Alright, I'll try to be concise. I'm feeling a bit low today, and in such times I usually either ramble at length or say absolutely nothing. So. Onwards.
Some time in December, I went LC (low contact) with my family of origin. Something happened that wasn't too dramatic in itself, but it was just the last straw. Since then, I'm suddenly able to remember and process my childhood and teenage years a LOT better. And I'm starting to wonder...
Do you think there's such a thing as a low-key scapegoat?
When I'm reading the descriptions of "roles in dysfunctional families", the scapegoat is often called "the rebel", and they sound like something taken from West Side Story - prone to drinking, drug-taking, high-risk behaviour, misunderstood yet courageously honest and authentic. Aaaand... I'm not like that. No drugs, no drinks, no promiscuity. Not because I'm virtuous, but because I never felt safe enough to try.
And my family isn't openly abusive. If you met them now, you'd like them. They come across as competent, generously helpful, cheerful people. And they are. They're good people, in their own ways, to anyone who isn't me. Even during my teenage years and childhood, there was no SA at all, and very very little physical violence.
And it's only now that I'm beginning to wonder about our roles. My brother is very much the Golden Child, with a bit of the Mascot thrown in. And when we were teens, I was a combination of Lost Child + Scapegoat. When I look at the function of this scapegoat role - yes, that's what it was like. The one screw-up in a family of golden people. But in mild ways, easy to miss.
(Here are details about it. Might be triggering, so I'm whiting them out. Highlight to read.) I screwed up by having all the symptoms of a depression, at first: I withdrew, I spent too much time reading and watching TV, I didn't take the initiative when it came to socializing, I was quiet, I was sad. Then, once my CPTSD began to hit in, I was absent-minded, I constantly forgot anything and everything, my room was a mess of truly epic proportions, I had so little energy - I remember one day I was relieved and glad when I reached the school bus, because it had been THAT hard to focus enough on walking through town. (Histamine intolerance plus stress, it turns out. Leave out histamine, get back your brain. I wish I'd found that out decades ago.) I screwed up by navelgazing too much. I screwed up by being indoors instead of going outside to enjoy the sunshine. I screwed up by not liking my mother's favourite kind of herbal tea. I screwed up by "navelgazing". I screwed up by not being able to find my happiness in doing my duty. (I find my happiness in happiness instead. Weird, eh?) I screwed up by being too much like a woman - women, my mother thinks, are notoriously prone to backbiting, gossipping, shallowness, and lack of backbone, so I MUST prove to her that I'm not those things, or she'd... well, she wouldn't say anything outright, but she'd hint at things, she'd give me pointed looks... the message came across very clearly. I screwed up by preferring jeans and t-shirts to ladylike clothing. I screwed up by wearing my hair long. I screwed up by not letting her cut my bangs. I screwed up by being tense and resentful during her many, many jokes she made: "Oh look, here's a pair of scissors, why don't I cut your bangs?" I screwed up by taking a step back when she'd point her fingers as if they were scissors and take hold of my hair, giving me a look that wasn't playful at all, but scrutinizing and serious and tight-lipped.
I screwed up about ten years ago, when once again I slipped into this funny, navel-gazing, self-absorbed mood: the one where I'm just lazy and un-proactive instead of cheerfully and determinedly seizing life by the horns. I told her I was diagnosed with PTSD, which disappointed her. She very graciously didn't hold it against me though, instead just saying: "Oh, you know, I wouldn't put too much truck in all that psychological stuff if I were you." ---- That's how she saw it. The truth was, I wasn't just sad. I wasn't even just depressed. I had so many CPTSD and PTSD symptoms, I was a walking textbook case. Dissociation, depersonalization, derealization, elevated startle response, defensiveness, no trust in anyone, lack of object constancy, suicidal ideation, somatic symptoms. Also, I was grieving about a dead friend, I had a years-long EF because she'd died in a way that reminded me of my father's dead, I was jobless, I'd just been through a close encounter with a narcissist who'd singled me out as a viable target for abuse (and hey, she was right!), I had no money at all, my therapist tried EMDR and it triggered a days-long EF, I had no friends, I had abysmal job prospects----
Ugh, now I'm ranting. Sorry. The point is: it's not BAD, the things she does. Not if you look at each of them in isolation. It's just the big picture that's bad. All of those little, little things taken together. And the big picture is:
She doesn't respect me. She doesn't take me seriously. Anything I say is wrong. If I argue in favour of something, she immediately argues against it. She doesn't just take my word for things. She seems honestly taken aback that I don't share her preferences, and often tries to argue me into it. She constantly warns me of danger. We had whole thirty-minutes-long phonecalls that consisted of me trying to small-talk, her responding with admonitions and warnings. Seriously. WHOLE PHONECALLS. EVERYTHING I said - she'd argue against it, she'd warn me, or she'd ask minute, intrusive questions that made me feel like I was being cross-examined.
