What would you do if you think your mother is a sociopath?

[Eleanor61]

I am so happy people are suggesting that people stay away from the abuser. I don’t think abusers are going to change no matter what we do.

My husband and children would have been so much better off if I had concentrated more on them instead of trying to appease my sociopath father, who was never satisfied with anything I did. The issue was that extended family were telling me I should “take care of Dad”.

This was exactly my situation with my mom. I wish I had all those years back when my kids were little, all those Christmases she distracted me from…

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

Thanks Litcrit for the blog link.

I’ve been reading about other people’s experiences and am thinking about 2 things: that my experience does not sound as bad as theirs (feeling guilty again) and what my brother’s role is in all of this. I wonder if there is any point in speaking to him about it. I know he doesn’t believe me and thinks I am overreacting. I just don’t know sometimes…

 

[mommamaree]

I am so happy people are suggesting that people stay away from the abuser. I don’t think abusers are going to change no matter what we do.

My husband and children would have been so much better off if I had concentrated more on them instead of trying to appease my sociopath father, who was never satisfied with anything I did. The issue was that extended family were telling me I should “take care of Dad”.

Thank you for the reminder about where my vocation truly is. Our Lord explained the vocation of marriage clearly, and that includes “leaving and cleaving”. Anything or anyone that distracts us or disables us from fulfilling our vocation with joy and gratitude has no place in our life. Once we grow to adulthood, we are able to choose and make our own family, with God’s help, and if parents want to continue playing mind games with their grown-up, married children, then removing their presence or influence from your life is the healthy and biblical thing to do. I am learning all of this now, as I continue to pore through materials and resources on dealing with parents who “behave badly”.

 

[mommamaree]

Here is one of my favorite blogs by a daughter of a narcissistic mother. She’s a practicing Catholic and a loving mother of five. She has no contact with her parents, partly because her mother had started playing mind games with the children and was even willing to expose the little girl to sexual abuse just to keep the peace with family friends:

The Hardest Battle

You will find there a list of other blogs by people whose parents also have personality disorders.

Sending hugs, support, and prayers your way.

Thanks Litcrit. I will check this one out today.

 

[mommamaree]

Thanks Litcrit for the blog link.

I’ve been reading about other people’s experiences and am thinking about 2 things: that my experience does not sound as bad as theirs (feeling guilty again) and what my brother’s role is in all of this. I wonder if there is any point in speaking to him about it. I know he doesn’t believe me and thinks I am overreacting. I just don’t know sometimes…

Be careful about feeling guilty because our parents weren’t/aren’t “that bad”. There is always someone else who is/has been abused more than we have. There is no prize for absorbing the most abuse before walking away from a destructive relationship. (As I am saying this to you, I am really saying this to myself! I am going through this very issue right now, as well as dealing with the fact that my anger has subsided and I tend to forget the abuse once my anger is gone - a childhood coping mechanism that I need to overcome.) We do not need to justify allowing a person to experience the natural consequences of their actions. They are responsible for their behavior. But if we keep pretending like “it is not that bad”, or “he/she didn’t mean it”, or “he/she is just sick and can’t help it” then we are enabling them. I do not want to enable my mother any longer. I have had a lifetime of being torn down and manipulated and rejected. I need to get to a place where I REMEMBER, yet still forgive.

 

[mommamaree]

