Forgive them, for they know not what they do

"I hope you can forgive me... even though I have done nothing to be forgiven for."

This is going to be a long post, but I believe my mother's last significant words to me deserve a post all of their own.

I saw my mother for the final time in the summer of 2013. Of course, I didn't realise then that it would be the absolute final time. I had high hopes for the visit, because I did know that it would, undoubtedly, be the last time I'd see her for at least a couple of years (and in all probability, even longer than that) - I was getting ready to emigrate to Australia from the UK with my family that September. I thought maybe we might part on good terms, or at least not on bad terms. I was willing and prepared to put the effort in. After all, she was my mother and I was her daughter. There's got to be something there worth fighting for.

It was the first time she had clapped eyes on my youngest son, who was a month away from his first birthday. (Her aloof, standoffish and indifferent attitude towards my children is a topic for another post, although it is of course tangentially relevant to this one.)

Even after 30+ years of being hideously abused, manipulated, let down, dismissed and disappointed by her, I still allowed my expectations to rise above ground zero. It was a terrible mistake but I'm actually glad I made that mistake. It proves without a shadow of a doubt that I forgave to my own detriment, time and time again. To some, that might seem foolish, and perhaps it is - but I am satisfied that I did what I could, with my limited coping skills and abundant forbearance.  I never stopped loving, and I never stopped forgiving.

But everyone has their limits. In the summer of 2013, I reached my limit.

I used to agree with this, but not any more.

Even after arriving in Australia, I wrote her a few desperate, beseeching emails and letters, I updated her with photos of my sons, her grandsons, still trying to salvage something, to resurrect anything, digging deep for just a mere morsel of introspection and compassion... But the fact is, during that final visit three and a half years ago, she actually killed off whatever broken remains were left of our 'relationship'. She put a final fatal bullet in its wheezing, desiccated carcass. And she did it with a sadistic smirk on her face. Of course, as with everything else that unconscionable woman has put me through, it's entirely deniable. But I saw, with my own eyes, the 'slipping of the mask', and that tiny split-second fraction of a second was all I really needed to make the long-overdue decision to finally move on with my life, away from her - not just physically (geographically) but in every other way.

During the first day or two we spent together that summer, my mother was just waiting to drop a bombshell, waiting to tell me something that she had done to hurt me, something calculated and monumental (but still by no means the worst thing she's ever done). When she did come out and say it, she did so with matter-of-fact blandness as if reading from a shopping list, yet with a weighty deliberation that was chilling. Her facial expression flashed subliminally with a calm, self-assured and totally unmistakable "fuck you". At that instant, I glimpsed the diabolical void of her afflicted soul - and it shook me to my core. And, being me, I reacted with spontaneous and visible incredulity, shock, hurt and outrage to her disclosure. (Narcissists LOVE it when their victims wear their hearts on their sleeves: they clearly see those vulnerabilities, fresh and exposed for exploiting, like a vampire might salivate over a pulsing jugular.)

In an instant, a gut-wrenching, face-slapping instant, I FINALLY, at long last, saw clearly what had been staring me in the face for my entire life: my mother really, really, doesn't love me. She hates me.

I turned 40 last September, three years after first arriving in Australia and eighteen months after instigating No Contact, and my mother sent me a birthday card, which I was kind of half-expecting her to do (she got someone else to write on the envelope). Inside the card (generic and insipid, as usual) she had inserted one of her 'angel' cards - the 'Forgiveness' one (pictured below). Now, a person who is not familiar with my mother might reasonably construe that this was a weak but plain attempt at 'apologising' - seeking my forgiveness. Nothing could be further from the truth. The message is this: "You have removed yourself from my life, so I am no longer able to utilise you in ways that benefit me while depleting and destroying you. I despise you for that, and I will hold you personally and solely accountable for it forever, and I will make sure everyone knows what a shit, heartless disappointment of a so-called daughter you are. What you have done to me is unforgivable, but do you know what? I forgive you anyway. Because I am as close to perfection as it is possible to be. You, on the other hand, are beneath contempt."

