So, today is day something or other on my no contact: part deux journey (6 maybe?), and our mutual friend called me and told me yesterday that mother wants to get a dog.  Then she asked her again today and sure enough, mother is getting a dog.  Um....does she not remember that the last dog she had she could not handle so she gave her to me?  Wtf?

Oh well.  I was first going to contact animal control on Facebook and the other places in town to warn them about her (and to tell them she's renting and to make sure she gets the permission from her landlord first), but my husband said "Just don't get involved.  Let her do whatever she wants.  If she gets a dog, she gets one.  We're not taking it when she doesn't want it anymore, so she'll be stuck finding it a home when that time comes."  And he's right.  I am just going to stay away from this one.

Eventually, I'd like our mutual friend and I to stop talking about my mom all together.  But it's fresh right now, so I get it.  But if it becomes weeks and weeks of this?  Or months?  I am going to have to start changing the subject on her until she stops.  If she doesn't, then I will have to tell her straight out: "I am not your friend only to talk about my mom, I'd rather hear what's going on in your life instead."  And to eventually "I just don't want to even know what she's up to".

I will say, it will be hard to 100% ignore my mother, as she lives a block away from me, but I'll deal.  The first step we're taking is getting privacy fencing to put in front of my chain link fencing (Lowe's has 6x8 pieces for only $30!!).  I only need a few, but that way her flying monkeys can keep away from our business, as can she.

But yeah, I need to just ignore this and stop caring about anything she does, period.  This is only the beginning of going no contact and I need to start off on the right foot and make the right choices this time.  This is a test of my ability to do this, and I am glad my hubby set me on the right path.

Because staying no contact doesn't just mean not talking to your mother, it also means staying out of her life, period.   And I just need to recite this old Polish proverb on a daily basis (or print it out and put it on my wall):

Growing up, my youngest son had horrible nosebleeds.  They would be awful and hard to stop.  We'd shove tons of tissues up there, we'd put ice on it, we did everything and it just got worse.  Once, we had to go to the ER, though it had stopped by the time we got there.  But luckily we went.  Because that ER doc told us the right way to stop a nosebleed.  I had no idea!  I had never known the right way, because there are the old "tried and true" ways, which were ice and tissues and leaning your head back, and whatnot.  But none of those things actually stop a nosebleed.

You have to take the indentation above your nostrils and plug your nose for 10 minutes.  That's it.  No tilting your head back.  No ice.  No tissues shoved into your nose (that will actually dry to the vein and then rip it back open when you pull it out).  Just plug, and wait.

But even though that stopped the nosebleeds, they always came back.  Nothing ever actually stopped them from happening in the first place.

A few months ago (my son is now 15), my son's anxiety about his nosebleeds was out of control.  He just could not handle it anymore.  He wanted them to STOP and never come back.

So, we went to the ENT and said "We need it cauterized, NOW."  He said "Sure, it will won't even take five minutes."  And within those five minutes, it was done. And should stay that way forever.  It could possibly come back, but it would just need another quick cauterization.  No biggie.

My son cried when he realized it was finally, for the first time in 15 years, completely done with!  He was rid of those horrible nosebleeds!  No more waking up to blood on his face.  No more freaking out that they won't stop.  Because sometimes that 10 minutes of plugging his nose turned into 20.  And once, it turned into 30, and his fingers felt so numb from squeezing his nose shut he was crying his eyes out wondering if it would ever stop.  Then after each nosebleed, he would have crippling anxiety for days, thinking it would come back (and a lot of times it did).  He would refuse to even move his upper lip for fear of breaking that vein back open.  He was paralyzed with fear.  But no doctor even suggested this procedure until my son looked up on Google how to permanently stop them.   


At first, after the cauterization, my son was relieved.  He felt like he was walking on air!  Then he became scared again.  Wondering "Will it come back?  Will this even work?"  But now it's been around 5 months and he hasn't had one nosebleed.  And now?  His relief has turned into a state of acceptance that this was the way his life was always meant to be.  He can be free and not even think about them anymore.  One day, he'll look back at those first 15 years of his life and say "Well, yeah, back when I was a kid I used to get nosebleeds all the time.  But it feels like a lifetime ago.  I don't even think about it anymore."  

