Caregiving for a narcissistic mother. Do we do it out of love or out of years of guilt and programming?

Shell, your brother continues to creep me out. Burner phone? Hmmm. Yes you made the right decision yesterday. Cut him completely out of your life. He's restraining order material. You gotta wonder what motivated that burner call. I'd almost be tempted to file a police report. Not because they can or would do anything at this point, but to have a record. You could say, rightfully, that the call scared you because it involved personal info and the person wouldn't identify themselves, which is harassment. Might be something to consider.

Chris I'm glad the move is over. Your husband is right please take it easy and just let yourself settle. If you start to feel sad or any guilt feelings arise remember that your mom is still in your life, she's just not living in your home, and will get the professional support she needs.

How did your mom seem to take it? Did the staff give you any recommendations for visiting?

I cannot due to suffering from PTSD if I spend more than a few hours with her. I have been the target of her abject abuse, lying and gaslighting since my earliest memories at 3 years of age.

Never allowed to have friends, her locking me out of the house in 2nd & 3rd grades when I came home from school, and being hit hard with a switch for no reason just scratches the surface of the terrible things she did to me.

I have sympathy for her emotional problems. It doesn’t merit feeling like I want to die or dying from a stress-induced illness as she lives on and on.

My strong boundary with my dad and brother is you get inpatient hospitalization for her as needed and brother shares 50% of caregiving. I’ll do the other 50%.

They are gaslighting and guilt tripping me to do this 100%. I was called today by my dad implying my mom was dying to get me to come. It was playacting. She wasn’t.

I’d urge anyone to throw in the towel if you have a really disordered parent (mine has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder) and you are the scapegoat. They live to destroy you is not hyperbole.

Helenb,
You seem worried that you and hubby will not be able to stick to you boundaries plan! Here is good news for you, if you & hubby break down and find yourselves letting mom slide or jump over your boundaries that is ok! Why? Because you will get another chance to try it again! It took me several times to keep my boundaries in check. If you find that you have been seeing mom more times then your original plan then review what you did and tell yourself "ok, I have seen mom three times this week. Now, I'll have to reset my boundaries again!" I have found that having a NM who knows no boundaries that I had to learn how to set boundaries and I had to practice it! If we make a mistake that's ok because we can try again! Hugs!!


Chriscat,
I bet you are having all kinds of mixed emotions and that is ok and normal! You do need to rest. Take some time for yourself and to sort out your emotions and how your life is changing and what you want your life to look like! It is ok to feel however you feel! Hugs!!


Thank you Lea for understanding! My NB worries me as well. I know if he could get his hands on me he would seriously hurt me! However, I know him and how he thinks, plus I am in way better shape then he is! He doesn't have the guts to shoot me so I am safe there! I always know what is going on around me...occupational hazard!!

I made a big decision today! As you know, I am planning to move out in less then a year (hopefully), however, if my mother should pass away while I am here, I am not going to tell my NB! I see no good coming from it. He hates my NM and I feel that it will just paint a bigger target on my back! My SO and I will clean out the house and sell it! Hopefully we can move without my NB ever finding out about it and put the house on the market! By time he sees the for sale sign we will be living somewhere else! I really hate that my NM made such a mess out of my NB life that it has created a nightmare for me:( Hugs! Hope you feel better today!

Thanks Lea. I can relate to what you’re saying. If there’s a crisis I swing into leadership mode and cut through to what needs to be done. But you’re right in that it’s only afterwards that it hits you. I’m ok. It all feels surreal, but then life over the past 10-12 months has felt surreal anyway, and I think we are all overloaded right now with so much bad news. I often say in Autumn that I would like to hibernate until late March - that would have been especially good this Winter. But despite the awful weather - freezing fog, ice, snow - the days are getting longer again and we just have to get through the next few months and hope the vaccines have some effect. It’s best not to overthink things but that’s easier said than done. Thank you for your kindness.

