Wascally Wabbit

My mom is staying with my cousin. She had an appointment to find out what is causing her high BP. I told her I would come up there and ride with her to Atlanta to be with her. My cousin would drive.
I just couldn't bring myself to go. I made up an excuse.
She came home and I called later that evening.
Well, after calling when she came home, she sounds SO PITIFUL.
I had told her I would come up Sunday (today), but when I got up, I just couldn't bring my self to go! I made up another excuse not to go.
I know she doesn't feel good. I know that there is something wrong with her, but I just can't bring myself to be around her constant complaining and black cloud mentality.
So, I feel guilty and free at the same time.

DesertEyes

Sounds like progress to me I know that when I feel guilty about some sick person who _wants_ to be sick and gets a charge out of using that sickness to manipulate others I am just replaying old "brainwashing tapes" that were forced upon me.

What helps me is to not sit around and stew in the guild. I grab my phone list of people from real life meets and call them up to see how _they_ are doing.

Congrats on feeling free, Wabbit, that's awesome 8

Mike

duet_4-8

Oh can I ever relate to this one!! Hope you are having a WONDERFUL Sunday afternoon!!!!

Midnightfrost

Isn't it an odd mix. Here's to hoping the guilt continues to fade and the peace continues to grow!

Wascally Wabbit

This is her to a tee. Thanks for the clarification! She has always been "sick" with something. A hypocondriac. I suppose it's begging for attention in that old narcissistic way, and dumping tons of guilt on anyone who will receive it.
Why do people have to be like this?
I would love to tell her exactly how I feel, but, she will just act hurt and scared, not paying one bit of attention to MY feelings. She won't recognize what she does is the very reason my sister will have NOTHING what so ever to do with her for the last 8 years. No phone calls, nothing. She drove my sister mad. Now, she's taken up with her nephew. I wonder how long that will last. But, he is very codependant, and a caretaker. So maybe they met their perfect match.
It's all about HER.

DesertEyes

Why do ducks quack? dogs howl? and cats meow?

Yup, some people are addicted to themselves.

Now that you have taken the first steps in breaking away from the control that you allowed her to have over you, what's next? How are you going to build upon the progress you have made so far?

Mike

Wascally Wabbit

That, Deserteyes, is the one million dollar question.
I am just getting my recovery legs when it comes to my mom.
I don't want to be unloving to her, but of course I don't want the doom and gloom she always brings with her.
Any ideas?

Midnightfrost

I'm trying writing a letter I'm not going to send. Well I'm actually responding in detail to emails she sent me. Just for me. I'm not going to send them because I know she would just use it to manipulate me and tell me I'm wrong. But it feels great to "say" those things my mind has been screaming for so long. And I can say exactly what I feel and what I need to say because she's not going to read it. Its for me. It's something to try! I don't think its so much matters what she would have to say any how its more about reconciling all the things I've felt and been told were wrong. I've been writing specifics. I think it'll do me good later too. Cause when I'm feeling guilty I can reread it and reassure myself I'm not the crazy one in the situation.

Wascally Wabbit

Midnightfrost, that sounds like a good idea.
Its so darn sad that parents have to act worse than bratty children. It's like they never grew up.

DesertEyes

What worked for me with my toxic parents was old-fashioned al-anon principles

According to al-anon, what is the most loving thing I can do for a person with an addiction? Stay out of the way of their recovery. If I "enable" their addiction, then I'm just protecting them from the consequences of their behavior. If they never hurt, why should they grow? If a child _never_ got burned from the flame of the stove, they would never quit playing with the pretty blue light.

Narcissists .... dang, I can never spell that word, and you don't want to hear my try and pronounce it!!! Anyway, they're addicted to themselves. So what you can do is apply the program of al-anon to your relationship with your Mother.

As far as protecting yourself from harm, that's a big part of al-anon. It comes under "boundaries" and "consequences". What kind of contact with your Mother is actually _enhancing_ your life? That is the minimum acceptable behavior I would accept from a parent or relative. That much contact that is enhancing I allow, and the stuff that is _less_ than enhancing I just put up a boundary and refuse it in my life.

That's what I did with my alcoholic parents... uncles, aunts, cousins, etc. and it worked great for me. My life improved incredibly when I stuck to my boundaries.

Mike

GingerM

Interesting you should say this Mike - I find if I force myself to sit and stew about it, eventually it becomes too ludicrous even for my warped background to allow, and it goes away.

In Post Traumatic Shock therapy, one method that's used to get rid of intrusive visual recalls (reliving it) is to make your mind focus on whatever the picture is that your mind keeps pulling up for as long as possible. (I've used this technique, it does work)

For instance, if I say "don't think about a banana", the first thing that happens is a picture of a banana pops into your mind. But if I say "I want you to think about a banana for the next 15 minutes, and during that time, you are not allowed to think about anything BUT the banana..." well, by about minute 2, my brain starts to wander.

So I do the same with the guilt. I wallow in it until my brain either gets bored with it, or starts to see it as being really amazingly insanely stupid.

Which just goes to show that each of our paths to recovery can take different forms and that there is no "right" way to recover.

That said, I'm going to cheer you on Wascal. You're doing really well, keep doing what you're doing, because you really are making progress. Unfortunately, we don't tend to be able to see how far we've come until we turn around and look back.

