It's Been a Year Since My Last Post

.............and my avoidance of my NM only simply delayed painful interaction for me.  But maybe it was necessary that I visited my NM a couple weeks ago.  I feel bad that I took my kids there.  DH keeps telling me not to feel bad--that they are teens and a tween now.   

However, even though I took the kids and visited my NM for just under 48 hours, which I shouldn't have done, the positive thing I can say is that I had a huge realization.

Even though I am almost 50 years old (and inside I already knew this, but the weekend's events made it so obvious) my NM acts as if time has stood still and that I have not gotten married two years after college, and have not lived through my 20's, 30's and 40's.  My NM is only able to speak and act as if none of that time -- which is now the same amount of time I am married as unmarried -- has had any meaningful events between the two of us.  And actually there haven't been.

She cannot see anything about me other than the time long ago when she was financially responsible for me.  She did pay for college (in-state and not expensive back then).

I still have the grandmother situation  -- my NM's mom is getting way up there in years and is the only reason I stay a distant connection with my NM.  Grandmother (GM) lives in state C.  I live in state B.  NM left state C a few years ago and lives in state A.  GM lives all be herself and since my NM cajoled her into paying for a major part of NM's house in state A so that GM could visit, GM decided to visit NM for 3 months.  Three summers ago my NM was so rude and freaky to GM that DH and I had to drive to state A and get her and then me drive her the next day 10 hours home.  GM has now decided that she has cooled off and that NM is all she has and decided to visit her in state A.  Of course I was needed to pick GM 7 weeks ago from an airport and then drive her to state A  to deliver her to NM at a designated spot.  I could handle that 45 min visit.

I felt guilty about my kids no seeing GM so that is why we visited a couple weeks ago.  GM may soon be wheel-chair bound as she is barely getting around in a walker.  A couple years ago she could still be taken out to dinner but now she is in pain (btw, my NM is loathe to take care of her in any caregiver kind of way so no matter where GM lives, she has a home health aid over for 4 hours to help her with getting dressed, shower, take her to get hair done, etc.).

And looking back I really should have taken the kids, gotten a hotel, picked up GM, taken her for a drive and out to eat and then returned her.  But that would have taken some more balls than I have and been awkward for GM who is pained that we are not a happy family (although she understands but does not bad mouth my NM much anymore due to needing her more).

Lots to say about this 2-day visit a couple weeks ago, but this scene speaks volumes:

Of course my NM no longer has any friends she has known for a while so she has met some new ones superficially.  Two couples were over for a cook-out.  The women and my kids were inside eating.  One of the women is my age (!) and has a daughter who just graduated college and is trying to find a job and lives somewhere else.  So we had a brief discussion about schools and then in an accusing tone my NM blurts out, "WELL! Tell her about the private school I sent you to!!!!!"

Readers, when I later relayed this to DH he almost snorted out his orange juice.  It feels good to laugh sometimes about this never-ending recording about how she paid for that school, which was a boost to her ego.  It is not as if she ever in the age 12 to 17 time I was there ever took me to anything after school or even once asked about my classes.

I would have loved to have said to this nice woman, "Can you believe I am almost 50 yrs old and apparently I need to tell you that my NM chose to live in a crappy school area and sent me to a private school 38 years ago and that she has not done anything for me other than some gifts she will tell you about, for the last 25 years?"

So I smiled at the woman and said, "Yes, when I was 12 I went to private school and it was a very nice, steady place to be because we then moved over the next few times in the same town I was able to stay in one school for the rest of my school years."  My NM also added that she paid for college too.  Of course there is no mention of my having any studious potential or the ability to get into and graduate from college and get a job within 30 days.

And then it was a hoot because this woman says to my NM, "Well, and your daughter is an independent and responsible person now,"  NM had to back peddle a little bit on that.  NM also threw into the conversation that she paid for my wedding (Readers, it was a small affair that cost $6,000).

I have heard the above over and over from her and also relayed to me from others.  I am supposed to do what she wants because of things she bought over 25 years ago.

It is almost humorous that my last post one year ago is of my NM showing up at a school dance when I was 16, wearing my uniform.  My NM is obviously obsessed with the life she feels she gave me as a teen.  Notice how there is no mention of my life prior to then in front of new friends?  It wasn't pretty.