Tiny. Subtle. Mild. This forum is full of people who'd be glad to have such a mother, right? She's functional, she's sane, she's not batshit crazy...
Ugh, I even forgot what the point of this post was. All of those things came up today, so I'm not feeling too well. Thing is, I should really go have my hair cut - but I'm afraid. Know why? Because, after growing up in my family and around my peers, I'm now deadly afraid of being less than perfect - because that will make people despise me. And that feeling told me something of what my adolescence was like. And it fits what I'm reading about being a scapegoat.
So. Does anyone else feel like this? Does anyone else have this subtle form of scapegoating and boundary-breaking going on? Or do you all have openly abusive mothers who make the hag from Disney's Tangled look sane?
"Sprinkler acid" all the time. Tiny drops of constant toxic verbal and emotional abuse. Gather all the tiny drops together, and it is buckets of acid over the years. If abuse is small enough per incident, it can be denied. It is still abuse, quite an ugly form of it.
Yes, you're right. And it's so invisible. It's like living with background radiation, or with something that's slowly poisoning you. People who are only exposed to it for a day or a few hours won't notice a thing. And it feels so churlish to get worked up about all those little things. So even just noticing what's really going on - it took me decades.
Thanks for listening. Getting this all out in the open was cathartic. I'm feeling wrung out now and grieving, but in that good, healing kind of way, if that makes sense.
Quote from: schrödinger's cat on February 05, 2015, 10:38:54 AM
Yes, you're right. And it's so invisible. It's like living with background radiation, or with something that's slowly poisoning you. People who are only exposed to it for a day or a few hours won't notice a thing. And it feels so churlish to get worked up about all those little things. So even just noticing what's really going on - it took me decades.
Thanks for listening. Getting this all out in the open was cathartic. I'm feeling wrung out now and grieving, but in that good, healing kind of way, if that makes sense.
I love your "background radiation" metaphor. It is really hard to put the pieces together when the abuse is so subtle and insidious. I liken it to the kind of low-key racism that a lot of black people face today. Overt abuse is so much easier to put a name on, just like overt racism is easy to call out and condemn; but it's the subtle stuff that will slay you even harder in the end because it makes gaslighting so much more possible.
Yes, I feel a lot like that too. My FOO is just fine. As long as you keep the conversation light and don't let on if you have a difference of opinion.
I wonder if you have what I am just realizing I caught from my FOO. A fear of making mistakes. One mistake - that's it. Game over. If happens with a friend must end the friendship. If in a certain situation must never go there again. I am just now realizing that mistakes will not disappear me. Mistakes bring on toxic shame. No matter how small. Even when I read a message I wrote here in OOTS if there is a mistake I feel so ashamed and want to erase the whole post. What will they think of me. I don't judge others mistakes harshly, why do I judge myself like that? Because it was done to me over and over and over in my FOO.
As Rain says, like tiny drops of acid.
I hope you are feeling better. I always put off getting my hair cut too.
Cat, your mother sounds like the covert PD type to me. Invisible toxic behaviour, same devastating effect on their victims as visible/audible violence...
