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.

Didn't Take the Bait

So I mentioned in my previous post about spending about a week with my FOO for Christmas. All of us going to the vacation house for Christmas had been something my father brought up some time early last year. Since I don't come up to house on weekends as often as I did back when I was engulfed, I thought it might be a nice way to spend time together. I also felt like I was at a point where I could handle my NM and being around her for an extended period of time.

And you know what? I was right! Even when at one point I was discussing behavior modification ideas that could help my cousin with her kids, I didn't take the bait she threw out to get us started talking about my childhood and us. For the record my cousin lives far away but calls NM all the time to talk to and for help, because her own mother is way more disordered than mine. I'd say my cousin is the closest thing my mother has to a golden child, especially after she was no longer able to engulf me.

I was suggesting the use of token economies and some of the other principles of behavior modification I mentioned my post Punishment & Reinforcement. Despite how easy it would have been to start telling how she had done it all wrong when she started mentioning her attempts of using it with me, I didn't bring it up at all. Then she mentioned trying to use a token economy, with a chart on the fridge and everything, which I have no memory of happening. But considering this alleged attempt was supposedly when I was three years old at the time that's no surprise. The best part was NM telling me how one day I stormed over, tore the chart off, and three it to the floor while declaring "No more!"

This was clearly bait to turn the discussion into one I didn't want to have, even though I didn't quite realize it until I was in bed that night with my husband. I could have told her how she was probably doing it wrong- for example, a child has to be old enough to understand delayed gratification and that's not usually until at least five years of age (even then they aren't very good at it). I just shrugged while thinking that this wasn't something I was going to discuss, drank my tea, and let her tell me more about my cousin's kids. Despite NM's claims I think this would work with the right rewards for my cousin's children as they are over the age of five, but I didn't even bother arguing that point with her, either. If I really wanted to give my cousin my advice I'd call her, instead of musing over possible helpful ideas with NM anyway.

I feel pretty proud of myself that I was able to avoid taking her bait with so little conscious effort on my part. My DH on the other hand was watching a documentary at one point and got caught in a debate with my mother about something while I was showering. Of course, there's no changing that woman's mind and getting her to drop something while you still disagree with her is always a challenge. Even when you are more knowledgeable and are in fact correct. But he managed and other than that it was a surprisingly pleasant holiday.

Taking Love Away

I realized last night that I have internalized a particular behavior of my NM's. When she would be angry at me, when she would rage because I had done something wrong or bad, I would feel unloved and unloveable. She would take her love away from me at those times, her love was utterly conditional.

And now when I don't do as well as I think I should, or I make a mistake, I take my love away from myself. I stop loving myself in those moments. She taught me to hate myself. When I was a child I knew she was what made me hate myself, though I didn't have the words to really explain it. Some how along the way, I forgot this as I grew up and became an adult. Unknowingly I took ownership of her hatred for me at those times and made it my own.

I've mentioned this in comments before, but it's about time I posted it here. When I barely nine years old, I wrote this in my diary:

Dear Diary,
I'm going to kill myself cause of mom and dad! (I hate myself!)

That was it. I think my father simply got lumped in with my mom at that time because he was a parent, and I didn't realize back then that he had no idea just how awful it was for me. I actually have mostly good memories about my father. Anyway, I don't remember anything in particular that caused me to write that diary entry, all I know is it must have written it alone in my room, angry and/or crying, like I did all my diary entries. But it spells the truth so clearly.


When I read that page in my old diary now, I can see what it is really trying to say. "I hate myself because of my mom."

This song, "Sorry to Myself" by Alanis Morissette, is perhaps the story of myself, although the only person who has perhaps been crueler to me is my NM, but she's the one who taught me to abuse myself. I really have treated myself worse than I've treated anyone else though. I have more compassion for strangers than I do for myself usually. I need start being kinder to myself and loving myself no matter what. I really do owe myself the biggest apology.

