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I'm so happy for you, congratulations! 

I wish I wasn't so afraid of death.  Not so I could die right now or anything, but just so I could feel like there will be a way out some day.  Sort of like how having a bottle of klonopin handy makes it easier to tolerate my anxiety without actually taking it. I feel so trapped between the often intolerable pain of life, and the fear of death.  I think life would hurt less if I didn't feel stuck here.

Armee 

I'm glad that most of my conversations with my mother take place over text these days.  That way if I ever doubt myself, all I have to do is look back in my message history to know that I'm not the crazy one. 

Friends, thank you as always, for your replies, for being here, for telling me things I need to hear even though they make me uncomfortable and make me want to argue with them.  Chart, I have heard of the Sedona method and looked it up a year or two ago, but I didn't really understand it.  Reading your journal post about it didn't clear it up, but san said something above that seems to be along the same lines:

...i've sometimes decided to simply wallow in the thoughts - no matter what they were or who they were about - and it's helped calm the rough edges to the messages, and sometimes to even disappear them, at least for a while.  it seemed the more i fought against it, the harder they'd hit me.

I found a website about the Sedona method that I'm going to dig into later when I have more time, see what's up with that and if there's anything there that can help me.

This morning I was thinking about the lesson that I hope I've learned from this most recent run-in with my mother's irredeemable horribleness; to never tell her anything about my health until after it's over, if even then.  I don't know why I felt I needed my mother's attention that day that test that was no big deal suddenly became kind of a big deal, but wow did I pay for that little bit of motherly whatever it was, which wasn't even that good when I got it. 

I paid three times:  The first time, when I thought back on the supposedly nurturing conversation I'd had with her and noticed the barbs hiding among the ersatz concern.  The second time a week later, two weeks before the procedure and well into the "not worrying about it for now", phase when she popped off an enquiry as to how I was "coping with waiting" for the procedure after some fun casual texting about the baseball playoffs.  And then, of course, the day after the procedure.  That was the toxic dose, coming as it did when I was in a weakened state and vulnerable.  Maybe the lesson I need to learn here is bigger than just "don't tell her about my health".  Maybe the real lesson is "NO.  You do NOT need that woman's attention."

Aphotic, san and Chart, as always, thank you for your replies.  I agree with all of you that I do deserve to be healthy and whole, and that my mother's desire for me to be sick or dead is her own evil illness and does not make me an unworthy person.  The problem is, I cannot figure out how to get out from under the shadow of this wish of hers.  I already know all the "whys".  I already know that my mother is a very twisted individual, she is bad and wrong and a narcissistic sociopath and none of it was my fault.  But I guess deep down some part of me doesn't believe it, and I haven't found a way to convince it.  IS there a way?  That's the $64 million dollar question. 

Chart, san and Armee, thank you for your replies.  The really painful part of this that I wasn't able to express in my previous post is that I recognise from childhood that feeling of disappointing my mother by being fundamentally healthy and sound. 

When I was growing up, my mother was deeply invested in the idea that there was something wrong with me.  Early childhood-me remembers it as "She was always taking me to doctors".  I don't have any specific memory of conditions or symptoms that were being looked into.  Nothing was ever found.  And there was the thing with me being constipated when I was maybe 10 or 11.  One day there was blood on the toilet paper after I went to the bathroom.  I told my mother and she was very concerned.  She took me to the doctor.  He wasn't concerned about anything serious, but told her she should monitor my BMs and feed me a better diet.  I remember her impatience with those instructions.  I remember her brushing me off when I reported a blood-free but very painful BM not long after that doctor visit, and I remember her once telling me not to eat a banana because it would make me constipated.  But most of all, I remember her saying she didn't want to hear about any of it anymore. "I wash my hands of your s***", said she.  That was an expression my stepfather liked to use.  I guess she thought that was funny because there was actual s*** involved.  I guess that's a good example of what caused the powerful drive I have to be weak and vulnerable that is constantly dragging down my better self's efforts to improve, feel self-love, be comfortable with being alive.  And I guess this is why I only feel safe with sickness and misery, and even when I manage to feel healthy and good I can never sustain it for very long. 

Oh and by the way, the constipation that my mother didn't take seriously is still a problem for me.  It might not have been a cancer that was going to kill me, but it certainly has made huge swaths of my life feel like they weren't worth living.   

My mother texted me yesterday to see how my medical procedure on Thursday went.  She lost interest immediately when it turned out not to be cancer.  It was never actually expected to be cancer, but I guess she couldn't help but get her hopes up. Once again I have disappointed her by being fundamentally healthy and sound instead of having a terrible medical problem.

