I have Blocked my Mother's Phone Calls

http://counsellingresource.com/ask-the-psychologist/2009/02/02/controlling-manipulative-mother/

• Dealing with a controller/manipulator is like being arrested — everything you say can and will be used against you! If you reduce information provided to your mother to grocery-store level, which I recommend — such as the weather, school activities of the children, etc. — she will encourage your sister to pump you for information. To manage this situation, you must control the information presented to all family members, perhaps saving your private information for your non-family best friend.
• Assume that any time you challenge your mother, you will be punished in some manner. Her punishment can be verbal confrontation, the silent treatment, increasing her activities with your sister’s family, or being excluded. Remember that while men are prone to physical aggression, women are prone to “relational aggression” — using relationship features to punish or attack others by alienation, spreading rumors, exclusion, etc. She is mostly concerned with her feelings and for that reason, will intentionally justify doing something she knows will hurt your feelings.
• Your mother will be threatened and jealous if you and your sister have a good relationship. If you and your sister decide to do something as sisters, without your mother, one of you will be punished. Controllers demand to be the center of attention and when that doesn’t happen, they retaliate.
• Having a controlling parent is rather toxic to our self-esteem and self-worth, as you mention. If you are slowly developing self-confidence, your sister may not be able to help you break away. She may still be focusing on keeping Mother happy. You’ll need to break away on your own and for this reason, professional counseling may be helpful. I’d recommend reading my introduction to personality disorders on this website as well as reading related questions by selecting this topic from the list of popular topics in the sidebar of the page. Millions of healthy adults must deal with a controlling and/or manipulative parent or relative.
• Your mother behaves in a way that is to her benefit, as you describe. For this reason, you may need to accept the fact that as you become more healthy and independent, she will have less contact with your children and family. She will go where her selfish needs are met and where she has more control. Redesign your family to include other healthy families and their children. In life, we have the family we are given…and we have the family we create from those around us.

After My Uncle Passed Away

To my Dad's Facebook account:

I finally got my laptop working but I don't have everyone's email addresses yet, so sorry if I sent this through Facebook.

Aunt Linda said Paul passed away in Hawaii, and I just wanted to let you know and wanted to convey my sympathies. I'm not sure how to feel right now, as I wasn't that close to him the last 10 years, but I still tear up a bit when I remember he was a sweet guy who let us use his house to stay in, and he picked me up at the airport once, and I really enjoyed his company and Laurel's when we visited or when we were kids he would come over and visit at Gramma's & Grampa's house during the holidays.

I guess Laurel is in Hawaii and has to figure out how to transport him back to Canada, but at least she has a good friend with her.

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That's always been interesting to me, that mom claims she never reads emails, yet today shortly after I sent this email, she called and said she was 'breaking her own rule' and calling me because there was a death in the family. Seems lately whenever I do send an email I get a phone call a few minutes later from her and, wow, what are the chances, it's JUST exactly the subject that was in the email I had just sent.

Strange that in the message she left on our answering machine she didn't mention WHO passed away. So if in fact I had not sent this message to her in the first place, I would hope she would at least have bothered to mention who in the family had passed away. Dad? Gramma? Chris? Seems like a mean way to try to entice someone to call them back. Sort of similar as her asking me to lie to Robin and tell him she had a raging case of cancer when clearly she did not, as she was still going to Florida and was using a cream to get rid of it. Also as barmy as when she told a renter of hers that she had cancer. My husband has had chunks of cancer on his back removed. Friends and relatives of ours have died of cancer. A sane person would not use cancer to manipulate people.

Then she said in the phone message to 'make sure I have had a good rest and done everything to take care of myself' before calling HER. Well, I am not sure why this has anything to do with HER. It's to do with Paul. It's to do with Dad  because he is Paul's brother. I sometimes shake my head at how much of an idiot she thinks I am. When she sent an email to me about what so-and-so said about construction, I know it is mom telling dad what to type, because dad isn't the type to be nosy and go around fishing for information to 'help' us with things we already have well in hand. Also I don't need to get mailed envelopes telling me I should get more exercise. Mom always did that, because she always has to be in control. She has to be right about everything, and she has to be listened to, or the world falls apart.

By the way, I believe it was me who said 'don't call us, we'll call you' not the other way around. And it was only because when calling that house or getting a call from their house, it's mom who takes over the conversation, and who controls everything. I'd like to talk to my dad once in a while, but apparently he's only there when my mother is not. Otherwise he just sits there listening to the conversation and letting whatever happens to come out of her mouth unfold.

NPD/Psychosis - relating to mom and dad

Mom - taken in part from the website http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/29808.php

� The onset of narcissism is in infancy, childhood and early adolescence. It is commonly attributed to childhood abuse and trauma inflicted by parents, authority figures, or even peers.

-- my mother claims she was sexually abused by her grandfather. There may have been one occasion where her own father physically abused her (he beat her with a cord from a vacuum cleaner). She claims she was never really loved just for being herself but only for accomplishments like good marks. On the other hand, if she could not feel love in the first place, that may be part of the problem.

� Narcissists are either "cerebral" (derive their Narcissistic Supply from their intelligence or academic achievements) or "somatic" (derive their Narcissistic Supply from their physique, exercise, physical or sexual prowess and romantic or physical "conquests").