For hearing all my doubts so selectively and
For continuing my numbing love endlessly.
For helping you, and myself not even considering
For beating myself up and over functioning.

To whom do I owe the biggest apology?
No one's been crueler than I've been to me.

For letting you decide if I indeed was desirable
For myself love being so embarrassingly conditional.
And for denying myself to somehow make us compatible
And for trying to fit a rectangle into a ball.
 
To whom do I owe the biggest apology?
No one's been crueler than I've been to me.

I'm sorry to myself.
My apologies begin here before everybody else.
I'm sorry to myself.
For treating me worse than I would anybody else.

For blaming myself for your unhappiness
For my impatience when I was perfect where I was.
Ignoring all the signs that I was not ready,
And expecting myself to be where you wanted me to be.

To whom do I owe the first apology?
No one's been crueler than I've been to me.

And I'm sorry to myself.
My apologies begin here before everybody else.
I'm sorry to myself.
For treating me worse than I would anybody else.

Well, I wonder which crime is the biggest?
Forgetting you or forgetting myself...
Had I heeded the wisdom of the latter,
I would've naturally loved the former.

For ignoring you: my highest voices.
For smiling when my strife was all too obvious.
For being so disassociated from my body,
And for not letting go when it would've been the kindest thing.

To whom do I owe the biggest apology?
No one's been crueler than I've been to me.

And
I'm sorry to myself.
My apologies begin here before everybody else
I'm sorry to myself.
For treating me worse than I would anybody else.
I'm sorry to myself.
My apologies begin here before everybody else
I'm sorry to myself.
For treating me worse than I would anybody else

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.

The First Epiphany

My first epiphany regarding my mother wasn't when I connected her with NPD. It came after a series of events too specific and identifying for me to be comfortable posting. In sum, a very important family decision was made with out me, I was given incorrect information by NM, and when I tried to discuss different options based on the incorrect information, I became the bad guy. To be fair I was acutely aware of being the dissenter and was on hyper alert for signs of attack. As such, I readily admit I am not entirely blameless in the situation that followed. Ironically, the initial ensuing conflict regarding my dissent did not directly involve NM, but she threw herself into because she loves to be a martyr. This, "The Incident" as I like to call it, was the beginning of the path that would lead up to "The Confrontation". If you are interested in the details of said event(s), you are welcome to e-mail me for more information and if I feel confident you are in no way associated with my family I'll share the whole blown out of proportion mess, the two straws that broke the camel's back, so to speak.

After basically being told what a horrible person I was and having my pain and suffering utterly invalidated by NM (story of my life), I had the epiphany over dinner with my best friend. The words of a wise professor came floating back to me. I don't remember them exactly, but it was something along the lines of  "When somebody tells you to stop crying or you're being too sensitive, it's because they can't handle your feelings." That your feelings are yours and they can't be wrong, nobody can tell you they are wrong because they are yours and only you truly know them, and so on. Suddenly, I realized I was not the one with a problem. It was NM's problem if she didn't like or couldn't handle the feelings I had. It wasn't my problem, it never was. It was hers, it was always hers. She, for whatever reason, could not deal with my feelings. I was practically giddy with delight at this realization. Well, there might have been a little wine involved in that, too.

Connecting those words with my NM was the first step toward the truth. I remember it very clearly, right down to where in the room my professor was standing when he said them. I remember liking those words, but not connecting them at all to NM at the time. When I did connect them, it was amazing, a weight I had carried all my life was gone. I hadn't learned the proper term for NM's behavior yet (invalidation), but I knew the concept. And knowing it was incredible. I wasn't completely ready to act on it though. That would come later, after I had connected NPD to my mother and learned more about it, when the second and final straw came, that I call "The Second Incident" lead me to confront her about about her behavior, especially her invalidation.

