Don't defy your mother, deify her

Today is Mother's Day. Until my early thirties, I used to send my mother flowers (or at least a pleasant, cheerful card) every Mother's Day, without fail. It was just the done thing to do. She assumed she would receive something, and I didn't want to disappoint her. Ha! So much for that. (My sister rarely, if ever, sent anything. My sister doesn't "do" birthdays, Christmas or any 'special occasion', although hopefully that will change now she has her own child.)

Anyway, finding the 'right' Mother's Day card was always a struggle - they all seemed so twee and schmaltzy, shouting out hackneyed superlatives like "Best Mum Ever" and "I love you to the moon and back". Sometimes I'd just end up fleeing the card shop in tears, knowing I was deluding myself (and encouraging her own delusion) by even acknowledging her as 'mum'. One Mother's Day (or it might have been on her birthday) I sent her this card: 

She loved it so much that she laminated it and stuck it on her fridge. To her, the craziness she possesses is a thing of wonder, to be admired. She doesn't deny being crazy, she sees it as a virtue. Ergo, those of us who are NOT crazy (i.e. anyone who dares oppose her) are lacking in virtue. 

If you have (or had) a good mother, being respectful of her is a given, no matter how much you might get on each other's nerves or have incompatible views or clashing personalities. If someone treats us with kindness and consideration, regardless of whether or not we are related to them, that basic consideration is (or should be) readily reciprocated. Respect is always a two-way street. It is absolutely fundamental to a healthy relationship. It's usually very easy to respect someone who respects us, even if they are of a different generation and/or a different culture, with a different set of beliefs and opinions.

My mother's demand for respect has always been voracious; insatiable. Her expectation of it, from everyone, is equally formidable. She truly believes it is OWED to her, especially from her daughters - after all, she did give birth to us. We owe her our lives, right? We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her and her fruitful womb. So a little bit of respect surely goes without saying. No, make that A LOT of respect. All the time. Do not question her. Do not disobey her. Do not presume you are even worthy of breathing the same air.

She does do and say lots of ostensibly mindful and benevolent things to make her friends believe she is a stunningly virtuous person - and so all of them have never found it difficult to respect her. (Hence their position within my mother's 'trusted circle'.) That is, to respect the persona; the person my mother pretends to be. (You will notice I am writing about my mother in the present tense, because she is still alive, as far as I know. I also know that, even having not clapped eyes on her for almost three years and not exchanged a word with her by phone, letter or email for an entire year, she will still be the same infuriating, ice-cold narcissist and outrageous hypocrite she has always been.... except older now, frailer, inevitably more recalcitrant and cantankerous than ever and probably even more hateful - especially now I have so unequivocally offered myself as the 'sacrificial lamb' of a target for that hatred.)

As Darlene Ouimet writes on her 'Emerging from Broken' site (see Resources below): "We are told from a young age that our parents know best. We are told and convinced that they love us and... that they always do what is best for us. We are taught that they are right. The problem is that when we are dismissed, devalued or discounted by these same parents we don’t know how to reconcile those two polar opposite teachings. On the one hand, we have been brainwashed (convinced) to believe that that there is nothing as beautiful as a mothers love. On the other hand we are hurt by the dismissal of our mothers. Our pain has been minimized; we have been told that we exaggerate, that we outright lie, that we are too sensitive, that we are crazy, that we are don’t remember what 'really happened'."


When did I lose all respect for my mother? It is hard to know exactly when it happened. It was a gradual process, starting in my teens after I had been on the receiving end of her insane, mind-fucking nonsense and violence more times than I cared to recall. While my need to be loved and accepted by her never diminished, it took a long time before I learned that fearing someone is not the same as respecting them. There was a definitive 'lightning bolt' moment, shortly after I had become a mother myself, when I finally realised that I had in fact been trying to forge a relationship with a malignant narcissist, someone inherently and incurably incapable of a single positive human emotion, and so the fault had never been with me. 

I do respect the fact she gave birth to me. I thank her for that. I respect the fact she is an extremely sick and sorrowful woman, and that that is why she is the way she is, even though it will never excuse or justify it. But as my mother, it is impossible for me to respect her, as I explained in my blog post Responses and rebuttals to the flying monkeys. A basic indication of whether you have respect for someone or not is whether you are prepared to talk about them (invariably disparagingly) behind their back. Generally, I try to avoid doing this as it's a really shitty thing to do to anyone. But we do all do it, from time to time. Or in my mother's case, habitually. My mother is in her element when she is playing the victim/martyr or slagging me (or any adversary) to anyone who'll listen. (Typically the two predilections go hand-in-hand: "Poor me! My daughter is so cruel!" and "I tried so hard to be a good mother! Look how she repays me!") She's pitiful and pitiless, but not pitiable. There's a difference.

My dad was always the primary target of her spitting vitriol, generic insults and snide complaints, and after he died, somebody else had to be appointed in his "Chief Shit-Taker" role. Of course, with my years of experience and resigned stoicism, I was more than qualified.