That's our goal, isn't it?  To make our lives so much better than the bad times feel like a distant memory, like a lifetime ago.   To cauterize the problem at the source.  That's what no contact is.  At first, we feel great!  Then we get scared again..."Will this even take?  What if I go back?  What if she bothers me again?  What then?"  But, just like my son's nosebleeds, another quick cauterization will take care of it.  And in the cases of our mothers, we may have to perform our procedure (going no contact) again and again, until it takes, but eventually, it will take.

And eventually, our lives will become a state of acceptance that this is how our lives were meant to feel from the start. 

Imagine what that will feel like?  Imagine how happy you will be.  Sure, it's scary at first.  Change is always scary, usually because we're afraid we will fall back into the some old habits as before.  But, if you push yourself to build new habits while you are in this state of transition, and do something to change your daily life, that will help you stay on track.   When I first went NC with my mom back in 2013, my life had to change drastically, as I was with my mother every single day.  I had to find new things to do, to keep myself busy.  And I found I was not the person who I was when she was around.  I was someone completely different.  I was happier, a billion times less anxious, and could pursue my dreams without fear of judgement.

I did end up having to go back to her in order to help my family out of the financial hole we were in, but in the past four years, I've learned so much more about narcissism and how to deal with it that this time going NC is completely different.  I know what to expect and can't be tricked into giving her any more narcissistic supply.

Going no contact with your narcissistic mother (or anyone) is same thing as cauterizing a nasty vein that keeps opening up and giving you trouble.  Cutting it off at the source is the ONLY way to get it to completely stop.  You can't just keep plugging your nose and hoping she'll just go away.  Sure, that may help in the moment, but she'll always do something bad to you again.  That is a guarantee.

"What will everyone say?" you may ask.  Who cares?  Let them say what they want.  If anyone tells you "Oh c'mon, your mother loves you, she's sorry, just give her another chance!" you should reply with:

"I am here to talk to you about your life, I am not talking to you to talk about my mother.  If you can't respect that, then we can't talk anymore."

You WILL lose other people in your life over this.  That's almost guaranteed.  And some people may be your most favorite people in the world that you'd never expect to walk away from you.  Just know, that it's okay.  Let them go.  They were never really there for you to begin with (even if they pretended to be).  Their love is obviously conditional, just like your mother's.  It's a hard pill to swallow, but conditional love isn't real love at all.  It's "how I feel in the moment" love.  And if you aren't complying to what that person expects from you (without you even realizing they are expecting something from you), then it goes away.

Real love lasts, even through the bad times.  Real love is supportive, even if they don't agree with you.  Real love just grows and changes with you, it doesn't stop just because you grow and change.  Real love isn't jealous, it doesn't seek to control you, it doesn't wish to see you fail just so they can feel better about themselves.  Real love raises you up so you can walk on mountains (thank you Josh Groban for explaining this so well 😏) and gives you wings so you can fly away to your destiny.  Because real love allows you to be better than it, in fact, it wants you to be better than it.

Keep those things in mind when you are dealing with those who would put you right back into your mother's flow of destructive behavior.  Tell them your mother is like a persistent nosebleed.  Nosebleeds aren't good for anyone and the only way to get them to completely stop wreaking havoc on your life is to cauterize them at the source.  And going no contact is the only way to do that.  They don't have to agree with you in order to accept your choice.  Tell them that only people that can accept your choice are allowed in your life.  Simple as that.

And once you do go no contact?  Go out and find yourself.

Find out who you are without her.  

Because I assure you, it's so much better than you could ever imagine 💙

So I kept thinking last night and realized that even though mother doesn't have a printer, she could still share my email to her in many ways.  And not only that, we all know that when we get something bad sent to us, we'll read it a million times.  My email was pretty hurtful (though well deserved) and I decided I didn't want either to happen.  So I accessed her email and deleted it.  I did see she already read it, and I still have a copy of it in my own email box, should I need to resend it for any reason.

Here I am, thinking I may have hurt her feelings badly (again, well deserved) and she probably just rolled her eyes at it and assumed I was being over-dramatic.  You never know with her and frankly, I don't care.  The other issue still stands: she'll use it against me.  So now it's gone, she didn't send it to anyone else, so she has NO access to it at all (unless she figured out how to copy and paste it to a file---not something she knows how to do).  And if she brought someone else over to do it for her, well, now it's gone.  She read it.  She knows how I feel.  And we can be done with it.

