I left my mother’s house at 17 never to go back for a good reason.
A naracissist is a narcissist is a narcissist. Right to the end.
She’s finally tossed that back-breaking straw.
How much does one owe the person who gave birth to you and who, over the years, has probably given you somewhere around $150,000 to help you out with various life situations?
I think four years of the full-time and loving caregiving I’ve provided, only to have to endure the kind of emotional abuse only a life-long narcissist knows how to inflict, is enough. My debt to her is paid in full.
Now what?
My brother is coming up tomorrow and I’m heading out to my daughter’s for a few days. After that, who knows what.
Don’t expect anything here for a while.
Kalilily Time
Just an old lady talking to herself
i’m only a few short years away from standing in your shoes in this regard, so i read your words with great interest.
hang in there. more and more and more of us are going to be either doing this kind of care, or needing it, quite soon. hopefully we can all support one another through it. i have a feeling when it’s your turn someone’s going to get a welcome chance to show you a lot of well-deserved gratitude.
Yup, that’d be me, when it’s her turn, showing a great deal of gratitude. I also don’t anticipate it being quite the same situation. Mom is vibrant, passionate and interested in so many things that life will never be a drain or a drag.
For now, mom, I’m glad your goofy, bright, funny, infuriating, independent, loving grandson can be a bright spot. He is for us too.
Hold on. 🙂
Thinking of you Elaine. Be well.
Sorry I haven’t been checking in Elaine, and I’m coming to the discussion late, but I just wanted to voice my support for you. I think I know what you’re going through (except for the homecare of the mother part), because …well, because it was the same in my space, too. And what’s really awful is that I see that …pathology (there’s no other word for it) reinscribed in siblings (actually, in one in particular), and I KNOW that this sib’s kids are suffering, and I could scream when I hear the excuses — endless ones — being made for her by my other sibs and by her own kids.
I think being a lifelong learner is the best antidote to becoming that kind of narcissist monster yourself (you know, against the old chestnut of old daughters becoming just like their mothers?), and it sounds like that’s what you’re doing for yourself. My mother refused to learn anything after a while, and THAT was, IMO, the real expression of her illness. Instead, she would hound my father (who was unpleasant — sic — in his own way) while he tried to keep his brain alive by studying Japanese or something. Whenever he sat down to concentrate, she’d be in his face, bugging the hell out of him, instead of turning to something to concentrate on herself. Lifelong learning, education: that’s the antidote, and those who don’t want to take that path lose their right to bug the crap out of other people, as far as I’m concerned. I know that sounds cruel, but the point is that they’re trying to make you as crazy as they are by stopping you from exercising your brain. They (close relatives of the narcissist variety) will try to flatten your mind and take away your right to be different by occupying the little air pockets they so graciously leave behind. They should instead be marched off to ballroom dancing classes (in wheelchairs or walkers if necessary) and made to learn 2 new foreign languages per year, and learn the works of obscure poets by heart. ANYTHING except sit in front of the tube and mentally tread water. If nothing else, it might confuse them enough to get out of their relatives’ hair unnecessarily.
Sorry about the rant, but I feel for you, even though I don’t know how to help, specifically.
I don’t think your observations are cruel at all. I haven’t said this before, but my dad died 20 years ago of pancreatic cancer. Personally, I think that, since he was a Catholic, dying was the only way to get away from my mother. Now THAT’S a cruel thing to say, but I’ve come to think it’s true.
You’re right about being a lifelong learner as an antidote to becoming like our mothers. And mine does, indeed, sound a lot like yours.
I rant about this here to get it out of my system so that I can keep doing what I need to do for the my mother while she’s still here. But it ain’t easy, and I refuse to die to get away from her.
I don’t expect help — just hope for friendly ears and hearts. Like yours, Yule. Thanks.