NK, you're right that my mother was not always deliberate in her abuse.  In fact, probably not even most of the time.  There certainly was plenty of malice, but probably not all that much aforethought.  I don't think she ever thought to herself "Oh, yeah, I'm going to hurt B now".  I don't think she really thought about me very much at all, I just was, I was there, and she didn't like me much, but not to where I was much worth thinking about unless I was actively causing her trouble.  I don't think most of the time I was even really a person to her.  I was more like some kind of appendage.  Something that showed up one day, something that was a little unwieldy and not really welcome, but not life-threatening, and more difficult to get rid of than it was to work around.  Like a tail, or an extra pinky or something.  My inner child still believes I was disgusting and deserved it all.

dollyvee and san, thank you for your comments and support.  I appreciate the validation.  But I also hate it.  It all feels so inescapable.  I feel caught between my desire and my efforts to feel healthy and whole, and the fact that such feelings aren't safe.  It's not that I want to be miserable.  It's that nothing else is safe. 

Thank you for your replies, friends.  I agree that I am not suicidal, which makes the intrusive thoughts particularly galling.  I know you would all believe me and understand if I tried to describe what my inner children are dealing with, but most of it is not as straightforward as the incident I recalled above.  Most of it was subtle and dark and impossible for a child to understand.  Impossible for a child to understand, and very confusing and distressing for an adult to try to make sense of.  In fact, in a weird way it's a relief that I have one specific memory that I know for sure happened that I can point to and say "There.  ABUSE."  Because otherwise I really might not know that it wasn't all me, that there never were reasonable explanations for how I was treated.

I'm really glad the consultant turned out so great. 

And at the same time it makes me sad reading about how your family treats you. It sounds like an unbelievably toxic environment. And you're being so considerate and polite. My heart goes out to you because you deserve so much more than this. So I'm sending you warmth, support, hugs and all you need

NarcKiddo, what you've written here is very resonant.  I struggle to allow myself to feel anger, but stories like this bring it right up.  The thing about your mother laughing over a friend getting caught up in a romance scam is particularly stomach-turning for me, because I recently found out that a teacher I had a long time ago literally died because he lost all his money to a romance scammer and then could no longer afford medication he needed to stay alive.  When I think about the person who did that to him, I feel violent.  And now, thinking about your mother gossiping and being entertained at someone she calls a friend being in that situation, I feel that way, too. 

Trigger Warning: Suicidal thoughts, child abuse.
















Maybe all the intrusive noise in my head about "I wish I was dead" "Why am I here?" "Why am I alive?" "Why can't I just die?" "I'm going to kill myself" is child me (Middle B?) reacting to my mother's feelings about me.  I think that my mother's fondest wish when I was a child was that I would die.  It would be a win-win for her, because then she wouldn't have to deal with me anymore, and she could get attention for being a tragically bereaved mother.  I think the only thing that stopped her from doing it herself that time when I was around 9 that she strangled me with her hands until I started to black out was pure self-preservation.  After all, she wanted to be a tragically bereaved mother, not an evil murdering mother.  What sticks with me most about that incident is that after she let go and left the room, I laid on her bed for a few minutes thinking something along the lines of "Yeah, that happened, she did that, whatever."  It felt FAMILIAR.  Based on that memory and on flashbacks, I've had a belief for a number of years that she tried to suffocate me in my crib when I was an infant, but thinking about this now, it occurs to me that maybe she didn't do that herself.  Maybe there was some kind of incident in which I almost suffocated (crib bumpers in the 60s anyone?) but didn't, and that awoke in her the notion that my dying would solve her problems.  Who knows?  Not me.  And does it really matter?

There's so much I want to say about this.  I want to write it out like a court case, a reconstruction based on photographs and documents and witness testimony, an argument that it really was her and not me...but I can't.  It's so confusing.  There are so many details.  I don't even know where to start.  Especially because if I DID write it out, I'm pretty sure it would sound completely crazy and then I'd have to doubt ALL MY CONCLUSIONS about...well, everything.   

Random memory:  My grandmother saying about me as a child that "[Bach] will need to find someone to buy her a fur coat and take care of her".  What a strange thing for her to say.  What a strange thing for me to remember.  Is that where I got the idea that I would never be able to take care of myself?

If there's one thing I can count on my mother to be interested in, it's problems with my health.  I've had some stuff going on with my woman parts.  Yesterday I went to have a testing procedure that the doctor thought he could do in the office, but it turns out that I'm going to have to have it done under anaesthesia.  I hadn't been particularly worried about this test until that happened, but now I am.  My mother is keenly interested in all this.  I was texting about it with her this morning and we had a whole conversation that was actually about what's going on with me, that included knowledgeable advice and even reassurance, you know, like a real mother would give.  I told her that I felt overwhelmed, and she asked if there was anything she could do to help.  It seemed really sincere and it gave me a warm fuzzy feeling, until I started thinking about it.  Resenting the care she didn't take of me when I was a child and really needed her.  Resenting that I have to be sick or in pain to be worthy of her compassion. 

My self-destructive streak always resurfaces when I renew my efforts to take care of myself, be good to myself, encourage my health and nervous system regulation.  It's like there are two of me in here, one who is trying to look after me, and another who wants only to make sure that I can never feel comfortable or safe or happy.  I know it's more garbage that came from my mother along with the all the other garbage that came from my mother.  I know why I am the way I am.  I know the ins and outs of what happened to me this and what effect it had on me that.  Is there anything I can do with all this tiresome knowledge?  Anything to actually FIX me?