THE LETTER TO MY NARCISSISTIC MOTHER--------------------------------------
Dear Mom,
I was going to send this to you on Mother's Day, but wanted to wait and think on it a bit more about it before I sent it.
What I want is to be able to feel like you are actually a mother to me. I wanted to get you a card but they all gush about how wonderful mothers are. I wanted to get you flowers, but again, it doesn't reflect how I am feeling right now. I want to love you.
The reason I find it hard to have a relationship with you is because I don't truly believe you are capable of having one with me. You may not realize it, but you project a lot of things on me (and others) and sometimes it's like you are describing yourself when you are talking about other people. You have to be in control every single second. You can't relax. You always seem to be scheming or analyzing. I don't think you realize this but I have felt for quite a long time that you are ill. I have tried to be subtle about persuading you to seek counseling/therapy because of what happened with Robin, but you have told me that you aren't interested in seeking help, and that you give these things to God. When I hear that, it sounds like either an excuse not to seek help, or that you don't think anything is wrong.
You also trouble me because you act one way when it's just you and me, but when Dad is present, you act completely different. You fool him into thinking you never do anything to your children, and he enables you because he won't help us. I think sometimes he fools himself, too. He won't even help himself. Every thought and feeling I had that wasn't the same as yours, you reacted as though having my own mind was wrong. If I tried to think independently you would either have a screaming match with me, or act exasperated, or belittle me, or tell me there must be something wrong with me. You have tantrums when you don't have your way. You will try to get your way, at first by begging and pleading, and then turn around and lash out and get vindictive. And whenever you do something that shocks or offends someone else, you never take responsibility. You make it sound like the ones who are trying to protect themselves are the bad people, simply because they are trying to have the right to have their own opinions and minds and lives. People react negatively to your behaviour because your behaviour is unacceptable. You only feel rejected and angry because of their reactions, but you never seem to realize or accept that you are the cause of these rejections.
I feel really angry and sad that we can't have a normal relationship. It just feels to me that I was mothering you. I've never felt mothered. Sadly, I've felt smothered.
It is my hope that you seek help from a psychiatrist or psychologist. I know this will be hard to accept, because you only see what is wrong with other people and not what is wrong inside yourself. But I pray that you do something to help yourself. Somewhere inside you, it's possible that there is a lost little girl, who thinks somehow that the only way to get love is to make people love you. You think that loving people means controlling them. You have such intense fear that no one will love you that you cling and try manipulate people into being a part of your life. You give gifts that are not gifts: they are tools to manipulate and control. Why do you think I rarely accept things from you anymore? The last time I did accept something, you did just as I suspected. You wanted us to do something for you.
On some level I really love you. But that's probably why I am so sad and angry. If I wasn't, it would be because I didn't care. But because of things you've done and continue to do, I am offering you something you can do for your children, or at least me, your daughter. So don't try to tell me I'm "too sensitive" and ask me if it is my "time of the month" and don't offer me drugs to "help ease my mind." Those are methods that undermine me and belittle my feelings and prevent me from standing up for myself. The reason I feel how I feel is not because of things I have done or because of my body chemistry. I feel those things because you affect me. It's called "gaslighting" when you try to deceive me into thinking it is my fault for me reacting negatively to your negative behaviour.
Right now I still do not have the strength to pick up the phone and call you. If I try to talk to you verbally about this, you are still very good at pushing my buttons and manipulating me. I don't want to argue with you anymore about who is right and wrong. If it is that important for you to be right all the time, if you won't seek help because you don't want to admit there is anything wrong with the way you think and how you handle emotions, then you are effectively sealing yourself off from me. You have lost a lot of friends and family for the same reason and now you have moved to another part of the country in a desperate attempt to latch onto some more friends. I wonder how long it will last if you keep up your same habits.
