Tag Archives: mother

09.26.20
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Healing the mind in conversation

Our Spirit Group facilitator, Mary, helped me through an emotionally challenging, teary discussion by having me switch to referring to myself in the 3rd person rather than as I. Using this process (while cumbersome at first) really works in taking the sting out of words. Later on, during a counseling session, a therapist used the same method with He and I which made honest conversation easier to acknowledge.

Here’s an excerpt from an article I found from Psychology Today:

“When using third person or “non-first-person” pronouns during self-talk, you do not use pronouns such as I, me, or my. Instead, you speak to yourself (either in a hushed tone or silently inside your own head) using pronouns such as you, he, she, it, or your own first or last name. In recent years, a wide range of studies has found that third-person self-talk can improve emotion regulation and self-control by facilitating self-distancing and reducing egocentric bias”

Years ago while learning to cope with and live with my relationship with my mother, I began to refer to her in conversations by her given name. While I absolutely did not have the gonads to call her Helen to her face, I recall the feelings of less lethal emotions when I gave myself permission to not refer to her with the beloved name of Mom. Of course, mom wasn’t actually the name she preferred…it was Mother. It’s highly likely that Mother is a loving name spoken from children to their beloved. But in my case it was a “formal” expectation which was another knife wound that separated mother and daughter.

In a FB conversation with a friend this morning, I referred to mom as Helen….and that’s what brought this whole train of thought coursing through my brain like a slow meandering stream. Use it if it feels good. We all have uncomfortably charged conversations

Until next time….

05.11.14
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It has taken me nearly 5 years….a huge milestone

but I no longer hate my mother.  I’m even able to call her mom in conversations rather than by her given name, Helen.  This is a huge milestone in my life…I never thought I would be able to feel differently about her…after she died in 2009 and I started the process of healing, I assumed that I would just move on, the memories would fade and how I felt about my mother would just find a seat on the shelf of my heart which holds the pain. Frequently situations and conversations work through my memory that I find distasteful or hateful or whatever…but the bottom line is I realize that she had mental disorders.  I don’t know how or why and I will never know how or why so somewhere along the journey, I made it right in my own mind and can say that it is okay….it doesn’t matter…she did the best that she could do…I’m who I am because of her and I like who I am so she did her job.

EPSON MFP image

The most important part of this was to share this with my daughters for mother’s day.  They have loved me, supported me and helped me make it over to the peace of understanding.  Happy Mother’s Day.

Until next time….

07.10.08
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Narcissism mom dying since I was born

Gee, another weblog entry on my narcissistic mother…once again…don’t judge me until you have walked in my shoes…this entry is more for me than you. 

My days off were fraught with pain, agony, sadness, fear, guilt and just plain crap thanks to my mother and my aunt.  As I have stated before, something had to have happened to these two when they were young – something mind numbing, something that I will probably never know; or, if not, I fear for the genetics running in my family.

Aunt Frances was in the hospital because she was sicker than a dog…her legs were swollen, she had a fever, the bags under her eyes were incredible, she was in pain and she was dry heaving and absolutely miserable in the ER…they admitted her – put her on antibiotics and a couple of units of blood..she came home today.

Helen (mother) on the other hand, began this game of being sick as soon as Aunt Frances went in.  She was fine when Aunt Frances was in the hospital last month for two weeks…but not this week.  She was at the doctor 3 times in 2 weeks and had me take her to the ER..finally the doc admitted her today for observation.  She kept complaining about the pain in her stomach…after x ray – cat scan – blood tests they have determined that she is constipated.  They knew that 2 days ago but she wouldn’t give up.  The crazy old bat says she has a hernia like Frances…Frances has 3 hernias and had surgery on 2 of them last month – I saw them…they were hernias.  Helen doesn’t have hernias…she says it feels like a lamp shade is turning over in her stomach…she also has decided that she is going to go blind.  She’s 90 years old and doesn’t wear glasses but told Dana the other day she was just going to accept that she was going blind.

This is absolutely nothing new.  She has been dying ever since I was born.  She always had a pain here and there and she always told me about it…when I was very young, she told me where the grain alcohol was in case she had a heart attack…supposedly that was a cure…she has had undiagnosed cancer and every other ailment known to man or woman.  I have put up with her over-reacting about everything, trying to control my life, diagnosing Jenny (when she was a baby) with cystic fibrosis because her skin tasted salty.  What the hell was she licking Jenny’s skin for anyway.  She has no friends, doesn’t really like my friends and has a mouth on her that I threatened several times to record so she could hear how she talks to my dad even with a room full of people.

Well, today Aunt Frances got out of the hospital but not before the doc put Helen in.  The same room…Aunt Frances was angry that they were kicking her out although the nurses several times told her that there was nothing medically wrong with her (medically being the key word here).  Dana tells me that she raised hell and Frances and Helen got in one of their loud arguments in the room.  The nurse tried to calm it down saying she really wished they wouldn’t argue.  My friend, Vicki called tonight to ask me to pickup the things Aunt Frances left because they were not thru checking her out of the hospital when she left…said she took off because she and Helen were having an argument in the hospital.  So I called Aunt Frances…she denies everything….then I talked to Helen…she denies everything.  The fact that they both deny it makes me so mad I can barely function.  Helen has never done anything wrong in her life.  The man times I have tried to talk to her … she has put it all on me…she didn’t do anything wrong.  I’m just like my dad, she says…… I’m so frustrated, I’m so sad that I don’t have and will never have a mother like everyone else.  I’m tired of dealing with the absolute craziness…I want to have a couple of days when I don’t have to be responsible – when I can be genuinly care free without waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I read a lot on the web last night trying to figure out what I’m suppose to do.  My shrink told me that I need to completely distance myself from her..let someone else take it…I am not responsible for my mother’s happiness…this helped a lot but I’m still the one that Frances and Helen call when they have a pain or need something…anytime day or night..they don’t care…they call and wonder if I’m sleeping…uh ya, I work midnights so instead of hanging up – they launch into either a tyrade or want to discuss with me what they called for in the first place.  I’m actually feeling like someone else blogged  about a narcissistic mother – you have to keep your distance and pray for their demise.  Sounds terrible…but I’m on the edge of a breakdown……

“He” is dealing with some significant health issues right now – I should be totally there for him but feel like I don’t have the energy and he demands NOTHING from me.  I was so exhausted I slept thru a lunch date today…a lunch date with a couple of friends that I would have been able to unload on and get some empathy and sympathy… I’m running on low…I know what I have to do but I’m too much a caregiver to do it…My role has always been the peacemaker between mother and my dad- they each would come to me with their problems and my dad threatened to leave many, many times so I felt like an adult desperate to keep them together…who wants to lose their mother or father and I was afraid I would be left with the mother…but if I don’t keep my distance, if I don’t completely shut them out of my life, I’m afraid of what will happen to me.