The Point Where Communication Will Always Fail

Attempts to communicate in an honest and sincere manner with a narcissistic inevitably will break down or shut down. There is, I believe, an exact point where the communication break/shut down will always occur. It may occur any time before this point, but if it hasn't already occurred, it will at this specific point. This is because what narcissists are literally incapable of what is required at that point to continue honest, open, and sincere dialogue. The cunning may feign possessing it in an attempt to control and manipulate, and some may be indeed be deceived, but it is no longer honest communication, ergo, even when the illusion of real communication is present, the reality of the matter is that communication has broken or shut down.

What is this magic breaking point, you ask? It is the exact moment you ask them to consider a perspective different from their own. This is literally an impossible task for them, just like it is for small children. The comparisons of narcissists to young children that many make are not exaggerations. Both narcissists and small children are egocentric. As such, they cannot possess empathy or take different perspectives. Children in theory grow out of this and learn empathy and understanding. I don't know if narcissists simply carry their egocentricity of childhood with them into adulthood, or develop it later, or if something else entirely causes it, but the egocentric adult is clearly lacking in the empathy and understanding department.

What does it mean to take another person's perspective, though? It's not to literally look through their eyes, and besides, most people can at least understand that they'll see different things if they are standing on different sides of a table. It is the ability to appreciate or respect the subjective experience of another person, even if it is different from your own subjective experience. I say "subjective" experience, because by default all experiences you have are filtered through your genetics, your past experiences, your mind set when experiencing something, and so on. Take taste for example. Some people love the taste of cilantro, some people absolutely hate it. Neither of them are wrong, it's simply subjective.

To the narcissist though, only their experience is right and it is the only experience that is real. It is the only experience anyone can have in their world. All others are false. All other experiences by other people are lies, delusions, misremembered, or are otherwise invalid. When you ask your narcissist parent to listen to your perspective, and how you felt unloved and terrified as a child, they cannot even concede that you might have had a different experience than they did. You are wrong and are not entitled to any thoughts or feelings based on such false experiences. Any thoughts or feelings that come from those false experiences are also false! And so all meaningful communication breaks down when you ask the narcissist even imagine what it's like to walk in your shoes. They can't, the only shoes that exist in their world are their own. They are completely incapable of doing what is necessary to continue healthy dialogue.

I do not doubt that my mother experienced herself as a very loving and devoted parent, that she experienced herself as loving and caring. She felt herself giving me love, and probably still does. And that's her experience, she's entitled to it and I won't deny it. But it isn't mine, and it isn't what I lived with and continue to live with. I carry it with me every day. I did not experience her as loving and caring, but often as terrifying. I will not say she didn't love me (invalidating her experience), but that I did not feel loved (my personal experience). However, I can accept that her experience wasn't mine, and when I confronted her I didn't even ask for apologies, only that she accept my experience was different, and that just because it wasn't the same as hers didn't mean it and everything that went with it was wrong.

She couldn't even lie, couldn't even pretend to acknowledge me and my experiences. Being right, being able to play the victim, the persecuted martyr, was too important to her, I guess. Although in all fairness I myself struggle with a narcissistic need to be right (probably because for so much of my life I was told I was wrong, wrong, wrong that I desperately want to be right). Though it's a flaw I'm aware of now and am working on, unlike my NM.

Rage, Yelling, and Tears

If we had lived in an apartment, or if the houses on our street weren't so well insulated and spaced apart, I suspect the police would have been called out to our home more than once. If not for the screaming fights NM had with my father when I was a child, for the yelling and slamming things NM did when she raged at E-sis and me.

It was as if every mess, every act of non-compliance, even a dirty spoon not put in the dishwasher, was a personal attack against her by us. Her rages over the dishes were the most terrifying and that drama merits its own series of posts later. In general, NM had two types of rages - the angry lecture and the pure rage. Sometimes one would lead to the other and the words were often the same for both, it was just a matter of what level of volume she spoke them at.

"How could you do this to me?"
"Do you like me when I'm angry?"
"Do you like making me angry?"
"Don't cry! I should be the one crying!"
"You made me angry!"
"Why can't you behave?"
"Why can't you do what I tell you?"
"I'm angry!"
"If you would just behave this wouldn't happen!"
"Why did you do X!?"
"Why would you do that!?"
"It's your own fault!"
"I'll give you a reason to cry!"