Now I am starting to understand that forgiveness is not a prerequisite for obtaining 'peace'

Having studied Cluster B personality disorders for over seven years, I am now in no doubt about how her warped mind and twisted thinking operates. She therefore does not have the power to hurt me again, ever. That is not to say I will ever find her remotely comprehensible - she is, to me, insane and reprehensible. Always has been, and always will be. But I have at least made some progress in understanding "what makes narcissists tick", and specifically what motivates, fuels and terrifies my mother, a malignant covert narcissist who tried and failed to make me another one of her defeated victims while play-acting the part of "loving mother".

Another 'forgiveness' truism that is hard to disagree with.

I began the year 2016 hoping (indeed assuming) that I would eventually reach a point where I could say: I forgive my mother. I've always believed forgiveness to be important and as such, I have read a lot on the subject over the past 12 months. At least 50% of what I've read (mainly in ACoN forums and on other abuse survivor pages) has turned the traditional "forgiveness is a gift to yourself" trope on its head. Yes, forgiveness should be a gift - to both parties - but ONLY when the hurt, fault or wrong-doing has been acknowledged, validated and apologised for... AND, just as importantly, if not more so, the offending behaviour modified accordingly.

Jesus Christ may have unconditionally forgiven his enemies over and over again, but in the real world, in the life of a normal human being, "turning the other cheek" to allow yourself to be repeatedly abused, insulted, let down and betrayed is a surefire way of losing all self-respect and self-worth. Besides which, I am not Jesus Christ. And I have no cheeks left to turn.

The day before we parted ways forever, my mother made me look her in the eyes and promise her that I didn't feel "resentful". Being an obedient little daughter, sick to death by now of her shitty mind games and debilitating, impermeable toxicity, and just wanting her to get the fuck away from me once and for all, I looked her straight in the eyes and said: "I don't feel resentful". And it was true. "Resentful" didn't even scratch the surface of what I was feeling. She then made that ultimate narcissistic statement: "I hope you can forgive me... even though I have done nothing to be forgiven for."

And what was there left to say, after that? Nothing.

One thing I have always found astonishing about my mother is her refusal (inability) to apologise. It simply amazes me that someone can cause harm, KNOW that they caused harm, and feel NOTHING, not even a vague twinge of remorse or shame. (In the case of my mother, it's worse than that - she has always actively ENJOYED hurting me.) For as long as this sick attitude persists, it would be both wrong and stupid of me to even entertain the thought of forgiving her. How CAN you forgive someone who is wilfully blind and completely unrepentant? Someone who scorns your pain, denies your feelings, claims to "not remember" any of the abuses you suffered? You cannot. It demolishes everything 'forgiveness' is supposed to represent. It makes a mockery of it.

Forgiveness is the best course of action but ONLY if the person who has wronged you takes full ownership of their mistakes and the harmful repercussions of those mistakes. ONLY if the person who has wronged you shows compassion and clarity, thereby giving YOU the power to forgive. Without all that, you CANNOT forgive. It's rendered impossible.

I will therefore not be forgiving my mother, but my hope for 2017 is that my anger will fade to a flicker rather than remain the intense inferno it has been for the past three years.

You are under no obligation to forgive those who hurt and damaged you beyond repair. Don’t let them sell you forgiveness like it is the only drug that will help you let go of your despair

- Nikita Gill, Forgiving Those Who Hurt You is Not Always The Path To Healing

Further reading:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erica-manfred/why-forgiveness-is-overra_1_b_812181.html

Forgiveness is bullshit

Abuse amnesia

“In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the perpetrator’s first line of defense. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure that no one listens. To this end, he marshals an impressive array of arguments, from the most blatant denial to the most sophisticated and elegant rationalization. After every atrocity one can expect to hear the same predictable apologies: it never happened; the victim lies; the victim exaggerates; the victim brought it upon herself; and in any case it is time to forget the past and move on. The more powerful the perpetrator, the greater is his prerogative to name and define reality, and the more completely his arguments prevail.” 
― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“Some of your childhood traumas may be remembered with incredible clarity, while others are so frightening or incomprehensible that your conscious mind buries the memory in your unconscious.” 
― Renee Fredrickson, Repressed Memories: A Journey to Recovery from Sexual Abuse



After three years of almost total radio silence and inferred antipathy, I am finally - with cautious optimism - back in touch with my sister. I have hope that she and I can rebuild our relationship, in spite of the thousands of miles between us, not to mention the decades of unspoken pain, grief, misunderstanding and anguish that exists festering in our shared histories.

