with them, but I’m certain you would regret it very quickly”. Obviously that wasn’t a genuine offer, he hates her and her husband but I got his point. I told him that I don’t even want to do that anymore, those days have gone thankfully. I no longer feel the need to run to her and “fix” everything but that I needed to tell him what I was thinking and feeling because if I hold it all inside, it’s like I let myself convince myself! I believe my thoughts more and more and then that could be dangerous.

I told him that I used to feel like I could die when I was feeling the pain about all of this but that I don’t anymore. That it hurts and I get sad, but not to the point of feeling like I was having a breakdown and not to the point of visualising turning up at her door crying in the hope she would forgive me.

I told him that in some ways the length of time that was passing since we had a proper relationship made things easier in that I could no longer picture her and what she would be doing and where as she moved house a year or so ago and as we barely ever speak at all, I know nothing about her life BUT that equally that was hard because it was a real indicator of quite how much time had passed and how much things had changed. I don’t know if anyone would understand this, but I said it’s like when someone you love dies and after x amount of years has passed you realise you are struggling to visualise their face properly. I’m not sure if he got what I meant here, but it’s the best way I can explain it. In some ways the longer this goes on, the easier as habits and routines are broken but on the flip side, that hurts because it’s more obvious how broken and disconnected and removed you are.

I did get teary in the end and found myself saying “why doesn’t she love me?” which I can see is a young thing to say, maybe that was coming from the child part of me. Unfortunately hubby hates her so much that he said something along the lines of that she’s a selfish bitch who only cares about herself. True.

I was telling him all my theories on why she’s not contacting me: trying to make me panic, trying to punish me, just genuinely hates me…. and he said it really didn’t matter why. He said that the point was that she was intentionally trying to hurt me and get to me which I agreed with. He asked me to remind myself why all of this happened in the first place and I said “because I told her how much she hurt me when I was growing up and how unloved I felt” and he said “exactly and why did you tell her that?” I replied “well, because she did” and he flung his arm up in the air and said “precisely!!! Don’t lose track of that. That’s what this is all about – she treated you terribly all of your life and you told her and now she’s punishing you!”.

Eugh.

I said that I sometimes play out conversations with her in my head and the latest one was me saying why don’t you ever contact me? Why don’t you ever want to see me? Why didn’t you even want to see me for my birthday?? And she replies that I don’t ever contact her either and that I never wanted to see her and then I didn’t have anything to say back to her because well, she’s right isn’t she??!

My husband just looked at me like I had gone mad and said “so??” And I was like “well so she’s right! What do I say back to that??”. I don’t think he understood what I was on about and by this point in the conversation he looked done in and put the tele on so I stopped talking about it.

It’s so hard to explain all these feelings and it’s bloody typical that T is on holiday this week now it’s all coming up. I’ll have to deal with it by myself and that feels hard at the moment.

I wrote this yesterday I know but I know I put in boundaries and I know I did the separating and distancing etc but I just needed things to be more healthy and normal. Not enmeshed and controlled but not ignored and rejected either – something in the middle but that’s not happened. As I’ve already said, it’s a reminder to me that it really is total enmeshment or absolutely nothing. That’s hard to properly accept and understand because it feels incomprehensible.

I think there’s some protective denial going on this weekend which I can kind of see. It’s like I’m making excuses for her isn’t it?

Someone suggested that I stopped spending so much of my time and energy on working out WHY she does things and WHY she isn’t contacting me and just concentrated on myself, but for some reason I don’t seem able to do that.

Someone else said that her backing way off like this could be intentional to make me panic and run back to her. That person asked if my mother used to do that to me as a child and I thought and realised that yes, she did. One of her main punishments other than the screaming was to withdraw from me entirely – literally ignore me in the house for weeks at a time. I guess she’s clever because that was always a sure way to get to me as it triggered all my deepest fears: abandonment and being unloveable etc.

That won’t work anymore because I’m an adult and I won’t let her control me by making me panic (well clearly I will but I won’t let her know that!).

My husband told me last night that I’m an adult with her own house and family and in laws etc around me and that I didn’t “need” her. He’s right, I probably don’t “need” her but I wish it would stop hurting so much that I want her to want me. At which point will that ever go away? If I’m still feeling this way at 31 will it ever stop?

I think it’s the child part inside me who’s really hurting over this stuff. She’s remembering all the times in the past that she was forgotten about and ignored and purposely left to feel abandoned and faulty. The adult me is a capable woman but the two get confused in times like this.

I told myself earlier that I really should try to remember that if she was that upset or cut up that she could be contacting me asking us to talk properly and she could be telling me she wishes we could have an open and honest conversation and try to rescue something; but she’s not so why am I feeling all of this if she’s not?

It probably doesn’t help that I’m so desperate for a child myself and I know how much I would love a child whether biological or adopted and so I’m really struggling to get my head around her actions.

I’m trying to work it all out like I’ll unlock the answer to it all and then da-daarrr! It’s all fixed because I found the key!

But that’s not going to happen.

Sitting with the grief

It feels like ages since I last blogged on here but I’ve just checked and actually it’s only 8 days.  I think it probably feels like longer because this is the first time in ages that I’ve got my laptop (craptop) out rather than just quickly posting something from my phone.  Today I’ve been reminded why that is, because the laptop has taken an absolute AGE to get to the point where I can type on here and even now it is so painfully slow that I’m surprised I’ve got this far.

Anyway.

I don’t have anything pressing to write about and nothing has “happened” with regards to my mother or anything.  In fact that is still the main thing on my mind – how nothing has happened with her for such a long time now.