Chris; 3 words for you today: Post Traumatic Stress. I always fall apart AFTER the fact. When something is over with, not while it's going on. You know? Of course you're feeling gobsmacked with lots of emotions today, not least of which facing your own mortality, which is never fun. However you're feeling is okay and justified TO be feeling. You've earned it. Do something nice for just YOU today, whatever it may be. An ice cream, a bath, a good cry...........wrapping you in a hug and sending you warm wishes today.

helenb: The most 'relaxing' (HA!) time I've had with my mother over the past 6+ years she's been in managed care is now, with Covid, and the visits being short and limited to window visits once a week (at most, b/c weather is a factor now with the winter in Colorado). I don't feel guilty about saying that, either, b/c my mother is a PITA. She does everything she possibly can to irritate me and make me feel badly, so I dread our conversations and visits. It's HER fault, not MINE.

So.....The Vaccines are being given late this month into early March. That's the FIRST round. God knows if the second round will ever be rolled out, based on adverse reactions from the first round. So........if round 2 does come out, which they're now saying will be 'delayed', whatever that means, we're looking at summer before my mother is 'safe' from Covid, IF that ever even happens. So I have nothing to worry about till then! And, if and when the time comes that we can go back inside the Memory Care to visit her, I am imposing some STRICT RULES on those visits. They will mimic the window visits in that they will be short and weekly. PERIOD. Don't fix what isn't broken, is my advice.

The only way to deal with these women is to create very strict and very firm boundaries, as you know, and for YOU to NOT go back on your word with those boundaries!! No matter what. BTW, my husband is sort of the golden child with my mother, too..........she puts on the Happy Mask for him all the time. The reason is, he's the Outsider. And Outsiders never bear the brunt of the NMs hatefulness. He's my buffer and I LOVE that! I never go see my NM alone, she'd tear me limb from limb!

And today my mum has gone to her supported living try out. I have a mix of emotions. It is the end of an era of her living with us, and this makes me aware of our own mortality. I am very stressed and anxious, with the perfect storm of the difficulties of getting to this stage, plus covid, and the years of back history of mum's behaviour towards me. My husband tells me I now need to rest and spend the next few weeks trying to look after myself a little. He is probably right. I am very tearful, but not guilty.

Helenb, I understand your feelings about this. Whilst I totally support giving the vaccinaton to the elderly/those most at risk first, I too am concerned that some of these people may then feel they are armour plated against Covid, while the rest of us are still very much at risk. I worry that this might translate into them taking less care about possible virus transmission, with the result that those of us close to the elder care environment could easily become infected. This would also leave a huge gap amongst the people that do the work, with fewer people available to do key worker jobs. My approach to this is simple. I am not letting my guard down or changing my already extremely careful behaviour both before and after I get the jab, whenever that may be, and until low case rates make it safe to do so. The UK is so close now to being utterly overwhelmed by the new Covid variant, we are pinning our hopes on the vaccine doing its job, and I don't want to jeopardise this by putting myself or others at unnecssary risk. Hope this helps you to feel less guilty, and please do keep yourself safe.

I have to confess to very mixed feelings about my mother's upcoming COVID vaccination. The 'nice' part of me is glad, of course, that she will be safe from the virus, but the 'bad' side feels slightly resentful that we, as always, are the ones who have to take her ten miles to the vaccination centre. It's not a big thing to ask, and anyone would do it for their parent. It's just that it has brought back the resentment of feeling trapped by the fact that she relies so heavily on us for almost everything. And I suppose I am worried that, once she and other residents are safe from the illness, she will start to complain that we aren't visiting her enough, as she did before the first lockdown last year. We had decided on a 'boundaries' plan of seeing her once a week at her apartment and having her here for a meal one day a week, plus any medical visits she needs. But, despite nearly a year of counselling, I am still nervous that we will fall out over what she wants and what I need - and that it will cause tension between me and my husband, who has no 'baggage' with her and is really the golden child now, even more than my brother, who also finds Mum difficult now, though not in the way I do.

I am ashamed of feeling like this and grateful for this site, where we can be honest about our troubled relationships with our narcissistic parents.

