Two Years Ago - The Second Incident

Two years ago I was really learning about narcissistic mothers. I had finished reading Alice Miller's "Drama of the Gifted Child" and Susan Forward's "Toxic Parents" (which I highly recommend). And two years ago this week I had what I call "The Confrontation" with my mother.

I think it had been about six months since "The Incident", which  I discussed in my post titled "The First Ephiphany". What I left out of the summary of "The Incident" was it was really conflict between my E-Sis; there was something very distressing to me that I did not want talked about in front of me and I asked it not be brought up in my presence. This still seems to me have been a very reasonable request and one that could easily be carried out. However she continued to bring it up in front of me. This upset me and perhaps for the first time ever I reacted much more like a normal person reacts to boundary violations; with anger toward the violator. My NM jumped in to middle of the situation and naturally that only escalated the situation. Over a period of about a week I hung up on someone, specifically my NM, for the first time ever, which became multiple hang ups, and sent a lengthy e-mail to NM and E-sis  trying to explain how they had trivialized my emotions my entire life and  apologizing to my sister for the one thing I had done that I felt merited an apology. It was a pretty scathing e-mail, but anyone with an ounce of empathy would have understood it was coming from a deep emotional wound.

For the record, I never received any serious apologize from E-sis for the things she said/did that hurt the most. Inf act instead of leaving me alone like I asked she kept picking at it making it worse. The whole blow up would have been much less severe if she'd just left me alone like I had asked at one point. We'd have had some space, thought about, and likely apologized to each other, I think. But obviously that wasn't what happened. Oh no, NM have to jump in. At any rate, NM and I saw each other at an outside event and tired of fighting I (foolishly) apologized. What did she say? She said she was sorry, "but if she had to make me angry at [her] so I'd forgive [my] sister..." Yeah, great apology there, NM.

Cue "The Second Incident" and about a month later "The Confrontation". After a frustrating "miscommunication" triangulated through E-Sis about if DH and I were coming up to do a favor for NM and then attempts to tell me (not ask) when we could come do this favor instead, I signed out of the online chat I was speaking to my E-sis through. When I am annoyed or frustrated I like to be left alone to cool off and get over it. For some reason everyone besides E-sis and NM seem to understand that. Apparently NM felt like she had to protect E-sis from me or something, and decided she would "nip" whatever the hell she thought was happening "in the bud". At the time I was just frustrated, annoyed, and wanted to be left alone; then she called my cellphone. That's when I became angry.

Kudos to me though, I chose to maintain the boundary of being left alone for awhile and didn't answer. I knew speaking to her at that time would be a bad idea, and I knew I was entitled to not speak to her if I did not feel like doing so. Did she perhaps leave a message like any other reasonable person would do when the person they are calling doesn't answer? Or decide to call back another time? No, of course not. Narcissists are not reasonable people, after all.

She called my husband's cellphone (who foolishly answered), and demanded he put me on the phone. That is when I became furious! Mind you that's not how she remembers it happening, she claims she only asked him to have me call when I was ready. However, "That's probably not a good idea right now" is not how one responds to a have-her-call-me request. That's how somebody responds to a demand, and demanding is exactly how DH described her opening line. Then he couldn't get her off the damn phone. Oh, she didn't want to drag him into the middle, but oh it was just a miscommunication, and the best part of all is what she thought I was being over-sensitive about in the first place.

NM thought I was mad because they had ordered pizza (which E-sis started regaling me with how bad the pizza was and that I wasn't missing anything when I expressed annoyance) and if we came up we'd have to take care of ourselves for dinner because they didn't order enough because she didn't know we were coming (because she asked E-sis instead of say, asking us directly if we were coming up). That's right, she thought I, her college educated, married, adult daughter was upset over not getting pizza. Newsflash, I was mad that nobody bothered to check with us if we were coming up, that they then tried to tell us when we could up like we didn't have schedules and lives of our own to deal with, acting so put upon because NM doesn't want company (when we were doing them a favor) that unless she wanted to wait weeks, it had to be done that evening, and that they treated our time like it had no value whatsoever when we were doing NM a favor! DH normally charges people by the hour for what we were coming up to do for NM.