The list could go on and on. The specifics don't matter and I can't even recall them. It was all the same in the end, we were bad and we were responsible for her emotions. Heaven forbid I start to cry, as I often did, that just incited her more. Sometimes she would cry while she raged at us, because we had apparently hurt her so much by simply being children! Being around her was aversive and so whatever it was she wanted us to do was aversive by association. We just tried to avoid it and her and keep our heads down. But of course she would yell at us for not doing it then, yell at us for something bad we did, and so on. We would sit there or stand there, forbid from speaking, forbidden from fleeing while she lashed out at us. There was no escape, and when one cannot fight or flee, one freezes. That is when trauma typically occurs.

When people around me raise their voices, even if my friends are just debating a movie, I flashback emotionally. I become silent. I try to make myself physically smaller. For example, if I am sitting on the sofa next to DH, I curl my legs up and under my body, and press against him and hide my face. I feel unhappy and scared. I have returned to the way I felt in childhood, small and powerless, hoping it will stop soon and unable to leave the room, unable to speak up. Having learned this about myself though, I have started to get up and go to another room to do breathing exercises when I feel the flashback starting. I'm an adult now, I can leave an uncomfortable or unpleasant situation. It's slow, but I'm making progress.

In spite of my attempts, I (thankfully) never learned how to stop myself from crying, how to control it. As an adult I frequently apologize when I cry. though Not if I cry over a movie or something like that, that's okay. But if I'm sad or angry and cry I apologize, because I was not allowed to be sad or angry and cry unless NM thought I had something to be that way about, which she never did. She might make a token effort to console me, but when it failed she would become irritated or mad. Over sensitive is probably her favorite description of me. Anyway, it's taken many years with DH to not feel like a bad person, an inconvenience to others, for crying.

In closing, it seems NM has a desperate need to yell and rage. She couldn't yell at us so much once we were adults in college as we weren't home much and usually did our chores, and by then my father had learned to avoid setting her off. So NM yells at politicians, pundits, and other idiots on the news. It would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic. Certainly I talk back to them myself sometimes, but I never yell. It's not like the people on the TV can hear me anyway.

You're Grounded!

My NM gave out groundings like candy on Halloween, beginning probably around the time I was eight or nine. If I were to try and add up durations of all the grounding sentences E-Sis and I ever received, we would probably have still been grounded in our early 20s. The reason for this is simple: NM oscillated between authoritarian parenting style and a neglectful one. In her authoritarian rages she would hand down grounding sentences ranging from four months, to six months, even up to year long for various offenses ranging from making a mess in the bathroom to a dish coming out of the dishwasher dirty. Honestly I don't even remember what all the offenses were, but I'm fairly certain they usually had to do with messes/cleaning, and later "talking back" to her.

There was never a clear contract made of "If you don't do X or if you do Y, you will be grounded from Z". It was more of a "I'm mad you didn't do X! You can no longer do Y and Z!" a lack of an agreement makes that kind of punishment arbitrary and causes resentment because one had absolutely no way of knowing the consequences ahead of time. However, NM was too neglectful too actually keep track of all the groundings she gave out, what they were for, or how long they were supposed to last. And if for some reason she wanted me out of the house and my best friend had invited me somewhere, she would send me off. This of course made groundings a rather meaningless punishment and it wasn't like there was a reinforcement for actually doing something she wanted done. Remember, not being punished is not a reinforcement/reward. NM never actually tried to teach the behaviors she wanted us to do, only punished unwanted behaviors or  the absence of desired ones, as if she expected we could somehow magically learn them on our own with no help from her.