And btw, mother is driving around places with all her friends, because  my warnings of her bad driving weren't believable enough and apparently mother is "driving fine".  So my kids and I thought yesterday....what if she's gaslighting me?  What is she's driving badly only when I am in the car?  On purpose???  Just to cause a huge issue like this?  That would be diabolical, but then again, we're talking about someone with narcissistic personality disorder.  So I can't put it past her.

Well, now she has her freedom back.  We'll see how long that lasts.  And then she'll cry to me for help, and if I don't give it to her, I'll be the bad guy.  Oh well.  She can go ask BM for help, since she told her "If something happens to you, who will take care of me?" right in front of me (twice), with their sick little dysfunctional relationship with BM calling her "Ma" all the time (which happened again yesterday).  Weirdos.  They both deserve each other as BM is the biggest user I've ever known in my life (for real, she uses everyone for rides, for money, etc.) and mother wants a little suck up around her at all times.  BAM!  She can suck up to mother and then use her for whatever she'll give her.  Perfect relationship!

I swear, I am so glad to be out of that situation, but it's only day three, and I don't feel like it's real yet.  But I'll get there.  Last night, I was confused.  I didn't know what to expect.  I didn't know why she was ignoring me.  I didn't understand.  But now I know exactly what's going on and it's my choice.  This feels so much better.  I just need to find my groove...figure out who I am when I am not worrying about my mother's behavior (which was pretty much constantly).    It feels like when I left my first husband (the narcissist) and while it felt great, it also felt stressful.  Just getting used to who I am without abusive people in my life...when that's all you've ever known?  It's really strange.

Any of you out there going no contact, just know, this feeling of limbo goes away.  It does get better.  You just have to wait.  And one day you'll know what it's like to be a survivor or narcissistic abuse, rather than being a victim of narcissistic abuse.  💗  You'll go through some of the stages of grief, just like with any relationship (though only to a point).  Right now, I am just still really angry.  But it will pass.  Someone just put mail in my mailbox, I need to go check.  Bye for now :)

Today she sends an email to me and my husband, explaining things?  I guess that's what it was supposed to be.  I don't know.  She tells me in the first part that "You don't give a fuck about me" but later acts like everything is hunky-dory (what does that even literally mean?) and that we're all good.  *sigh*

 So, I responded.  And it was quite mean.  And sweary.  And I didn't really go into much about what's been going on lately (other than calling her a psycho for pounding on my house and screaming my name through my windows) and just told her that she is a horrible mother and she lies all the time.  And I called her a narcissist throughout the email.  I wanted to pound that fact in really good.

But of course she did her typical thing where she left my letter in the middle of her table so all her friends could read it (the one I posted yesterday with her keys).

But if she still thinks there is anything left between us after what I wrote to her in my email?  Then really is more stupid than I had ever imagined.  Because I pulled no punches.  For once in my life: I got to tell my mom EXACTLY what I think.  I've lived for the past four years (since this blog started in 2013) in HELL because I had to put up with her, with me knowing what she IS.  Before that, I only lived in hell when she was mean.  When she was nice, I ate it up like candy.  But since finding out about narcissism, I've had to sit with knowing she doesn't love me, knowing she won't get better, knowing that every word she says is a lie....it's torture when you have to pretend to like someone.

I cared about her...sure, but as a fellow human, not as my mother.  So I took care of her: brought her to her doctor's appointments, did what needed to be done at all times for her.  But I dreaded every single moment I had to spend with her....hating her for her lies, hating her for her denial of my abuse, hating her for not giving two shits that I was raped (she ignored me when I told her about it).

FREEDOM.  That's what I want to feel, and I know I will.  But it's still so fresh, I feel angry, sick, and hurt. 

I need to move, get away from this neighborhood where everyone knows us and they are all her flying monkeys.  We need a place of our own, with neighbors that don't know her or us.  We need our own life.  I feel we can't have that here.  But for now, we'll just deal and see what we can do to protect ourselves (privacy fencing anyone?).  I did threaten the police on her if she comes into my yard one more time (she actually tried to get into my house yesterday).  But who knows if she'll obey?  Restraining order anyone?  I hope it doesn't come to that, I just want to be left alone.  And I am afraid I will lose my mutual friend over this, knowing she's an (unintentional) flying monkey for my mom.

*sigh*  Day two.  Gonna eat some pizza and play Catan Histories, hopefully watch some good movies or TV and just relax 💕

Tuesday's gone...like the wiiiinnnnndddd......