I have my next appointment with my therapist scheduled for one week from today. Thank goodness. I really need to talk with a professional about all these issues and get help to come to a decision. I know now that I will not be condemned by anyone who knows what is going on for deciding to move on with my life without my mother. I doubt I would even condemn myself at this point. After all, she has cut me out of her life several times since my early twenties and only allowed me back into her good graces after she punished me long enough. No, the issue that I am struggling with so much now is that I will truly miss her face and her voice. Her behavior and words and choices are all incredibly repulsive. But her face and her voice are the first face and voice that I ever saw and heard. I know now that I cannot ever hate her. I tried to in the past, in order to deal with the betrayal and rejection I experienced at her hands. But it wasn’t real hatred, just a mask for my deep grief. I still don’t know what psychological label applies here; maybe my therapist can help me with that. But I do know that she has always mistreated me. I also know that if she hasn’t changed in all the years that I kept confronting her, begging her to stop mistreating me, that she is unlikely to ever change. So, it is almost like she is making my decision for me, because I cannot allow these egregious boundary violations to continue. What would be the point in having boundaries any longer, if I stopped defending them? But having to constantly patrol those boundaries against every comment, every action is absolutely exhausting and life-draining. I cannot keep collapsing into a puddle of tears during every visit (I go and hide in my room for a while) because SHE has no respect for me or my reasonable boundaries. Boundaries like, “Please don’t share gory details of your sex life”, “Please don’t make comments about how much weight I have gained or how frumpy I look in skirts”, “Please don’t criticize my children”, “Please stop competing with me”, “Please don’t lie to me”, etc.
When EVERY SINGLE COMMENT that she makes seems calculated to push back against my boundaries (like the raptors in Jurassic Park that tested for weak points in the electrified fencing of their habitats), what choice does she leave me?

 

[mommamaree]

Here is one of my favorite blogs by a daughter of a narcissistic mother. She’s a practicing Catholic and a loving mother of five. She has no contact with her parents, partly because her mother had started playing mind games with the children and was even willing to expose the little girl to sexual abuse just to keep the peace with family friends:

The Hardest Battle

You will find there a list of other blogs by people whose parents also have personality disorders.

Sending hugs, support, and prayers your way.

SORRY FOR ALL CAPS BUT I JUST HAVE TO SAY THAT THIS BLOG IS AMAZING! HER MOTHER IS JUST LIKE MY MOTHER. IT IS SCARY HOW MUCH OUR EXPERIENCE IS THE SAME IN A SICK AND TWISTED WAY.

Okay, caps lock off now. I just was really worked up. Someone else gets it…really, really gets it. The kinds of stunts this bloggers mother pulls are just like what what my mother does to keep me in my place. I have had it. I am good and mad again. I think I will capitalize on this anger right now to keep going in this difficult process. Thanks again so much, Litcrit.

 

[houseofsaul]

Thanks mamaslo. Such a helpful post.

I edited to address this comment which was particularly helpful to me.

This is what torments me so. What DOES it look like to honor an emotionally and spiritually abusive (at one time, physically abusive) parent? What does forgiveness feel like even, in this situation?

I have been here…still deal with it over time. You can forgive the offender and still honor them from a distance. For the sake of your own health you must cut ties. I forgive and then something comes up and the bitterness returns, this has been a process of 7 years…but it does get easier. I do not wish her/them any ill will, I forgive them for the pain they have caused, but I will not allow them to be a part of my present or future life. Just like a dog that has been kicked, he will return a few times out of love and loyalty but then will either run away and never return or bite back. The bitterness creeps in like I said from time to time because unfortunately for every action is a reaction or a chain of reactions that do not all occur at once. Live one day at a time the best that you can and let God do the rest. This last statement is the hardest. Good luck.

These questions are the very reason why I am reaching out here, as well as in counseling and through reading and supportive friendships. I don’t only need psychological answers. I need spiritual answers, too. Especially since being Catholic is such a huge part of who I am, and now my mother is acting like she is a better Catholic than me (even though she is not done with RCIA, annulments, etc.) and pointing out how I am lacking spiritually.

I know of no one in “real life” who has had intimate personal relationships with sociopaths/narcissists/abusers. This is such a hard thing to even acknowledge, let alone make big decisions about.

 

[mommamaree]

I just need to share this story with everyone reading here. It is an example of what my mother is like toward me.

