I've [32F] been no-contact with my entire family for two years, after around 10 years too long of bearing the physical, emotional, mental, and sexual abuse of a narcissistic mother and a silent father who enabled her. In that time I've tried many ways to recover - self-care especially seemed too difficult somehow. I couldn't figure out why until recently.
See, my Nmom sabotaged every act of self-care and every possible lifeline. Not only did she prevent me from forming any connections or being able to trust anyone besides her, but she also managed to 'ruin' every possible action I could take to strengthen or heal myself. I suppose this was to keep me relying on her.
I say 'ruin' because the longer I am no-contact, the easier it is to rewrite the false information and feelings she planted. I thought this probably happens to a lot of children of narcissists, who were taught incorrect ideas and were sabotaged from feeling confident and secure. So here are my examples (please comment your own if you would like):
- Trimming nails - Nmom would cut my nails so closely they would hurt even when I asked her to do it differently
- Showering - I have hazy memories of being told I hadn't washed my hair well enough, or my Nmom sitting outside the shower while I was in there. I don't remember how old I was
- Hair - my Nmom fetishized my hair and wouldn't let me cut it, style it, put any products in it, dye it (later on), and when she brushed my hair she would make me uncomfortable with obsessive comments about how pretty it was. She sometimes brushed it so hard that I cried, and when I cried she would snap at me that 'it doesn't hurt' and tell me I was just trying to make her feel bad
- Shaving - Nmom took over the role of shaving - FOR ME - from when I was 11-12 or so. For that time she shaved my legs while I sat on the edge of the bathtub, and shaved my underarms while I had to hold my arms up in front of the sink mirror. I don't remember if I was dressed or naked, just that all of these memories are blurry and horrifying.
- Meditation - Nmom forced me to meditate with her many times and would grill me afterward on how I felt. I was always so uncomfortable having to keep my eyes closed knowing she was nearby that I never felt better afterward, so she would get angry at me for 'not trying' and act like I was being a rebellious kid on purpose.
- Spirituality, positivity, affirmations - Nmom was big into whatever was the newest spiritual craze. She would insist that I participate in whatever her newest obsession was, then would get angry at me when I didn't immediately believe in it and do whatever she wanted. The Secret, the teachings of Abraham, crystal healing, EFT (a sort of tapping on chakras all over your body). She once did EFT on me even though I kept begging her to stop because she was tapping HARD on each chakra point. She refused to stop, kept insulting me while she did it, and got angrier and angrier because she insisted she was trying to make me calm down - while raising her voice at me. The more she touched me the worse I felt and I ended up crying in hysterics. She acted like I was mentally ill.
- Therapy - Nmom forced the family to go to therapy together when I was 14. I don't remember what her reason was (obviously it wasn't that she was controlling the entire family). I remember NOTHING of these sessions. It is a blank. All I remember is sitting in a room next to my other family members with a therapist sitting across from us. I do not remember ever having the chance to talk to the therapist without Nmom present. As if this experience wasn't enough, she raised me to distrust therapists as 'they will make you crazy' or 'they will feed you lies and tell you it's your mother's fault'. Ironic.
- Healthcare - you may have guessed this but Nmom was a spiritual crazy, and she often talked about how you couldn't trust 'traditional medicine', big Pharma, doctors, everyone was a part of it. Except her, of course. All of her nonsensical remedies were forced on me, as well as any big fad that was expensive and non-scientific. This wreaked habit with my eating and my health as I was always being forced to go from one diet to another, or to go on strange substances and supplements. Once I refused when I was finally in my 20's and living away from her - but she bought all of the substances and guilted me into taking them for 3 months because she 'already spent $3000 on my share'. I actually obeyed - that was how much control she had over me. She also actively sabotaged me from recovery by not letting me follow doctors' instructions, take prescribed medication, etc.
- Hobbies - every hobby I had was critiqued, nitpicked, yet 'supported'. So she would act like she was a saint for buying me art materials, but make weird sexual comments about my art, or insult me, or insert herself so much into my hobby that it wasn't even mine anymore. Sometimes, like with athletics, she planted false information to make me afraid to keep going, like telling me I was injured or would become injured, to get me to quit and think it was MY idea.
- Perfume, Makeup, Clothing - nothing with ANY scent was allowed near Nmom or in her home. She (I think faked) had coughing spells whenever I bought a new shampoo after I moved out. She forced me to shower in her home several times after I moved out, because I had come over after using a normal shampoo. Perfume was out of the question and 'only whores wear that'. Makeup was also forbidden to me, and I wasn't allowed to paint my nails. Even as an older teenager, she would begrudgingly allow me to paint nails but it couldn't be red (whore color) or black (people will think you're depressed). Predictably clothing was critiqued endlessly as well. I couldn't win with clothing because if I didn't wear exactly what she wanted, she would insult me. If I did, she would find another reason to make fun of me or belittle me.
- Exercise - in addition to sabotaging every athletic hobby I ever had, Nmom managed to convince me I was 'special' and 'weak' and my body wasn't able to exercise. She told me repeatedly I could only do 20 minutes' walk on a treadmill once a day, and even that might be too much. I wasn't supposed to stretch or do yoga as it would 'loosen me up too much' and anything more strenuous than a normal walk was seen as too dangerous for me. Because of the level of brainwashing I truly believed this until I was in my late 20's.
- Eating - multiple phases of eating disorders as Nmom would either force me to clean my plate no matter what, or would act like I shouldn't be hungry and wouldn't let me eat at other times. One of her favorite sayings was 'if you won't eat a banana you aren't really hungry' even though when I was that hungry I needed something more substantial than just a banana. She refused to buy sweets or snacks or anything ready-made, so as a kid I just accepted that I had no options and was hungry. As a teenager and older adult we still weren't supposed to have ready-made food or snacks in the house, and even as an adult with a job who lived at home, she would critique any 'outside food' that I bought with my own money. If you tried to refuse her cooking (which was awful 9/10 times) and eat something else, even as an adult, you were ridiculed and lectured.
I'm sure there are more things, but I wanted to get this out while I had it on my mind. I really, truly believe that she was trying to keep me 'her baby' forever. She simultaneously wanted me to be so dependent and helpless that I would believe everything she said and do everything she wanted, but also wanted me to be able to run any errand, handle any obligation, and provide adult-level, covert incest support for her as if I was her boyfriend.
I hope that if you find yourself somewhere in this post, you know that these experiences were not okay and my mother (and yours if you are in the same situation) was absolutely wrong for behaving this way. No parent should play these mindgames with their children. These experiences are still with me and make it hard just to function and appear to be a normal adult.
As time goes on, I do want to say that there is hope. The longer I protect myself from any contact with Nmom and her enabling family, the more confident I feel. I still struggle with self-care because of these parts of my past - and other incidents too triggering to bring up without derailing the subject - but it is slowly getting easier.
Please be good to yourselves and remember you are important, you deserve to feel good about taking care of yourself, and there is a lot of love and kindness out there in the world.
Submitted November 26, 2019 at 07:15PM by zhengzhouterra https://ift.tt/2sk1s8k
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