I am taking a mother wound class on Daily Om, and I thought I'd share what I am learning here with you.  The first assignment is to assess what you feel the "mother wound" really is to you.  Mothers can be more than just your actual mother, so you could include people who were like a mother to you, as well as your actual mother.  I was adopted, so I have a birthmother and a mother.  But even though my birthmother and I have issues (I mean, not really, I just feel neglected and judged by her, because she literally doesn't talk to me but maybe once a year and when she does, she dismisses my feelings...no, she's not a narcissist, she's very codependent...her mother is a narc tho, my grandmother, which saddens me to know I was always destined to deal with this crap LOL).  So the question is posed: what does the mother wound mean to you?  

My answer: 

To me the mother wound means...well, I don't exactly know.  I've run many groups for adults with narcissistic mothers and I have a blog, too.  And now when I'm faced to put into words what exactly this means, I don't really know what to say.  It's pain, I know that.  It's a toxic shame that takes over you and tells you "I am not worthy or good enough".  I know today, even though I take care of my mother with dementia, she is still so damn judgmental that I stutter when I talk to her and I fall over my words and feel horrible when she engages me in conversation.  Because I know what's coming.  I know she's going to tell me I am wrong and then say something to prove she's better than me.  73 years old and she still does this.  I don't get it.  I love being a mom.  I could never imagine treating my kids that way.  But here she is, only feeling better about herself when she's putting me down.  I think the mother wound is a deep and gaping wound and is the source for all self-hatred.  

Though I do think the father-wound is also a source of self-hatred.  I think it's both parents.  And usually when you have at least one narc parent, usually both are in on it.  But not always (apparently my birthmother's father, my grandfather, was sweet and kind, but was just severely codependent).  

Anyways, that's what I wrote.  What about you?  What's your definition of the mother wound?  Let me know below.  I'd like to hear what others have to say about it :)  

 UPDATE: This class actually sucks.  Don't take it, it's a total waste of money.  It's waaaaay too short, and has no direction.  And she's coming from the idea that "a wounded mother recreates the mother wound with her own children".  NO.  I do not support that idea at all.  I am a person with a mother wound and I do not recreate that with my children, so obviously our mothers like what they do to us.  Yeah, I wish I could get a refund on this class LOL

Ever wake up from a dream and all you can recall is a quick "feeling" and then it's gone, along with the memory of your dream?  You know the feeling is from your dream, you just can't recall what the dream was about or where the feeling came from.  And then later in the day, something happens to trigger your memory and now you can recall most of it, along with the feeling you had earlier.  

Forgotten memories act the same.  We can recall feelings, usually negative, but don't know where that feeling came from or why.  And if we were sexually abused (or other types of abuse) and can't remember, we can also have panic attacks or all around constant nervousness, insomnia, PTSD symptoms, irritability and anger, ADHD symptoms, disassociation, depression, avoiding certain places or other sense phenomena (touch, smell, etc.),  low self-esteem, feelings of doom, body pain, and stomach issues (and more).  This means something is going on that has triggered our memory of the bad thing(s) that happened, but rather than remember the event with our minds, our body acts out that same feeling instead.  It's trying to remind us "Hey!  You've forgotten this!  But I don't know how to make you remember!"

For example, I was scrolling through Netflix one day and came across "Alcatraz".  I saw the movie cover and started freaking out.  I couldn't breathe right, I had a horrible stomachache and felt this feeling doom come over me.  I was like "What the hell was that?"  I didn't think this was normal so I went back to the movie cover and tried to remember what was it about that movie that bothered me so much.  I saw it back when I was like 8 or 9 because for some reason my mother thought it necessary to show me inappropriate movies when I was young (like Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds", which was terrifying.  But she loved Alfred Hitchcock and wanted to watch it, but she knew I was an extremely sensitive child who had panic attacks and after watching that movie, I refused to leave the house for weeks because it was fall or winter and there were massive amounts of crows outside during that time of year, way to go ma!).  After thinking and thinking and thinking, I finally remembered what scared me about that movie was that the fact a dude got his hand cut off and it traumatized me for years after seeing it.  But I had totally forgotten that happened, but my body sure didn't.  

There is some controversy about "repressed memories", so I use the word "forgotten" because some things we just forget due to the fact that maybe we were really young, or possibly a thousand other reasons.  It doesn't really matter what you call it, what matters is that if you're showing signs of trigger-related PTSD issues, it may do you wonders to explore these flashes of feelings. 

My first "feeling flash" was when I was 20 or 21.  I was watching "Melrose Place" and Billy and Allison were getting married and Allison was walking down the aisle with her father, and had a flashback of her father molesting her.  I started hyperventilating and crying uncontrollably for absolutely no reason, but I could feel it in my bones that something wasn't right inside of me.  I felt as though something gross was inside of me and I couldn't get it out.  I tried to tell people about this and they just laughed and said "Wow, you're just so sensitive to empathize with a character on TV like that!"   Nobody took me seriously, so I didn't take me seriously and just didn't think about it.