In many ways, overt PDs are easier to handle for the adult children of PD parents (my f is an overt NPD, m is a covert NPD) because you get more validation for setting strict boundaries to protect yourself, even if you go NC - after all, stopping contact with a parent who's beaten you up makes sense to most people whereas the covert PDs often seem so nice and even like the 'true victim' of the story to most people surrounding them. They only show their true colours to a few - their victims. It's hard to get validation for that unless you find a group of people who believe you because they've been in a similar position like you themselves - like here on OOTS.
Quote from: schrödinger's cat on February 05, 2015, 10:38:54 AM
Getting this all out in the open was cathartic. I'm feeling wrung out now and grieving, but in that good, healing kind of way, if that makes sense.
Makes total sense to me. Take all the time you need to process this new realizations and to grieve. It's a good sign, a sign that you are taking care of yourself and your needs. :hug:
Be kind to yourself. You deserve it! :hug:
IMHO, a scapegoat is a scapegoat. This is a terrible role to be cast into. One of my biggest boundaries is to severely curtail associations with empathy impaired people, period. You notice how the folks on the board tend to "get" you? You notice this person does NOT get you?
Dealing with empathy impaired people always lead to *.
Godspeed, I send good JuJu your way.... :hug: :hug:
Thanks, everyone. It's good to have people who understand. :yourock:
Milarepa - good point. Do you think sexism would also work as an analogy? It's so subtle. "Why are you offended? It was just a joke." That kind of thing.
Whobuddy, YES, exactly, precisely, absolutely what you said. One mistake and WHAM. And it's not even like the mistake has to be big or obvious. It can be something as tiny as "something I said or did wasn't to someone else's taste". :sharkbait: <---- and that's what it feels like to be wired like that.
Keepfighting - thanks for pointing this out. I'm still not sure if my mother is a narcissist... but you're right, the descriptions I read were always of overt narcisissts. I'll google the covert type and see what comes up.
Marycontrary - yes, you're right. I kind of attracted empathy-impaired people throughout my life. So it's "normal", in a way. Until I have positive experiences, like the ones I have here. The contrast lets me see things clearly. So thanks for the Juju, it arrived intact and was much appreciated. :hug:
Here's a good link that exokains overt and covert narcissistic behaviour:
http://narcissisticbehavior.net/category/revealing-the-two-faces-of-narcissism-overt-and-covert/
They need scapegoats as well: Someone strong enough to bear the shame and blame so they are never at fault...
My M is a covert N and she was/is subtle or at least I thought she was until I found OOTF and slowly came to see saw her behaviour for what it is. I felt it certainly, I just couldn't validate why I was feeling what I was feeling. Was there a shark in the water or was I imaging it?
These days I see how crazy making and destructive her behaviour was/is and particularly because it is covert, subtle we learn to doubt our perceptions. But now when she does something N I can finally see clearly just how soul crushing it must have been for my younger self. Even though it's not blatant abuse that anyone else can pick up on, it's there - the "death by a thousand cuts" abuse that results in CPTSD. Tough to recognize covert N behaviour but such a relief to see it for what it is and know for certain there is a shark in the water.
:hug:
QuoteThe Secretly Mean: The secretly mean mother does not want others to know that she is abusive to her children. She will have a public self and a private self, which are quite different. These mothers can be kind and loving in public but are abusive and cruel at home. The unpredictable, opposite messages to the child are crazy-making.
This description fits my M to a tee. I remember watching her at parties, laughing and charming people, and thinking how much I wished I could take
that lady home with me instead of the yelling, angry person she unpredictably became when we were alone together. As I got older, I wondered what was wrong with me that she treated me the way she did when other people got to enjoy her laugh and her smile.
::Possible shame trigger / Borderline fear warning::
As I read through the definition of the covert narcissist, I wondered just how much difference there is between the covert style of narcissism and a case of C-PTSD. AFter all, we're both described as:
- Plagued by toxic shame and feelings of unworthiness
- Socially withdrawn
- Easily triggered by life's stressors
We all know that most of these cluster B personality disorders (Antisocial, Narcissistic, Borderline, and Histrionic) are associated with trauma from being raised in a PD FOO. And since these disorders run in families, I have to wonder precisely what separates those of us with C-PTSD from our PD parents? How do we know that
we're not the ones with personality disorders?
