Still Ruminating

[Phoebes]

I'm still ruminating regularly about writing NM a letter and what it would say. It turn into a novel. Then I think if I had to reduce it down to one page what the most important things would be. In all the years I considered writing her a letter I never have, but I've written tons of journals and letters, just never sent. Now it's to the point that it's all over. She has "let me go". So, I should be free now, right? I don't understand this need to define and elaborate and point out and explain. If she could have understood she would have when I tried to talk to her about the most basic of parts of the problem.

I guess I can't get over the severity of the abuse and the utter lack of empathy. The entitlement that there was nothing wrong with it because "she's the mother." The fact the narrative is all twisted and as far as anyone knows she is the victim and "has no idea." I know it's the same 'ol' story. I've not been able to let it go for good, and I guess it's a final slap in the face that she can.

[Chart]

Hello Phoebes, Check out PapaCoco's journal. He's got a lot to say about letting go. Yeah, I feel deeply what you're describing. The "other" that never saw and will never see. It is an injustice that goes to our conception. Looking to the perpetrator, it will NEVER be validated. So once again, we have to do it ourselves.

I'm pretty depressed. Literally no one in my family sees anything at all regarding what I survived.

And my relationships just seek out the same selfish egotistical type. The worst is how much I still love them all. It feels like a black-hole hopelessness. Pulling myself back out past the event horizon is excruciating each time.

I have no suggestions or answers. Working my amygdala is all I can try to do: meditation, therapy, hypnosis, tapping, emdr, DBR... next up Neurofeedback... but I'm unfortunately feeling extremely pessimistic... about everything.

Sorry, I'm not much help. But I think I know how you feel. Sending hugs if that's ok...
 

[NarcKiddo]

One of the reasons I started therapy was the growing suspicion that I might not be free of my mother even when she dies. Unless I work on myself the EFs etc will not go just because she is not here. It sounds like you still have things to work through for yourself even if it might feel like you want to communicate with her.

As for letting you go - that feels cruel to me. Even if she is dressing it up as doing you a favour it is, as you say, a slap in the face. And I think she knows it is. She may even be calculating that you will come begging at some point.

It's impossible to know what anyone else is thinking. She may understand more than you realise, even if she chooses to appear otherwise, but that does not help you if she chooses to continue as she is. You need to look after you.

[Cascade]

Now it's to the point that it's all over. She has "let me go". So, I should be free now, right? I don't understand this need to define and elaborate and point out and explain. If she could have understood she would have when I tried to talk to her about the most basic of parts of the problem.

Hi Phoebes,
I believe you're right about her capabilities.  That's what did it for me when I decided to go no-contact with my mother.  My efforts to "get her to understand" would be futile.

As I understand the OOTS Letters of Recovery, they are about the writer rather than the perpetrator.  If you could pare it down to one page about you and your feelings, might that help?

Just wondering, and hope you can turn the ruminating into something good for you.
   -Cascade

[Phoebes]

Thank you, Chart, I can tell you know the feeling. Thank you for your message! Yeah, I used to feel I needed her to understand and validate, but u think I just want her to KNOW the depths of her destruction. Saying that, even if I explain it and find details, she will never get it. She will be twisting it onto me and her mind. Also, there's part of me that does not want to upset her more than going no contact already has. I know that's weird.

I understand now her projection was very strong. It's hard to wrap my mind around how someone can just do that to another person and feel entitled to it. Even if it's subconscious, don't you hear the words coming out of your own mouth? On the flipside. Sometimes I remember the "good "things I remember the glimmer of her soft side that you would occasionally see. The part of her that made you feel sorry for her or empathize. I do still love that part of my mother, but I also understand it was part of the abuse cycle, and it was often very shallow. I can see it came from a place of "doing what a mother would do "rather than really seeing me as a person or empathizing.

As someone who is dysfunctional myself, and who is learning about my own dysfunction, I guess it helps me empathize with where my mother might have been coming from. A place of severe dysfunction. So severe, she could never even reflect or change. It's sad. I wish it's something she and I could talk about and understand before one of us leaves this earth. We're both older and it's going to happen at some point not too long in the future.

[Phoebes]

Narckiddo, I agree that it feels cruel, even though "I " am the one who "wanted" NC. I think it's her final attempt at control, her number one love.

Cascade- I could try again.. I used to write and journal so much, and now the thought of it exhausts me. Although I've got to get this out of my head. I think there's a sense of all this work I've done for years and I'm still not where I want to be. It's like my whole life is still about her, and healing from her, and what to do with my trauma symptoms.

[Cascade]

I totally hear you Phoebes!

Mind you, I haven't written a letter of recovery to my own mother or father.  The thought of it exhausts me, too!  You deserve for your life to be about you.  We all do.
   -Cascade

[Kizzie]

You deserve for your life to be about you.  We all do.