The next morning she had some errands to do and then we almost made it to departure time but then she had to open her mouth and we had a showdown resulting in her playing the victim for GM and my NM's partner of 10 yrs. More later.

And the kids?  They thought as usual that she is a nutcase.  Oldest said he sees to need to ever visit again.  I don't either.  I still have this issue of GM in the middle.

Who Else Would Do This To Their Teenager?

My DH and I spend so much of our time thinking about our kids, talking to them, and talking to each other about them.  And even though we are in our late 40's we clearly remember what it is like to be a teen--that it is not easy-- and just the other day I had a empathetic discussion with our 15 year old, who was sharing his thoughts.  Talking to our kids and to DH about things that are teenage-realm related has brought up many memories of mine that I must write about to help process.


From 7th through 12th grade I went to a small, private school (and my NM sent me there as a status thing for her, but I am very glad I went there as it is part of who I am and I still have close friends all these years later).  At school we wore a uniform of a plaid skirt and a white, button-up top.  It was an all-girls school.  Occasionally there'd be a dance.  My NM was very strict (she was the ruler in the house and had a long-term boyfriend and after years they eventually married the month I turned 18) and I didn't socialize on weekends as much as most teens did.

When I was 15 or 16 there was a fall dance and my brother may have driven me to the school dance and it was casual, mostly hanging out with my friends and guys we knew that were invited.  I think that my brother hung out too as he was fun and my friends liked him platonically and vice versa.  Later, around 11:00 p.m. or so my NM showed up, which I think was a surprise because I don't think it was set up that she'd pick me up.  And fortunately, at this time there were NOT a lot of kids left at school.  I was in the parking lot--along with just a girlfriend or two.

My NM hops out of the car DRESSED IN MY SCHOOL UNIFORM.  And as if she is acting in a play she says loudly, but to no one in particular, "HI! I'm here for the dance!" and she is sort of jumping up and down in a perky way, playing her role of a school girl.

My NM was 35 or 36 years old at the time and was a successful (self-employed) business person..  She did not do drugs or alcohol.  It was fucked up and freaky.  I can't remember if I went home with her or if my brother was still there and I went home with him.  I do know that I did not react and left very quickly on the down low.  I do know that it was not discussed after that night or if it was then it was brushed off saying that she was just having fun and I never confronted her about it being inappropriate.

I cannot EVEN imagine sitting home as the parent and deciding to "have fun" and go into my child's closet and try on her school uniform and then drive to a school dance (mind you the school was not in the neighborhood--it was a 25 minute drive at best) dressed up in my child's school uniform. 

It is so apparent now how this is an example of how she did not think of me as a separate person.

This Summer I've Only Dealt with What Matters Most

Since my last post after I was laid off from work I've been on an awesome road trip, another family trip to see many nice in-laws, visited my 90-yr-old GM for 5 days, doing things with the kids every day, and looking for the right job for me.

What I have not done is communicate with my mother.  I know she thinks I am the most horrible daughter in the world.

After I superficially visited with her in April when I took my two youngest children to see GM, as I suspected, she assumed that since we visited we would once again talk on the phone and I'd be her dutiful daughter and engage in conversation and insist that my kids call her on a regular basis, which of course would lead to her asking again for me to do the right thing and have the grandkids visit her.

Since April she's emailed me in May pointing out that she had not heard from me, nor rec'd a call from the kids and has no idea what she has done to have me avoiding her.

In the beginning of the summer my family and I went on a road trip and I emailed photo of the kids to her.  It was my b-day around that time and she left me a vm wishing me a nice day.

In July she left me a vm that was lots of sentences about how she had only received the one photo, has not heard from the kids, suggests we go camping near her and maybe camp together (!!!), thought that the kids could call her on Sundays as she had suggested, etc.  No return call from me.

A few weeks ago she called and I let it go to vm.  I have no idea what she said as I have never once listened to it.  The older I get, listening to her voice does not get easier.