I am not going to wait around for a reply forever either. I want to hear a response from you within a month: please let me know via email by the beginning of June: Are you seeking assistance from a therapist? Yes or no? And when will you be starting? I don't want you saying you are "going to" seek help, because at some point you will suddenly be distracted by something and then "forget." I may require some proof that you are seeking help. If you value your relationship with me, you will do this small thing. It's not just for me, either, it is for you. Call this an intervention if you want. How is someone who is ill going to be able to perceive something is wrong with them? If your reality filters are broken how can you tell what you feel is in fact based on reality? I swear, hearing you talk sometimes, it's like you are either creating your own reality and believing your fake world is the true one, or else you are a very adept actress and smooth operator. You could have a room full of people looking at a piece of fruit on the table, and it's an apple, but you could convince everyone to say it's an orange because you say it is. They will either say it's an orange because they are tired of arguing with you, or because you make them doubt themselves. You are relentless. I have been wanting to tell you for years. I was just afraid to confront you in person about it because you are not a predictable person. And I have no more energy for you to suck out of me. I am on my last reserves, so I cannot afford to lose anymore in an argument over the phone with you, or hear your exasperated voice, like I am somehow less worthy of your attention and you have better things to do. Or your tone of voice that makes it sound like you think I am the crazy one. Well, you did manage to make me crazy. I have very low self-esteem, and I second-guess myself a lot. I kept making bad relationship choices (until I met David) and work choices. I lost myself: I wanted to please everyone else because I was never supposed to please myself, I was only supposed to do what you wanted and passively do it. That wore me right out till I felt like a skinless spineless skeleton. I've only recently been growing back my skin and spine.
It may not be entirely your fault, as some of these behaviours may be caused by the way you were raised. I remember when you said to me that you always felt that you had to compete with your brother and sisters, that you always had to get affection by doing things instead of just being loved for who you are. If that is the case, then I know exactly how you feel. Your mom was ill, and so is mine. So do something about it, but not by yourself and not with your physician, and not with a priest, and not with self-medicating. I want you to talk to someone who is a psychiatrist or a psychologist. I don't care how often you go per month but I hope at least one time a month, minimum. I just don't want you to go one time and then if the therapist says something you don't want to hear, then you refuse to keep going. After you have gone a few times try to open up about things. And whatever way you want to do it: either just you go, or you and Dad go.
Good luck and no matter what happens, I will always have a place for you in my heart.
- Holly -
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MOM'S REPLY (my responses are -- italicized --) ------------------------------------
Dear Holly,
Oh, how I have loved you. From the very first day I saw you. I continued to love you. I could tell you a zillion wonderful real life stories about you and the beautiful baby, active toddler, loving and kind and happy and smart in school when you arrived there. You sang and jumped, and played with the crickets. When I raised you I did not know how to stand up for myself, either, so I didn’t know how to teach you. You were a wonderful student all through school and look at you. You went on to university and got one of the first degrees of any Cunningham or Soper on either side of the family. You have accomplished so much! -- Wow, gushy! --
And you know what else: you are also such a loving, generous person to others with a real hospitality in your home and with your friends.
-- Here's where she turns this around to make this MY fault -- Did you know that with some serious depression, knowing all your accomplishments doesn’t necessarily help? The psychologist I had didn’t know that. The psychiatrist did. I was suicidal and depressed only once in my life, but I had no meds until I saw a psychiatrist. A person’s spouse’s hands are tied. They try to help but it doesn’t usually work in a serious chemical imbalance. -- I think she means that my dad's hands were tied because he didn't know what to do -- This depression had come about when we had a new baby -- my middle brother -- had not slept before the new baby’s birth and even at 4 yrs was still not sleeping. I literally was deprived of sleep for too long because of a child’s chemical imbalance. I know I wasn’t a bad person, as you seem to infer. -- I don't think I inferred anywhere that she was a bad person for dealing with my brother Chris --
When you were an adult, I did notice that when you came to our house, occasionally you’d clamp up whenever something was discussed. -- that's for sure -- But I had hoped we could, if not always agree, at least agree to disagree, -- her idea of 'agree to disagree' is akin to 'swallowing emotions' or 'forgiving each other and moving on as though nothing happened because that's what family does' -- but of course only after you gave your whole-hearted opinion, which you didn’t. David does it so freely. He’ll say, “No disrespect intended, but this is how I see it…” and gives his opinion wholeheartedly. Most families can agree to disagree. By the way, I never had to compete with my siblings. I did work hard to gain self-esteem by working hard. The only person I may have competed with was myself, from time to time. -- she is directly contradicting words I heard her say -- I did need to learn not to work so hard, or at least to take lots of rest at intervals and love myself in those rest periods.