Yesterday, I was trawling through some historic emails, with a mixture of fascination and dread. An email I sent my dad back in March 2007, just eight months before his unexpected death, particularly caught my eye. This was a couple of years before I found out about NPD, when everything suddenly fell into place with blinding, gut-punching clarity. 

My dad and I often had exchanges about the 'mother issue'. In spite of how horrifically she treated him (barely respecting him as a human being, much less as the father of her children and a man she once supposedly loved), he never said a word against her. He never stopped loving her, and never stopped regretting the end of their marriage, and the mistakes he made that ultimately caused it. But he did often express his frustration and dismay (however impotent) over the erratic, embarrassingly childish and spiteful way she behaved, especially towards me and my sister. I had been looking for possible explanations for my mother's behaviour and attitude for many years - perhaps it was my main motivation for studying psychology. 
(private details obviously changed)

Begin forwarded message:

From: "ACoN" <acon@mumsalunatic.com>

Subject: Bipolar disorder/manic depression - THIS IS IMPORTANT

Date: 14 March 2007 at 1:33:05 AM AWDT

To: pops@pops.com

Hi Dad

Apologies for the less-than-cheery subject header, but I have long suspected that Mum has a serious mental illness, and manic depression seems pretty close to the mark, although I guess 'schizophrenia' could also apply. Whatever the hell it is, it is something that cannot be ignored any longer, and frankly it's pretty astonishing that it's taken this long, and this much endless fucking shit, for us to get jolted in to action. 

Her sanity has always hung by a thread, and she passes it off proudly as eccentricity. Well it's not eccentric, and it's not 'wacky' or endearing, it's downright horrible and borderline psychotic. Dad, read the link below, ESPECIALLY under the 'mania' bit:

http://www.mentalhealthcare.org.uk/content/?id=152

Also read the attached pdf document.

I also started reading a brilliant book called 'The Noonday Demon', which my friend James gave me a few years ago. It's about the devastating personal symptoms, effects and repercussions of depression, and a lot of it rings eerily true and I think it explains some (although by no means all) of mum's behaviour over the last 15-20 years, and possibly longer. Amazon has a lot of books on the subject, as you'd expect, including:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bipolar-Disorder-Survival-Guide-Family/dp/1572305258/ref=pd_ka_2/026-2581405-8138034?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173798889&sr=8-2

I know Mum was 'put away' due to some kind of mental breakdown in her mid-20s shortly after her marriage to ******* broke up, and I think it is fair to say her mood in general can be described as unpredictable, at best. Quite possibly she has always been like this - you'd know more about that than I do, I guess. She has no insight in to her own shortcomings and is utterly blind to her mistakes; I have never - NOT ONCE - heard her apologise for anything. None of this is 'normal' - none of it. 

The only hope we have of coming through this without breaking the family up completely (i.e., literally and totally removing mother from our lives, for the sake of our own sanity) is if we present her with these facts and get her to admit that she does have a problem - and she must get help for it. This is a huge challenge but I am prepared to give it a go, obviously I don't want to lose my mum completely and forever. Whatever she has done and said in the past, I have forgiven, and will continue to forgive anything else she cares to throw at me - but forgiveness can only go so far. It does get hard to forgive when she has never even admitted that she has done or said anything wrong or hurtful. I just have to ask myself: is it better to have a mother who is relentlessly scornful, tactless, resentful, cold, and impervious to reason, or no mother at all? Sadly, the latter is becoming increasingly the less frightening of two deeply unappealing options.

Please let me know what you think - this is really deeply troubling me at the moment and I can't really think about anything else. We will have to have a very candid, honest and open discussion - all of us together, on neutral ground - but realistically I cannot see mother ever admitting that she is anything less than perfect. It's a shame, because the only way out of this mess is to admit that it IS a mess, and to try to work together to clean it up. You, me and *** cannot take all the 'blame' (for want of a much more constructive word) for the shambolic state this family is in - being a family is about teamwork, but Christ knows it shouldn't take this much heartache and effort. In her desperate attempts to get you and *** to admit that you have drink problems ("yep, only when we can't get our hands on any"), we are all being somewhat diverted from the REAL problem, one that has been staring us in the face for decades and shouting us down. If *** really is an alcoholic, Jesus H Christ is it really any wonder???????????? Let's take a more considered look at cause and effect here.

***** xxx

Resources:

Honor Thy Narcissistic Mother?

Mother's day is Hard When the Mother Shows No Love:
http://emergingfrombroken.com/mothers-day-is-hard-when-the-mother-shows-no-love/

Am I a disrespectful daughter because I finally stood up for me and said no to being discounted? I don’t think so. Am I an ungrateful daughter because I don’t worship the person that birthed me? Am I a bad daughter because I don’t want to accept all that disrespect and blame anymore? I don’t think so.