I had my last session with T on Thursday afternoon until 9 July and that kinda snuck up on me as it often does.  In general I feel fine about the break, I feel emotionally stable and happy enough to “cope” as it were, but I just miss knowing she is there and that I will see her.  Annoyingly at our last session on Thursday I was hyperactive about a house I was viewing that evening and so blabbered on incessantly for the entire hour about moving and potential houses etc which felt good at the time but now feels like a waste.  T has told me before that nothing is ever a waste of a session, regardless of what we talk about because its what I need in the moment.  I do get that, but equally I feel like because I was so distracted about the house and I was feeling all happy and excited and hopeful, I took my time with her for granted a bit and now I feel I could do with seeing her to talk about proper stuff… does that make sense?

I’ve felt pretty good in general recently though. Yesterday I felt down, mainly because of house stuff and the pending panic that in 4 weeks time we have nowhere to live and there’s been absolutely no updates on our currently stalled chain in over 5 weeks now.  No exchange date agreed and obviously no talk of completion.  I’ve written this before but moving is a trigger for me and feeling unsettled is difficult for me nowadays after spending a lifetime feeing that way, and having had security for the last 5 years that I’ve been with my husband.  Anyway, it can’t be helped and T says I am tolerating the uncertainty well – which I am, mainly.

Today however I have opted to stay home whilst my husband runs the kids around for the afternoon and so I am sat now at home on my own and I guess the time and space is allowing some feelings to creep in and I feel like if I was to allow it, I could feel quite upset.  I can feel it trying to come to the surface even just since my husband and the kids drove off and again since I started typing this. On that note, as I waved them all off a while ago and then closed the door to come inside, I cried. I used to do that all the time but I’ve not done that in a very long time.  It sounds ridiculous I know, but every now and again, there’s something very triggering for me about waving them/him off. It shoots a pain across my chest and I cry instantly.  I don’t know why exactly, but I guess it must be something to do with feeling abandoned or something – even though it was  my choice to stay behind.

I am still finding it difficult that my mother has seemingly given up on me.  I guess the feelings about it come and go a bit and on the whole aren’t horrendous – especially compared to some of the grief I’ve felt over the past few years, but I admit it hurts and it is *there* even if a lot of the time I don’t give it much space to be felt.

There are two types of narcissistic mother: the engulfing mother and the ignoring mother.  Confusingly my mother was an ignoring mother until I got to about 17 years old, and then became the engulfing mother.  It is possible that now,  because I am not giving her what she wants and needs, she’s just reverted back to the ignoring mother.  Perhaps she’s dead angry with me and so she is trying to punish me by making me feel rejected and forgotten about knowing somewhere that it triggers my deepest insecurities.  Maybe she’s playing a game.  Maybe she just doesn’t give a fig.  I don’t know. I just do not know and really I suppose it doesn’t matter, does it?  But it does… unfortunately.

I automatically feel myself wanting to write/say to myself that I need to just accept it and move on but I also know that it is actually much better for me to let the feelings come and that they will pass quicker if I don’t try to fight them.  I need to let the wave of sadness and grief wash over me and I have to try to stay with the feelings but it is very painful when I do.  It isn’t the crushing grief I’ve felt before where I feel like I might die, and I’m not falling to my knees on the bathroom floor, but the pain is real and as ever with this thing, it isn’t the sort of thing you can talk to people about because the general population don’t have to grieve their living mother and don’t really understand narcissism.  It’s a lonely type of grief isn’t it?

It is also a really confusing type of grief because (and apologies for repeating myself) but I am the one who needed the separation from my engulfing mother.  It was me that pulled away and me who put in the distance for my own recovery and sanity, for my own protection BUT still, she’s gone from engulfing to nothing and what I wanted was something in the middle – something healthy.  Something “normal” or at least less painful and less damaging.  It seems there really is no choice.  Well, the choice is to be enmeshed with her or to be totally ignored.  I know that being ignored is the less of the two evils because being enmeshed is bad for me in so many ways; so I guess I am grieving the loss of the wish for normal.  Again.

Regardless of her motive, what she’s doing works.  I clearly still have work to do because it is still triggering me feeling so unimportant and feeling rejected and forgotten.  I feel like I don’t exist to her and that is still a very difficult feeling to handle even after all these years and all the work I have done.  Whether intentional or not, it’s clever because the automatic response to feeling these things is to “fix” it and get rid of that feeling by putting myself in her orbit! By basically begging for her love.  Maybe it would mean I would drop any set boundaries and decide that actually, I can go and drink with her at her house and let her abuse me and let her put ideas in my head about how my husband doesn’t love me and let her tell me I’ve let myself go physically or even just start slagging off my father and stepmother. Whatever it would be, that is the automatic place to go to rid myself of these triggered feelings of being unloved and forgotten and unimportant.

I don’t do that and I won’t do that of course.. which is progress but instead I just have to feel these horribly shit feelings and wait for them to pass.  That’s harder than it sounds sometimes.

I find myself wondering why it is that she suddenly decided to be like this (ignoring/non-contacting) because the last time I saw her I came home and cried all day because I wished she had wanted to stay with me for longer (there’s a post on that about mother’s day time (UK).  We even text later that evening about silly things and after a few drinks I had text her that evening asking that we went to a special bar soon for some drinks.  She had said yes and had suggested we did that for my birthday…. but for some reason from then onwards, she just dropped me.  Maybe she unconsciously or consciously got what she needed from me and she knew somewhere inside her that I was starting to come back and that was enough so she dropped me.  Maybe she knew I was starting to come back to her and so she thought that would be a good time to totally reject me in the hope it would make me beg more/try harder?  Maybe she didn’t feel anything at all and I just bored her so much at that lunch that she can’t be arsed to sit through another one? Knowing my mother she will also be thinking that I should be asking to see HER and not the other way around.  I sometimes wonder if I am being narcissist in saying that she hasn’t contacted me and that she hasn’t asked to see me when I am also doing those things… it worries me but then I think well it was me who initiated that mother’s day visit and so it is her turn if you like… though that makes me sound like I’m playing games, and it doesn’t feel like that to me.