Shell, hey, no worries! Love ya GF! We all have each other's best interests at heart here, that's for sure. I would never talk down to you b/c I know how that feels. Plus, you're nobody's fool........and have all your T's crossed & your I's dotted, thank God. Your NB is the one who makes me seriously uneasy here!

Chris: Glad I made you laugh! We all need it these days. There is a lot of backstory on the Depends fiasco........that's why I appear worked up. I am. LOL. She & I have gone back & forth like hamsters on a wheel about the auto delivery of said briefs from Amazon. She wants them/doesn't want them. I order them, cancel the auto ship, re order, cancel.........on and on I go like a lunatic! THIS time I was like WE ARE DONE! Unless you can't move in your room from the hoard of Depends, they ARE being delivered once a month now. Period. She is THAT much of a control freak and this is one of the last things she feels she HAS control over, that she wants to manage the arrival of the Depends. But it doesn't work.

She is also LIVID that the MC is now limiting her snacks! Yep. I bring them and she overeats them to the point where she's puking (near as the doctor and I can determine). She refuses to eat dinner b/c she hates the food, then gorges on snacks instead. So the MC is giving her ONE packet of a snack each evening & she's furious! I had to tell her that her doctor ORDERED the restriction due to her claims of 'throwing up & throwing up & throwing up'. Sigh. One thing after another, to say the least. God forbid she could eat a sandwich at dinner (their main meal/large meal is lunch) and then relax with ONE snack afterward. But no, an NM MUST HAVE HER WAY 100% of the time, isn't THAT the main thing???

Lea,
I'm sorry. I think I might be a little touchy because my NM has been looking and talking down to me! I just keep do whatever I'm doing at the time. Not making eye contact and keeping my answers very short! But it is really like they have an endless bag of tricks!! I know you are just making sure that I won't end up homeless because I took my NM word for giving me the house! Her word doesn't mean a darn thing.

Isn't it funny, how a narc will give us an apology every 5 to 10 yrs and we are suppose to be so grateful for a half hearted apology every 5 yrs!! Yeah right!! Sorry, but I had to giggle about your NM having Depends to the ceiling. They're not happy unless they are complaining!

I hope your headache gets even better as the day goes by!!💞

Piper,
The number was a Burner number because I did look it up and I went to call it and it was disconnected! So I couldn't trace the number, nor who did it!! The number didn't look like a real number!

My NB is 6 yrs older. I think my NM knows that he won't take care of her and spend all her money on drugs! Can you imagine two narcissistic people living under one roof?! Each of them thinking they are so much more prefect and special and both wanting control...that would be a disaster waiting to happening!
Glad to hear that you might be getting a job!😉

And Lea, your most recent post just made me laugh again. Thank you, I needed it! Who knew that at this stage in our lives we’d be getting so wound up about incontinence wear!! Seriously though, what is so depressing with elder care is the constant reminder about this and other aspects of aging. We are not there ourselves yet, but it can dominate our lives decades before we are. This can then cause us to lose perspective and in doing so, we miss out on the things we should be enjoying at our own life stage by being swamped with the less appealing aspects of elder care.

Piper, yes I have a strange feeling you're going to get that "job" too!

EP: Yay! Glad to hear you may be getting that job you're all excited about......LOL!
I still work at the Memory Care..............I just changed my hours to part time, but thinking about going back full time now........wink wink.

FWIW, there has not been ONE single time I've visited my mother where she didn't complain that I wasn't staying longer, or that we weren't eating together, or SOMETHING. Makes each visit that much more unbearable

My headache is better today, thanks. It's lurking in the background, I can feel it wanting to burst out, but it's not.

My mother wound up calling & leaving a message last night on my voice mail after I turned the phone off! She was 'sorry about her bad mood' the night before! I was surprised to hear her say that........but she will apologize (half heartedly) from time to time. She also felt the need to mention that a new shipment of Depends arrived when she already had WAY TOO MANY and now she has EIGHT BOXES she doesn't know WHAT she'll do with.