I have a theory that internal personal choices play a substantial role in whether or not PTSD calcifies into a PD. I think the major components of this are Tenderness and Shame-resilience. Are we tender with own imperfections and those of others, or do we demand perfection at every turn? Are we willing to look at and soothe our own shame or do we hide it beneath layers of real or fabricated accomplishments?
At the risk of being cheesy: T and S are the difference between PTSD and a PD
Oh, Cat,
Yes, I think that is scapegoating. Your "I screwed up by _____" list is so familiar to me. Even the repetitive structure of that paragraph mirrors my thoughts at times.
And I understand feeling afraid to try... anything. I didn't listen to music or watch tv that wasn't already approved by someone else having an interest in it. I posted here before about wanting my father to stop the bedtime backrubs that I didn't like, and my mother's statement when she got involved: "there is nothing inappropriate about the way your father is touching you. You don't know what inappropriate is." What I learned from that was that I didn't have the ability, let alone the right to determine what I did and did not like.
Apparently, my mother decided when I was born that I was "incapable of functioning in the real world," and she reveals that fact freely in her semi-annual try-to-get-the-recalcitrant-daughter-back-into-the-family visits. She seems to have no inkling that this might be problematic for me (and this despite my telling her several times that I won't be coming back while she still holds the same attitude). She calls it love, and I call it contempt. I can't see a meeting ground between those two positions -- it's so swampy in between, and I feel afraid of trapping myself in the mud if I put a single toe in.
My theory is that she's re-enacting what her father did to her, and since she can't admit that she was hurt (read "weak"), I certainly can't be hurt in my turn. I think that she was maybe born to be a sensitive, empathetic person. Two factors combined to beat that down and create a narcissist instead.
1) She was born into a traumatizing family, wherein she was identified as weak and a burden.
2) Her next youngest sibling (born with a physical disability and probably also identified as weak) died very young, and she may have feared for her life as well (she was about 2). The next sibling to be born has a learning disability, and I think she found security and a place for herself in the family by identifying the disability, "fixing" him and (maybe in her mind) saving his life. I think she never forgot the high she received from reducing the fear and pain. With repetition of the behaviour (point out other people's flaws and expect them to fix them, repeat) she got increasingly fond of the high and increasingly intolerant/incapable of sitting with her own dysphoric emotions.
I go round in endless circles of how confident i am in identifying my mother as having a NPD. Maybe I really don't know what I don't like, maybe it's my fault. I was shaking a bit writing part of this. What I always come back to is that my body won't let me spend time with her or the rest of my FOO.
smg
p.s. I have a list of half a dozen incidents that I call my mother's greatest hits. They are the most overt examples, so I think about them frequently (and repeat them here). I guess that I think they represent the tone of all those years. She only said them once, but they were never news to me, I knew they were coming because she'd been acting out those same messages every day since I was born... and i've been believing and acting as though they were true, so I won't be surprised and act hurt when I hear them.
Hi smg! We should print t-shirts or form a club. Yes, what you wrote sounds familiar, too. I actually pondered this on my way back home from my school run - how rudderless and afloat I feel when it comes to making judgments and knowing my own mind. The reason was, I'm now beginning to wonder if my mother could have Asperger's. Not sure. Then I thought: "oh... what if I have it too? It runs in families, doesn't it? I'd better make sure..." - and I just couldn't tell. I couldn't make a statement about myself, for the sole reason that I'm so used to always being contradicted, to always be argued out of my opinions and certainties and preferences, to always be needled and doubted and second-guessed. It left me shaken, realizing that. I'm in my fourties, I've been places, I've done things, but I've got this very limited ability to even know what I like and don't like. Knowing that you have a similar problem is such a relief. Which - obviously, I'd prefer you to not have it and be happy instead - but you probably know what I mean? That "thank GOODNESS, I'm not alone in this" feeling.
Lack of practice, maybe. All this is a learned attitude. So I can unlearn it. And maybe I'll never fully make it, but I think that doesn't matter. What matters is to keep on trying.