I’ve also been off of social media for about 6 weeks or so now and she won’t like that.  That will really piss her off because it means she really has no idea what I am doing unless she asks and because she hates/has no interest in my life with my husband, my stepkids, my in-laws or my father & co, she won’t ask and so I’ve exhausted her free source of info.  It also takes away her stage for showing her disinterest/disapproval by purposely not “liking” my photos.  Hell, perhaps she even knows how much she was getting to me by ignoring my stuff and now she’s pissed I’ve effectively put up another boundary and stopped her getting to me that way too. Or maybe I am overthinking all of it.

But that’s the thing isn’t it, it makes you overthink it all. It makes you try to rationalise it. It makes you question their motives and their thoughts and feelings and it makes you spend countless minutes and hours or days even, playing all of these things through your mind until you end up stressed and upset and just feeling exhausted or overwhelmed or rejected…. like I do now!

My husband quite rightly tells me that I should try to take some freedom from the fact that I was just as exhausted and affected by her when she was constantly asking to see me or texting me and how I used to be anxious and panicky about what to say to her to say no and how I would upset her and then have to deal with all the guilt that followed it all. He said that at least she had stopped that and at least I had some relative peace.  He’s obviously absolutely right, but unfortunately it doesn’t stop the sadness that it basically shines a light on how little she actually loves me – because she has just gone.

I guess I find it hard to fathom how a mother would just stop bothering to see or contact her daughter.  Perhaps if she were to write out her feelings she would say she finds it hard to fathom how her daughter could stop bothering to see or contact her own mother(!) it feels like we are having some silent battle and that we both feel rejected and hurt and are both being defensive because of it.  It just all feels like such a bloody shame and such a waste! One day she will die (or maybe I will) and the other of us is going to be left having to work through such complicated grief.  Perhaps that person will wish they had more time and would decide to do things completely differently.  I dread that happening but I also know it really isn’t that simple. I can’t tolerate her engulfment, toxicity, negativity, bullying etc just because one day she might die but it seems that when people around us die, they turn into saints and all the bad is instantly forgotten and forgiven and then we are left with heaps of guilt.  I don’t want that either.

I guess this goes without saying really, but she lives ten minutes down the road. I wish we had a relationship where we spoke regularly and we popped over to see each other or we went shopping now and again or we met for dinner or lunch sometimes with our husbands. I wish we could talk about our feelings and I wish I could lean on her and talk to her about all the big things in my life – particularly about my struggle to conceive and about thoughts of adoption or house-buying. I wish I could have a mum to cuddle when I felt sad or who would celebrate my good news/achievements with.

But I don’t and today, that is very sad.

Discarded

After posting “It’s Weird” last night I put my phone down and closed my eyes to go to sleep. All of a sudden this word popped into my head “DISCARDED”!

Oh My God.

Suddenly it all made sense.

I have read about the idolise – devalue – discard cycle many, many times before but I’ve never paid that much attention to it because nearly every single article and blog I have read on the subject, talks about romantic relationships. It’s hard to relate to that stuff when the narc in question is your mother so I’ve often skim-read these bits or turned the page. Naturally however, I’ve picked bits up over the years and I learnt that when a narcissist has had enough of you – or when you no longer serve him/her, you are discarded. 

It was like a light bulb came on. That is what is happening to me right now. No wonder I keep saying that things feel “weird” and that I feel a bit hurt and rejected (even if that does make me feel like a hypocrite (sorry T!)). It’s an actual thing… it’s something that happens and now it all makes sense.

My mother has realised I am literally of no use to her. I am not going to be a source of supply. I am not going to come crawling back to her. I am not going to get sucked back in for drinks or attend family events due to obligation or allow her husband to get away with his abuse. I have implemented my boundaries and I have painstakingly kept them despite all of her efforts to knock them down.

So now, she’s lost interest. I am being/or have been – discarded.

I have obviously been feeling the growing indifference for a long time now I mean she made that pretty darn clear on my wedding day but it has got less and less and it’s been obvious but this is the longest it’s ever been since we have seen each other apart from when I went completely no contact with her for those 6 months after a huge argument. This is the longest it has ever been since she’s at least ASKED to see me or when I am free. It’s been a very long time since she’s even text me just to say hello or just for a chat…. There’s none of that anymore. It’s the first time my birthday has arrived and she’s just given my card to someone else to give to me… it’s been growing by the day and I’ve been acutely aware of it, trying to figure it out. I’ve been hurt by it and I’ve been wondering what’s going on and now I know.

I thought that I could handle seeing her every couple of months for an hour or so over breakfast or lunch even though it felt sadly empty and superficial. I thought that was better than nothing even though it felt pointless in so many ways. I had kind of convinced myself that is what would happen – that it would carry on like that. Apparently not!

T said ages ago that she predicted things would just naturally fade out. I didn’t believe her – that couldn’t happen, not a chance because my mother wouldn’t give up that easily on me (would she?) and – that really isn’t her style.  

Erm, wrong much?

It is quite shocking I have to say. Like.. she is my mother. What kind of mother just walks away from her daughter because she isn’t getting anything from her? I can’t believe she genuinely has no interest in my life anymore.  