When I was 28, I saw my first therapist, and he heard me talk about all my crap from my past and said "Are you sure you weren't molested?  You have so many of the signs."  It was the first time anyone had ever validated my experiences in my life.  All the abuse I had suffered, all the bullshit and crap, and not one person ever said when I was a kid "You shouldn't be living here.  This isn't safe for you."  

When I was older, in my 30's, I realized I had been raped when I was fourteen by an adult.  I mean, I hadn't forgotten about it, I was just naïve to think "Oh, well, I guess that's how I lost my virginity".  I knew it wasn't right and I had always thought "If I had fought him, I would have been raped".  Turns out I was raped anyways.  No one ever said before that "You know, you do realized you were raped" when hearing the story of how I lost my virginity.  But then again, we were all ignorant back then.  We were coming out of the era of "Revenge of the Nerds" when a man could dress up in a Darth Vader costume and pretend to be someone else while "having sex" with a girl in a bouncy house.  Or when Jake Ryan said in "16 Candles" that he has Carolyn (his girlfriend) "passed out cold and could violate her ten different ways if I wanted to" and Ted asks "What are you waiting for?".  Then he tells Ted to take her home and Ted says "I'm only a Freshman" and Jake replies "So?  She's so lit she won't know the difference."  Sure, it was the nineties by the time things happened to me, but we hadn't made too many strides forward yet in women's rights when it came to rape.  "Did you say no?  No?  Then you weren't raped."  Which was the sentiment of the times.  I mean, hell, in the era of #metoo, the world still could not get on board with women admitting how much actual sexual assault, rape, and molestation goes on the world.  "It's a bad time for boys" the idiots would say.  No, assholes, it's a bad time for girls, IT ALWAYS HAS BEEN!  AND it always has been a bad time for boys, too!  Guys get raped!  Guys get molested!  But the world is dead set in shaming both men and women for being sexually assaulted, and protecting the deviant abusers out there.  I don't fucking get it!  Sigh. 

So I had started seeing a sexual assault therapist in my 30's (she was kind of bad, but not horrible) but rather than talk about my rape, we concentrated on the fact I knew that deep down I had been molested (because my rape didn't really bother me as much as every other sexual assault I've had happen to me, and it's be a LOT).  Those "feeling flashes" were still happening in the ten or so years in between Allison's trauma memory resurfacing on "Melrose Place" and me seeing my therapist.  I still have issues when thinking of my uncle's beard on my cheek (he used to rub it on people's faces for fun, I think....I don't actually remember, but I do have a pic of him doing that when I was a teen) or when I remember him coming into my bedroom late at night when his wife and my mother would argue about my grandma (their mother).  I also have issues thinking about my father and how he had porn books where the adults molested their children (and other things).  I also have issues thinking about my grandfather, who exposed himself to a little girl we babysat for and another girl we babysat for he latched onto her like a kid with a puppy (and of course my mother explained both of these things away as his "dementia").  And when I started exploring these ideas with my therapist, I started keeping a journal.  Then I began to have dreams about all three of them molesting me (not at once, at different times and different ages).  Not that I think those dreams were indicative of actual memories, because I was an adult when they all happened in each one, I do think some of the dreams may have been trying to unlock something I've forgotten (like the specific dream I had where I couldn't remember the face of the man trying to hurt me).  All my life I'd have reoccurring dreams of a man chasing me and trying to hurt me.  They were random men, but always men.  

Although in my dreams, it sometimes it wasn't even a actual man, but a the feeling of a man who wanted to hurt me.  "Someone is coming.  Climb into these intricate web of hidden staircases and hide."  Sometimes the hidden staircases would go up.  Sometimes they went down.  When they went down, they were in scary places that frightened me and were filled with monsters and creepy locations (like dirty warehouses).  But when they went up, they were in safe spaces, places I could hide from whatever or whoever was coming.  And thy always led to rooms upon rooms.  My dreams make me think of that Lemony Snicket A Series of Unfortunate Events book called "The Ersatz Elevator".  I read it to my kids when they were little and I was flabbergasted to see my dreams laid out on paper like that.  The main characters stayed with a couple that lived in a penthouse with no elevator.  To get there, they had to climb 66 flights of stairs, and when they got to the top, they were met with an apartment that had rooms upon rooms upon rooms, just like in my dreams (makes me wonder if David Handler had the same dreams as me).  I still have the staircases dreams at least weekly (I'm 43 have been having them since childhood) but I am no longer being chased.  Now the dreams are just places I visit because I want to.  And they are always going up.  And they are always going to somewhere really cool (usually).

I still have "feeling flashes".  I still unlock forgotten memories (like the time I was standing in my shower and remembered what my mother had said to me after my father had punched me in the face--it was quite terrible).  I still have feelings of ickiness when dealing with certain things.  I still can't place where many of these things come from.  I know that not every single one is a memory of sexual abuse.  But I do know they are forgotten memories.  I know they are trying to reach the surface, even if they are benign (and sometimes they are).  But not the ones that make me feel gross.  I know those are the bad ones.  And those are the ones I try to uncover the most, because those are the ones that matter and bring me the most pain in my daily life.  I have so many symptoms of forgotten trauma.  I just want to be rid of those "flashes" and the nightmares (which I still have several times a week--not the staircase dreams, just random nightmares).  

