house of bonsai: News Flash

February 15, 2012

News Flash

Had a wonderful phone conversation with my brother J. yesterday. He wanted to wish me a happy early bithday and a happy Valentine's Day, but also give me an update on our mother. The scoop:

She's recently returned to New England after some months in the Bahamas.
She no longer has any credit cards. Whether that's because she's continued to refuse to let anyone effectively manage her finances while she refuses to do so, or is just too lazy/distracted to apply for new cards, who knows. Seems that J. has been facilitating purchases for her, including those made while overseas. Where that leaves time for him to eat, sleep, or breathe, I have no idea.
J. had dinner with her and with one of the higher-up monks from the Monastery (Father F). J. said that it was very interesting to see her speaking to him (a holy man who, as non-family, has no inherent "buttons" for her to push) in a way that amounted to "letting her same old tapes just keep playing."
He mentioned that he was out taking a walk in his neighborhood. He said that whenever he has a phone conversation with (or about) her, he has to get up and move, simply to work out the excess frustration. I had no problem understanding or believing him.
I brought up the papers she served me with a few years back, accusing me of identity theft (a class C felony), reiterating to him that they constituted the last "contact" I'd had with her. Apparently, I'd never mentioned them to him before. Wow. He was pretty blown away by that bit.

Lastly, he gave me a word of warning that she asked him directly about me and whether I was still "dating" Rob. Last she knew (at the time of the 2005 siege and the period leading up to it) Rob and I had already bought real estate together, but were not formally engaged. We married in 2006.

J., never one to ever fudge the truth (much less tell an outright lie), told her that Rob and I had "been married for years". This seemed to throw her for a loop, in his view, not because she necessarily cares about the marriage per se, but because it just hit her that we'd been out of touch for so long --- and she certainly is fascinated with keeping tallies of such facts and figures ("I've been here at the hotel for 10 months"; "I haven't taken a shower in 6 days", etc.). So he wanted to give me a heads up that this new wave of news might cause her to become more animated and try to contact me.

I thanked him for the update!

We went on to have one of the most wide-ranging, light-hearted, and fun conversations we've had in a long time. Now that the responsibility of creating a wall between her and total chaos is falling 100% on him, I no longer get any of the arms-length, judgmental tone from him that was his stock and trade for years. Before, there was always the sense of "Gee, little sis is doing the best she can. But she's so flaky and scattered ... I bet there could be a better outcome if she wasn't on the front lines".

I asked him to step up many times, but to no avail. To be fair, life prevented him from doing so for quite a few years (he was the parent of young twins.) Finally, I just dropped the rope completely. He stepped up. Now he knows. I am no longer the buffer between her and the rest of the world, attempting to stage-manage her unmanageable, day-late/dollar-short life. It's all on him now. And he doesn't resent me for it! Instead, it seems to have brought us closer, and to have added a layer of understanding that wasn't there before. Now THAT's a nice Valentine's Day gift.

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how to navigate this blog

Welcome!

First, please read the "first post, August 2006", further down in this column. It sets the context for everything that follows.

Then, please click on the labels section and go chronologically. Sometimes I'll write about a memory about something which happened a long time ago, so going by the dates the posts were written isn't the best way to read the blog. Occasionally, a given post that is relevant over time will have several labels applied to it (1970s, 1980s, 1990s). But overall: stick with the labels and it will be a lot clearer!

Thank you for being here, and for reading.

Note: some names have been changed to preserve privacy.

first post, August 2006

Recently, it's come to my attention that I have a challenge to meet, a life-altering decision to make: can I continue to have contact with my mother and still hold onto my integrity, my sanity, my serenity?

My mother (who at her best was at one time glamorous, brilliant, interesting, eclectic, and self-absorbed) has morphed over the past years and decades into an unrepentant, myopic, full-blown narcissist. She turns all conversations back to the topic of herself, thinks nothing of the true welfare of others (although she sometimes pretends to do so for short periods when it serves her), and can never take even partial responsibility for any of her actions or inactions. "I am sorry" is a phrase which never falls from her lips...never.

Everyone has bad times and bad luck, but in her eyes, her bad times and bad luck are always worse than anyone else's. She's been "going through a hard time" from the years of my earliest memories, at age 3 or 4, more or less non-stop up through today. Her reaction to others putting up healthy boundaries (in my case, very late in life) is to fly into one of her legendary rages. She also cannot take responsibility for the fact that her actions (and inactions) have been prime contributors to the very negative, sad, isolated place her life has now become.

Her friends, subjected increasingly to her incessant self-focus and self-pity, have been abandoning her in droves, finally tiring of the asymmetric nurturing she requires of all those around her. This trend has put even more pressure on me, in recent years, to be there for her, as one of her last remaining contacts. And now even I am throwing in the towel, going against every ounce of socialization I've received (as her only daughter) from her and from society at large.

Because one of the primary methods of a narcissist is be at the center of attention (whether positive or negative, sometimes it doesn't even matter to them) and to have others see life through their distorted point of view, it seems that children of narcissistic parents can really bear the brunt of this disorder.

It seems that it is only now --- after 40 years of life on this earth, a decade or more of escalating attempts to help her with her never-ending, chronic-by-design problems and issues, several recent severe crises due to my overextending my and my partner's energies to try to help even more --- that I am able to even look at the history, the issues, and for a sane path out of this dark thicket of her pathology. I attribute this growth to increasing self-esteem and resiliency, due in no small part to a wonderful partner and friends, as well as some therapy.

Merely telling my friends "she makes all conversations into brochures about herself" or "she can't apologize" doesn't even begin to illustrate the true depth of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. If I sit down to chat and tell these ridiculous stories over again with various friends, particularly in enough detail to give even a fraction of the full picture, it will take up too much of our potentially much more pleasant time together.

At the same time, I do want those who are close to me to understand what it is that I've experienced, on whatever level they're interested or have time for --- from skimming a post or two to reading more extensively. Much of it will come as a surprise, precisely because of the fact that the sheer oddness and inappropriateness of her behaviour leads me not to bring it up in polite company. It's all too weird, too complicated, and too unsavory to discuss within the context of an average dinner with friends...

Perhaps most importantly, these memories have been living in my head for years, and I've been holding onto them almost like a set of worry beads, a template to keep in mind in case other narcissistic people try to enter my life, so I can run in the other direction. Since, in her absence, I'm finally beginning to trust my judgment a bit more, I think I can safely begin to let these memories go, to let them fade a bit --- to the best extent possible. Writing them out, I'm hoping, will go a good way toward accomplishing that "letting go".

Whether you're an old friend, a treasured colleague, or someone whom I've met and bonded with through the online ACON community, I welcome your comments and cherish your ongoing support and friendship.

house of bonsai

February 15, 2012

News Flash

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