Truth is, she gets 100 Depends per month which computes to roughly 3.5 briefs per day. Each shipment comes in TWO boxes. Before I put her BACK on the monthly program, she would run out b/c she'd insist she had a big BOX of them in her closet, which was empty. So she'd be wearing men's Depends and all sorts of other things they'd give her at the MC, which was a problem. Now she's back on the monthly Amazon program I'm ordering for her and there is STILL a problem. Next time I speak to her I'm telling her THE SUBJECT IS CLOSED. I don't want to hear about how many millions of Depends you have until they're piled up to the CEILING in your room and you can't move & are suffocating from being smothered by Depends.

Shell, that text was creepy. Do you know who it was from? Did a number show up, because you might be able to do a search on the phone number, and then block it.
Also I agree with your decision not to tell your NM about any of your plans. What kind of time table do you have for yourself, if any?

And when you are ready to move and tell her I hope she makes the right choice to let you get her placed and then sell the property. She may since she knows YB is a mess and deep down she's probably doesn't want his type of "care".

I ended up going to my mom's yesterday for a fairly short visit- about an hour. Of course she complained -- "Oh I thought we could eat together".... we eat together 85% of the time!! I brushed it off with "I have to be home later for a call about a new job I might be getting" and proceeded to lay the groundwork on that ;) I think she was kind of shocked, but couldn't get pi$$y about it because DH was there and also acknowledging my excitement "I really hope I get it".....

I will definitely be getting the job ;)

Lea I hope your headache is gone now! Listen to your body, if you are stressing out take a few days off from the calls, at least. I know sometimes your DH will do it, but your mom will live if she has to wait a few days. She is in MC thankfully so it's okay for you to leave her be while you take care of yourself. BTW isn't that memory care where you worked bringing workers back? I think they need you full time now ;)

Shell.....glad to hear it! It's not about "not giving you credit"......but about sly and cunning narcissistic family members. I'm happy to hear that you are a whole lot smarter than your NB. His antics sound worrisome to me and I just care about YOU, that's all

Lea,
Yes, I have seen the Quit Deed and the will. I actually have all the paperwork in my safe. Not the house safe, but my safe. A safe that only my SO and I can get into. The house was Quit Deed to me in 2014.

My NB is mentally unstable and my NM cannot be trusted, which is why I have the paperwork and why I also made sure by looking up the deed to this house online using my city's public records! My ducks are all nicely set up. The Quit Deed is set up that the moment my mother passes the house is mine, which means, if my NB walks in the house and takes something I can call the cops and get my NB for unlawful entry and theft. My NM lawyer told me this and I read it in the QD!!! I would not have stayed here as long as I have if I wasn't covered.

Please Lea give me a little credit...I have NEVER Trusted that woman when it came to money or assets!!! Sorry to say, I learned as a teenager that she couldn't be trusted with those things!!

If I am here and my NM passes I plan on selling the house and buy a new one. Before I moved back here I didn't talk to my NB for 9 yrs. Now, he is not allowed here & hasn't been here in the past 2 to 2.5 yrs!

Hey Shell......have you actually SEEN the title paperwork for your parents home? I think you need to make sure of it all before your mom passes away and get a lawyer involved, if there is any issue. Your brother is obviously mentally unstable and your NM is not to be trusted either, so please have your ducks lined up so you know what your rights are up front. If it turns out you don't have ownership of this house, I'd move far away from this so called brother and leave no forwarding address and change your phone number. He sounds like psycho Bob to me.

I have not noticed food sets off my headaches but stress and tension does. When I had my last full time job running a babysitting agency with 1000 clients and 200 sitters, all females, I had a headache every day by 10:30am. Best thing I ever did was quit that job.....it was the definition of a crazy house! 🤣

Lea,
I will be praying for you. I used to have migraine heads when I was younger. They started at age 10 yrs old! All I can say is "I feel for you!" I stop having them in my mid 20's. I found that if I ate white American Cheese or white Cheddar Cheese it would set off a migraine. I also learned that stress would set them off! I started doing meditation and kicking a bag around!!

