And I mean this literally.  My mother has had her posse of little codependent inverted narcissists for years now.  They all start with the letter L.  One is BM, whom I have named in this blog before, but her real name is Lisa.  Linda died earlier this year, which I've known about for awhile.  Then Lisa died a month later.  Now only one L remains.

Lisa was my mother's "other-daughter" (like Coraline's "other-mother").  Lisa wanted to be my mother's child, literally stirring the pot to shove me and my kids out of her life so she could be her only family (she even said this to the other L).  Lisa was around 50, ten years older than me.  And she treated my mother like shit when she didn't need her.  Just as my mother did to her.

She was my mother's neighbor, with a crass mouth (worse than mine), and was embarrassing as hell.  She was trashy as fuck, and pretended to be nice to get things from people (which is what she did with my mother).  Now, I put up with her, but when we were no contact with my mother the first time, she tried to poison my mother against my children (and successfully did so with my oldest).  Then that started my hatred of her.

Let me set something straight: BM is damaged.  So very, very damaged.  She was beaten as a child, probably worse than any child abuse story I know personally.  She was raised by a narcissistic mother, who abandoned her after they left her father.  She allowed BM to get beat.  And BM was so very codependent with her mother.

So while I hated her, I also felt horribly sorry for her.  She was probably brain damaged from all the beatings she received in her head.  Even if not, she was raised so horribly, that she had no choice but to be the person she ended up being.  She didn't know any better.  But that didn't mean I had to like her or be around her.

But now, she's dead.  She had cancer.  I knew her daughter had cancer, but I had no idea BM had it too.  I am not happy about it.  I am not jumping for joy.  But I am also not sad, either.  Shocked, a little, but not sad.  It's an odd feeling to have someone die that you don't like, that you once did.  It's conflicting.

I feel shocked because back when I was codependent with my own mother, I was a part of that posse.  Me and the 3-L's were part of my mom's gang.  We hung out daily.  So to have two of them be dead, it feels surreal.

Now my mother had no daughters.  I thought it was better, walking away, leaving BM to be my mother's daughter substitute.  And she was.  She fully integrated herself into my mother's life, and became me.  I was fine with that (although at first it made me angry, but I got over that quickly).  But now, she's gone.  There's nobody to fill my spot.  And now my mother is lonely.  While I shouldn't care about that, for some stupid reason, I do.

But you see?  You see what's going on here?  It's that pull, that most of us feel at some point or another, our empathy, it gets the better of us and we start to feel bad.  I don't want to feel bad.  I want to be free.

But maybe I need to feel bad in order to detach fully?  I know that sounds backwards, but what if I need to feel empathy for my mother, in order to fully forgive her?  How can I forgive her without it?  Before, I was feeling pretty numb.  It was hard for me to have empathy.  Instead, in place of the anger I felt for a year (or rather, 5 years), I felt nothing.  Now?  I feel bad for her.

But what does that mean?  Does that mean I will allow her manipulate me again?  Does that mean I will ever be able to feel love for her as a mother again?  Does that mean I will subject myself and my family to be constantly lied to again?  For second, I did forget about that.  But then I remembered.  I remembered that hearing her speak will just trigger me to know she's lying.  Because she's always lying.  Anything that will manipulate me to bend to her will.  She's mentally ill.  She's sick.  And she's alone (although she does have one L left).  While that does makes me feel bad for her, it doesn't mean I should fix it.  It's not really up to me to fix her anymore.  When I tried to help her in the past, to fix her problems, all it got me was abuse in return.

What would change now?  Nothing, that's what.  So what she's lonely?  If I were her true family, she'd have been a better mother to me.  She'd have been a better human being.  Everything I say to her is used against me eventually, so no, I cannot, and WILL NOT have a relationship with her again.  But I can forgive her and move on.

And I think after hearing about her unhappy, and lonely life (as she told my husband about a few days ago when she signed the legal papers I needed signed), it has opened up that part of me that was locked.  That part of me that was needed in order to fully feel this journey, and to fully embrace it.

You have to empathize in order to fully forgive and detach from your own pain. 

Feeling bad for her means I don't need to feel bad for me anymore.  Or at least a little less.  And feeling bad for her doesn't mean I'll be sending her cards, gift baskets, calling her, etc.  It's just for me.  I can feel things without sharing them with her.

And now that Linda and Lisa are both dead, and my mom's circle of friends that I left her with is dwindling, she may feel things as well and may try to reach out to me.  But no matter what, I will not be inviting that into my life.  Nor will I be responding, unless it's tell her to stop.

My feelings about my mother, feeling bad for her loneliness, was scaring the crap out of me.  I thought "What if I go back?  I don't want to go back, but what if I do?"  But now I know the answer: I won't.  I am just going to use these feelings to further propel me on my path to healing.  These feelings are for me, not her.  Nothing of me is for her anymore.  She used all of that up when everything I did was for her, and I got nothing but negativity, judgment, and abuse in return.

And now, I can move forward without feeling blocked about how I feel about my mother.  I am not wholly there yet, but this is another step on a long road of healing.  But at least it's a step, and I am grateful to be open to having feelings about her that aren't full of hatred.  Although the anger is still sort of there, may always be until a long time after her death (as it was with my father).  But I'd rather not live in that mindset if I don't have to.  I'd like to eventually remember the good times, if at all possible.  It's hard though, because I feel like her words were always laced with lies and manipulations, so where there ever really any good times between us?  Or was it all just a fabrication of a sick mind?  I just don't know.

Something to explore further in another post sometime 🙂