DesertEyes

Yup, exactly right, which is why we have that slogan "Take what you like and leave the rest"

Mike

Wascally Wabbit

I am getting a lot out of everyone's answers.
Duh, I should have thought the alanon way, Mike. It's true. Addicted to themselves. What a trip! No drug can make me as high as the one I get from being in my own company!

I think I will do just what you suggested. I will start work on not allowing the negativity. The problem with that is, that's all that comes out of her mouth. What do you do then? If I tell her, she will blame me for trying to hurt her feelings. You know, that old manipulatitive technique all sick people use to dump tons of guilt on you when you don't do what they want.
Hmmm. This is the journey. Figuring out how to do this and keep a balance.

Ginger, I don't know how to feel about the stewing issue. I find myself talking to myself over and over about something that pisses me off about her, and I wind up even more pissed! But, I am willing to try this technique. Help me here. What do I focus on exactly. Her face? I am just not clear on this an I know you can help.

GingerM

You focus on how you feel. You feel mad, you feel angry, you're so pissed you can't see straight. Focus on it as hard as you can, remove all other thoughts from your mind. Then focus on it for as long as you can - as soon as a thought like "I'd like some potato chips" pops into your head, chase it back out and keep focusing. Don't try to do this while you're doing other things - sit in a comfy chair or someplace where you're not doing anything else but turning your mind's eye inward on your anger.

You don't want to focus on her (that's part of the problem here, the focus is on her - which only feeds her to do more). You want the focus on you. So focus on how you feel until you simply can't maintain the focus on it anymore. Then it kind of "poofs" away. I don't think I've ever managed to maintain focus longer than about 5 minutes or so. 5 minutes is a VERY long time to try to maintain focus on any single thing (try picturing a banana for 5 minutes).

I'm not sure if this will work with your mom, but I find with some people, agreeing with them works really well, especially if you can keep your true feelings separated from what's coming out of your mouth. I use all kinds of nicer variations of the phrase "yup, must suck to be you" and that seems to placate them. A little "I'm sure it's all my fault" often helps too. In my mind I often play the "opposite day" game where I tell myself that I'm going to say the opposite of what I'm really thinking/feeling - then I say it.

For me, that technique is another form of boundary - it just has to be set a little differently because, hey, we're not dealing with people who understand normal emotional boundaries, so I may need to adapt my settings a little differently. By agreeing with them (whilst knowing I don't *really* agree with them), they don't have anything to argue with or any hold over me anymore. No resistance = no hold.

On rare occasions, I've said "I seem to cause you nothing but pain and anguish. If you would like, I will remove myself from your life so that you can be happy." I only say that if I am willing to make good on the offer, although from what you describe of your mom, she would not want you to leave (after all, who would she have as a scapegoat then?).

So far as I'm concerned, any trick in my toolbox that I need to use to get the negativity to stop, I'm willing to use to take care of myself. If that means agreeing with them to make them drop the subject, then that's okay. After all, every side in a war feints now and then as a defensive strategy.

Wascally Wabbit

Wow, thanks Ginger. I will re read your post a few times and get it in my head. Then, when the time comes, I can practice these suggestions.
I know myslef. When she starts blaming me, it's all I can do not to tell her to jump in a lake and hang up.
I guess I will have to visualize myself saying something nice instead.
Really great help Ginger.
Thanks so much

GingerM

Hanging up is a viable tool as well. If you don't think you can find a reason to do so without incurring more wrath, go ring your own doorbell and ....oops, mom, someone's at the door, gotta run, talk to you later *click*.

And really, by saying *but not believing* that "it's all my fault", you are kind of telling her to go jump in a lake, you're just using different words. It's acknowledging that her world is different from yours. I would translate into healthyese as "I know you think I'm the worst human ever, I recognize that you think that, I disagree with you, but you're certainly welcome to have your opinions, no matter how baseless they are."

Heck, a lot of people vote using baseless opinions, and people are allowed to hold as many baseless opinions as they want. Doesn't mean you have to agree with them in your mind or your heart.

Wascally Wabbit

You're a genious!!! I love this one. This is about to become my escape from thee endless whining!

I am going to chew on what you have said. It usually takes my reading something a few times to get it all the way into my head. Then, I remember it.
Working on myself sure is a lot of hard work. But, eventually it will pay off, and I will be RICH in sanity dollars.
Thanks so much.

GingerM

You're more than welcome. I recently discovered yet one more landmine in the labyrinth of my own recovery, and just today had an hour long chat with my therapist about it.

I don't think we're ever really fully "recovered", we just come to a better place of peace with ourselves and how WE think of US (as opposed to how other people think of us). This most recent landmine is something *I* don't like about me and something *I* want to be different about me.

And thank YOU for posting. It is equally as beneficial to me to keep these tools in the fore of my brain - after all, if we don't stay brushed up on our skills, those old habits slip back in like an octopus in a bottle. And once those suckers get stuck on, getting the octopus back out of the bottle isn't exactly easy, although I get more efficient at it each time I go through "forgetting" one of my skills and having to relearn it. So while I may be giving you useful tools, you help me to keep mine sharp and at the ready.

(and yes, I have rung my own doorbell before, works like a champ!)