When I was a little girl, and even a young woman, my mother would often say “I am going to turn in my Mommy Button”. She said this whenever I had frustrated her or inconvenienced her. She would sometimes add things like “I don’t want to be your mother anymore”. Finally, one day, I broke down into tears and begged her to stop saying that. I told her how much it hurt me to hear her say that. She was shocked. She suddenly seemed to wake up, for one moment, to the effects of her words upon me. She apologized and said she would never say it again. Despite mostly keeping that promise, she began using other methods of “disowning” me. She and my dad took away my key when I went away to college at 17. She and my dad locked me out of the house and go to bed so that when I came home late after working the closing shift at a restaurant, the house was dark and locked and I couldn’t get in. I was literally stranded on the street in the middle of the night. They took away my bedroom and bed. They sold all my belongings in a moving sale. They dropped me from their car insurance and health insurance. This was all immediately following my 18th birthday. Then, in my twenties, she began the campaign to cut me out of her life repeatedly, whenever I spoke my mind and disagreed with her or confronted her about her abusive mistreatment of me or told her to stop violating the personal boundaries of my inlaws. She changed her phone numbers twice. She also told me that “I am done with you”. Now, of course, she denies having ever done any of these things, or else she blames them entirely upon my dad (who verbally disowned me and with whom I have only the shallowest of “relationship” with. I don’t even call him “Dad” when I am speaking about him).
So, really, she did truly want to turn in her “Mommy Button”. She might have been self-aware enough to feel guilty about using that actual phrase, but she quickly discovered other, far more effective and damaging ways to reject me.
Well, I have had enough. Maybe I should confiscate her “Mommy Button” and serve her with parental “divorce” papers instead.

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

Mommamaree,

here’s a hug :grouphug:

These last posts have a different tone, like you have come to a point where things are more clear and you feel strong. That is good. Whether you choose to end contact or not, you will have to grieve the loss of your mother. You will have to let her go. In my experience it is the grief of not having a normal parent, it is grief about a hole in my life.

I know what you mean about the constant violation of some basic boundaries. It truly is life draining. My dad has dropped a few bombs on me, but it is the ‘little’ things that hurt more: constant criticism, lies, manipulation, ridicule, tearing apart my self-confidence, etc. Seeing these things for what they are is very liberating. I hope you will soon experience this freedom and dump the poison out of your life.

 

[mommamaree]

Mommamaree,

here’s a hug :grouphug:

These last posts have a different tone, like you have come to a point where things are more clear and you feel strong. That is good. Whether you choose to end contact or not, you will have to grieve the loss of your mother. You will have to let her go. In my experience it is the grief of not having a normal parent, it is grief about a hole in my life.

I know what you mean about the constant violation of some basic boundaries. It truly is life draining. My dad has dropped a few bombs on me, but it is the ‘little’ things that hurt more: constant criticism, lies, manipulation, ridicule, tearing apart my self-confidence, etc. Seeing these things for what they are is very liberating. I hope you will soon experience this freedom and dump the poison out of your life.

Thanks Contra Mundum.
I really really needed to hear back from someone today. I was hoping you would respond. I am fighting hard internal battles right now all on my own. My DH doesn’t live with us during the week because he works in another city. I feel like I am waging war alone. By the time the weekend rolls around, all I can do is quietly curl up in his arms and bask for a while in our joyful loving relationship. But then Monday comes far too quickly and the battle heats up again. I will say that God is using our circumstantial separation to do some serious work in me. But it is rough. I feel like I need to wear a sign around my neck saying “closed for renovation” and “grand reopening soon” .
So with all this going on, and no one to talk to about this, I keep obsessively checking to see if anyone here has posted something new. I really wish I knew who I could trust to talk about this, but I am so afraid of sounding like a complainer and a liar or a victim. Sigh. Next Tuesday, though, I will be able to let some of this out when I go back to my therapist for a second visit.

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

Hang in there!
The weekend will be an opportunity for you to rest and get some of your energy back. Just put yourself in God’s loving arms during the week and ask Him to get you through it. Day by day, hour by hour. Have you posted on the prayer intentions page about this? I will include you into my Divine Mercy chaplet.