The other day she told me that our mother had recently stayed at her house and demanded to know - in her usual waspish, hectoring manner - what the hell was going on, and why on earth her clearly deranged and bitter daughter (i.e. me) no longer wanted to have anything to do with her. Yes, this is despite the fact I went to great pains to spell out my reasons as clearly and reasonably as I could in my No Contact email of May 2015. Unless you communicate something my mother wants to hear, she simply will not listen. She never has, and she never will.

Like me, my sister hates confrontation, but this time the dear brave soul did manage to state some home truths, although I doubt she was particularly assertive about it. (This is little wonder; I have lost count of the number of times I have tried to get through to my mother about her abhorrent behaviour only to be shouted down or called a liar. She is wilfully, obstinately obstructive to receiving honesty, because it so often conflicts with her own manufactured reality.) I don't know exactly the words she used of course, but my sister told my mother that my refusal to have her in my life any more is "not without foundation": for starters, she made our dad's life hell, and abused both my sister and me.

With wearying predictability, our mother denied everything. She reacted with outrage at the accusation she made our dad's life hell, and as for abusing my sister and me, she apparently said: "I don't remember that".

It is a fairly straightforward diversionary tactic: simply deny all knowledge. I don't remember it, therefore it didn't happen. In other words: your version of events doesn't correspond with mine. (My version of events will NEVER correspond with my mother's, and that is because she is mentally ill and emotionally disabled.)


I have no expectation - precisely none - that my mother will ever say: "Yeah, I was a total shit to your father, every day I undermined and insulted him and I am at least partly responsible for his inexorable descent into the abject misery of alcoholism... and if it wasn't for me, he would probably have lived a longer and much, much happier life." While that is unquestionably true, she will never admit it. It's a shame, because the confession will release her. It will set her free. My mother the soul murderer needs to confess to many hundreds of sins, but not one single solitary confession will be forthcoming. Ever. That refusal to accept culpability, that total abdication of responsibility, is imprisoning her.  It's horrifically sad but she is the only person in the world with the power to unlock that prison.

And apart from admitting, without even a tinge of shame, that she did regularly hit her daughters (bolstered by her usual piss-poor 'justifications': "my mother smacked me when I was naughty... it was just discipline... I was under so much pressure as a single mother", etc, etc), she "plays the innocent" with aplomb whenever she is accused of being an abuser - accused of anything, in fact, other than of being a loving, struggling mother who only ever did her best.  And besides, 'smacking' is completely and objectively different to what my sister and I experienced when on the receiving end of our mother's regular violent rages. She didn't 'smack' us, she beat us. HARD. The beatings were not attempts at discipline, unless 'discipline' means 'terrorising'. So no, I will not tolerate having the physical abuse we suffered dismissed as mere 'smacking'. Clearly if it had been just that, it would not be an issue now, more than 20 years later.

But it is true that both the abuser and the abused may "forget" some or even all of the abuses, or at least downplay or suppress them in their memories.  They do this for different reasons, of course: the abuser 'forgets' (or rather refuses to remember) because otherwise they will be forced to face their own unspeakable grotesqueness, while the victim forgets in order to protect themselves from the true harshness of reality. This amnesia - which can be selective, localised and generalised - relates to dissociation, summarised below, an important topic which I will cover in another blog post.

It is irrelevant whether or not I believe my mother has genuinely "forgotten" what she made her ex-husband and daughters suffer (I don't believe it; not for a second).  Again it would merely be a case of making a distinction between my mother being mentally ill or outright evil. It doesn't matter: she is toxic, and it is of no consequence whether that toxicity is due to mental illness or something even worse.

In any case, I'm not interested in her own 'amnesia', real or faked. She fakes most things, so I have no reason to assume her purported amnesia is anything other than another of her gargantuan lies.

But I want to look at my own 'amnesia', which I do find troubling when I consider the many 'missing jigsaw puzzle pieces' of my past. I KNOW, with crystal-clear certainty, that I was abused by that woman on a daily basis for many, many years. I know that some days were better than others. Some days, even most days,  I could (and did) kid myself that everything was normal, or at least not terrible. That's because, most of the time, the abuse was passive rather than active (i.e. ignoring or neglecting me rather than hitting or insulting me). But the problem I have now is that because I've been trained to doubt my own perceptions and memories through chronic gaslighting, if someone were to actually ask me "What exactly did your mother do that was so bad?", I'd be unable to give a coherent or convincing response. Perhaps a simple and honest response would be to tell that person that she never actually did anything good.