You really want to hear something crazy!? I have texts messages from a burner number stating that "I need to get out of my brother's house." I came back with "this is my parents house. (Name) has no right to this house." I asked who it was, but they wouldn't tell me. They went on to tell me that my brother (Name) is letting my mother and I live there, but as soon as she dies he will be kicking my SO and me out! I told this person "He has no legal grounds!" They came back with that my brother is telling people his name is on the Deed. But my mother had the house Quit Deed to me and my brother's name was not and is not on the house!!! But he really believes that his name is on the Deed.


Here is another crazy thing about my narc brother! In 1999 my mother's mother wanted to move here and she wanted to buy a house. She had a CD worth 5000 dollars, but no credit. So my NM found a house and talked my brother into using his credit and in turn, when my grandmother died he would get the house. All he had to do was sign some paperwork and pay my grandmother a 100 dollars a month to help her out. So he did this until December 2000 when my grandmother died. He got the house!!! I needed a place to live and my mother told me that I couldn't come home and she would like it if I moved in with NB because he was scared to live alone! So, I moved in with a written agreement that I pay 125 dollars a month. Well one night, I came home and my NB tells me that "IT IS MY RESPONSIBILITY TO MAKE THE HOUSE PAYMENT AND TO PAY ALL THE BILLS!!!" Thats right!! The house is in his name but I have to pay all the bills and have NO SAY on what goes on!!! Well I told him what he could do and where to go! I left the house and went to my parent's house and told my NM what he said! She was in shock!!!! She called him asking him where in the h3ll did he get that idea from. She told him that it was not my responsibility for paying the house pmts or the rest of the bills. This went on for 30 mins. Finally, she told him to sign the house over to me if he wanted me to pay the bills. He said, "NO, THIS IS MY HOUSE!!!" So, she told him that he needed to pay the bills. So everything got straighten out, so we thought! Four days later, I was woken up to a very large black woman wanting to kick my butt!! She was trying to start a fight with me; however, I grabbed my little cell phone and pushed a number which was my best friend at the time. My friend heard everything. I went back to my bedroom and got a baseball bat and hung up with my friend and called my NM. My NB got the woman out of the house and was getting ready to leave when my NM was at the door. My NB told her that I was making everything up. But my NM knew I was not lying! I moved out that day and back home to my parent's house. My NB lost the house about 5 months later due to non-payment! He quit his job after I moved out. He blew through 30,000 dollars (401k) in less than 4 months and "DID NOT MAKE ONE HOUSE PMT." He didn't even have the house for a year. Guess who's fault it is that he lost his house? Mine!! To this day he blames me for losing his house!!!

By the way, my NB never even got into trouble over the whole woman wanting to kick my butt!

Can't make this crap up!!!

Shell: GOOD! Never ever tell your mother your plans! Like it affirms in that article you linked to...........they just use all the info as ammunition against us. I try to tell my NM as little as possible. And every time I tell her ANYTHING, I live to regret it. Every time. Even when DH was in the hospital for the 2nd time, BIG MISTAKE telling her. She was blowing up my phone with all this 'concern' while saying HIS problem was making HER sick! Really? How bout you STFU? But really, it was my fault for telling her b/c I KNOW better. UGH.

Leave it to your golden child brother to become a narc himself, then decide the family home is HIS and all that nonsense. It never ceases to amaze me the delusions of grandeur these narcs have!!

Nothing you say sounds 'harsh' either............these are things we HAVE TO DO with the NMs just to survive! Anyone thinking these are 'harsh measures' have no idea what 'harsh' really means! WE are the ones who have been dealing with harsh behaviors for decades! Pffft.

Tonight I turned my phone to vibrate; I'm making & taking NO CALLS after last night's debacle with my NM. Enough is enough. I need rest as I've had a very bad headache all day long that will not let up. I am going to have to email the neurologist to see if he wants me to increase my migraine meds again. Just last week I had an aura again, for the first time in 11 months. That's not a good sign, just an omen that things WILL get worse with the headaches before they get better, so a med dose change is likely warranted.

NHWM,
Thank you! That was my thought...why rock the boat right now, besides she is in really bad health and I don't know whats going to happen in a week, month or in 6 months so why stir the pot when she could be on hospice or dead in the next 3 months. She is sleeping more and more every week and doing less and less!