Also for this type of punishment to work, it requires taking away something that actually matters to the person. There was almost nothing that mattered that much to me that she could take away. I had one best friend and my sister, so there wasn't much socialization to take away. In fact, E-Sis and I became close out necessity back then because often she and I only had each other to spend time with due to the groundings and our we were relative inept at making friends. As for my best friend, I would see her at school, or NM would want me gone and let me go spend time with her, or if her parents needed somebody to watch her they would ask NM because our parents had become friends (and vice versa). It was certainly an inconvenience to lose access to the computer for creative writing (my handwriting is terrible), but losing access to the television, telephones (not that I ever called anyone regularly anyway), video games, not being allowed to play outside, etc, wasn't really a big deal. And it wasn't like I couldn't get into or do most of those things without her knowledge once we were old enough to be left unsupervised for a few hours. As you can see by the list of things I had available to lose, my physical/material needs were always well met, possibly even indulged in an attempt to avoid having to deal with any emotional needs.

E-Sis and I could always do things at home together when we were grounded, and I also had my own room full of stuff to do whenever I was sent to my room or didn't want to spend time with E-Sis. It would be too much work to prevent E-Sis and me from interacting for months, just like it would be too much work to take all my toys away, all my books away, prevent me from checking out books at school, and to take all my pen/pencils and paper to keep me from my creative writing. It would be too much work to try and stand over both of us to make sure we didn't do any of those things, either together or by ourselves. Even if NM had ever decided to put that much effort into her punishments, I could simply work on whatever story I was writing in my head like I would do when I (often) couldn't sleep but was of course forbidden from getting up to do anything because I "wasn't allowed" to stay up, regardless of whether or not I could actually sleep. But I digress. In sum, I had no problems sitting in my room quietly playing by myself, reading, writing, or even seemingly doing nothing. I had something she could never take away from me: a magnificent imagination.

NM's punishments, while often inappropriate and/or poorly executed, were never what was so bad about her, though. It was always the rages that accompanied them, whether it was a barely restrained lecture or full on yelling/screaming/crying, that made her so terrifying. More on that next time.

Spanking and Learned Helplessness

Today's crash course in psychology is learned helplessness. You'll see how this relates to my story of being spanked in a moment, just bear with me. Phase one: let's say I take a rat and put it in a cage with a metal plate, and following a warning buzzer, the rat receives an electric shock. At first the rat will try to do all kinds of things to try and prevent the shock once it learns the buzzer indicates it's coming, but none of these work. Eventually, the rat stops trying. It has learned that their is no relationship/contingency between what it does and receiving the shock. Phase two: I then put the rat on a metal plate in a new cage. On the other side of the cage is a safe, insulated plate. Cue buzzing followed by the electric shock. Shockingly (pun intended) the rat will not even try moving to the insulated plate. It will sit there and take the abuse. The rat has learned to be helpless! It's a very unhealthy state both physically and psychologically, but I digress.

Spanking seemed to be a logical follow up to my last post, Punishment & Reinforcement. For some reason, I hadn't mentioned spanking be a part of my early memories, but it was and deserves a post all to itself. To clarify, I consider spanking to be swatting a child's behind only with your hand, and not to the point they are bruised or can't sit comfortably. NM's mother only ever used her hand I heard, although she could make you "not sit for a week" and NM frequently reminded us how she wasn't being as harsh as my grandmother was to her, as if we were supposed to be grateful. There were also threats of spanking us like Grandma used to do it back in the day. (Yes, I say us a lot because E-Sis and I experienced these things together).

Now, don't get me wrong. I actually thinking spanking as I have described it has a time and place. I think anything that goes beyond what I described crosses over into physical abuse. When do I think spanking as I have defined it is all right? When, after exhausting all other options, a young child continues to attempt behavior that could maim and/or kill them. Do they keep prying the safety plugs out of the electrical outlets and trying to stick things in them? Do they keep squirming away and trying to run into traffic? Are they constantly finding ways to unlock the door and trying to climb on the balcony railing? When all other methods have failed, I see no reason not to give them a few swats on the butt with the palm of your hand. It's better than them getting hit by car! Much like vaccinations, it hurts but you aren't doing it to specifically hurt them.You aren't doing it angry and you should never punish in anger. You are honestly doing it to help protect them. So when used sparingly and for appropriate reasons, the relationship/contingency between the child's behavior and the punishment is clear to the child and shouldn't scar them for life.