 

[mommamaree]

Hang in there!
The weekend will be an opportunity for you to rest and get some of your energy back. Just put yourself in God’s loving arms during the week and ask Him to get you through it. Day by day, hour by hour. Have you posted on the prayer intentions page about this? I will include you into my Divine Mercy chaplet.

No, I haven’t. I haven’t been able to pray for myself and I am certainly not gonna ask other kind people to do the hard work I am unwilling to do. My praying stopped earlier this year, following my miscarriage, which unhappily coincided with my mother’s latest crazy-making campaign against me. Where she told me that she is a suffering soul and that God has given her all my pain and that the reason why I wasn’t breaking down is because she was suffering in my place and my emotional numbness was all thanks to her and wasn’t it good of her to suffer the loss of the baby so that I could avoid crying and grieving…
Seriously. She said that. I only recently informed my DH about that. It is just that sick and hurtful.
Sorry I digressed again. I feel like I am spewing all this out today. I have to get it out. I should start keeping a journal or blog or something to process this.
Long story short…I cannot pray and I am so ashamed of that fact that I am amazed I can admit it here! Thank you for your kind offer of prayer. I cannot offer the same to you. I won’t promise what I won’t do. I am just too messed up. The only prayer I have been able to say recently is begging the Lord to take away my paranoia and anxiety that I am overwhelmmed by right now. I have paranoid thoughts and nightmares constantly about being attacked by bugs. And my blood pressure is elevated and I keep having anxiety attacks. I feel like I am drowning right now. I keep hoping this will pass and I will be able to pray again and I will get better. I dont want the baby to be hurt by this in utero.
Wow, I sound really messed up. I am sorry.

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

No worries. And nothing to be ashamed of. I also couldn’t pray when I suffered the worst period of anxiety and panic attacks. Like something in me was completely blocked. I have to say that your mother’s comment about suffering in your place is the craziest thing I have heard in a long time. If there were a medal for NPD she’d probably get it. It sounds like you need to get it all out, so a journal is a good idea especially if you have time during the week when your husband is away and you are alone with your thoughts. I think that writing it down will make it more real. I sometimes forget things that have happened and start wondering if I just made them up. Having a journal is a good reminder about reality.

 

[EasterJoy]

No, I haven’t. I haven’t been able to pray for myself and I am certainly not gonna ask other kind people to do the hard work I am unwilling to do. My praying stopped earlier this year, following my miscarriage, which unhappily coincided with my mother’s latest crazy-making campaign against me. Where she told me that she is a suffering soul and that God has given her all my pain and that the reason why I wasn’t breaking down is because she was suffering in my place and my emotional numbness was all thanks to her and wasn’t it good of her to suffer the loss of the baby so that I could avoid crying and grieving…
Seriously. She said that. I only recently informed my DH about that. It is just that sick and hurtful.
Sorry I digressed again. I feel like I am spewing all this out today. I have to get it out. I should start keeping a journal or blog or something to process this.
Long story short…I cannot pray and I am so ashamed of that fact that I am amazed I can admit it here! Thank you for your kind offer of prayer. I cannot offer the same to you. I won’t promise what I won’t do. I am just too messed up. The only prayer I have been able to say recently is begging the Lord to take away my paranoia and anxiety that I am overwhelmmed by right now. I have paranoid thoughts and nightmares constantly about being attacked by bugs. And my blood pressure is elevated and I keep having anxiety attacks. I feel like I am drowning right now. I keep hoping this will pass and I will be able to pray again and I will get better. I dont want the baby to be hurt by this in utero.
Wow, I sound really messed up. I am sorry.

Your mom can’t be depended upon to tell the truth, even when she might think she is. She’s got some warped glasses on. Just think of her as having some kind of dementia or something. Don’t let her navigate for you, and whatever comes out of her mouth, don’t believe it unless someone totally trustworthy verifies it for you. (Maybe two someones…take her with a boulder of salt. She doesn’t talk straight, and she probably doesn’t even see straight.)

