I see a lot of similarities in our stories. My mother is committed to her codependence more so than anything else in her life. She's also more blind to it & all it's correlating behaviors than anything else. Worse is that my sister seems to be determined to follow her horrendous path, leaving me completely disconnected from my family in order to keep healthy boundaries for myself & DD.
I know that for me, my father got sober & made active amends for our situation before his death. He & I spoke at length about his addictions & poor choices & consequences.
The difference is that he took accountability in a way she still refuses to consider. She's given that blanket apology of being
"sorry for everything" but refuses to change going forward (or really see how/why it's necessary). And even that apology was sort of spit out in haste because she's so uncomfortable with apologizing. She owes my husband an apology right now but chooses to choke on those words instead.
Last time we spoke to her even DD wanted to know why she makes everything (like basic convo) SO hard? It's almost like she's incapable of focusing on anything positive or forward-moving. Every time we try to turn a conversation toward something good, her frustration is obvious & borders on anger & she stays restless until she can bend the convo back into some grievance or complaint.
Her way of managing life is to internalize everything & hold tightly to her sense of Victimization. She speaks Wound-ology & as long as you are coddling her ever-increasing aches & pains, you're in good graces with her. Mind you - her physical problems continue to ramp up in direct relation to her emotional internalization so she's getting sicker & more physically incapable every single day.... and she's only in her early 60's.... so when I played this tape forward I knew I would struggle for decades to come if I didn't find a way to put my foot down now. She feels that I don't make enough time to help her out in life - I should be carving time out of my evenings & weekends to help her in whatever ways she needs.
But - wait, that's also been my entire life up to a couple of years ago when I had my AHA moments around this issue. The "thing" needing my immediate attention may change but she/they have always "needed" from me in ways that cross boundaries for most people.
When I try to explain things like how inappropriate is was for my father to sit me down at 19 & show me how to manage the household because he was dying & felt that my mother would break down & be unable to do it herself..... how he basically told me that her grief superseded my own & that my job was to be there for her...... (She wasn't even 40 at the time - with 2 teen daughters) .....she got huffy & said, "you know!!?? Other families just call that
playing to their strengths when they just help each other out like that!!" That's not what this was AT ALL.
She also has a very twisted memory - she essentially blocked out or edited every memory that displays her in a bad light or makes her uncomfortable. (likely she recorded the memories "wrong" to begin with as a defense mechanism) So when she brings up something ridiculous that is SO far out of line with reality, I can't catch my jaw fast enough before it shatters on the floor. Triggers are everywhere in situations like this - and while she's laughing & elbowing me, thinking she's sharing a bonding memory, I'm rabidly trying to find a way to sidestep it or correct it without making her feel badly about the "real" memory. I come off like the bad guy because, god, I can't even LAUGH about stuff anymore??
The only thing that gives me peace is Limited-to-No Contact. She refuses to hear me & I refuse to sacrifice my daughter on the altar of my mother's dysfunction, because here's the thing that goes unsaid: She views her history of sexual abuse to be far worse than anything I've had to deal with in life so she is constantly judging my issues as "not as damaging" or "less-than" her own & by that logic, I don't really have anything to complain about at all. In her opinion (said in almost these words) it's time for me to "just get over it already".