Earlier in the summer when we returned from vacation there was a b-day card waiting for me.  My NM never says she loves me and never writes it.  When I mentioned to her on the phone this past March that she doesn't even like me, she made no effort to correct me.

It's so evident in the b-day card she selected that all that matters is "the rules" on mother/daughter roles.

On the front of the card it is printed:

Love You, daughter (with flowers and rhinestones on front)

On the inside it is printed:

I loved you before you were born.  And I'll love you forever and a day.

That's how it is with a mother and her daughter.

Happy Birthday

And then she signs it: Mom

I think it would have been OK if it stopped before "That's how it is with a mother and her daughter".

because we are not your middle of the road mother and daughter.  This is saying to me that because of biology a mother loves a daughter.  I bet the words on this card would mean something different to a hundred other daughters.  Oh, I could go on and on.

Deep down inside this week I have been feeling guilty that I have not sent her any photos or any updates of what we're up to.  I think it would be easy to keep us artificial and email photos of the kids.  But then the requests and cajoling for them visiting (without me) would begin.  I have not shared that I am job hunting because she would state that then I have the free time to visit with the kids.  I do talk to my grandmother every week and even stayed with her in July, and I know that my GM relays who she talks to to my NM.

So that is where I am.  Close to landing a job, and starting to feel the stirrings of having to once again address with my NM as to why I am just not that into her.

When Former Nutjob Employers Give You Lemons......

I've mentioned in previous posts how I am busy from early morning till late at night with my job (for which I'd sometimes have to travel) and with 1 tween and 2 teenage children and dinner and their activities. What I've never written before is how miserable my job made me.  Back in the fall of 2008 there were not many job offers after a prior employer was bought by another company--so I took this particular one--and then the economy really took a bad turn.  For the past 2+ years it's been said often to be glad one has a job in this economy.

However, I knew the job wasn't the right one for me for a while now.  And then I realized that my boss had some N qualities.  She worked 24/7 and has one child and here is an actual quote with a laugh she said to me a few months ago about herself, "This parenting thing is interfering with my work life!"  Hmmm.  Isn't it interesting how once we become enlightened about NPD we have a radar for this.  Narc-dar.

With my own NM I have certain responsibilities which makes me feel like I have to do things sometimes as the "right" thing to do.  For example, I've had to deal with an illness and recuperation for my grandmother in another state and deal with my NM who was there when we visited-- part of my making a choice as a parent to do the right thing for someone else even though an N was involved.

And having a job that paid the bills (DH and I have equitable job salaries) is another example of what I have to do as part of my role to provide and do what is best as a parent and partner.

However--lately this job was making me sick.  I dreaded going there.  I was experiencing an incredible amount of stress. I started to job search a couple of months ago, feeling like the economy was in a better place for hiring now than a year ago.

And then 4 days ago I was laid off due to the company restructuring.  I was mad that they gave me notice--I had pictured my giving them notice soon.

But after the shock and weepiness during the first 48 hours, in these second 48 hours I have felt happier and healthier than in a long time, and I have been laughing on the phone with friends which has not been the case in a while.

People I don't even know in real life have been kinder to me these past few days than the people I used to see at work every day.  Old friends have given me more of their time over the past few days than any of these people I saw every day.  I've reached out to business contacts I've known through work and have received empathy, business leads, and encouragement.  All of these people know my authentic self.

As ACONs we know that the Ns in our life do not know us, are not interested in knowing us or liking us and cannot empathize and instead make circumstances about them.  So,the last person I would share my personal business with is my NM.

Who knows when I will be employed again, but everyone in my family is healthy, our home was not torn apart in a tornado and I am taking this opportunity to be good to myself and spend time with the people who matter most.

I Have a Brother

From the ages of 0 to 22 (when I met my DH and began my life with him), no two years have ever been alike from after age 4.  Sometimes we lived on the west coast, a little bit on the east coast, and a couple years in the middle of the country.  Sometimes my NM was married.  Sometimes we lived in a house vs. an apt.  She barely made an income until I was age 11 and then at one point she became very wealthy (her own career/business).