If I wanted a fucking pizza that badly, I'd have ordered myself one, bitch! I'm an adult; credit card, car, and all. I have a phone and a computer, I could have order it that way and had it delivered if I wanted it that badly. In fact I have my pick of some of the best pizza in the city where I live. The hardest part would be picking out which amazing pizza I wanted. Hell, my husband makes pizza from scratch. I am clearly not lacking in pizza and can obtain it through a variety of channels. The pizza was never the real issue here, but it sure says a lot about how my NM sees me.

After about thirty minutes I was ready to rip the phone out of DH's hand and making "get off the phone" motions to him. I was enraged at that point and I knew DH wasn't happy because his tone had changed to the same one he uses when he's talking to his mother. She kept talking to him about how it was a miscommunication. Gee, how did that happen? Let me think... E-sis asked the night before if we were coming to do that thing for NM and I said there was something we had to do, but maybe in the evening. NM asks E-sis if we are coming (instead of asking us), and E-sis says we aren't! Hm, who is at fault here? Yes, I could have called earlier and said "hey, we're coming up", but that street goes both ways and NM could have called me about it instead of asking a third party. She kept repeating herself about miscommunications, the stupid pizza, and not wanting to put him in the middle even though that was exactly what she was trying to do.

The finishing touch at the end was the text message she sent DH the next day about how she just needed to communicate how she felt and that she didn't want to put him the middle. It is not appropriate for her to try and use my husband to try and meet that need. It is in fact the exact opposite of keeping DH out of the middle, not that he would ever be "in the middle" anyway because he is 100% supportive of me in all this.

I'll try to write about "The Confrontation" at some point, but it can best be summed up with NM's opening and closing actions. She said no matter what I had to say she would always love me.

Then she literally walked out while I was still talking.

Been Awhile, Still Alive

So I got kind of swamped with deadlines and the holidays and I have been neglecting my blogs and the blogs I've been reading. Nothing has changed between Samantha and I, in fact we haven't spoken or interacted at all since then. Never gave me an answer as to if I was in the wedding party still, which was unlikely anyway, but an answer would have been polite. I think it's safe to say I'm out, and wouldn't be a bridesmaid even if she begged. I was able to get all my things back from her though via her fiancee. Anyway, this post is going to be somewhat rambling, so I apologize in advance if it's hard to follow.

Our mothers did talk. However they have agreed we're adults and to stay out of it, although my NM says she did try to hint to Samantha's mother (who seems to have seen at least some of the e-mails) that this isn't just a problem between Samantha and I, but well, the entire group of friends and Samantha. Ah, if only my NM could learn to stay out of things that happen between E-Sis and me, not that they happen often. We've been doing pretty well and I'm censoring myself a little less because I've been discussing the book "Toxic Parents" by Susan Forward with a friend of ours whom I lent a copy to even when E-Sis is around. For the record, I think it is an excellent book for anyone who experienced any kind of abuse at the hands of one or more parent.

Anyway, the difference in my life without Samantha is negligible at best. It's amazing to look back on things between us without the haze of denial. Although I'm still working through some anger and grief. I suppose it might help if I removed her from my Facebook, but in a fit of petty revenge and possibly stubbornness I intend to keep her there until the bachelorette party do-over my friends and I are planning. I intend to remove her from my restricted list so she can see things I post again and then post a bunch of pictures of the wonderful time everyone is having without her and get a dig in about the crappy party she threw me and her telling people there I liked boring. It's a do-over for three of us, really. Samantha ruined mine and then nearly  caused the bride to leave at one last year. A third friend also didn't get the kind of party she wanted from her (narcissistic borderline) "best friend" at the time, so we're planning a big girl's night in honor of the three of us. About the week before dear Samantha's wedding.

(Side note: the Restricted List feature on Facebook is very useful for those people you don't want to defriend and cause drama with, but don't want to let see anything. Only things you post publicly will be visible to a person on your Restricted List, which in my case is nothing!)