If you couldn’t drive, you’d let other people drive you places. It’s not as if you are too lazy to pray! Also, remember that prayer doesn’t have to be mindful rosaries. When my kids were little, my most common prayer was “Help!” My aunt had a little wall-hanging with a guy on one of those hamster exercise wheels…it said, “Lord, I shall be very busy this day, and may forget Thee…Do no forget me!!”

Also, if your leg were doing what your brain is doing, would you punish yourself over it? I hope not. I hope you’d go find a doctor who knows something about what makes legs do that and how to make it stop.

Obviously, I’ve gotten a lot of mileage by learning to look at my emotional troubles as a subset of my physical troubles. It’s all part of living in this vale of tears! It also helps to think about how you feel when you hear about someone in your situation. You immediately feel a kinship, don’t you? You don’t say, “How can you feel that way?” No! You say, “Oh, isn’t that the pits!” or sometimes “You, too? I thought I was the only one!” and sometimes even “Well, I don’t know if this will help, but since it helped me, let me mention it, just in case…”

You’re not the only one. You’re not alone. You are way, way, *way *not alone. We care about you, and we don’t have any trouble at all imagining that a few changes could have put us right in your shoes. Teddy Roosevelt said, “I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.” There is much about your life that you have done enviably well, Mommamaree. You’re not done, but so far you have played a poor hand very well. Look at the husband who fell in love with you, the mother-in-law who loves you. You’re doing something right.

As another saying goes, “Any landing you walk away from was a good one.” Hang in there, and don’t worry about whether you’ll rate style points! And when you pray, pray as simply as you feel yourself pray. “Lord, help me, I can’t pray” is a prayer, too!

 

[houseofsaul]

Be careful about feeling guilty because our parents weren’t/aren’t “that bad”. There is always someone else who is/has been abused more than we have. There is no prize for absorbing the most abuse before walking away from a destructive relationship. (As I am saying this to you, I am really saying this to myself! I am going through this very issue right now, as well as dealing with the fact that my anger has subsided and I tend to forget the abuse once my anger is gone - a childhood coping mechanism that I need to overcome.) We do not need to justify allowing a person to experience the natural consequences of their actions. They are responsible for their behavior. But if we keep pretending like “it is not that bad”, or “he/she didn’t mean it”, or “he/she is just sick and can’t help it” then we are enabling them. I do not want to enable my mother any longer. I have had a lifetime of being torn down and manipulated and rejected. I need to get to a place where I REMEMBER, yet still forgive.

Amen Amen Amen…I wish I had someone to give me that advice 7 years ago. Destructive relationships damage health…they are simply not worth it.

 

[mommamaree]

Your mom can’t be depended upon to tell the truth, even when she might think she is. She’s got some warped glasses on. Just think of her as having some kind of dementia or something. Don’t let her navigate for you, and whatever comes out of her mouth, don’t believe it unless someone totally trustworthy verifies it for you. (Maybe two someones…take her with a boulder of salt. She doesn’t talk straight, and she probably doesn’t even see straight.)

If you couldn’t drive, you’d let other people drive you places. It’s not as if you are too lazy to pray! Also, remember that prayer doesn’t have to be mindful rosaries. When my kids were little, my most common prayer was “Help!” My aunt had a little wall-hanging with a guy on one of those hamster exercise wheels…it said, “Lord, I shall be very busy this day, and may forget Thee…Do no forget me!!”

Also, if your leg were doing what your brain is doing, would you punish yourself over it? I hope not. I hope you’d go find a doctor who knows something about what makes legs do that and how to make it stop.

Obviously, I’ve gotten a lot of mileage by learning to look at my emotional troubles as a subset of my physical troubles. It’s all part of living in this vale of tears! It also helps to think about how you feel when you hear about someone in your situation. You immediately feel a kinship, don’t you? You don’t say, “How can you feel that way?” No! You say, “Oh, isn’t that the pits!” or sometimes “You, too? I thought I was the only one!” and sometimes even “Well, I don’t know if this will help, but since it helped me, let me mention it, just in case…”

You’re not the only one. You’re not alone. You are way, way, *way *not alone. We care about you, and we don’t have any trouble at all imagining that a few changes could have put us right in your shoes. Teddy Roosevelt said, “I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.” There is much about your life that you have done enviably well, Mommamaree. You’re not done, but so far you have played a poor hand very well. Look at the husband who fell in love with you, the mother-in-law who loves you. You’re doing something right.