This was not how my NM used spanking. Spanking probably continued until around age eight, and I think at least once she followed through with doing it "like Grandma used to do". This began at an extremely young age for various infractions such as fighting or making or mess, and so on. The most common of course being not picking up our rooms. The fact of the matter though is at the age all this began, it was ridiculous to expect us to be able to, without help, supervision, or even any motivating reward, pick up our rooms. I shouldn't have to say this, but to be clear, not being punished is not a reward! We were developmentally incapable of doing this on our own when she began demanding it and we were too young to possibly do so out of intrinsic motivation. It was completely wrong of her to expect this from us without providing support to accomplish the task. Sadly, many parents punish children for failing to do things that they literally cannot do at their age.

Now because we would be spanked for a variety of reasons, we could not see clear relationship/contingency between our behavior and the outcome. For example, times when we did manage to pick up our rooms, but were spanked later for something else (or the other way around), it contributed to obscuring the relationship/contingency. We didn't understand that different behaviors that elicited the same punishment weren't actually related to each other because we were too young to for that kind of reasoning. So what did we learn? We learned helplessness, basically, and we carried that forward as we got older. We learned that our behavior could not change or prevent NM from spanking us. This made us even less motivated or interested in doing what she wanted, because in our minds we were just going to spanked regardless. Due to these early experiences, messy room problems became an ongoing theme of our struggles with NM. Anyway, instead of doing what she wanted we did things like trying to hide from NM or padding our underwear with tissue! Of course she would always start counting down, and we knew if she got to "three" before we came out (or if she found our padding) there would be hell to pay.

So NM would spank us, we would cry, and she would feel better. Her anger was assuaged. Still no help or supervision would be offered afterwards to get our rooms picked up, and they would remain as they were until the next round. Eventually we stopped caring and stopped crying. When she realized spanking no longer caused us to react (never mind it have never taught us the behavior she desired, either) she switched to grounding us. But that is a tale for next time!

The Early Years

My earliest memories of my father consist of playing with him when he would get home from work and going to the park with him on weekends. Only he ever took us to the park. My earliest memories of my mother consist of her reading to E-Sis and I at bedtime and her yelling at us. I also remember my parents yelling and fighting a lot with each other; NM places the blame for the fighting entirely on my father. They rarely fight now, mostly they just get irritated with each other, but when they do NM still attributes all the fault to my father. He is her favorite scapegoat (SG). It is worth noting he has confided him me he goes out of his way to avoid setting her off.

Since I have no memory of my infancy, I must speculate how NM treated me based upon how I have developed. For most of my life I am certain I did not have a secure attachment style, but rather a fearful-avoidant style as an adult. It has only become more secure in recent years through much work, growth, and also help from DH. Anyway, if a baby's needs are met well enough, secure attachment should develop. I suspect based on this and her behavior when I was a child that she was rather ignoring of me and my needs. As a narcissist her needs must have been and will always be more important than others' needs, even an infant's. My physical needs were met well enough, or I probably wouldn't have made it to adulthood, but my emotional and psychological needs were neglected.