The image that comes to mind for me today is a cat that had a mouse which it played around with – it picked it up and put it down and spat it out whenever it fancied it and then it decided it was bored of the mouse and so it flung it in the corner somewhere half dead. Dramatic I know (and I’m not saying I’m half dead LOL) but hopefully you get the image. 

My mother used to say things like “she will come running back when it all goes wrong” and I am sure she will be saying that about me now. She is probably just waiting for my marriage to fall apart so she can have me back to herself. How sick is that? God the gloating and the punishment that I would get if that ever happened – it truly isn’t worth thinking about. After all, she takes so much pleasure in the bad things that happen to people, she would be utterly THRILLED if my life fell to pieces just so she could be there saying “ I told you so – we just had to leave you to it, there was no talking to you”. And of course “mum’s always know best”.

BLEUGH.

Anyway I was thinking and I realised that I spent so many years when I was younger crying when drunk or at special occasions over the fact my Dad didn’t love me (yep, daddy issues). It never got easier. People used to tell me it would get easier and my mother used to say things about how I shouldn’t waste my tears on someone that didn’t love or want me back. She used to tell me to get some self-respect. I told her once I had completely given up on him and she literally CRIED with joy – she told me she was so proud of me. I was so happy she acted like that, after all, I had said it for her – to win her approval and affection. A few hours later however I was back at my own house and sitting on the toilet when it hit me – that is sick. That reaction is wrong and sick on so many levels. 

Anyway, luckily for me I have managed to repair things with my Dad and we are about 3 years into re-building a relationship. It meant that my dad could walk me down the aisle at my wedding, it meant he did a speech, that my stepmother and brothers were all there and cheering me and my husband on. It meant that they decorated our house in banners and balloons when we come back from our honeymoon and it meant that they were there for us to look through all the many wedding photos with. We’ve even got a family holiday booked for next month which will be the first time we’ve all been away together and I cannot wait. 

But now I find myself crying when I am drunk – or on special occasions – over my mother! Same old feelings as before – why doesn’t she love me – why doesn’t she try harder – why doesn’t she fight for me – how is it so easy for her to walk away. 

Eugh! God!!

It made me panic. Am I just destined to be “that girl”? Like is that the unconscious role I’ve assigned to myself? Poor little unloved Twink?

I panicked even more when I said this out loud to my husband and heard the words come out of my mouth. Oh my god. The common denominator is ME!!! First it was my dad who couldn’t love me and now it’s my mum….. 

Am I actually one of those people who lives like a victim and ends up attracting that sort of life all because of some unconscious pattern or belief? Does this make sense?

My husband told me that I needed to look at this different and pointed out the following things:

1)   My mother’s husband (stepdad) has 4 children but only sees 2 of them. If you asked him in front of my mother how the other two were, he would say he didn’t care and would get angry and defensive and say their names were mud to him. BUT if you asked him alone, in secret, he would most likely say he just couldn’t believe that things have ended up this way and would admit he often thinks about them and feels regret and guilt. The reason for their estrangement? My mother.  

2)   The reason that me and my dad didn’t have any relationship for all those years was not my fault. She was awful to him and made his life very difficult. She poisoned me against him by repeatedly telling me that he didn’t care for me, didn’t love me, never wanted me etc. She actively discouraged any relationship between us. I knew that in order to get her approval, I couldn’t have anything to do with him. I had to pick. I picked her because I had to – I live with her and she was scary.  

3)   The reason I have ended up in therapy is because of how my mother treated me my entire life. I grew up feeling unloved, a burden, faulty and stupid. I grew up unsafe. I suffered abuse in various ways and what is the common denominator really? HER!!

It is a hard feeling when everyone around you is telling you that you are the only one with a problem. It’s very hard to hold on to the fact that even if you are the minority, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re wrong. Sometimes you just have to have enough courage and belief in yourself to remain that way. It’s hard though. 

It feels hard to believe that I could be the only sane, healthy one in my entire family of origin. Me? Really? but slowly I am starting to think that really is the case. Sometimes it really is them and not you huh?

I don’t want to spend years, or even my whole life, crying over someone not loving me. I don’t want to waste so much time and head space and energy on that stuff. I don’t want to be ungrateful and not be able to fully experience and feel the good stuff I have in my life. I want to really be able to feel the hope and the joy and the love that I have found myself in my husband, in T’s care and in my in-laws and stepchildren. I have created a whole new life for myself away from all the toxic dysfunction and I am so glad about that but it is hard and somehow there is still grief to be processed. Grief that I couldn’t have had a nice “normal” family of origin as well. 

Hopefully one day I will believe with all my heart and soul that it isn’t me and that will stop me from feeling unloved and rejected. I believe that to some extent but clearly not enough yet. For now I need to just get through this stage of being discarded….. and I will, gradually. 

It’s weird

Monday was a really hard day for me this week. It was a long day and I felt deep sadness from the moment I woke up, until the moment I went to sleep. I cried in the toilet at work and I even emailed T which I’ve not done for a pretty long time now.

The sadness felt horrible and uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to do with it (I know, just feel it – let it pass etc) but I desperately wanted it to go and it wouldn’t. I remember thinking to myself “what did I used to do when I felt like this?” And that’s the thing – I used to feel like that so regularly and now (thank God), I do not. I’m very grateful for that.

Luckily when I opened my eyes Tuesday morning I felt immediate relief. Before I had even properly waken up, I knew I felt better. The heaviness had lifted. By the time I had walked from my bed to the shower, I realised what the feeling was and it was that the grief had lifted and I no longer felt the weight of the sadness.

However Tuesday is therapy day and as I had emailed T in my sadness there was no getting away from talking about it all again. I didn’t fancy that to be honest.