Did you visit the "Café" section of this forum? There's one thread about this very thing. Let's see... this one (http://outofthefog.net/C-PTSD/forum/index.php?topic=180.0). It's about the way so many of us are slowly discovering who we truly are. So Rain suggested starting small, and simply talking about what kind of soda we enjoy. Just that. It was great fun. But it proves that you and I, we're not alone in this.
I went LC with my FOO recently, and paradoxically, it's reconnected me with this old mindset, the very one you mention: feeling unable to determine what I like, feeling like I should really just leave that to others who are competent at knowing what I like, feeling afraid to try anything because what if someone else disapproves... UGH. It's making me more and more determined to never be fully in touch with my family again. That boat has sailed. I'd only be getting more of those messages. And I've lost patience with that kind of behaviour. If someone can't respect that I do have opinions, preferences, and boundaries, then okay, bye-bye, end of story, basta, tschüss, over, out, finis, DONE, end of story, I'm walking away and shaking the dust off my sandals.
Your mother reminds me of mine. She's constantly giving me messages that question my very right to form my own preferences, constantly warning me of danger like I'm stupid or incompetent and need Mummy to take care of me (I'm in my fourties, for goodness' sake), constantly needling and hinting and giving pointed looks. But it's because "mothers worry about their daughters". She cannot see how it's affecting me. I tried to tell her. I tried to explain. I tried to set clear boundaries. I tried to be fair, to be understanding towards her position, to word it in very clear-yet-friendly terms. No use. It's like using a typewriter that has no ink: you can hack away at it all you like, the piece of paper is going to stay as empty as it was before.
The interesting thing is: I've started to make a similar list to your "greatest hits" list - just so I can have something real and tangible that I can hold in my hand and look at and say: "YES, it was all real, I'm not just imagining things, all of this happened." Heh. We've got coping strategies, haven't we? High five!
Tell you what, SC. When I started determining what I inherently liked and wanted, I realized I was a much different person than I thought I was. I had been ignoring ALL of my life my very strongly internal signaled proclivities, and boy when they came busting out, it was like a tsunami. For instance, I really, really dislike Dallas and Houston. Just nasty cities, nasty traffic, disgusting climate, alcoholic populace, soulless cultures---life long Texas resident here, I am not speaking of ignorance. When I have to fly into Dallas, I get the * out of dodge the fast as I can.
Here is an embarrassing one I like. I will just blurt it out. I like men, from a female stance. Give me a hot sexy manly man who knows what he is doing, and I am as happy as a pig in slop. ;D I would actually like to become a Buddhist nun one day, but i don't think I can do the celibacy thing right now.
I would have never consciously admitting these thing a few years ago. And this are just my own, and nobody elses.
Yes, I had such epiphanies too. Some of them were just as... what's the word: in-depth, essential, close to the bone? Big things, not just little details. I wonder what my life would have looked like if I'd known all that in my early twenties (at the latest).
But if feels so good to find those things. That's the positive side of it. When our peers complain that they already know everything and the joy of discovery has gone out of the world, we'll just inspect our fingernails and whistle.
Is there a way to like a post?
We just use emoticons: :thumbup: or :yeahthat: or :applause: - whatever works ;D
:thumbup:
LOL :yourock:
Empty piece of paper!!! Yes, that's her.
I like cooking and gardening. I like bluegrass music. I like to drink cola. I like moments at the movies where everyone gasps, or laughs or cries at the same time, right when the director planned it, because there's a commonality to the human heart.
On the subject of newly/tentatively discovered likes, do any of you worry how much of your current preferences are really coping mechanisms? For example, I'm a fawn-type, and I REALLY like to cook FOR people. I'm not sure where the line is, or if a preference can really be both a like and a coping mechanism.
smg
Cat,
It looks like you've received a lot of validation here. A lot of great ideas. My abuse/neglect was all emotional. In fact, my mom was never even directly critical of me. All indirect..."suggestions" or "helpful ideas" even at 40+ years old... Persistent emotional abuse and/or neglect have the SAME effect as the "bigger" stuff like physical or sexual abuse. In so many ways the emotional part is tougher to identify and heal from b/c there is limited visual memory. And they often begin during early childhood when memory is wired without language, it's emotional.