But I digress... her posts are kind of amusing because I can tell she's trying too hard to talk about her "awesome new friends", and seeing a preview of her engagement photos was a complete riot because they look so fake, right down to the bottle of wine. Did I mention everyone knows about her crazy diet and that wine is something she can't drink on said diet? Which makes those pictures particularly laughable. Sadly though as she's essentially starving herself, her face is beginning to look gaunt and I do feel bad because she's probably going to end up in the hospital.

I suppose all that doesn't make me a much better person than Samantha is, but I'm working through things and this is simply where I am right now. I'll move past it all eventually, I'm sure. It will probably be easier after her wedding. I'm waiting to see what happens with that because my DH and her fiancee are still friends, so I'm waiting to see if we are or aren't invited still to the wedding, or if she's tacky enough to invite only DH. I also haven't ruled out the possibility of being invited simply because we would be a viable source for money compared to many of her other friends. I have contingency plans prepared for if one or both of us are invited.

In other news I spent a week with FOO for a Christmas vacation and survived remarkably well! I'll write about that next time.

Hair and Delayed Reactions

So I've been quiet lately and way behind on the blogs I read. I recently went off birth control and my body is going a little crazy readjusting. And then I found out I had bad knees that will eventually cause me more problems than they are right now. I thought they were just strained from over use, but no, turns out I have defects in my femurs and my knee caps are angled instead of straight. So I've been moody and depressed. But otherwise, there isn't anything exciting going on in my life and no new developments with NM.

However, I'm planning to get my hair cut and a new hair style. This is a big thing for me. My hair has been virtually unchanged since I was little and my mother decided it was too much work to keep the bangs/fringe trimmed because my hair grew so fast. It's not that NM never gave me the option to change it when I was in grade school and onward, but I simply didn't know what to do with my hair. So it's always just been long (often uneven at the ends because I almost never get it trimmed), and parted one way or another. I didn't even know there were hair style options that were wash and wear besides long and simple.

NM knows how to do her hair, but she wasn't inclined to teach me. She was only interested in braiding my hair because she liked to (and complains now how I often wouldn't let her). She'd buy E-Sis and I curling irons and curlers, but were clueless about how to actually use them and she didn't show us how to. For the longest time all I knew about blow drying my hair was flipping it upside and zapping it until it was dry (and ugly). I still don't know how to use a curling iron or curlers, though I'm interesting in learning now. It literally was not until this year that learned how to use a round brush to dry my hair straight and neatly.

Still, I'm a wash and wear kind of gal. I don't want to have to get up extra early to do my hair. So at dinner I was talking with a much more hair and fashion savvy friend about what would be a good hair style for me, and telling her how I was anxious and that changing it was a big deal for me. I almost wanted to cry just talking about it. I'm anxious because I don't know how a new hair style will look and I want to pick something that will look nice and that I will like. I don't want to be stuck waiting for something ugly to grow back out. And then E-Sis, who cares nothing about her appearance and has no sense of empathy, decides to chime in, saying to just not do anything drastic to my hair. I tell her when it's been unchanged for a decade or two, any change is big change, any change is drastic. Then at one point, she tells our friend that I'm "afraid of change."

Which brings me to delayed reaction part of this post. The woman who has never moved out of her parents home has the nerve to tell me that I'm afraid of change? Me, who has moved out, married, and traveled out of the country, is afraid of change? But I didn't react to that at all until DH and I left and he mentioned it. It would have hit me the next day on my own, he just sped up the process. Anyway, I seem to have delayed reaction to things that should make me angry or hurt. It's like I don't notice it right away, not until I examine things after the fact. Obliviously I smile and nod until later I realize that I'm offended. I don't know why it happens.

Perfect example: the other day a friend cancelled plans for this weekend that were made two weeks ago, because there's a surprise birthday party for a friend. Then she explains yesterday its for a person she's trying to become with friends with!? I was all like "Okay, cool" but today I realized that really stings! I could have done without my friend giving me that much detail about the reason. So becoming friends with that person is more important than honoring a prior engagement with an older friend? What am I, second string? Sure, Adela has and will always be there, right?  She'll be the fallback when you've got nothing else going on? She won't mind, she's always so accommodating!

Well not anymore, that's going on your permanent record, friend. Next time something like this happens I won't be so accommodating and I'll call you out your rudeness.