In my session T asked me how I was feeling and where the sadness had gone. I told her I had cried and said I had forgotten what to do when I feel like that. She said I had done okay: I had contacted her and I had cried. I suppose she was right. I also told her I ate chips and missed my spin class which helped 🤣

Unfortunately however by the end of the session and after an hour of me telling T all the “silly reasons” for my sadness, I felt utterly shite again and left my session feeling heavy and sad. I felt a bit pissed about that to be honest. I had felt okay all day and now look!

During that session T explained to me that I was feeling the sadness Of all the things my birthday triggered and symbolised for me. We spoke about the deficit in my birthdays as a child and I told her that despite all the good things, the bad things seemed to take over and I hated that and felt selfish. T was sympathetic and seemed to understand how I was feeling. Funnily enough, I’ve signed realised that I dread my birthday every year and I hadn’t even realised.

Every year I get anxious about my birthday approaching. I start worrying and planning things and then worrying about who can and can’t come and all the ways I’ll be let down and disappointed. I try and make lots of plans with people and keep the days and evenings full up. I’ve realised why this year: the quiet makes me feel the loss and the lack and the stuff I am missing.

I told T that it’s now been 3 months since I’ve seen my mother. I find myself telling her it’s “weird”. I can hear myself saying that word and know it’s a bad word to use to describe how it feels but yet it’s the word that keeps coming out of my mouth. She repeated it back to me as therapists do and it sounded silly and wrong, yet I used it again. It feels WEIRD that my mother hasn’t asked to see me. It feels WEIRD that she didn’t want to see me over my birthday and it feels WEIRD that she lives ten minutes down the road!

Upon further reflection, weird means painful. It feels PAINFUL.

T said it’s the loss of hope that I’m feeling. I guess there’s childlike hope that she is going to suddenly care and do motherly things and it’s all going to be okay or at least better…. when actually what’s happening is, it’s getting worse.

My husband pointed out to me tonight that this is just a new stage for me and that it will get easier. He said that I have spent the last year or so implementing boundaries with my mother as she tried to push against them and now the boundaries are established and she’s accepted them – there’s a period of calm.

Apparently me and calm aren’t that well acquainted and so it feels…. WEIRD. Lol.

My husband said he’s wanted me to have some peace and calm for such a long time and that he’s glad I am finally getting that, but that he knows I like to have a reason for things. It’s why I find it all so weird that she’s not wanting to see me. I need a proper reason. He said that if we had an argument or some kind of drama, I would feel okay about the lack of contact, but this is freaking me out because there’s been no drama… it’s just happened. Things have just naturally faded into this. I wholeheartedly agreed.

I told T today numerous times how I felt like a hypocrite for wanting my mother to contact me and ask to see me despite not really wanting to see her. After the third or fourth time she told me off for calling myself that and said it was a perfectly understandable way to feel after being hurt by a narcissist. Those were her words and I’ve replayed them a few times since then “after being hurt by a narcissist”. Ain’t that the truth. It’s like even being someone’s chew-toy is better than being nothing. I’m like the mouse the cat dragged in and then got bored of and here I am effectively wishing the cat would throw me around again. Sounds crazy doesn’t it?

I know that as always it all comes down to the same thing. I want a mum and I’m “missing’ a mum but not my actual mum. I imagine things and forget briefly how the reality would be compared to my imagination. I’m safer out of it. I should thank my lucky stars she’s leaving me alone and that I’m not having constant drama and anxiety over making excuses and feeling nervous and sick before seeing her and then feeling awful sadness afterwards.

The silence/quiet is uncomfortable for me because it’s the unknown.

The silence is so loud!!!!

I wonder if it’s a test, will she point out how long it’s been soon and blame it on me? My family do tend to do that – hence the “are you alive” messages. I also know there would be no point in arguing back to that with “what about my birthday?” Or “I made the last offer to meet – it was your turn” etc. Pointless. Tempting… but pointless and anyway, maybe this is wishful thinking because the alternative is that she genuinely hasn’t thought about it/me and I’m that insignificant to her.

Maybe this is the next stage like my husband thinks. He says that I need to do a full year round of all events before it will be easier. I told him I’ve been doing this for years but he pointed out that’s not true – a year ago I saw her for my birthday and we had dinner and drinks. I admitted I had been comparing that and this in my head all week.

Things have changed unrecognisably but they are still changing. It’s still a shock sometimes.

Anyway I feel okay now. It’s helped to talk about this today and to write it out here. Here’s hoping next year is easier because I’ve done “the first” (kind of!) this year.

Birthday sadness

It was my birthday yesterday yet today I am at work feeling really upset and down.

I’ve just spent twenty minutes hiding in the toilets as I cried and then had to wait for my red, blotchy face to calm back down.

I feel pretty crap but I don’t really know why. It’s not about my age or anything like that. I feel horribly narcissistic and selfish and immature saying this, but I just feel disappointed. My birthday weekend was disappointing and I feel like I should be old enough not to have expectations like I clearly do. I’m also disappointed in my stepson and how he didn’t bother to buy me a birthday card or my husband a Father’s Day card. I’m upset that despite a nice evening with my husband and parents in law last night, the evening ended badly with my husband not wanting to come to bed at the same time as me and being angry that I was upset about that.

I feel extremely sensitive today and grouchy and sad. I feel like I could cry a lot more.

My husband did some lovely things for me yesterday and I’m so grateful to him but yet I still feel this sadness and disappointment. Maybe it’s unconsciously about my mother and sister. Could be I guess.

Anyway. Here’s hoping this helps relieve something.

Déjà vu

This week my brain has been occupied by all things relating to my sister. Our text argument Saturday was waiting to happen and so isn’t a shock, but it’s stirred up so many feelings in me.