My mom is also bubbly, friendly, honest, helpful, etc. Like your family, people who meet her like her. But they aren't her daughter. It sounds to me like you might be scapegoated through neglect and the absence of positive feedback for who you are as a person.
A metaphor I like for the "unconscious" abuse/neglect by a parent is a car accident where the driver "accidently" hits a me, maybe it's dark and she didn't even know that she did so. In my example it was truly an accident, the driver if she knew would be sorry, didn't want to hurt me, etc., but the reality is that I now have a broken back. I'm hurt. It being an "accident" doesn't make the pain any less. And it's still a tragedy.
The radiation metaphor here really matches the idea of little by little becoming toxic. True.
Thanks, C. :hug:
The thing is, I'm not sure anymore that it actually was an accident, or a mere byproduct of something else. It's all so very subtle, so it's hard to tell. For example, my mother will automatically argue against anything I state. It's reached a point where, if she suggests something like: "hm... I wonder if I hadn't best pay someone to prune my trees instead of doing it myself", and I think it's a brilliant idea and she'd best do this, I do NOT EVER say so. She'd automatically second-guess herself and change her mind. Happened over and over again.
Then there's the way she doesn't take no for an answer. If she wanted to know something, she'd ask intrusive questions, pushing and pressuring me until she heard what she wanted to know.
If I mention anything I'm doing or letting my kids do, she'll always express concerns and warn me. Always. Every. Single. Time. And if she hears about any danger on the radio, she'll phone me at once and warn me of it. ANY danger. I've started to hand the phone to my husband whenever I can reasonably do so, because that puts her in a quandary: you see, he's a man! (gasp and stand in awe), and so one must not interfere in his concerns and one must always respect him a great deal. Problem solved. But not in a way that leaves anything but a bitter taste in my mouth.
There's other stuff too. She sometimes tells me I'm wise and she's lucky to have me - but only after I've said something she can fully agree with. She never asks for my advice, and (see above) never respects my opinion, not even in a let's-agree-to-disagree kind of way. If she does something that hurts me, there is NO chance at ALL that I can simply (and respectfully) ask her to please not do it and she'll stop. If she DOES stop, it's only after I've been very very clear about it ---- and she'll resent me for it, and she'll never forget that. There'll be hints for years after about how "one is not allowed to say what one thinks in THIS house". (That was because, whenever I'd mentioned that I was depressed and finding it difficult to get through the day, she'd respond by telling me I should simply "develop a sense of humour", which in my language means 'learning to not overdramatize things', and after she'd said that about a dozen times, I had respectfully asked her to please not do that.)
So I'm not sure. I'm just not sure. She treats me the same way she treats two of her sisters. So I'm now wondering if she's always just lumped me up with them. She even told me so outright. We were on the phone, she was telling me about a tiff she'd had with those sisters, I commiserated with her, and she sighed and said: "Yes, you're right... do you know, everyone whose name begins with an S is difficult - Sister1, Sister2, and you." Completely out of the blue. I was staring at the receiver, wondering if she now expected me to commiserate with her in that, too. She treats me like a sister, too, coming to think of it.
She also used to compare me to her mother-in-law. The stories my mother told of my gran make her look difficult, unreasonable, and clingy. And the way my mother said it... not: "oh, you're like your grandmother", or "like your Dad's mother", but: "you're like my mother-in-law", and the way she'd look at me then - as if we were opponents, as if she had this enormous inner distance to me. I got that look regularly. There were lots of situations where it was suddenly like she was pushing and pressuring me, fighting me for domination, trying to make a point - in this chilling manner that had so much inner distance behind it. Like she was continuing a fight that had nothing to do with me. Chilling, and alienating. She'd withdraw into herself and only hint at what was the matter, but she'd keep pushing and pushing and pushing. I didn't for the life of me understand what was going on. Even now, the only sense I can make of it is that I was lumped in with her sisters and mother-in-law and got the treatment they'd have deserved. I don't know.
Sorry for depressing you. Here's a picture of a baby chameleon to make up for it.