I did see a psychologist once during a depression I went through. I was helped some but it took about two years to come out of it fully. A psychiatrist would have been better, perhaps. I did not tell you this, but by the time you told me you wanted me to see a psychiatrist/psychologist about Robin and Grace, I already had. -- she seems not to remember but she, in fact, did tell me that she had seen a psychologist once already -- She informed me that obviously, no matter what Dad & I tried to do to show our love for Rob and Grace, it would never get through to them, so we should stay away from them for at least 6 months to give matters a rest and us a rest. -- however apparently she still would call my brother and sister-in-law constantly, is their side of the story, until they finally blocked her -- When Dad & I stayed away, we had to not see them when we went to Edmonton in order to follow the psychologist’s advice. No one is all bad or all good. Them nor us. -- I remember when my brother had planned a visit to my gramma's and of course this was supposed to happen simultaneously when my mom and dad showed up, so apparently my mom caused a bit of havoc and guilt amongst my relatives because she was quite self-pitying and claiming she didn't want to cause trouble, so apparently they drove around for a while --
At an earlier time, I also saw the psychologist re: Robin’s always being ill for six years with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and pressures at my workplace. After I left the correctional centre a year and a half later, there was a grand exit of 6 nurses at once; they left for the same reasons I did. You cannot say I brought those troubles on myself. You would have to blame the other 6 nurses too. -- I don't know why she thinks I am blaming her for leaving that jail; I actually told her I was all for her leaving. I agreed with her that was an awful place to begin with and a poisoned work environment with management --
Please do not assume you know everything about what I have said or done in other people’s relationships. You’ve visited and heard other family opinions about Dad and me but seldom heard any of the things they said or did to Dad & me. If you did hear, you might see things differently. But we chose to keep it private. -- naturally convenient, because everything they do is kept private. And I do know some of my mom's version of things that she claimed, but it's never the truth, so how is one supposed to believe the Narcissist's side of the story? lol ---
You cannot coerce anyone to see a psychologist or psychiatrist by giving the person an ultimatum. Personally, I believe if someone is depressed, a psychiatrist is best because they can tell when medication is needed to bring about healing. A regular general practitioner has to believe I need a psychiatrist, which right now at present is not the case. -- nice... Now I am the one trying to coerce her --
Dad and I have been saying for years that we wanted to move here to BC. -- I know that, but they never ever told us they were buying property, or that they were renting out a place there for a couple years. That info was sprung on us three months before they were actually moving. I was quite surprised that she kept that info to herself for so long, and wonder why she kept it to herself -- It has nothing to do with anyone. -- oh, really? -- We have been visiting old friends here since age 21 and 23. It almost sounds like you want our move to be a failure. You went to the US and we wished you well. -- no she didn't. She was telling my brothers BS about David and also ended up coming to visit because of course then they get to go to Florida free of charge. We called them ONE time for a small loan of about $300, but because we were now married and on our own she decided no, we should figure things out on our own. All I needed was to pay our rent on time because my first paycheque was delayed. It was more like 'well, you deserted us, so you don't get any help from us.' So guess who helped instead? My husband's mother. Yet she feeds and clothes my middle brother and has spent thousands of dollars cleaning up his debt for him and bought him a car and bought him groceries. -- Can you not do that for us? From my experience with depression, I would say if you get suicidal thoughts the psychologist is putting a person at risk by not referring them to a psychiatrist. Psychologists and psychiatrists are often only as good as their own personal level of growth and maturity. Please get a good one. You’re worth it. -- oh brother, I totally do not feel suicidal, I don't know why she thinks I am ---
Finally, consider taking a copy of your e-mail that you wrote to me, to your counselor and this letter, too. -- well, here it is folks... I'm baring my soul (and my parents' souls)... What do you think? Do I still need the therapy? -- You are going through a really big growth period right now. I only know because I’ve been there. It’s lake having huge waves almost knocking you down and drowning you. During that time, you are barely catching your breath, it seems, but with good support the water does go back gradually and one finds oneself in a new place, a new beginning. During that first part, your friends (or, for that matter, your relatives) may look like your enemies. But afterwards you’ll know who really are your friends. I found myself reading some everyday language book by Carl Jung. He sees depression as the storm before the growth and happiness and development of opposite new sides to one’s personality. -- Ok, so now she's talking to me as though I am a nut and that I need help because of course it's ME not her that needs the help. Classic --
Sometimes a physical problem can lead to depression. Dr. VanRooyen could check that out for you. For example, your Dad is feeling better since he got off the coricosteroid inhaler he was on for so many years. You’re on one, too. -- again, always offering expert advice: I'm a big girl and I've talked to my doctor several times about my medications and still talk to him about them --