Things feel familiar. I am feeling things that I’ve felt before with my mother, things like desperately wanting to explain myself and like doubting myself and questioning if I am in the wrong. I thought that the very fact I’ve been here before with my mother would prevent these feelings, but it appears not to work that way.

I told T earlier that I remember clearly wanting so badly to get my mum to understand how I felt. How I wrote countless letters to her that I never sent. How I wrote fake emails and text messages and then deleted them. How I tried to explain a few times, how I argued, how I cried and screamed. It was pointless. A complete waste of breath. Now I feel the same way with my sister. I feel like I want to shake her.

I’ve learnt there is no point, that my mother and my sister cannot hear me. They cannot empathise with me. They just blame me. I am their scapegoat. In all honesty I’m pretty pissed about that.

I said to T today, probably for the hundredth time, that my mother could never be happy for me for anything. Leaving school, my prom, getting married or passing my driving test was not a celebration. She was not happy.

Equally my bad times were nothing to show any sympathy for either. Having an operation for cancerous cells, not being able to conceive. Not important. Not discussed. Even the sexual abuse – never spoken about again.

Today I said that my sister does the same. She couldn’t bring herself to celebrate my engagement, she didn’t even ask to see my ring. Didn’t give me a hug, didn’t even “like” my status on Facebook or send a card – nothing. She refused to plan my hen night (unless I invited my mother when we were no contact), she dropped out of the bridesmaid dress fitting an hour before and the night before my wedding day, she arrived to my house angry and told me I had better not keep her awake at night as she was tired and needed her sleep. I told her I was buying a house and she replied “yay”. That was it.

Again like my mother, my bad news isn’t important either. My friend died – no sympathy or concern. My fertility issues and being turned down for IVF on the NHS. Not important. Not worth ever mentioning again or asking how I am. Forgotten.

She’s watched my mother and she’s copying her. It’s horrible to see.

I told T it hurts that I’ve seen my sister be so lovely and caring to other people and T said it’s because of her envy towards me. I know that in a way but still can’t fully understand why.

She constantly paints me as this horrible, selfish, argumentative person but I’m not. I’m really not. I grew up feeling unloved and insecure and not wanted. I also grew up having to take care of her because she is 7 years younger than me and our mother wasn’t able to willing to look after us. I fed her, bathed her, tucked her in bed at night – I even used to give her a bottle in her cot. She resents me in so many ways and some of them I can almost understand. I can almost understand that for a while I was “let in” by my mother in order to drink with her and go to clubs with her so she could pick up men. I was convenient and her “mini-me”. My sister was too young to drink or go to clubs and so she felt left out, luckily she at least had her father. I get that envy but fast forward to 5 years ago when I met my now husband and got therapy and I pulled away from my mother and all the dysfunction and I’ve had hardly anything to do with my mum now for nearly two years. You’d think she would be happy but she’s not. She’s the golden child now – despite everything, she believes my mother has changed now and “is great now”.

She takes my very low contact with my mother as evidence of my cruelty and nastiness. Likewise she uses the fact I didn’t go to the “family” bbq as evidence that I’m selfish and only care about myself and not about my grandparents who really wanted us all there. I’m horrible. I’m selfish and it’s only me with the problem – “everyone else is fine!!”. I’m constantly told that I need to “get over” things and “move on”.

I want to shake her. I HAVE moved on! I’ve moved on so much that I’m no longer willing to allow myself to be treated like shit by people – even if they are family. I’ve moved on enough to know that I don’t have to just suck things up for other people’s happiness, that MY happiness matters too. Going to that bbq after 2 years of very low contact with my mother and no contact with my stepfather would not be good for me. I refuse to put myself in situations like that.

All she can see is that I’m selfish and nasty.

I shouldn’t care I know, I shouldn’t care what she or anyone else thinks about me, but I do.

I told T I keep picturing her and my mother and stepfather sitting around drinking and talking about me and how much I’ve changed and how they don’t recognise me anymore. How I have isolated myself and how I only care about myself and my husband and his family. How they can’t keep on chasing me and how they need to give up on me, how much I’ve hurt them and how my husband has manipulated me – as well as my therapist because I’m also obsessed with her and she’s brainwashing me too. I can hear it because I know the things they say and they way they think.

Everything’s my fault.

My mother refused to apologise to me or admit any wrongdoing when I was growing up – that was me upsetting my mother and being cruel.

My mother badmouthing me and my husband to everyone she knows – I should let that go.

My mother’s husband gets up in my face and shouts at me, kicking me out of his house at 3am. My fault – I deserved it.

Him also being abusive on a train one day when I accidentally sat near him. Not his fault, he was just defending his wife.

My mother refusing to sit at my top table unless her (abusive) husband could also sit there – me being unfair and cruel.

My mother and her husband looking like slapped arses on my wedding day – they were upset, who could blame them.

My mother leaving my wedding early and just sending me a text – perfectly reasonable.

My mother not ever mentioning my wedding again or ever even “liking” a single wedding status or photo – I’m being too sensitive.

Me turning my mother down when she invited me and my husband (who she hates) to her house for drinks with her and abusive stepfather : me never being able to get over things. Me holding a grudge. Me upsetting my mother.

Me and my sister not speaking for 5 weeks following my sister saying the comment about me taking ages to get over things which explains why I am “still” in therapy and then leaving “joke” comments on my social media then totally ignoring my stepson’s birthday despite seeing all my photos online – what was my problem – why didn’t I contact her?!

It’s my fault. It’s always my fault. It infuriates me that she can’t ever just try to see things from my side. Why can’t she ever just empathise with me. Why can’t she just see that actually, I try to keep things as smooth as I can, whilst respecting my own feelings and wishes. Why can’t she see that sometimes it’s not about them, but about me protecting myself or defending myself.