-- I believe my mother would be closer to the "cerebral."

� Narcissists are either "classic" [see definition below] or they are "compensatory", or "inverted" [see definitions here: "The Inverted Narcissist"].

� The classic narcissist is self-confident, the compensatory narcissist covers up in his haughty behaviour for a deep-seated deficit in self-esteem, and the inverted type is a co-dependent who caters to the emotional needs of a classic narcissist.

-- Mom definitely comes across as confident and haughty, whereas my dad definitely caters to her, so to me sounds like the inverted type of narcissist... Never thought of him as narcissistic, though. I always thought of him as more of a willing victim.

� NPD is treated in talk therapy (psychodynamic or cognitive-behavioural). The prognosis for an adult narcissist is poor, though his adaptation to life and to others can improve with treatment. Medication is applied to side-effects and behaviours (such as mood or affect disorders and obsession-compulsion) - usually with some success.

The ICD-10, the International Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders, published by the World Health Organisation in Geneva [1992] regards Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) as "a personality disorder that fits none of the specific rubrics". It relegates it to the category "Other Specific Personality Disorders" together with the eccentric, "haltlose", immature, passive-aggressive, and psychoneurotic personality disorders and types.

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By Sam Vaknin

Author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"

The American Psychiatric Association, based in Washington D.C., USA, publishes the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) [2000] where it provides the diagnostic criteria for the Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

The DSM defines NPD as "an all-pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behaviour), need for admiration or adulation and lack of empathy, usually beginning by early adulthood and present in various contexts."

The DSM specifies nine diagnostic criteria. For NPD to be diagnosed, five (or more) of these criteria must be met.

[In the text below, I have proposed modifications to the language of these criteria to incorporate current knowledge about this disorder.]

[My amendments do not constitute a part of the text of the DSM-IV-TR, nor is the American Psychiatric Association (APA) associated with them in any way.]

[Click here to download a bibliography of the studies and research regarding the Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) on which I based my proposed revisions.]

Proposed Amended Criteria for the Narcissistic Personality Disorder

� Feels grandiose and self-important (e.g., exaggerates accomplishments, talents, skills, contacts, and personality traits to the point of lying, demands to be recognised as superior without commensurate achievements);

-- definitely always wanting to be thought of as the superior for dispensing advice, and she will gather as much information as she can about things, even though others seldom appreciate her efforts. She then asserts that what she wants is true, because someone else supports what she says.

� Is obsessed with fantasies of unlimited success, fame, fearsome power or omnipotence, unequalled brilliance (the cerebral narcissist), bodily beauty or sexual performance (the somatic narcissist), or ideal, everlasting, all-conquering love or passion;

� Firmly convinced that he or she is unique and, being special, can only be understood by, should only be treated by, or associate with, other special or unique, or high-status people (or institutions);

-- she does tend to try to associate herself with other people who are considered well-known, etc. However she tends to drive a wedge between herself and them, and eventually is left on her own again to look for somewhere else. Lately she's gone to live in BC, because the people she associates with there are all "like her." I think it's really because she is desperate to have some kind of closeness to someone, and she knows one woman from university who befriended her. This woman (Margie) knows a lot of other people and is very popular. I think that when Margie finally gets to see my mother "close up" she will do what everyone else does when they get to know the real Sandi: run away, screaming.

� Requires excessive admiration, adulation, attention and affirmation - or, failing that, wishes to be feared and to be notorious (Narcissistic Supply);

-- definitely, if not the first, then perhaps unintentionally the latter.

� Feels entitled. Demands automatic and full compliance with his or her unreasonable expectations for special and favourable priority treatment; � Is "interpersonally exploitative", i.e., uses others to achieve his or her own ends;

-- definitely. If you don't do what she wants then you are against her, you don't love her, etc. One cannot have one's own soul and opinions, lest they conflict with her. Also she likes to say things like "don't tell your father, but..." or "your brothers are terrible, I hope you all have girls..."

� Devoid of empathy. Is unable or unwilling to identify with, acknowledge, or accept the feelings, needs, preferences, priorities, and choices of others;

-- definitely. Never seems to think about what comes out of her mouth. It's like no one else's feelings exist on the same plain as hers.

� Constantly envious of others and seeks to hurt or destroy the objects of his or her frustration. Suffers from persecutory (paranoid) delusions as he or she believes that they feel the same about him or her and are likely to act similarly;

-- she has done so to Grace, Doris (my aunt), and most relatives, and now Gramma. Grace is the wife of my brother Robin. Doris is my dad's aunt and his mother -- all of these women are seen as threats to my mom's relationships.

� Behaves arrogantly and haughtily. Feels superior, omnipotent, omniscient, invincible, immune, "above the law", and omnipresent (magical thinking). Rages when frustrated, contradicted, or confronted by people he or she considers inferior to him or her and unworthy.

-- definitely. She thinks she is entitled to evading taxes, entitled to pay employees less, entitled to not fix their properties that they own, etc... Thinks she is entitled to calling me up out of the blue and to scurry about for her on a whim.

By Sam Vaknin

Author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"

AUTHOR BIO

Sam Vaknin ( http://samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Global Politician, Central Europe Review, PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and Suite101.
Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.