'Mother Taboo'

[songbirdrosa]

In my quest to rid myself of the ickyness that comes with all this, I did some poking around and found this article. It may not work for everyone, but I figure any resources that we can share are a good thing

http://www.narcissisticmother.com/angry-at-a-narcissistic-mother-part-ii

[Candid]

Thanks for that, songbirdrosa. It leads to http://www.narcissisticmother.com/piper-score, for all those whose mothers were so covert we sometimes think we made it up.

I got six reds and one yellow. 

[clarity]

Tidiness was the thing for our NM... her way of controlling things, of course we were just another thing to tidy and keep 'nice'.

Apart from public occasions when she needed to be the 'star'.  For one huge such event, I, aged 11, awkward and self conscious was made a brown waistless tent dress out of jersey slub, and wore that with my tan tights, and black school shoes.  NM had a 'shop bought' designer pale green chiffony thing. She beams out of the photos on that sunny spring day, while I am rigid and mortified, not really knowing why then.  Of course, the story about this now is ' but you CHOSE to wear it!'... and it is laughed at.  It's a useful memory as it helps me to stay strong when I need to.

I remember going to buy my first pair of grownup sandals for the school disco.  She was in a FOUL mood the whole time. Hated me to grow up, to be blossoming. I felt guilt and shame for wanting those shoes, but loved them too... agony. I knew something was missing ( shared happiness and excitement at rite of passage, her pride in me) but didn't know what.... big feature I think is that most of the time we didn't know why we were unhappy and so it was inevitable that we would consider ourselves idiots or ungrateful or greedy.

Trying to exist between the narrow confines of NM and PAF's expectations, no room to move, to breathe, to express myself without fear, to grow into somebody authentic. 

Our family too .... a ''model'' from the outside.  But a model is all it was ... a mock-up, like one of those film sets that is just cardboard and props around the back... people would have been so shocked if they had known how devoid of love it all was.   No wonder we kept quiet though- it even fooled us .... almost.

I thank God that there was the niggle in me that kept me rebelling against it, though sometimes that rebellion was the tiniest blue flame.

[songbirdrosa]

Candid, I got six reds and a yellow too! I didn't think it was anywhere near that bad! 

Clarity, that sounds dreadful, it's wonderful that you still had an inkling that something was wrong, though. My mother was the opposite. She would never do any cleaning (unless it was her own bedroom when things were getting mouldy), and she expected me to pick up her slack. Every other day it was 'do the dishes', 'vacuum the floor', 'mop the bathroom', 'tidy the kitchen'! And if I didn't she would yell, scream, insult me, call me lazy, tell me how much of a burden I was. To this day, I still have trouble with tidying things because she basically made me afraid to do it!

[Piou]

I think I've experienced this too. I always felt like something was wrong despite my mother's effort to make everything (including me and siblings) look perfect, nice, tidy. I can't tell if it was out of narcissim that she did all that she did but at times, my sister (who is the only person I can count on really) wil tell me that she doesn't think our mom loves us and it makes me very, very sad. Like, my life is a lie. Plus, getting bombarded everyday with messages that tell you that a mother always loves her children and images of ''perfect'' families makes you feel all the more invisible and like what you're experiencing can't possibly be true.

[AphoticAtramentous]

Glad this thread got revived. Took that little scoring test and what do you know, six reds and a yellow. I didn't think it was that bad either. >.>
Reading this thread has reminded me of a bunch of stuff though, in a good way that's helping me come to terms with things that have happened, things I've forgotten. Like the time when my mother said I wasn't feminine enough, that "why can't you just act like a normal girl?". Or calling me a 'dag' a few times per week because I enjoyed wearing baggy trousers and hoodies since that made me feel comfortable and safe.

[Resca]

Also SUPER glad that this thread is back because it speaks to my soul. Growing up with an NM and trying to heal is SO MUCH HARDER because of the prevalence of this Mother Myth. This is a big throwback but Clarity, I think you're exactly right when you said that "maternal rejection is so profound that society cannot handle it." And I wonder sometimes if even victims like us, specifically, can't really process that rejection because of how badly we wish the myth was true. The same was we buy into all the horrible thoughts NMs put into our heads, we buy into this idea that all mothers - even ours - really do love us and we just aren't seeing it. I mean, *, I got reds straight down the board on that quiz and I immediately found myself going back and knocking down some of my answers because it couldn't really be that bad, right? It's just so tragic that any of us should have to question our actual experiences just because society says mothers are supposed to be some way.

Rant over, haha. Love to all of you other motherless friends  It's a tough battle but I'm happy to have found this group so we can try it together. You are believed here, and you are valued here.

[Gromit]

6 reds & 1 yellow too, even after all this time.

G

[green tree sky]

My therapist suggested that I write a fairy story about some stuff that was revealed in a sandplay session - How would I refer to m? I came up with "Evil False Mother" I found it fitted rather well! (Hindus have the concept of the "terrible mother" which perhaps was somewhere in my mind when I came up with this title.)

I managed to bypass m-day most of my life by refusing 'to engage in marketing hype' which I actually believe is the case - luckily it was one thing she did not like either... so I won a minor bit of breathing space... She was able to justify to her friends (and place herself on a throne of uniqueness) by explaining that her daughter had seen through the marketing hype (yours had not). I wish I had seen through her hype years before... the anti-m day things started just out of instinct ie before I 'got the picture'.

Even though m had had a crap childhood it was never talked about - she had risen above it and was now perfection itself!

The stories of the perfect house rang so true - our house had to look like a film crew could turn up any minute, as our house was featured in a home magazine (which made her so awfully proud) it was always possible another would turn up. One story m loved to tell was of a dinner party where she dropped the desert and a guest came in and said 'don't worry, just pick it up, your floor is as clean as a hospital no germ could possibly remain alive'...she basked in the perfection of her clean floor for years.

my goodness, it feels so good to tell these stories in a safe place...

Yes, the Piper questionnaire is pretty spot on, I do it every now and then when I am forgetting how bad it was - all red. I get her newsletter every few days - it is really excellent...

[Blueberry]

I got red right across the board! Yikes. After all this time.

Though a lot of what is written about narc mothers doesn't fit mine at all. So I'm a bit confused. She fits Borderline Witch description better. Pretty dysfunctional, whatever way you look at her.

[Resca]

I wish I had seen through her hype years before... the anti-m day things started just out of instinct ie before I 'got the picture'.

It's really interesting how your gut instinct told you that something was wrong before you really understood what was happening to you. You'd think that being raised the way you were - which sounds awful, by the way - your mind would be so used to the "wrong-ness" that you wouldn't even notice, but somehow your natural instinct told you otherwise. It just goes to show how powerful biology is when it comes to trauma and stress. I hope that this makes it easier for you to recover and grow in strength.

[green tree sky]

Thank you Resca: You are right that somewhere there is a little spark within the biology - the body's wisdom... strangely though it is a double edge sword as that body wisdom is also the thing that helped us create (now-unhelpful) tools when we where children to get through the * of being a child in a dysfunctional home.

I was really confused about the feeling of 'wrongness' when I was a kid but I did think it was that way for everyone.

Blueberry: I did read about Borderline witch and they sound pretty dysfunctional indeed and very confusing, it must have been awful. I am sure there are huge variations in our FOOs for our experiences to not always fit with other's stories, it does not make your experience less real.