I’m her scapegoat. I’m just Twink. Always been here, always will be. Easily angered and easily upset, selfish, selfish Twink.

I’m so annoyed.

I am a kind person and I do care about people. I’m not a selfish monster who only cares about herself. It makes me want to shout at her “what about me??!!!”.

Why does it suit her so much that I be this horrible person. Why?!! I’ve been there for her forever. All of the years she was depressed and suicidal and my mother couldn’t even acknowledge depression was “a thing” – it was ME who was there for her, me who made her feel safe and loved and understood. Me who fought with my mother and told her to open her fucking eyes when her daughter was upstairs in her house suicidal and she sat drinking with her friends.

I’ve stepped away from the dysfunctional family system and so it has to be me who’s wrong/bad/unwell because it can’t possibly be them.

I don’t want to lose my sister but it feels I already have. I want so badly to be able to rescue her, us, but it feels like it’s too late. I think of the Karpman drama triangle and I can see she is putting me in the role of persecutor and herself in the role of victim. I have to step away from my assigned role and to do that I have to stop arguing back. I have to stop giving her an emotional reaction. It’s so hard when it all feels so unfair and unjust.

Another thing I used to say about my mother!

Text Argument

My sister text me today saying “alive? Lol”.

This means “why haven’t you contacted me?”. My mother used to send similar messages. It’s annoying because it automatically puts the blame on me – it’s me that hasn’t contacted them. Clearly they don’t have to do the contacting, huh?

We ended up in a text argument because I told her I hadn’t been contacting her as I thought she had the ump with me for not going to the family bbq. She said she did have the ump with me for that and went on to say how it was important for my nan and grandad and how it was their “last one”.

I told her I was on holiday so couldn’t go and she complained that I hadn’t bothered to mention that to anyone and just waited for someone to ask me so I could say no, I couldn’t make it.

I was losing my patience. I told her that this is exactly why I hadn’t been in touch and that i knew she had the ump so I was leaving her to it so why is she complaining that I’ve not contacted her – only to tell me she DOES have the ump?! It doesn’t make sense.

In the end I admitted that even if I wasn’t on holiday I wouldn’t have gone to the bbq because of our mother’s husband. I said she doesn’t have to like or agree with that, but that it was my decision. I told her that she’s got no right to be angry with me for not attending an event. That it was my choice.

She sent some sarcastic things back and in the end I said that she can be angry with me if she wants to, but that is her issue and not mine. I did what was right for me.

She then said that I go through phases where I’m “nice and friendly and funny” and then just don’t bother contacting her and she “can’t make a joke without offending” me. – I am assuming these “jokes” are the comments on social media that I’ve written about on here before. “Jokes” that yes, offended me.

I told her I didn’t find her jokes funny particularly as they were always on social media.

She then told me to have a good weekend and so I said the same. Clearly she didn’t mean that.

The funny thing is, she didn’t contact me for about a month before asking if I was going to the bbq. She clearly already had the ump with me – or knew I had the ump with her (which I did – over her constant need to write abuse on my social media). Clearly she knew that and then she ignored my stepson’s birthday and that really pissed me off. THAT is why I didn’t contact her.

In all honesty I had decided to be nice and chatty etc when she was behaving well and ignore her when she was being nasty. A bit like a child because in my eyes, she was acting like one. I didn’t contact her after the last shitty comment on social media because I was trying to make my point: it is not okay.

I know there are two sides to every story and I’m not saying I’m right and she’s wrong but I am angry. I am angry that she texts me accusing me of not contacting her when she admits she is angry with me. When she admits I was offended by her “jokes”. Why not just talk to me about it sooner?

I get she wanted me to go to the bbq for my Nan and grandad’s sake but why can’t she see that I rarely ever see my mother, I don’t speak to my mother’s husband at all and haven’t for nearly two years – how comfortable would I have felt at that bbq? And without my husband as him and my mother (and her husband) don’t get along either. Why does everything have to be to suit everyone else? What about me and how I feel?

I don’t expect her to agree with my choice not to go, but surely it’s not actually her business? I wouldn’t mind but my grandparents weren’t upset over it – me and my husband are going to their house tomorrow for lunch! So who is she angry for?

I know this probably sounds like a schoolgirl winge but it’s really hurt me. It feels constant.

As I said earlier, it’s my birthday next weekend and now she will likely ignore it and that will hurt too. My mother hasn’t asked to see me – maybe this is why, maybe she is also angry.

I shouldn’t care about the two of them and what they think of me but knowing they are living together and probably sitting down with my mother’s husband all slagging me off and saying how much I’ve changed and how selfish and nasty and argumentative I am.. makes me sad. And angry.

Birthday

It’s my birthday next weekend and a few days ago my mother text me asking what I would like. I hadn’t heard from her for quite a long while when she text. I told her that I would really like some vouchers for the theatre (or money towards the tickets) and she said she would just buy me the tickets. I told her that they were far too expensive but vouchers would be lovely.

Anyway long story short… she got me the tickets for the show I really want to see on a day and time that I picked. Excellent.

Then yesterday afternoon she text me to tell me that she was giving my card with the tickets in to my Nan whom I’m seeing tomorrow for lunch.

She said she hoped I enjoyed the show.

My birthday is next weekend and the show a few days after that. She’s clearly not intending to see me if she’s giving my Nan the card. She didn’t ask when I was free or suggest we went for a birthday meal or anything.

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, because I really am very grateful for the tickets and I cannot wait to see the show… but at the same time it does feel a bit strange that she hasn’t asked, or maybe doesn’t want, to see me. I guess I’m a bit hurt.