(https://www.cptsd.org/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ftiere.rp-online.de%2Fdata%2Fimg%2F18947_d01be8dc4f57da0bd0909e23f5697f43_555x314.jpg&hash=173b0fee57a371a94ed0b4ebdddcb53605981660)
Ohhhh, Cat. I am so sad to read these details of your mother's "relationship" with you. She does not see You. You are "like someone else"....
And, to refer to you as difficult, even as you listen and empathize with her??! Oh, my blood boils.
Her first priority is to be "victim," and to be "right" (with you "wrong"). There is a long, long list of what is abusive that she does to you. I am so sorry. You are more like a marble rolled around on a table for her needs than you being her Daughter.
Thanks, Rain. :hug: I actually identified that feeling only this week. I've gone LC with my mother, and that much-needed distance is finally letting me remember what it was all really like. So I looked back and realized that there was something about my tiffs with my mother that felt alienating and confusing, like there were forces or factors at work that I couldn't identify or explain, only notice. It felt weird.
Hi Cat,
Sounds like all of your communications with your mom are odd, unpleasant, confusing, etc. First she solicits your emotional support to listen to her complain about her sisters (parentizing you), then likens you to them...bam...your analysis sounds like it might be true, she's replaying old family sister roles with you. And what people here have said about projecting her own insecurities on to you makes sense, maybe a form of the "Outer Critic?"
Your thoughts encouraged me to read and delve more in to the N tendencies. I think I was equating my experience with yours and every situation is definitely different. In my case I'm pretty sure that my mom usually intends to "help" or "praise", but she's so emotionally undeveloped and in a victim state from my dad/her mom that it always feels insincere. Plus "helping" implies there's a flaw that needs corrected. After reading more about N I'm pretty sure it's that she subconsciously sees me as an extension of her. It's like she looks at me and sees herself. Anything good is the same as the good in her. Ultimately it all comes back to her. Hence, in my case, this manifest through indirect corrections of me, praise of things about me that aren't accurate and "understanding" things about me that simply aren't true. And my experience became one of emotional neglect, because she never "sees" me and therefor cannot accurately observe how I feel, what I like, who I am, etc. At the heart of the N relationship is this ego projection...that the child is an extension of the parent. That seems similar in both of our experiences, but maybe your mom "sees" her "flaws" in you and therefor has the need to constantly correct?
Just an aside: Sometimes I wish that my parents would have just outright said the negatives that they implied about me, like said "you're bad at science," or some other verbal pejorative b/c then I could remember and correct it in my mind and think, that's not true, what a horrible thing to say. Instead, they implied it and said "your good at science"...then corrected any statement I ever made about biology or geometry or whatever...
I think that I understand what you're saying in that things may or may not be intentional with your mom. What I'm noticing in this process is that intentionality doesn't matter so much. The treatment is simply inappropriate.
I can understand why you'd use other people as a barrier and choose not to talk with her. No one needs to be constantly told that they're wrong or flawed even if she's trying to "help" you...whatever psychological title might be used, like scape-goating, it's not ok.
C -- I like your analyis of your mother's narcissism and projection. I think the not-seeing part of narcissistic behaviour destroys relationships -- stops them from ever being healthy even, because the narcissist has no clue who the other party is.
Intentional or accidental...? I think of my mother's parenting as wanton disregard.
smg
SMG...I know what you mean. I lot of people here have mother's who were directly cruel or directly uncaring. Mine actually "thinks" she is doing all of the right things, reads all the right books, goes to a counselor sporadically...with her it's always indirect and an absence of empathy & understanding...on a consistent every single day of my life with her level...it's like she's a daydreaming child...even here i feel badly saying these things about her b/c in my case I see that her "intent" wasn't cruel but her lack of action had the same effect as if it were intentional....
and i don't want to override Cat's original post here. I think I found this topic so poignant and important because it shows how we're taught to minimize something important...
like MaryC has said on other post here we take the time to listen and understand one another, it's an example of how to be and contrasts so starkly with our FOO
Sorry for replying so late. You're not overriding anything, C. After all, it's highly interesting to see what experiences others have in this area. All the usual description are of clear-cut cases of scapegoating. So if you have experience with subtler scapegoating, I'd be VERY interested to hear that.