I have a brother two years older, and growing up and we were close.  As my NM would tell others (enviously), we were "as thick as thieves".  My brother would tell me that we have to stick together.  We were close because we had each other during all those years of change.  Then, after I got married in my mid-20's our complete different-ness  began to show, but the love was always there.  I think the biggest bond was knowing we had been through the same family growing up.

We don't talk anymore.  Like others I have met through their blogs, there came a point, and for me that was only about two years ago, when my brother (who is bipolar but never maintained a job and has no money for prescription drugs or other help) drew a line in the sand.  Looking back he had developed interests in only himself.  I became increasingly aware of him using my grandmother, always asking her for $$, being able to live in a rental home she owned and not always paying her, and increasingly speaking to my NM to get her to help him get more $$ from my grandmother and discussing his entitlement he felt he had to a home she owned.  This behavior is exactly like my NM.

Finally I told him that I did not agree with his way of thinking.  My NM reached out to him and told him she would get him $$.  My brother has always been in awe that I have been a responsible, married, working outside the home, mother of three.  he says he has no idea how I do it.  He also knows that DH and I know all of his episodes of leaving town unannounced to me or anyone, leaving bills behind for innocent families to pay, quitting jobs when he had them less than a year.  People always like him.  He is smart--he could sell anything.  I have always loved him and still do.

Last year he began to repeat words of my NM to me such as, "You don't return calls to your own mother."  "You don't drive (you know that 10-hour drive) to visit her with your kids enough."  Then when I would call him from the car (my only alone time--it is when I call my best girlfriends), he'd get paranoid and ask why I never called him from home--Did my DH not want me to call him, he'd ask.  Absurd.  I did not return that call to him.  I realize now that my brother is also always about himself.  Never asked how I was--just like my NM I could put the phone down and let him go on and on about himself.

And then he rejected me one year ago.  He went into a rage that I did not return his call and I think he chose to reject me in lieu of my perceived rejection of him.  He left me a screaming vm that I no longer had a brother and then he mailed me a goodbye letter with any photo I'd ever sent to him of my children, and us.  He also called my DH a loser.  My DH has always been polite to him and would welcome him when through the years my brother would show up with maybe two hours notice to us (except for when he lived in my GM's house for many years, my DH has always been a wanderer).

Sometimes I notice my kids, especially my oldest, resemble him physically, or in his gait, or in his sports interests and it is too bad that my brother is this way and that my kids have one less uncle.  I know why he is this way--he had it just as bad as I did growing up and as an adult, being told he is worthless, etc.  He was the scapegoat but when I started having kids things shifted and he became golden.  As years go on and my GM is getting very old and one day my NM will too, I am sure we will then be forced to talk.  I could ask my NM for his phone number...it changes all the time and his jobs and address in different states changes frequently......but right now it is something we don't speak of. 

Question For You About Plane Anxiety

I am a horribly anxious flyer on planes and a comment once made to me by a pilot and therapist on a fear of flying board made me wonder if this fits any of you.

I described that I am very fearful of flying as I imagine all sorts of horrible things.  That beeping noise heard over the PA several times a flight?  I convince myself it is code from the pilot to the flight attendants of imminent danger.  Seeing other planes also flying in the distance?  I am convinced that it is too crowded out there and air traffic control is sleeping and planes will get too close.  Don't even get me started on turbulence.  I've been known to gasp out loud.  I once met a pilot at a party and I asked him many questions and I truly felt better after listening to him.  This was New Year's Eve 2008 and a couple of weeks later a plane hit birds and had to land in the Hudson.  So now I worry about fowl as well as wackadoodle, trouble-causing passengers.

Anyway, I received this response from a therapist:

"We all have some built-in ability to deal with uncertainty. Some of us handle it better than others. We therapists believe it has a lot to do with whether enough feelings of security was built into the relationship between the young child and the caregivers.

Though most of us look back and think of early life as secure, there are major differences which, because we don't have comparative experience, don't recognize.  The major difference, we believe, is whether or not the caregivers "tuned in" enough to actually feel what you were feeling. A child who develops in an environment where there is a feeling connection from the caregivers, also feels the connection and develops security.

Fast forward to adulthood. When the feeling connection and the security that comes with it is not solidly established for us, we have anxiety problems. So, we make up for feelings of uncertainty by trying to establish certainty. We use control. We try to take the uncertainty out. Still, we want a way out; an escape route.  If we have both control and escape, we feel synthetically secure.