I’ve not seen her since the day before Mother’s Day (which was at the end of March).

Maybe she hasn’t asked to see me because she wants me to ask to see her. Maybe she just doesn’t think about seeing me anymore. Maybe it’s a test and I’ve failed it by not asking her when she’s free. Who knows, I can’t possibly know for sure.

Maybe I should just be grateful that I’ve got tickets to the show I love and I don’t have to see her and potentially spend days before and after feeling anxious or upset. Yet it feels like a rejection because she can spend money but can’t do the emotional stuff which let’s face it, is what I’ve always wanted and needed.

I was only talking to T last week about my birthday and how I often feel disappointed. My birthday happens to fall around Father’s Day and this year is on the actual day. It means I always share my day with my husband (as he is a dad) and then my own dad and my father-in-law too. My husband isn’t that big on birthdays so he never understands when I get upset in the lead up to my birthday and we have no plans.

T said that my birthday is quite triggering for me because it wasn’t celebrated as a child in the way it should have been. That I wasn’t celebrated and my actual birth wasn’t what it should have been (I.e. to a loving mother).

So I guess my mother not asking to see me was going to rub salt into an already open wound huh?

Clarity

You know that thing that happens when you’re in therapy and you realise something and it’s eye-opening, but then a while goes past and suddenly you realise that same thing again and you kinda forget you ever “realised” it before? So you feel like you’ve had this huge life-changing revelation about something and then you read your blog back and find you’ve actually done this already….

Just me? 😂

I typed last night’s blog (unconscious triggers) about 8.30pm, on my phone whilst waiting for Love Island to begin. I didn’t set out to write what I did, but afterwards, and since, it’s all I’ve thought about.

My mother was triggered by me and my Nan showing me love and affection triggered her envy.

Her envy is what caused her rage and her envy and rage is what caused her to treat me the way she did. (As well as possibly what I wrote already about having “the power” of being the adult with a captive audience: me).

Mind. Blown.

Again apparently.

According to my old blogs, this is not the first time I’ve realised this. But it feels like it is.

It’s really helped me. In my mind today I feel like something’s just clicked into place. I’ve been drilling into this thought the past few hours and I think the main reason it feels so good is that it’s like the proof I needed that it really wasn’t my fault.

I know and truly believe to a very large extent that none of it could have been my fault, of course, I was just an innocent child – but now I really, really see it.

My mother had her own wounds and being a mother to me was triggering her. Seeing my innocence was triggering. Who knows, possibly having me triggered her in all sorts of ways. Maybe she set out to be a loving, caring, affectionate mother. Maybe. Maybe she felt petrified of my needs. Maybe she felt unequipped.

My just being a child triggered her.

Me coming home having spent a long weekend with my Nan (her mother) triggered her so badly that she had to ruin it for me by being just awful to me. She projected her anger and envy and general crap onto me. She used to yell at me that I would never come between her and her mother and I never understood that. Now I do.

Her mother was clearly unavailable to her when she needed her and there she was, being all available to me. She must have HATED me.

Maybe this explains her need to always dangle some young girl about my age in my face as her new best friend or her “adopted daughter” or whatever. Maybe that was her way of righting another wrong, like she was saying “look, I can treat this girl amazingly well – it’s just you I can’t”. Maybe that’s how she felt about her mother and me.

Maybe. Maybe not.

In all honesty this revelation has given me a sense of peace. I feel some compassion for her. I’m learning firsthand how hard it is to feel triggered by children and I also admit that perhaps I am lucky I only have stepchildren at the moment so I do not act my anger out in hugely damaging ways. Maybe I would be worse if I had my own child. I feel some compassion for her that she was hurt and triggered. It’s sad.

But…

But it doesn’t change the fact that she did hurt me. It helps me to understand a little more, but it doesn’t let her off the hook.

I am owning my shit. I am actively looking for my triggers and trying to own them. I don’t want to project my anger and envy onto another generation. I don’t want to “right any wrongs” by abusing my power and taking over from where the last person left off. That doesn’t mean I don’t get triggered though – I do.

It’s weird. I suddenly understand why certain things happened with such clarity it feels huge and yet, it doesn’t make me want to absolve her of her crimes.

She’s human – she was hurt – and she hurt me. I’m human, I was hurt but I don’t want to hurt any children in my life.

Therapy lately

Things between T and I have felt different this last week.

I first noticed it when she uncharacteristically begin talking about her “daughter” her “children”. I was sooo shocked after so many years of absolutely no mention of them whatsoever.

She told me she’s a pescatarian. I was happy to learn that as I had been wondering for years, assuming she was a vegetarian.

But it’s more than that…. in Tuesday’s session she told me a funny story about when she was buying her house and we laughed so much together. I laughed all the way home in fact.

I also asked her a question about where she has lived before (I never ask her questions like this – ever!!).

Today again things felt so different. They felt lighter and less “therapy” like. Things just feel a bit different and more relaxed somehow. I don’t know why.

I wonder if she feels it too? I wonder if it’s only me that senses is, or is it’s her too? I wonder if it’s in my head!!

I told her at the end of today’s session that I felt light at the moment and told her I just felt happy. I told her about watching that girl grieving on tele and how I felt it right in my stomach. She understood what I meant instantly. I told her I was so glad I was through with that (for now at least) and she said how it was a relief to know I had overcome the pain that felt so awful.

She said “take care” and closed the door behind me and for a moment I felt a bit hurt. It felt like a “therapisty” way to say goodbye after a week of “less therapisty” sessions – but again, that’s possibly in my head or habit or just how she says goodbye!

Anyway, weird.