Drowning in negativity

[rayne89]

Of course she is not afraid of sledge hammering the door. It was not crazy. It was the best therapy in the world for her. It gave her a chance to vent off some of that interior rage that she carries around constantly inside her and that you see her express as her endless negativity.
This woman really does need encouragement to vent out her issues in some safe manner. More doors and more sledge hammers or an old mattress and a baseball bat to smack it with would probably do her a world of good. Dig deep enough and you’ll probably find that Genghis Khan really did chain her to a waterbuffalo when she was 3 (or something equally horrible), that it was not safe for her to express the rage where the rage was legitimately due, and that nothing and no one has been right with her world since that time. It is likely that this woman has a veritable steamer trunk of baggage from her childhood that you as her daughter have no idea even exists.

You are right she even said it feel good to bang the door knob off.

My mom’s dad died when she was three, one of her sister’s (who would have been the youngest) died as a toddler. My mom was in Italy during WWII and even though she was sent to the country to live with an uncle she has some scary Nazi stories to tell. Her uncle was a pharmacist and the Nazi’s came for the medicine. When she was an adult her mom, brother and sister all moved to America. She did not want to go so she stayed with an aunt. She had a fiance in Italy. Her mom kept asking her to visit, so she did finally come here for a visit. Then her mom begged her stay once she got to America so she did, leaving her fiance behind. (My mom carries a picture of this guy still.) After marrying my dad and having exploratory surgery because she was not becoming pregnant -it finally comes out it was my dad who was sterile -and he already suspected because of a childhood illness but was afraid to tell her. Her first adopted child has cancer at 18 mo. -my sister survived her childhood cancer. Her second adopted child (me) was diagnosed with a rare and complicated heart defect at 7 mo. I was expected to die -but obviously that didn’t happen. My older sister was diagnosed with cancer again at the age of 19 and passed away at 21. So yeah my mom has been through a lot.

She’s also has not held it inside. She’s raged for hours, days, weeks in the past. As a teen there were many days I went to school with no sleep because she spent the whole night just raging -walking the house screaming and banging furniture. She’s thrown things (sometimes at me or my dad), broke things, banged things (including a phone handset on my head) and verbally battered us for years, decades. I know she’s been through a lot. And I feel bad for those things, sincerely I do.

My dad has been through a lot, I know a lot of people who have been through a lot -the sad part is all she see’s is the bad. There has been a lot of good. My mom is near the end of her life and all she has is regrets -it makes me sad that she’ll leave this world this way.

 

[rosmerta]

I really feel for you and others here with similar experiences. I have a dear friend whose husband is acting a bit like this (I’ll be posting a new thread because she and I don’t know what comes next, and some perspective from faithful fellow Catholics would be very welcome).

I have a book suggestion for you: Children of the Self-Absorbed, by Nina Brown (tinyurl.com/kqcfgq). Your mom may not actually have narcissistic personality disorder, but you may find some of the coping mechanisms a help.

One of the biggest things that is helping my friend (who has worked through Brown’s book Loving the Self-Absorbed) is the notion of detachment - not letting yourself get caught up in the other person’s frustrations, fantasies, and ideas. Learning to put a mental/emotional wall between yourself and the other person can help you survive those tough interactions.

God bless you and your mom, both, and give you the grace you need.

 

[former_Catholic]

She’s also has not held it inside. She’s raged for hours, days, weeks in the past. As a teen there were many days I went to school with no sleep because she spent the whole night just raging -walking the house screaming and banging furniture. She’s thrown things (sometimes at me or my dad), broke things, banged things (including a phone handset on my head) and verbally battered us for years, decades

It is clear that your mother has not dealt with her issues at all. Screaming, banging furniture, throwing things, breaking things… all those things were convenient, all those things were harmless, all those things were available to act out the rage on, but not one of those things was ever the issue. She has never dealt with her issues. Acting out the rage isn’t grieving out, releasing, and letting go of the pain.

Verbally battering the nice safe family members around her who didn’t verbally batter her back… they were all convenient, they were all harmless, they were all available to act out the rage on, but not one of them was ever the issue either. She never dealt with her issues there either. Acting out the rage isn’t grieving out, releasing, and letting go of the pain.

It’s truly a pity that she was not the one to go back to Europe, to Italy… and confront her old ghosts that have haunted her for all these years.
Interviewing her for a complete family history could help by bringing up the old ghosts and at least giving her a chance to examine her issues and work on releasing them.

If it were me, I’d drive her to the mall with Andrea Bocelli’s “Macchine Da Guerra” from Romanza playing on the CD player on the endless repeat cycle:
"Ascolta a tua cuore se batte…" it’s good adivce
I’d sing along.
I’d sing along about how orphans of life can and do end up machines of war when they don’t listen to their hearts nor look at the stars, but insist on creating more broken glass for everyone to walk on with bare feet.