Narcissist parents are very careful about how, where and when they abuse. I am convinced my mother has always been not only fully aware of abusing me, but enjoys doing it, and often actually PLANNED her abuses. And she probably remembers more than I do - because my brain, by necessity, has blocked a lot of my childhood out. That's the nature of childhood trauma. There are dauntingly huge swathes of time during my late childhood and teens that are simply not there, and these missing memories have to be explained, even if I have no intention or desire to retrieve them.

I do have a few precious memories of my childhood from the age of three to eight, and most of them are happy - even idyllic. Because my dad was there. Today is Christmas Day and I remember fondly the Christmases we had as a family of four, before my parents divorced. I can't be sure whether or not it was all just an illusion. I guess it was. Still, I feel lucky that I did at least have that illusion for the formative years of my childhood.


Further reading:

http://outofthefog.website/what-not-to-do-1/2015/12/3/abuse-amnesia

http://flyingmonkeysdenied.com/glossary/abuse-amnesia/ "Pretending not to remember having abused someone like a family member, love interest, or child — knowing full well they abused and are actively lying in order to avoid taking personal responsibility for moral or legal crime while frustrating, insulting, and leading a smear campaign about the character of their accuser, is a typical move for a person who has an extreme personality disorder."

http://flyingmonkeysdenied.com/2016/01/02/what-is-abuse-amnesia/ "According to Out of the Fog, a domestic abuse recovery website, “Abuse Amnesia is a form of cognitive suppression where an abuse victim has trouble remembering episodes where their boundaries have been violated.” 

http://traumadissociation.com/dissociativeamnesia

Does your mother have narcissistic traits?

Dr Karyl McBride's book "Will I ever be good enough? Healing the daughters of narcissistic mothers" (see my review here) contains a quiz - Does your mother have narcissistic traits? 

This set of questions, in my opinion, is inadequate in terms of addressing the issues that children of extreme (malignant) and/or ignoring narcissistic mothers typically deal with. The questions are far too simplistic and seem to be based largely on the author's own relationship with her own (engulfing, non-psychopathic) narcissistic mother.

My own answers are below:

1. When you discuss your life issues with your mother, does she divert the discussion to talk about herself? 

Yes, so I stopped talking to her about life issues, and stopped confiding in her about anything, after the age of 18.


2. When you discuss your feelings with your mother, does she try to top the feeling with her own? 

Yes, she did, hence I stopped discussing my feelings with her, and haven't done so in any depth since 1995. See question 1.

3. Does your mother act jealous of you?

Yes - insanely.

4. Does your mother lack empathy for your feelings?

Yes, she has precisely NO empathy for me. She cannot even be bothered to fake sympathy or compassion for me. But she APPEARS to have empathy for people she didn't give birth to or wasn't once married to. Still can't quite work this one out.

5. Does your mother only support those things you do that reflect on her as a “good mother"?

Just as she has never shown the slightest concern for me during tumultuous periods of my life (health problems, relationship breakdowns), she has never taken any interest in anything I've done that should have elicited some sort of pride - exam success and other academic achievements, a book publishing deal, job offers, travel experiences, marriage, and the births of my babies. It all passed her by. She's just so busy, you see.

6. Have you consistently felt a lack of emotional closeness with your mother?

Yes - there's never been any. An occasional faked and fleeting gesture of affection when I was a child; that's it.

7. Have you consistently questioned whether or not your mother likes you or loves you?

Yes, I did. But now I don't question it. I KNOW she doesn't love or like me.

8. Does your mother only do things for you when others can see?  

No. She birthed me, fed me, clothed me and kept a roof over my head while I was a child/teen (all begrudgingly), and beyond that, NOTHING. I'm sure she lies to others about all these amazing sacrifices she's supposedly made, but she has done NOTHING beyond the most basic physical sustenance, and so has nothing to back up her lies. Yet people still believe her.

9. When something happens in your life (accident, illness, divorce) does your mother react with how it will affect her rather than how you feel? 