It is best to make plans for moving out and at the same time, make plans just-in-case if she should pass!

Shell,

You are smart not to tell your mom!

Why give her ammunition to attack you with?

She can find out about it when the time is right for you to share the info.

If you tell her now it would only create anxiety for each of you.

Xray,
To answer your question! No, I have not talked to my mother about my plans. First off, she only has half of her faculties and secondly, if I told her that I am moving out and selling the family home she would say, "ok, whatever you think is best." Then turn right around and find ways to cost me money as well as get back at me! Her backlashes are horrific!! It is best (I think) for her not know what my plan is. As soon as most of my stuff is out of the house, then I can tell her that she has two choices:1) stay at the house by herself and my brother can take my place. I will have my name taken off her POAs!! He can take her to the store and pay her bills and the house bills, which he won't! He will use her money for his friends and drugs and she knows this! He will also move in here with his loser homeless friend!! Or she can move into a AL and I will continue to pay her bills (whatever they may be) and I will stay on as her POAs and see over her care!
I realize that this may seem harsh; however, she would love for all of us to continue to live like this and I Can Not do it anymore! Plus, I know she does not want my brother living in this house and take care of her because deep down she knows he is just like her...that scares her, but it is the only way I will be able to get her out of this house and regain my life back!!!

Sorry it took me time to get back to you!


Chriscat,
I am just sorry that you're having a bad day!( Do something extra nice for yourself!💗


Piper,
I get what your saying about that you tried to do the right thing and it blew up in your face and now you feel you need to make things right! I get it! Because I came back home with the intention of doing the right thing and it blew up in my face. You and I just want to do the right thing...not because our mothers deserve it, but because we recognize that we made a mistake and we see our NM (no matter how horrible they were to us) as human beings!! We are the ones that have to live with ourselves. l can't help but to think of the old saying, "The road to h3ll is paved with good intentions." Well, we are paving the road together!!


Side note: I run things by my SO to see what he thinks when it comes to my NM! I have found that he can see my blind spots! Plus, it reassures me that I am not crazy and that I am doing the right thing!!!!

Hugs to all those of you who need one today!💜❤💙🧡💛

Yes Shell. Truthfully, I think the best way to deal with an NM is by having as little contact as possible. They have entirely too many tricks up their sleeves, so no matter what we do or don't do, they're going to make our lives intolerable. The answer? Stay AWAY from them. Limit your contact to the rattlesnake or it will bite you.

Lea,
I found this article early this morning and thought "what should or should not do to handle a NM?" Am I feeding into my NM and not realizing it? Am I giving her weapons (so to speak) and not know it? The answer to these questions are 'Yes!!!'

I thought hum, I had to find a way to defend (protect) myself, but how? When you can't win no matter what you do?? By not feeding into them! By knowing in your own mind that you are NOT the cause of the dysfunction...by not giving them anything they can't use against you...by being & doing You!!!

Lea, your right! I think we do "fail at recognizing how horrible & dysfunction their behavior is", but more importantly, we fail to see the "Real Damage" they cause us!

Chris: Cognitive dissonance: us questioning OURSELVES over what these women are doing rather than realizing it's THEM doing crazy stuff! Right?

Barb: my condolences over a 24 year marriage to a narcissistic man. You have way way wayyyyyyy more intestinal fortitude than I do. All I've ever done is try to figure a way OUT of the relationship with my NM, honestly. These people are impossible to live with/deal with/have relationships with. They won't allow it. My step daughter just divorced a NPD man; what he did to her last year was THE most horrible thing I have ever heard a husband do to the mother of his child. He threw her out on the street with no clothes, no money, no car, nothing. Because she had the nerve to accuse him of blatantly flirting with a woman during a military ball they attended. He took their 3 y/o DD and drove her 150 miles away to his mother's house so my step DD could not even see her for months! He changed the locks on the house after kicking her onto the street. She managed to stay with him for about 2 years before filing.