Search with God for answers. He’s always looking to find you; do you ever look back? He loves you and is the only source of real strength if we but ask. Consider the prayer of Footsteps. But if suicidal thoughts or other thoughts of self-harm hit you – get immediate psychiatric help to get meds. Please don’t risk your life for one minute. -- Here we go. Gotta throw religion into the mix --
Now, at present, I do take a mild regular dose of anti-anxiety meds daily for the rest of my life and I have no shame about that. Meds are one type of healing included in all of God’s gifts of healing types. I feel well on this. It is from the general practitioner originally being Dr. VanRooyen. Please be certain I know myself well enough now that if that were not working I’d ask for help. There is a history of chemical imbalance on both sides of the family, so anyone in the family need not feel any shame about this. Would we feel shame about any other chemical imbalance: diabetus for example? I know this is a very, very tough journey, but you can find the answers. You will find the answers! -- Well, that's very comforting, coming from her --
Lastly, we continue to love you, hope for you, pray for you. Please believe that.we simply do not have the answers for you but with God’s strength if you turn and receive it you will find the answers yourself. Then in the future do give your opinion, but try not to assume it’s not important to me. Of course we may differ, but will, if necessary, agree to disagree. I believe some of the time we do agree. Best of all, you’ll stop being your own worst judge. -- sigh - This may be what she's gone through or is going through, not what I am going through--
Please, though, not a whole lifetime of resentments at one time. Try one issue at a time and I can handle it and so could you. If later you wish to write an e-mail about one issue at a time, hey, I want to be a better listener. Please, I invite you to voice your opinions wholeheartedly but not aggressively, instead, assertively. I know I can’t take another letter like this last one that you sent Your DR./Psychologist can give you info on assertiveness. -- It's tempting to send her some single instances of her behaviour over the years a bit at a time so she can easily digest things. However, I get the feeling this is more of a ploy to keep in contact with me, and I have the feeling if I attempt to show her the wrongness in a situation or my feelings, instead of her apologizing, she'll turn around and say that I misinterpreted it or make excuses of why she acted that way -- so it won't be her fault again --
Love Mom
P.S. your beautiful pink lily for Mother’s Day brought tears of happiness to my eyes!They reminded me of you! Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Please take time yourself before you write again. -- that was the only thing I sent her for Mother's Day --
PS We fully intend to still give you that 10,000$ when we are able We had tried to sell Edward and had it on the market and really wanted to be able to let you know where things stood, but you totally squashed that with the statement:” Don’t ever talk to us about the rentals again!” We have and will respect that until you tell us differently. We felt totally caught in a bind. -- nice deflection, now it's also my fault that they 'couldn't tell me about selling that property.' And that property is of course still not sold and I will probably not ever be told if it is now --
-------------------------------------------------------------
DAD'S REPLY-------------------------------------------
It’s hard to know where to start, but I’ve got to get something down because my life’s on hold until I do. I can’t seem to concentrate on anything else while I stew about this – the e-mail’s piling up, now the printer doesn’t work, there are all sorts of other things I should be attending to but can’t seem to focus on until I get this thing out of my head.
Characterizations of your mother as crazy and conniving and of your father as befuddled and delusional aside, it must be pretty obvious to you that if we really are crazy, we’re hardly likely to seek psychiatric help. And if we’re not crazy, we’re still not very likely to seek psychiatric help, even when given an ultimatum from a child of ours. That can only mean you are putting us in an impossible position in order to justify in your own mind whatever the unspoken threat is that you’ve implied in your ultimatum. -- wow, I didn't even mean it as a threat, I just was desperate to try to get them to do something; backfired I guess --
As you know, the computer/Internet are my domain, and utterly foreign to your mother. -- the hell it is: she was already mucking around and invading his emails as soon as I said I wasn't going to be calling anymore to protect myself -- It took her two or three days of grueling effort to do her reply on the computer; it just isn’t her medium, just as I abhor the telephone and am very uncomfortable in that medium. And, actually, most people are quite different online than they are in person, so cyberspace isn’t necessarily the best medium to discuss the deeper issues of life. -- oh no, that's why it's so much better to talk on the phone so that she can push my buttons --
In fact, I really obsessed for a couple of days as to whether I should even show your e-mail to Mom, but in the end it was clear that hearing from you was too important to her, even if it was a devastating bombshell. However, considering the effect it has had on both of us, I would have to say any future long, rambling “you’re crazy and you’ve wrecked my life” e-mail will have to go directly to the Trash bin, and I probably won’t even tell Mom about it. Neither of us feel we deserve this.
