My mother is an active member of the church, but she's also a master game player. Some people have told me over the years of the horrible things my mother did to them. She once had another lady removed from looking after the children and babies in sunday school because of some stupid reason. I can't recall what it even was, but she wielded her power when and as she liked by manipulating everyone.
She's just an incredible manipulator.
Some people cotton on to her, but then they're removed by her. Yet she maintains this charitable appearance, doing good things for people, inviting the sick and elderly to her home on Christmas day (And one of these old ladies just paid her mortgage off for her - apparently God's work and not my mother manipulating her into it for months. It was about $15,000 as a 'gift' because this lady wanted to thank her for her kindness. Cynical? Me?), doing lovely things for other people. Always other people.
I had no privacy. I know she searched my room and read my diary. She would open and read the mail I was sending off. She opened a piece of art work in an envelope that I wanted to send to a tv programme for kid's art... .and she said it would never get on there because it wasn't good enough. She would read everything I had, some of it I would be in trouble for.
She was jealous of my singing voice and would sing in a soprano voice loudly at church which sounded terrible but she didn't care. She was delicate. She was ill. She needed help. My aunts were all against her. They were weird. They were aggressive. She had done no wrong.
And then there were other things... so many other things... but we were all used to it. She wasn't always bad. Much of the time she was really quite nice and seemingly normal.
And then sometimes she wasn't.
She never prepared me for life. I had no idea what was happening when I started to menstruate and I didn't tell her for months. I just dealt with it myself. I was 13.
I fit in with the 'All Good' child in many ways, but also the 'All bad' child... .did she swap me and my sister in those roles?
To escape I worked jobs, saved money and escaped to another country for a year when I was 18. It was a relief to leave.
After I left I never returned to my home town. I distanced myself from my mother.
As an adult, I had a bad first marriage but had kids with him. I suspect he has a sociopathic thing going on. I married my dad, what can I say?
On my wedding morning my mother came to me and said that she needed to have a 'chat' with me about what was going to happen that night. I stopped her there and then. Talking to a 25 year old about sex... .barn door, shut, horses bolted.
During my marriage difficulties, my mother would side with my husband against me and support him.
When we split, they were the closest of buddies. He would tell her how I was lying about what was going on in our marriage break up, she told that I'd always been 'cold' and 'withdrawn', the very opposite of how I was.
They visited me at a particularly bad time and she used my computer to send emails and left them open so I read them. She sent back word to her church that I was the one who needed praying for because it was clear I was causing all the problems.
She painted a totally inaccurate image of what was happening and told a load of people who had no right to know. She's never had any boundaries for privacy.
When I cracked and told my father about my marriage, she came to me in my bedroom and sat next to me.
She told me in a haughty, school marmish kind of way that she knew exactly how I felt because my father had also done the same to her, that I'd get over it, then she patted me on the knee and left. The fact that my skin was crawling whilst she sat next to me in my personal space still sticks in my mind.
My mother totally backed my husband through our divorce.
When I started going out with someone new, she rung me and said 'I hear you're having an affair' berated me over the phone for being a slut. I put the phone down on her. Yuk yuk yuk.
Now she thinks my new husband is fab and her best friend. Yuk. He of course is very aware of what she's like and the games she plays.
Last time she visited (we live in different countries to each other) she visited my ex husband and got huffy and offended that I was annoyed by this. After all the disgusting lies he told about me and she won't ever back me up. She's not on my side.
My new husband has said if she wants to play catch up with him, then she's not welcome here and he will keep his word.
If my mother isn't centre of attention, then we are all in trouble. If things are not done her way, we are all in trouble.
She's once again invited herself over to this country from hers. We are moving soon and she wants to help us move. That will not be allowed to happen because it's fraught with danger.
She wants to see where we're going to live and is so happy for us but what she really wants is to have another free holiday.
So here we are. I don't love my mother. My sister and I have said that we will be happy once she is dead, such is the love for her there.
I find myself in my 40's and reading Christine Lawson's book about the BPD mother just totally shook me. I read it after finding it online and whilst I'd only sort of briefly looked at the idea before, I find myself now on another path to try to understand more about me.
Every page was shocking to me, that there was a reason why I clam up and totally ignore her, like she's not even in the room (usually after a few hours of her being in my house). It makes so much sense now I look at how I became the counsellor to my mother.
She enrages me so much because she won't look after her health, yet 'makes' me spend hours explaining things to her and suggesting things. I knew that I could not cope with seeing her again without snapping and so started to do some research and here we are. Lawson's book says that not looking after health is in with 'risky behaviours'. I will no longer be 'helping' her with her health or having those discussions because she won't take any notice of anything I tell her and will carry on being ill. Of course, I am accused of being 'aggressive' because I am frustrated.
All those times she threatened to kill herself whilst I was having conversations with her. Eventually I snapped and told her to get on with it so we could all have a life and she said 'Oh! I didn't mean it!' in a surprised and jolly voice.
Those times she asked why we had such a bad relationship, yet can't remember being abusive. 'IF that happened, IF it did, then I'm sorry' delivered in a haughty voice of non acceptance.
Of course, you doubt yourself. You doubt whether you remember properly.
She hated my middle born child. Just hated her, as a baby, because the baby was picking up on my mother's situation and baby didn't feel safe. Middle child only wanted me and boy, did that cause issues.
The time we flew into her country and she accused us of taking my first born away from her, just because we wanted to go home and recover from jetlag.
There's so much. So much.
Reading Lawson's book made me cry a lot and I guess I am in the first step of healing myself. I've had counselling before after my parents issues caused me so much stress but they never suggested this so I never looked at it. I feel like a rational, balanced and logical person but I am afraid of failure. I procrastinate a lot. I spent the first 20 years of my life making silly stories up to embellish my life to a more interesting one, maybe living in a fantasy world which was better than the reality. In my 30's I was still doing it some but I've stopped now. I've grown up and I know I am safe with my beautiful husband and great kids.
I know there is much to do and stuff to work out, but I am glad to find out that it isn't me, that I am not a b___ for shutting down on her, that these things she did have a name and that she truly may not remember doing any of them.
The past few days I guess I have been mourning the little me. I feel so sad that the lovely warm, sweet kid I was got so lost along the way. I was little girl who never deserved any of it. I spent much of my childhood ill. It all makes sense, the pieces fit.
I miss me. I want to find the little me and help her and tell her that it's ok and that she's a good person and a nice person.
And true to form, I gave my kids the childhood that I wished I'd had. They always had a safe and secure, loving environment and lots of fun. And I ended the cycle.
Thanks for listening.