As an example of ignoring behavior, I have almost no memories of her playing with me as a small child, aside from our bedtime routines like reading, even though I can remember playing with my father and E-sis from that time period. I can remember clearly coloring in coloring books with the housekeeper when we had one, but not with NM. I think there is a vague memory or two of doing so with her, but the fact I remember doing so clearly with the housekeeper more than once speaks volumes to me. I don't think she liked interacting with me more than she felt was necessary and playing together probably wasn't much of a necessity for her, even though it is for a small child. I remember NM making us clean and leaving us alone in our bathroom to do so with cleaning chemicals you don't typically leave unattended small children with. I remember she decided to let my hair grow out because it grew too fast for her to hassle with keeping it trimmed short. Once she made a new dish for dinner that I tried and hated; it wasn't one of those "I don't want to eat my vegetable" type of of things either. To me it tasted like vomit and I said as much. But she wouldn't let me leave the table and forced me to keep eating it. To this day cannot eat that dish, even when it is made without some particular ingredients that I have narrowed down as the causes of the vomit taste. I remember being hungry and trying to open a snack, but I couldn't and asked for help. She brushed me off to keep looking at whatever she was looking at, then she raged when I went to my room and slammed the door. These are all examples of ignoring behavior, in all cases her needs were more important than whatever I needed. Keep in mind that these are my early memories, from approximately ages three to five.

Oh, certainly there are good memories, especially her reading to me, but there are just so many bad ones. I don't mean to present a one sided account, but the bad far out weigh the good and this blog is not about the good. I don't need to write about the good memories to try and understand and process them. But I need to write about the bad ones. This mixture of these memories and later ones only demonstrates the inconsistency of NM's responses to me. Her responses to my needs swung between appropriate and neglectful depending on her moods/needs of the moment. My memories combined with my previous adult attachment style leads me to believe my attachment style as an infant would probably have been assessed as being insecure anxious-resistant, also known as ambivalent/resistant, and that I would have sub-classified as passive.

It Began Before I Was Born

Dysfunctional (i.e., abusive) patterns of relating are often passed down from generation to generation. The pattern may be the same as the parent experienced from their parents, or it may swing in the opposite direction. For example, a child who was smothered and not allowed room to separate and be independent may repeat the behavior with their own children, or they may push their child toward separation and independence before the child is developmentally ready. They may make strides toward somewhat healthier, albeit still dysfunctional patterns. It is of course also possible for them to overcome their upbringing and engage in healthy patterns of relating with their children. However, such change usually does not occur without some kind of intervention (such as therapy) or serious insight into the self.

So as the title of the post implies, my journey began before I was born. The starting point was set by the mothers and daughters who came before me. I know far enough back in my family history to know it at least began with my great, great grandmother. She had slaves to order around and do her bidding without daring to talk back. Of course that all fell through with Civil War. So her children and her grandchildren became the next best thing. It was perfectly acceptable back then treat youngsters in such dysfunctional ways.

My grandmother was nowhere near as domineering and terrible as her grandmother was, or at least that's my understanding of things. But to be honest, there is a lot I do not know about my grandmother or her and NM's relationship. I know there was cleaning, sewing, cooking, and other such things expected of NM and her sisters. I know my grandmother spanked her children. I know NM got slapped or had her mouth washed out with soap for some of the things she said. I know my grandmother pointed out and criticized certain things about NM. I know she was very controlling of children's appearance. I know there was conflict between them. I know NM moved out of the house when she was a teenager.

Yet I would hear NM praising my grandmother, to me and when she was on the phone with her. NM admired/idealized her in what seemed a strange way to me. Thanking her for putting up with the things she did, claiming to appreciate things my grandmother did now that she was older/wiser, and so on. It's hard to convey what made the way she did this strange and unusual. I think it was total admiration/idealization NM displayed toward her mother, contrasted severely with the things NM did tell me about her youth and my grandmother. Perhaps denial is part of how NM deals with her own unmet childhood needs and trauma.

I will never know the whole story, or even other sides of it; my grandmother passed away when I was a teenager and NM estranged herself (and me) from her sisters and brother. Ironically, she is able to see their pathological behaviors but not her own. I've have had many discussions with her about her siblings and I am repeatedly amazed at how she can see in them the very things I see in her, while seeming to be completely unaware she possesses the same or similar problems. Never the less, I have enough information to convince me that NM experienced a dysfunctional pattern of relating. And I know from my own experiences she had and continues to have a dysfunctional pattern of relating with me.