Mommamaree, you dear thing, I wish I could hug you…I am sorry to have hurt you, that is not what I meant! I will try again, and try to be more clear this time. (And, BTW, good for you for putting your foot down and saying that the stinky does stink. Good woman!!)
No, no, no, no, no. I am not saying you ought to bear your mother more gracefully! Oh, good heavens, no! Do I have a bear in my backyard? A lizard in my house? No! And it isn’t because I don’t love lizards or bears! It is because I think the lizard and the bear living somewhere else is better for everyone involved. I’m fond of God’s creatures, so it is not meant as any affront, but just an analogy with those creatures that people project abilities onto…that is, that gee, a bear is just a big dog and a lizard is like a cat. No, whether or not you like bears or lizards, you have to admit that they are not dogs or cats!
No, I was only trying to give you
permission to choose something for yourself, regardless of what I would choose. What I would choose irrelevant, because this is not my choice. I don’t want to put you in a position where you go from your mother dictating your whole life to having me dictate your whole life, that is all! I’m trying to say, “if this were to be the choice you want–not the one I’d want, but the choice of people I feel are competent–then there is a way to do it, if you were determined to do it.”
I don’t mean that you don’t love her in terms of caring about her! Heavens, you would not be here if you did not care about her!! I mean that the work of loving her and the work of being honest about what her true nature is are the same work! You are doing the right thing!! In spite of what she has told you, it is in no way unloving of you to say “Mom, you are unpredictable and you can be dangerous” or “Mom, you hurt me at every turn”. It is in no way unloving for you to let her live her life far from you. It is in no way unloving to point to the harm she has done to you. None of those things would be any failure on your part whatsoever! No, I am saying that by loving her it was inevitable that you would realize that what the depths of your heart have been telling you are right all along. You are beautiful, I can tell just by the things you write. Either out of blindness or out of stubbornness, she is the one who is wrong. She is the one who does not see, who will not even see what she could see.
I meant only to reaffirm Martha Stout’s first rule of dealing with a sociopath:* Swallow the bitter pill of accepting that some people literally have no conscience.* According to my analogy, it would make total sense for you not to have any more contact with her
at all, and that would in no way be in conflict with your love of her or even your appreciation of her good points. It would merely be a recognition of the danger that her state of being a sociopath poses, especially for those who love her the most. A person who does not love bears, after all, feels no conflict about whether to keep their distance. It is only the person who appreciates a bear’s good points or who had hoped the bear was a dog because she deeply wants to be near the bear that has that conflict. I’m saying: If you do decide to have contact with her, do not feel any guilt about always keeping her true nature always in your mind. You would not only be allowed to do that, you would need to.
I am trying to defend your right to make your own choice. If you were a personal friend I would support you whether you broke off contact or if you did not break off contact, provided you were not denying the necessity of keeping yourself safe as you did it. It is your choice, based on how you want to handle the tension between the dangers she poses and whatever positive things you feel could come of contact with her, if there are any…and that, too, is your call, because you know.
If you were to break off all contact, though…I’d be totally relieved! You’ve been hurt enough. My only concern is that I don’t take the hurt your mother has done as carte blanche to tell you what to do. Deciding what you want to do is your right, and I believe you are fully capable of deciding that on your own. I also don’t want to say she has nothing loveable about her. I only want to say that the danger she poses justifies your decision to cut off contact, even if she does have other good points. It justifies great care if you do have contact.
The Hallmark comment? I have noticed that nearly all of us grieve a terrible situation as if the alternative were far better than it could have been. Most women I know have some grief concerning their relationship with either their mother or their father. Not all, but by far most. If that doesn’t help, though, ditch it.
I hope I am finally making some sense. If not, ditch all of it! If it doesn’t help…
just ditch it!
This is my most important message, then: I trust your sense of what helps and what doesn’t! You are right to trust yourself, too! You are a loving person, you are a competent person, the more you trust your own deep sense of things instead of pressure from anyone else–including me!!–the better you will do, and you can do this! Don’t let anyone else tell you differently, and if it sounds like they’re saying something different, then you go ahead and tell them off, too! Good woman!!
I didn’t leave her then because I believe in “the vow” but the fact that she was crying makes me think (now) that she can’t be a true sociopath.