No. She has no sort of human reaction. She's never shown the slightest interest, never mind concern. (Although if something tragic WERE to happen to me, she'd use it as a means of gaining attention and sympathy for herself. She would be THRILLED if I were to die before she did - she'd get so much precious supply, and could play the martyr with total impunity.)

10. Is or was your mother overly conscious of what others think (neighbors, friends, family, co-workers)? 

Yes. She really, really cares about what other people think of her. She is entirely dependent upon their validation because she's completely repulsed and alienated everyone who knows the truth about her (her daughters and one or two other relatives - everyone else presumes she's a lovely little old lady).

11. Does your mother deny her own feelings? 

Her true feelings, yes. By necessity she denies them, and it must be exhausting for her. She is utterly consumed by self-loathing, but she can't deal with that so she projects that as rage, resentment, contempt and jealousy. Everyone else is somehow to blame for the aching, ugly void within her soul.

12. Does your mother blame things on you or others rather  than own responsibility for her feelings or actions?

See above. All. The. Time.

13. Is or was your mother hurt easily and then carried a grudge for a long time without resolving the problem? 

She was easily hurt and TOTALLY impervious to (or perhaps more accurately, unfazed by) the extreme hurt she habitually caused those closest to her. Nobody did the silent treatment like my mother.

14. Do you feel you were a slave to your mother?

Absolutely. I was her slave, her hostage and her punching bag

15. Do you feel you were responsible for your mother’s ailments or sickness (headaches, stress, illness)? 

I was the reason she was unhappy and stressed. She didn't even WANT kids, but there I was, existing just to spite her. So yeah, I felt "responsible".

16. Did you have to take care of your mother’s physical needs as a child? 

No. Thank God.

17. Do you feel unaccepted by your mother? 

Absolutely. Rejected is a better word.

18. Do you feel your mother was critical of you? 

Erm... YES! She never gave me a single compliment. Ever.

19. Do you feel helpless in the presence of your mother? 

Paralyzed with terror, more to the point. And drained of all joy and energy. Hence I never want to see her or communicate with her again.

20. Are you shamed often by your mother? 

I was. She loved to mortify me - it gave her such a thrill.

21. Do you feel your mother knows the real you? 

She does not have the first clue who I am - she is terribly well acquainted with what makes me feel scared and miserable though.

22. Does your mother act like the world should revolve around her? 

All. The. Time.

23. Do you find it difficult to be a separate person from your mother? 

I cannot believe I came from her body, and the fact I did absolutely disgusts me. We could not be less alike. She has totally detached herself from me, and I am now at a point where i welcome that detachment. 

24. Does your mother appear phony to you? 

All. The. Time. She's the phoniest person I've ever met.

25. Does your mother want to control your choices? 

She wants me to make the wrong choices, because nothing makes her happier than my misery. Apart from that, she simply does not care. At all.

26. Does your mother swing from egotistical to a depressed mood? 

Her mood tends to simply be varying degrees of "batshit crazy". Sometimes calm ('simmering'), sometimes an enraged tornado of doom and destruction. And everything in between. She could go from one extreme to the other in the blink of an eye.

27. Did you feel you had to take care of your mother’s emotional needs as a child? 

It was 'obviously' my fault she was unhappy and poor and stressed. So I felt guilty all the time. I tried to please her, but my efforts were in vain. See question 15.

28. Do you feel manipulated in the presence of your mother? 

I only exist to her as a thing to be manipulated. I literally serve no other purpose.

29. Do you feel valued by mother for what you do rather than who you are? 
She doesn't know who I am, and she doesn't care about what I do. So I don't feel valued at all, in any way. Never have done.

30. Is your mother controlling, acting like a victim or martyr? 

Constantly. This question refers to two separate and distinct aspects of her toxic personality though: her 'controlling' side, which is formidable, and her propensity to play the victim (poor long-suffering unappreciated mother), which is possibly even more formidable.

31. Does your mother make you act different from how you really feel? 

She makes me feel ashamed for having feelings at all, never mind making me feel obliged to deny and suppress them.

32. Does your mother compete with you? 

She's insanely jealous and my entire adult life has been viewed by her as a sick game of oneupmanship. One that she has lost, abysmally, hence her willingness to accept my NC decision without the slightest murmur of protest.

33. Does your mother always have to have things her way? 

Yes. Always.