Shell, great article! I particularly like this:

4. Don’t minimize their outrageous behavior.
Narcissists’ self-absorbed behavior and need for attention can take up all the emotional oxygen in the room. Over time, people around narcissists may become inured and fail to recognize how unhealthy narcissistic behavior can be.
Let's be clear: Deceiving, manipulating, and humiliating others is unhealthy and wrong. At times it may be best to let narcissists’ immature or provocative behaviors pass without comment, but that doesn’t mean you should fail to note, at least to yourself, how dysfunctional it is.

I think we DO 'fail to note' how horrible & dysfunctional their behaviors ARE. We chalk it off, we question OURSELVES a lot of the times. Like I mentioned to Chris in the first line of my comment here. Narcs are GREAT at getting us to do that! UGH

Lea, thanks for your support. It is so helpful when others have had exactly the same experiences - I know that with the fuss about the phone call that I'm not going crazy or imagining things. That mental chatter you say you have in your head - I understand that too. It's when your thoughts overwhelm you. I use CBT to try and deal with that, plus some meditation exercises from my CBT course. It turns out my mother managed to make that phone call after all, so she is all smiles now, while I am left still mentally dealing with the latest outburst. I could cry.

EP, as youbsay, I didn't have a Narc Mom. But I WAS married to a certified NPD for 24 years.

I found Zoloft helped me tremendously through the last couple of years of that marriage, when according to him, his affairs, our teenages' acting out and/or depression, basically EVERYTHING was my fault.

I learned to stopped trying to please and stopped taking responsibility for his actions.

It didn't solve all my problems. But it helped a lot.

Piper: I never heard of CPTSD until now. I did, however, get diagnosed with PTSD back in 2000 after I hired someone to steal my adoption records & found my birth family. (The adoption records are sealed in NY state and there is no legal way to unearth birth certificates of adoptees, we have NO rights). Anyway, I was quite shaken and couldn't eat/sleep/function for quite some time, my whole life was thrown upside down. I had the startle reflex so strong I had to wear earplugs in the house b/c if I even heard a cabinet door close, I'd JUMP thru the roof with anxiety. The doctor prescribed Paxil and it helped tremendously; like a light switch was flipped off inside my hyper sensitive brain.


I get a physical & emotional reaction to visits/phone calls with my mother almost every time; always before, and sometimes afterwards. Just last night, she was acting out something fierce and I wound up having to say Goodnight, I have to go now.........she was vile. So this morning I feel like I've been run over by a Mack truck. I'm sure I have fibromyalgia too. I have all the symptoms which I've always chalked off to other things, or me being 'weak' or some such nonsense. The complexities of suffering with NMs for many decades DOES take its toll on a person. Whoever thinks otherwise doesn't have an NM to deal with.

Chris: I hear you about your mother 'going on for days & days' about making a simple phone call. I could have written that MYSELF about my own mother. It's the back-door hinting, the covert piece of the puzzle that I HATE so much; the refusal to come right out and ASK for something.........that's the passive/aggressive side of things. I've lived with that sh*t my whole life. Even now with her in MC and me being the only one to deal with her outside of the place. She 'desperately needs' things, just won't write them down, so she can't remember what they are. Yet goes on and on and ON about what she 'so desperately needs' all the time, then says 'why didn't you bring me what I desperately need?" BECAUSE YOU DIDN"T TELL ME WHAT YOU SO DESPERATELY NEEDED. One time, I was SO agitated, I went to Wal Mart. I was like a whirling dervish. I ran my cart down all the toiletry aisles and bought like $150 worth of EVERYTHING I could possibly think of that she could have 'so desperately needed.' Not only did she complain it was 'too much', but that I had neglected to buy the ONE thing she REALLY needed but forgot to mention.
They don't want us to have "Me time". I get plenty of me time b/c she's in MC, but the mental chatter that goes on inside my head cuts dramatically DOWN on the me time b/c she spoils everything. It's their GOAL to spoil everything. #Truth.

Sending you a big hug of understanding and empathy, my friend. I get it.

Thanks Piper, I needed that support. It’s been a tough day.