There are a few parallels between our mothers, then? Mine reminded you of yours, and now yours reminds me of mine. That well-intended praise for example - yes, YES, that's precisely it: there's always this bitter taste to it, like she's only praising something in me because it echoes her own quality. Or her praise is very tactical - so she's praising me in order to make me do more of (whatever it is). And I definitely have the impression that she sometimes sees me as an extension of her. So what you said is exactly what it's like for me: she has good intentions, I know she has, but she doesn't see me, and there's so often nothing at all I can do to change that.
And I, too, wish she would have just said things outright. Implied criticism - it's like being made to grope about in a darkened room, searching for something. You take a LOT longer than if you're simply shown the object at once. So the very fact that the criticism is ever so subtle makes us focus on it more for a longer time.
And it takes away our chance to reply. If someone says: "I don't like your hairstyle", you could say: "Too bad. I like it." Or you could say: "Eh, I'm not too fond of it myself." Or you could say: "I'm I'm honest, I don't like yours either." But someone gives you a worried look... and then they take a step closer to you and look at your hair, still with this worried look... now they're obviously struggling to find tactful words... and then: "oh... your hair... do you know, my hairdresser is really very good..." -- Then what do you say? If you say: "NO, mother, do NOT make an appointment for me with your hairdresser", you come across as overly defensive. If you say: "I like my hair", you'd only get more hints, more subtleties ("...oh... you see, it's so important to leave a good first impression with people... to be well put together... people are shallow like that..."). You can just as well try to argue with blancmange. There's nothing there to defend yourself against, nothing to argue against, nothing is out in the open. There's just a smothering blanket of tact and politeness that's still full of intrusiveness, meddling, and hidden barbs. You walk out of that talk not even thinking "bleargh, my mother just told me she thinks I'm frumpy", because she didn't, did she? You simply feel bad about yourself and don't even know why. You even feel guilty for being so impatient with your poor mother, who was only worried and concerned for your welfare, after all.
Or then again, maybe that's just me. But I just wanted to say that I really, really understand how your mother can be well-meaning and still cause you harm.
Seeming well-meaning and being well-meaning - very different things. It may be that some N's want to be well-meaning rather than using it as a tactic, but imo I don't think they understand the essence of how to connect with others, to feel and be truly caring and supportive because they have a personality disorder which prevents them from doing so.
My NPDM worked to appear well-meaning, caring, supportive but it never felt right, it never connected with anything good inside of me, it connected to or ignited feelings of guilt, anger, of being defective or bad. My M was/is a covert N but I realized in reading through this thread that I now describe her behaviour in overt terms tks to OOTF because I came to see what she was doing (and still does) very clearly and there is no question in my mind about her behaviour these days, but it took awhile to get here.
Covert N behaviour is so crazy making because it takes a lot longer to figure out as alot of you have said. My M also implies (she's never direct unless she is raging) that I am this or not that and before I would react something like "Did something just happen because I really don't feel great right now? Am I being overly sensitive or did she just zing me?" Now it's very clearly a "WHAM!" to my soul, nothing covert about it to me anymore - it's there and big as an elephant even though it appears quite subtle to others.
I think you are definitely figuring out your M's behaviours and how they contribute to your CPTSD Cat. Trust those feelings you have around her, they're telling you some important things you need to know :hug:
Very true Kizzie. I've been exploring this whole concept since joining OOTS. It was a blind spot to me before, and after reading up on covert NP and talking with my T and all of the descriptions on this forum I now see my M's behavior for what it is, ultimately always about her. In my case she's always careful to clothe it in "helpful" and "kind" words, she doesn't criticize or correct directly. But when she talks about anything in life it relates back to her, her beliefs or needs or personality traits or whatever. She cannot "see" any objects (people included) outside of a mirror reflection related to herself, but says and thinks it's about something else. It's like being around a blind person who sincerely believes they see the color pink. Not so "damaging" for other people, but I imagine the pain and trauma to a child who've never seen accurately.