As another saying goes, “Any landing you walk away from was a good one.” Hang in there, and don’t worry about whether you’ll rate style points! And when you pray, pray as simply as you feel yourself pray. “Lord, help me, I can’t pray” is a prayer, too!

Thanks EasterJoy. I am really starting to get a feeling for how you express things with analogies and parallels. Now that I am understanding it more, it is very helpful. And I am really starting to like the bear analogy. One of the blogs I have been reading has a “No Grizzlies Allowed in the House!” take on this situation. Thanks for being patient with me and helping me to start figuring this out through analogy. It is actually very helpful.

 

[Litcrit]

I have to get it out. I should start keeping a journal or blog or something to process this.

You should! It’s tremendously helpful ad therapeutic ad not only does it help you unload and process stuff, it gives you the insights and support of those who will read and comment.

If you do start a blog, please share the address or send it to me at pronoia.agape@gmail.com - my blog is pronoiaswriteofpassage.blogspot.com/ - and I’d like to add you to my reading list. There’s a whole online community of us out there.

Hugs.

 

[mommamaree]

You should! It’s tremendously helpful ad therapeutic ad not only does it help you unload and process stuff, it gives you the insights and support of those who will read and comment.

If you do start a blog, please share the address or send it to me at pronoia.agape@gmail.com - my blog is pronoiaswriteofpassage.blogspot.com/ - and I’d like to add you to my reading list. There’s a whole online community of us out there.

Hugs.

Hi Litcrit.
That was funny timing. I just finished the first couple of posts to my new blog. I added the blog address to my signature line here so that when I am corresponding to people at CAF, they will be able to see it. I will check out your blog, too! God bless!

 

[TheRealJuliane]

I just need to share this story with everyone reading here. It is an example of what my mother is like toward me.

When I was a little girl, and even a young woman, my mother would often say “I am going to turn in my Mommy Button”. She said this whenever I had frustrated her or inconvenienced her. She would sometimes add things like “I don’t want to be your mother anymore”. Finally, one day, I broke down into tears and begged her to stop saying that. I told her how much it hurt me to hear her say that. She was shocked. She suddenly seemed to wake up, for one moment, to the effects of her words upon me. She apologized and said she would never say it again. Despite mostly keeping that promise, she began using other methods of “disowning” me. She and my dad took away my key when I went away to college at 17. She and my dad locked me out of the house and go to bed so that when I came home late after working the closing shift at a restaurant, the house was dark and locked and I couldn’t get in. I was literally stranded on the street in the middle of the night. They took away my bedroom and bed. They sold all my belongings in a moving sale. They dropped me from their car insurance and health insurance. This was all immediately following my 18th birthday. Then, in my twenties, she began the campaign to cut me out of her life repeatedly, whenever I spoke my mind and disagreed with her or confronted her about her abusive mistreatment of me or told her to stop violating the personal boundaries of my inlaws. She changed her phone numbers twice. She also told me that “I am done with you”. Now, of course, she denies having ever done any of these things, or else she blames them entirely upon my dad (who verbally disowned me and with whom I have only the shallowest of “relationship” with. I don’t even call him “Dad” when I am speaking about him).
So, really, she did truly want to turn in her “Mommy Button”. She might have been self-aware enough to feel guilty about using that actual phrase, but she quickly discovered other, far more effective and damaging ways to reject me.
Well, I have had enough. Maybe I should confiscate her “Mommy Button” and serve her with parental “divorce” papers instead.

That makes me so sad. Truthfully? She never got a “Mommy Button” in the first place, so you can’t take it back. She gave birth, that’s all. Mommies don’t act like that, or say things like that to their children.