If she ever insisted on truly behaving like a macchina da guerra, I would pull out the video camera and start filming: “Mama, I want something for the kids to remember you by after you’re gone!” Life is grand opera, all great performances deserve to be immortalized, and it works so much better and faster than those tranquilizer dart guns that park rangers use on rogue elephants!

 

[rayne89]

It is clear that your mother has not dealt with her issues at all. Screaming, banging furniture, throwing things, breaking things… all those things were convenient, all those things were harmless, all those things were available to act out the rage on, but not one of those things was ever the issue. She has never dealt with her issues. Acting out the rage isn’t grieving out, releasing, and letting go of the pain.

Verbally battering the nice safe family members around her who didn’t verbally batter her back… they were all convenient, they were all harmless, they were all available to act out the rage on, but not one of them was ever the issue either. She never dealt with her issues there either. Acting out the rage isn’t grieving out, releasing, and letting go of the pain.

It’s truly a pity that she was not the one to go back to Europe, to Italy… and confront her old ghosts that have haunted her for all these years.
Interviewing her for a complete family history could help by bringing up the old ghosts and at least giving her a chance to examine her issues and work on releasing them.

If it were me, I’d drive her to the mall with Andrea Bocelli’s “Macchine Da Guerra” from Romanza playing on the CD player on the endless repeat cycle:
"Ascolta a tua cuore se batte…" it’s good adivce
I’d sing along.
I’d sing along about how orphans of life can and do end up machines of war when they don’t listen to their hearts nor look at the stars, but insist on creating more broken glass for everyone to walk on with bare feet.

If she ever insisted on truly behaving like a macchina da guerra, I would pull out the video camera and start filming: “Mama, I want something for the kids to remember you by after you’re gone!” Life is grand opera, all great performances deserve to be immortalized, and it works so much better and faster than those tranquilizer dart guns that park rangers use on rogue elephants!

Ahh such a dramatic ascertainment of my mom’s issues, such a romantic notion. Life doesn’t work that way and neither does mental disturbance or the damage is does to the people around it. I’ve forgiven my mom for the the abusiveness I lived through as a teen. My dad still lives with it - not believing in divorce he will live out the end years of his life with it, doing the best that he can. Don’t turn this into an Italian Opera and don’t use the word harmless describing my mother’s behavior.

She’s been offered (several times) opportunities to go to Italy, she always has excuses why she can’t go. My mom wants to remember Italy in the ideal, fantastical way she has created in her head -not the way it is in reality. In my mom’s mind everything about Italy is perfect. There’s very little crime, there’s no immorality, everyone is Catholic and it’s all clean, and beautiful etc. You are very naive if you think a trip to Italy would make my mom “all better”. This isn’t the movies.

 

[former_Catholic]

This isn’t the movies.

Filming your mother isn’t a romantic notion about making movies. It’s the easiest way to confront her and hold her accountable for her behavior and its consequences. It’s also the easiest way to keep a dated record of her behavior, monitor mental and physical degradation over time, have her behavior evaluated by a mental health professional if necessary, or present as evidence supporting her incompetence for the protection of your father in the event that she becomes a worst case scenario… Filming her is also the easiest way to instantly put a stop to her bad behavior if she is not too far gone mentally, physically, and socially to consider the personal embarrassment she might feel at the thought of the entire family gathered around to scrutinize and seriously evaluate her recorded behavior. By filming her, you demonstrate that the game is clearly over and that you are no longer willing to play it.

If she doesn’t want to go to Italy and confront her old ghosts, continually singing about orphans of war becoming machines of war every time she acts out can be a gentle form of direct confrontation. It is a demonstration that you are fully capable of countering her behavior and that you’ll consider stopping your singing in her face about orphans of war becoming machines of war at such time that she becomes willing to stop behaving like one. Alternatively and less gently, she may need to be informed that you can whine louder and longer than she can, scream louder and longer than she can, rage louder and longer than she can, applaud/laugh at/critique/banish her grand operatic performances longer than she can continue with her performances, and that you are willing to not engage in such behavior just as soon as she decides that she is willing to stop such behavior. It is also important to call her by her first name whenever she is behaving like a 3 year old, and not call her “mom.”

No, I do not expect your mother to get all better. I expect her behavior to degrade, and to the extent that she would choose to rage without confronting her deeper issues I would expect her mental and physical health to degrade dramatically as her soul forces such confrontation. The people around her will definitely need to learn how to manage, counter, and hold her accountable for her behavior, and quite possibly keep records of it for their own protection.