 

[Beijaflor57]

Phoebes, my heart goes out to you.

I too have struggled with the deep sense of injustice that the narrative in my family has been so twisted, and with frustration that my attempts to get others to see, understand, and validate what I've experienced, and what has truly happened, have so far been rebuffed. It's maddening, and, as you said, feels like a 'slap in the face.'

While letting go is incredibly difficult, I believe it's one of the kindest things we can do for ourselves. As others have said, you, and all of us, deserve our life to be about us.

I wish you the best...

[Chart]

It might be one of our greatest deficits as a species... We absolutely cannot agree about Reality. Even worse, we cannot communicate or relate unless the other goes along nearly 100%.

I tried for years to just have my experience "heard" by my mother. I didn't demand that she accept what I was saying was the Truth, only that she acknowledge that that was my experience.

No way. She could never get beyond the "implication" that she had done something wrong. In the end I took this itself as validation of her true behavior. It was so bad she had wiped it from her conscious memory. But the "implication" would hit the nerve ending and she couldn't stand the possibility, because it was actually true. She actually went to enormous effort to "prove" to me it was untrue. This only validated me more, but not in a way that permitted us to have any semblance of a healthy relationship.

Acknowledging something without explicitly taking responsibility (because of absence of the memory) is one way to reestablish a relationship. Willingness to Acknowledge is a sign of a healthy interaction. We can all forget, and we all repress. This means that the "accusation" (experience) of the other is always worthy of acknowledgement. Even if we don't ourselves remember it that way. Acknowledgement is neither admission nor denial. It is simply the acceptance of the other's experience as they perceived it.

But it has to go both ways.

But of course this is subtle and for that reason difficult to explain to others, especially people who abused us. But it's the Line that must be drawn between relationship or no relationship.

If you cannot at minimum acknowledge my experience, I cannot have relationship with you.

[Phoebes]

Thank you, Beija 

Chart, yes, I do believe that is where the rubber hits the road and why I could not break NC. With every attempt my NM made at contact, she refused to acknowledge my experience. Her goal was to get me to just forget about it and go back to pretending.

She could not even accept the severe physical abuse aspect of the abuse. I know there is no way she would accept any form of emotional abuse, and that was by far the worst, and completely insidious through every aspect of my life. She was an extreme controller, but to her she was just being a good mom. She physically abused me like way crazy rage filled episodes. To her she never laid a hand on me, but if she did, it was one or two "spankings" (what, did I expect no discipline as a child?) it was nothing of th escort and not for reasons like I was doing something wrong. It was sadistic.

Anyway, in our last conversation I tried to speak frankly about it to open a door of discussion or healing, and I don't know what I was expecting but, like 6ou described, she could not in the slightest accept even a small fraction of the story. Nope. The story remains that I have exaggerated and imagined things  that didn't happen and won't forgive.   

I haven't heard anything different so I guess I should assume she still is waiting for me to come crawling back with no apology or acknowledgement. (Oh yeah and I'm the "prodigal daughter" )

[Beijaflor57]

Anyway, in our last conversation I tried to speak frankly about it to open a door of discussion or healing, and I don't know what I was expecting but, like 6ou described, she could not in the slightest accept even a small fraction of the story. Nope. The story remains that I have exaggerated and imagined things  that didn't happen and won't forgive. 

I've experienced similar reactions from my own parents, when I've confronted them about issues in my childhood.

As Chart said, being able to acknowledge another's experience is the sign of a healthy interaction. I've only recently realized I've been trying to have healthy interactions with those who have no interest in healthy interactions. I've similarly been told I've 'imagined things' or 'misconstrued' things by my parents and other members of my family. There's only one narrative, and if I dare poke holes in that narrative, or threaten the ego of anyone, I'm made to feel guilty or wrong.

I've had to let go of the need for any validation from my family.

[dollyvee]

Hi Phoebes,

I echo what Cascade said about writing about you and your feelings    For me, I always had (and still do but processing) an attachment to other whether it was how my family felt, or what's going on with a romantic interest. It's all about attachment. My feelings were never allowed growing up, so it is very foreign and scary to think about. They never mattered, so who's to say someone will acknowledge them now? Slowly, it's rising from my subconscious that it's not going to be my family or the substitute family (romantic interest) that I've projected these things onto, but it's going to have to be something different. I know when I start to feel the feelings underneath the "attachment gone wrong," it's very dark and uncomfortable.

I hope you're able to be gentle with yourself going through this. I'm sure, almost certain in fact, that most people are "dysfuctional" in some way, and not where they want to be in life no matter how much they've accomplished. I wonder if it's a form of "child consciousness" where you are the problem again, and that things are somehow "your fault" for not being how  you needed them to be. This is just my own interpretation based on my own experiences, so please take and leave as needed.

Sending you support,
dolly