As I no longer have a land line (except for an internet-only "dry" DSL line), my cell phone is the only phone I've got.
I've set the ringtone associated with her number to "silent".
Yes, I still sometimes have to listen to her messages, but at least I don't hear the jangling sound of the phone when she calls. I've had so many decades of her calling me in one angry state or another that I now have a total complex about the phone in general. I love talking with my friends on the phone once I get started, but hearing the phone ring...DREAD washes over me!
Hopefully that problem will abate now. If the phone rings...I at least KNOW it's not her calling!
13 comments:
Hi. I came across your blog when I was looking for blogs by adult children of narcissists. I can completely relate to the phone issue. I also turned my n-mother's ring to silent because I had become afraid of answering the phone. One thing that has helped is having my husband screen her messages when I think they might be angry. I don't know about your narcissistic parent, but mine would never act that way in front of a stranger/my husband, so it also showed him what she's really like. He's much more understanding and sympathetic about me needing to talk about her now.
Anyway, I just thought I would share and let you know that you're not the only person going through the phone thing. Congrats on your wedding. :)
Thank you so much, Chloe!
Ah, the phone! I have never gotten over the phone. I can answer a phone at work anytime, but at home, it's always been another story. Thank God for caller ID.
I, too, always felt my heart stop when the phone rang. I never knew what kind of mother I would get. I would say "hello?" and my stomach would go cold as she would say something, with no other preamble, like "LET ME ASK YOU A QUESTION." I would freeze and wonder what I had possibly done to make her angry this time. Had she found out that I had gone away for the weekend, told my sister, and was going to make a big deal out of how I hadn't told HER? Had she found out that I'd had lunch with my mother-in-law, without informing her?
Or, sometimes it was as stupid as her next saying "what was the name of that actor who starred on MASH, the one with the big nose? I saw him on the street today."
Like Russian Roulette. There is no payoff to the game, only the very painful and the less painful.
I haven't spoken to my mother on the phone in over a year at this point. The silence is uncomfortable, and still leaves me with that bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, but at least it's not like a scab that keeps getting picked, everytime the phone rings.
I need to find out how to do that thing you did, associating a number with a ring. I like that one, a LOT.
Thanks for your comment, Maria.
Good to know it's not just me!
i have been no contact with my npd father and enabler mother for almost a year. i also have only a cell phone and have done exactly the same thing! i hate listening to messages from them though.
i have just found your blog through Nina's Narcissistic Parents blog :)
Erin
Thanks, Erin, and welcome!
I have a feeling you'll find plenty of reading here. I've tried to divide it up by approximate subject via the labels, as difficult as that that seemed.
hi elise,
your blog has been tremendously helpful. i discovered it today and will continue to look it over. thank you so much for sharing. i have been getting the silent treatment from my Nmom for over a year now...i offered to go to therpay with her so we could at least be in the same room w/out killing each other...which she considered for a minute and then declared that her heart (she has high blood pressure) just wouldn't take the therapy, she'd likely die during a session. so, rather then work on it (and specifically, to address The Thanksgiving From HELL which started all the recent drama), she has taken to ignoring me. of course, her husband (who, she says, loves me like his own daughter) has also been ignoring me...and my brother, the former black sheep, is the apple of her eye.
anyhow, she cut the strings because she did not want to play by my rules (my rules include boundaries) so she cut me off. and i am sad. and depressed. and sad. and grieving-- because now i see the real picture (i had been in total denial up until that thanksgiving about how terrible she is/was)...but in between all the dark moments, i am smiling. because she no longer calls me multiple times a day, she no longer berates me for being_____(you fill in the blank: fat. lazy. stubborn. or my favorite: just like your father [a man who walked out on me when i was 18 mos old...somehow, i am just like him]). yikes, elise, i did not intend to leave such a long comment. but i am relatively alone in this process, and your intelligence and voice are truly a blessing. the point i was trying to make is: she cut me off, but i am not looking back.
and i feel pretty good about it. (also, i am an art teacher too! and Nmom never had anything good to say about it).
Coco,
Welcome. I hope the rest of the blog will be helopful to you, although it is I who eventually made the decision to go no-contact with my N-mom (not the other way around, as is the case with your situation).
Please make use of the other links I have in the smaller column. They were immensely helpful to me when I was first starting to work through all of these issues.
This is amazing.
From adolescence, I always knew I was afraid of *making* phone calls... because NM would always demand a play-by-play of each call and tell me what I had done wrong, i.e., not said what she would have said if she was the one on the phone... which she wasn't, was she? (I know she did this to my ADULT father, too.) She would do this even when I was into my 20s (at that point, she'd just comment on what she'd overheard) and the calls had NOTHING TO DO with her.
Then about seven months after I moved out (and thought I'd escaped... HA!), the calls began that would make me afraid of *answering* the phone. (I even thought "AfraidOfThePhone" would make a good band name.) I don't need to tell you all what that's like.
Even though she now lives with me (because she can't hold a job and I can't afford to keep her in a separate apartment -- i.e., "rejection" in her eyes, perfectly normal health in mine), I am still not fond of the phone and usually try to get off as soon as possible.
I had nearly forgotten about the phone phobia in the morass of other issues I'm flailing about trying to tread, but, wow, that is indeed another byproduct of this crapstorm we're all in.
-Cassandra
Hi Cassandra,
Thanks for all of your recent comments! So great to have you here, reading and adding your insights.
Cheers!
Thanks, bonsai!
Ahhhh....the phone! And the "phone-phobia!"
The first concrete behavioral step I took when I moved to a new residence was inform pdmomma by snail mail I could no longer afford a phone as I was a poor college student (and geographically unavailable) so snail mail contact was the only "possibility."
Oh, the guilt! I point blank lied to her and got an unlisted number. I quizzed the rep up on side and down the other regarding "Are you ABSOLUTELY certain this number will never be released? If someone contacts your company and says it's an emergency.." etc. Finally, the exasperated but very patient rep said, "Are you SURE you want a phone at all?" (Of course, this was in 1983-before all the other technology.)
I had long since tired of the "DWI" (Dialing While Insane) phone calls at all hours. Didn't matter I had to get up in the AM for school/work/both and these middle of the night diatribes were taxing to say the least. The avalanche of snail mail letters/demands continued ultimately leading to NC in 1984-but she continued with the nasty-grams for the next 18 yrs.until her physical death despite numerous moves etc. on my part.
My pdmomma was also very affluent. My biggest fear was she would "offer" to have phone service hooked up for HER convenience. But I had somehow missed the point: MONEY was faaarr more important than her daughter. (Reality and a life-time of previous experience had demonstrated this repeatedly.) And THAT reality saved my butt as well as my unlisted number!
Only a pdparent can use the phone/technology as an instrument of torture/abuse.
Tundra Woman
Wow, TundraWoman!
You really went to the mat to protect yourself. I have total admiration for what you've done!
I haven't seen my N-mom in 6+ years, and haven't had a phone call from her in about 3. A gal could REALLY get used to this.
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