As you can see from her reply, she has undertaken to defend us against your accusations and explain our actions, as well as offer suggestions for your own well-being. I, however, feel that we are under no obligation to do that, and it would be a waste of time anyway, as your mind is made up and anything we say can and will be used against us.
I miss you, although displaying your art around the house helps, and I can only hope you find a measure of peace and happiness in whatever way you find works best for you.
Love,
Dad
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
My observation:
-- Well, there's the proof: it didn't work out. In fact, it backfired a bit. I can't say I'm surprised, but I'm disappointed anyway. If anything, I was more surprised by my dad's reply than mom's. I can see he's totally taken in by her and jumps to her defense, as usual.
My first thought was not to reply at all and just let things be. Ya know, throw in the white flag. I've gone to therapy about this stuff already, in fact that was part of the reason I sent that note in the first place: I thought of it as a catalyst for me, and something I thought should be said for a long time...
----------------------------------------------------
(my former therapist's reply after I emailed this to him for his 'unprofessional' opinion -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Holly;
First off, wow. Suitably generic response to so much, hard to boil down my non-generic response. Your letter was great but given everything you have told me about your mother and father, her response was predictable. She just put up a rubber wall and everything you told her bounced right back, really she did not acknowledge you had any reason at all to doubt or question her behaviour. She essentially did not answer you, just threw up a cloud of sweetness and light. If someone else (her intended audience, it almost seemed) were to read her response they might think “Well, what’s Holly talking about? She seems just wonderful!” But she didn’t answer anything you said except to state, indirectly, that you needed a psychiatrist/psychologist more than she did. She can’t admit fault or blame or even (and this is the crucial point) doubt about anything. It’s a self-administered whitewash. Pure narcissism. I’m sorry to write that, but that is all I could glean from her letter. And at the end, the money thing just thrown in as an afterthought is like a purchase offer: Keep in touch and you can get the 10 grand. It was so innocently yet blatantly thrown in there at the end it caught me off guard because I had to check whether she or you had made much reference to it earlier on but it comes out of nowhere. Holly, she can’t do any better than this but to throw a blanket over top of everything you tried to tell her because, honestly, I don’t think she knows what you are talking about in your letter. If she engages in this process on a daily basis, she can’t just stop and she won’t ever see her actions in the way you and your brother have. In short, in her mind she’s innocent and you are asking her acknowledge guilt. I don’t think she can do it, I think her view of her actions is as coloured as anyone’s by seeing herself as the irreproachable heroine of her own drama. She will take drugs to change how she feels, but she will not examine her own actions or motivations.
In short, she cannot do what you are asking. She is not, as we say in the trade, psychologically minded. She is psychologically defended. If she was able, she would have doubt and ask “But what did I DO!” She never once asked you what you meant by your letter. She never even considered the possibility she was wrong about anything. But if she saw a shrink, she would get nothing out of it. She can’t present your version of the truth because she believes she is blameless. In her mind and her version of truth, she is blameless.
And, it follows, your father believes her unreservedly. He would have to, to live with her and love her.
I am not sure what else you can do, or say, to get through to her. She can’t hear you. You can love her as she is, this is the best she can do. We are all narcissists to some degree, but most of us can acknowledge the possibility we are wrong, misguided or selfish. When a person cannot to such an extent as this then all those around them carry that burden for them and their certainty takes on a pathological air. All people who question their perceptions are sane; all those who cannot are a little or a lot crazy. PS her preference for meds over self-examination is a tell.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My response to my former therapist:
Well, that's what I thought. Thanks for validating.
I'm pretty cool with what you said probably partially because that is exactly how I feel about things, too.
lol
I love her, but to protect myself from her I have decided at this time not to communicate with her.
You don't get noisy notifications on your phone everytime I reply to these, do you?? I didn't mean for you to feel you had to reply right away.
I think since I've blocked her phone and blocked their FB, I will likely do the same for email. Don't want any interruptions in my Zen.
Thank you and have an awesome rest of your weekend. 8)
-Holls-