But when flying, these two "security blankets" (control and escape) are taken away.  We, thus, are thrown back to only the built in semi-security of early childhood. It isn't enough. We panic."

It is true that I did not have a secure childhood, and it is true that I am anxiety-ridden during a flight.  It is true that my DH had a secure childhood and he is so relaxed during a flight that he can sleep the whole time (curses!).  But it is also true that I worry about everything.  Maybe I would worry about the flight even if I had a more secure childhood?  And bummer for me, I have had to fly a lot this past year, with more flights planned this summer.  I try to remind myself how every day and night thousands of planes are flying in the skies without incident.  But just about every time I fly I'm a wreck on the inside and often my limbs are shaking.   However I have to fly about every month for work and I will fly a couple times a year for visiting GM and other events here and there.

What do you think?  Do any of you have a correlation between your childhood and flying anxiety?  Or do you think it is pretty normal for anyone to imagine a disaster could happen on one's flight.

Two Steps Back?

Last year I had no reason to speak to my NM on Mother's Day and this year I felt that obligation gnawing.  Sort of.  This year I saw my NM and had a meal or two because I traveled to see my G'ma.  My NM acted like it was a regular visit to see her and that because we were talking, superficially, over a meal, that she hoped perhaps we'd pick up like things were a couple years ago in which she'd badger me to call her more often, etc.


But I don't feel the same anymore.  Ever since she said horrible things to me and then about me and then never denied when I wrote to her about the lack of respect for me (and gave examples), and her meanness.  My heart feels better when we don't talk.


Things in the "material world? have been tough for my NM this past year and I feel she expects me to be a presence in her life to sooth her, admire her, etc.


After I saw her in early April, I wrote about how she left my G'ma in the nursing facility, no one knows when she will be well enough to leave there, and my NM takes off, a few states away, to be in her summer home.  She drove two days and made it but I didn't call her.


End of April I got this email:

"How are you?  Since we last spoke, I didn't hear from the kids.

Also, I felt bad, I did not hear from you for Easter.  Mom"

I did not respond.

As Mother's Day approached I did not feel right sending her a non-heartfelt Mother's Day card and tried for 10 mins in the store to find a suitable one and gave up. 

Unfortunately that Fear, Obligation, Guilt was there when I woke up on Mother's Day.  After my lunch out with my DH and children, I called her cell #.  My choice is that it was easier for me to be superficial on the phone.  But her cell # was disconnected.  She is in her "summer" home and I called the last # I had for that.  Disconnected.

So I emailed her and wished her a Happy Mother's Day and hoped she had had a good day, and mentioned her cell and house phone numbers I had for her were disconnected.

She sent me an email back the day after Mother's Day and mentioned that she thought she had told everyone she planned to disconnect her cell # and that the home number they have had has been the same for two years (I never called that number.  I had to rescue my G'ma away from her two summers ago and we only emailed each other).  She also stated that she has listed the summer home number in previous cards to the kids (and she provided me with the #s).

She ended her very brief email with this:

"Needless to say, a mother who receives no call or card on Mother's Day feels bad and wonders what she has done to deserve such.  Mom"

I relayed this last night to my DH.  I mentioned how I have given her details in the past of how she has hurt me.  He maintains that she will never get it so why even email her the same feelings again.  (I should just write her back and say, "at least you have kept the same email address").  Honestly, my kids are amazed at how many residences she has had in their short lives.  They know how often I moved by the time I was their ages.


Just two months ago my NM and I had a sort of honest conversation and I stated how she doesn't even like me.  She had no comment.  So....why should I be surprised that she acts surprised that I don't go through the motions of calling her.  She just wants to be called so that she can chat to me and the kids and act all normal and chooses not to give a damn about why I don't feel like it.


Meanwhile, when I spoke to my G'ma the day before Mother's Day she told me she rec'd our card and she liked it and then she says she "got the most beautiful card she has ever received from her daughter (my NM, the one who had to go a few states away to plant her garden).  Sheesh.  My older generations are all into the tangible item.