Friday, July 27, 2012
Like Sands Through the Hourglass (Corny, But True)
I've just realized that I've not had contact with my mother since about the last week of May. Two months, and I feel just fine about this no-contact stuff. She phone-bombed me the first two or three weeks and still tries to call maybe once a week, and I still don't answer. I feel GOOD in this respect. I feel like I'm earning some of myself back. I don't have to have fakey conversations about shit that only matters to her, and I don't have to polish myself up to be an acceptable conversation receptacle. I'm not having to goody-goody up to her level to have a peaceful talk. I'm not whoring myself out for acceptance with her. This is like going a really long time being constipated, and now things are moving again (please note the apt reference to shit).
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Did you declare you were going no contact or are you just blowing her off?
ReplyDeleteAs much as I advocate NC, the end with my mother was like a landslide of her devaluing and discarding me. It was so knee jerk for her that I don't think even she realized how crazy she got.
But if she thinks she'll ever see me again she's dumber than I thought.
I didn't give her a declaration. I go between wishing I had and being glad I hadn't. I wrote a long note, all of which I meant, and I never sent it. That would give her some ammunition to take with her to church, or to her brothers and sister, to ask them what she had ever done to me to deserve this. I'd rather have her be ambiguously annoyed with me than give her the satisfaction of having something concrete to show the world what a monster I am.
ReplyDeleteYeah I hear ya. I wrote and sent letters and in them I told her to eff off and hell would freeze over before I darkened her door.
ReplyDeleteSometimes the best approach is exactly what you're doing, Bess: Absolute silence. No ammo to throw in your face, twist, play for the "crowd" etc.
ReplyDeleteNever fear, she's already making up more shit about you anyway;)
TW
I did it like that with my n-momster. I called her in February 2006 when a terrible tragedy had happened, my baby grandson had died, and she was such a bitch that I just stopped. Stopped calling, stopped answering when she called, stopped writing, stopped going to visit. After 5 years of this she wrote a 62 page hate letter to me, and sent copies of it to my aunt and my siblings. Apparently Ns really REALLY hate being ignored. Which I think is just great. And no, I did not read or answer her novel, I mean letter. I did read a 50 page hate letter that she sent me in 1983, and that was enough for me. I should have gone NC then. Well, I did, but only for a while. I kept thinking I could win her love somehow. She cannot love. I know that now. It doesn't even hurt anymore, I've finally accepted that it is what it is.
ReplyDeleteI think I made the letters I sent my mother so over the top to completely burn that bridge behind me.
ReplyDeleteIf I had not spewed my venom when the time was right I might have been hoodwinked back.
This was not a conscious thought.
It's just the way it went down.
Yeah, I understand this. There was probably a two-day window when sending my letter may have been helpful, but I stewed longer than that before actually composing.
DeleteTrying to talk with you NM and expecting resolution is a little like talking to a toddler about taxes. They're never going to get it, and you'll just get increasingly frustrated. Stay the course! Focus on you and don't stop playing the "good tape" in your head.
ReplyDeleteUltimately, I found it was an act of futility. I tried the "reasonable" polite approach about bibty times before, and you know the definition of insanity? Yeah, THAT. It's just futile to try to make sense to "crazy". So I figured if she wanted to play the loooong suffering martyr/doesn't "understand" that was her choice.
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime, my life went on with periodic "narc-explosions" which was still an improvement over daily life with a terrorist.
TW
Bess, I'm reading your blog this morning, and I just hit this little golden nugget of a post.
ReplyDelete"I'm not whoring myself out for acceptance with her."
You couldn't have described our dealings with our mothers any better than that.