Recently, I had a nightmare so bad, that I woke up with this horrible feeling on my exposed arm (I was laying on my side, my back to the open space next to my bed).  Like someone grabbing it and hurting me.  When I awoke, I tried to relax, to get the feeling to go away, and it just wouldn't.  It got worse and worse until I woke my husband up and cried "There's something wrong, I don't know what's wrong!"  I was almost in tears.  Since we moved in, we've been sleeping in the complete dark.  I've never been able to sleep in the dark before, so I thought "Wow, I can actually do this!"  But slowly, the feelings started creeping back and culminated in that dream (I don't remember the dream, just the feeling of it, and it was terrifying).  And every single night since, I found myself being terrified of the open space next to my bed in the dark, and I couldn't sleep at all.  So my husband and I went to look for Christmas lights to hang and light at night, because I'd been going days without much sleep.  We found some at a resale shop and I've been sleeping great ever since.  When I think about that feeling on my arm and how it lasted for hours and hours after I woke up, the feeling will start coming back on the same arm.  I don't think I've ever had that kind of issue in my entire life (if I get a physical sensation from a dream, it goes away when I fully wake).  I have no idea what the dream was about, but I do know it was close to the feeling I assume what it would feel like if a dementor tried to kiss you LOL  (If you're not Harry Potter literate, I can't help you here).  I've had a few dreams like that, with that kind of feeling.  But never one that lasted with a physical sensation. 

One the symptoms in the "Secret Survivors" book (I listed it below) is being scared of the dark.  But I honestly do not remember ever in my life not being scared of the dark when I sleep. 

Recently my mother's friend told me "Your mom said that you were accusing your uncle of sexually abusing you, but she said you were full of shit and that never happened."  I was floored, because I never told my mother about that.  I never once said "Hey, I think Uncle So and So touched me as a kid."  I have no idea how she found that out, but I can assume that maybe I told her as a child when he was doing it and she just ignored me, just like when I said I had been raped (though I also think it could be that maybe my shitty cousin could have found it somewhere I had written about it online and told her, because that's what shitty cousins do--but I don't know, it's just a guess).  So, while I am still not 100% sure it was him, that's one more notch towards the direction of him (though the two other suspects also have a lot of notches, too).  

I mostly journal this stuff.  I work out as much as I can in there.  I will eventually talk to my new therapist about it all, but right now we're dealing with my family's new living situation first.  But journaling gives me a space to work things out as I write, which I like.  So if you're going through this or suspect this happened to you, I urge you to try journaling.  There are lots of great books out there that can help you, too, which I've listed below.  And I also suggest you seek a counselor.  And if they won't listen to you, keep looking until you find one that does.  Today, because of the pandemic, MANY therapists are doing phone sessions, so now you can seek one anywhere in the country, not just your town, which is one great thing to come out of all of this. 

And remember, every time you have one of these "feeling flashes", something that just "flashes" through your mind, write it down in your journal.  Keep track of it all, even if it feels like nothing at the time.  You never know what it will trigger later or add up to.

Many of us who have narcissist parents were sexually abused as children and I think that's because our parents neglected so much that it made us prime targets for abusers.  They have easy access, we were taught since childhood to not trust our own feelings (because our narc parents always told us we were wrong), and we were already conditioned to accept abuse from adults.   And now, we are the adults, and we may be learning that our own abuse extended far beyond what we can remember at times.  If this his happening to you, then check out these resources (not affiliate links):

Secret Survivors by E. Sue Blume (this is a great resource if you can't remember)

Uncover Repressed Memories (website)

The Body Keeps Score by Bessel van der Kolk MD

Writing Ourselves Whole by Jennifer Cross

The Courage to Heal by Ellen Bass and Lauren Davis (my sexual assault counselor gave me this)

It Wasn't Your Fault by Beverly Engel, LMFT

 The Sexual Trauma Workbook For Teen Girls

So my mother cannot go downstairs into the basement, per her PT's orders.  She finally had shut up about it (after threatening a thousand times to do it behind my back or trying to "have a talk" with me about how before her PT came she could go down the basement but now she can't...which I had to oh-so-lovingly explain to her that she should have NEVER been going down the basement for the last several years).  And then yesterday, we had a tornado warning.  And of course, we get home, and she's being annoying and loud about how "What would happen if a tornado actually came to our house and I couldn't go downstairs, huh?"  She's just trying to be annoying, which is her "thing".  So rather than rolling my eyes and explaining the OBVIOUS to her, that when the upstairs is more dangerous than the downstairs, she needs to be in the basement, I just said "Oh, don't worry ma, when it comes, it'll just be here to take you and your broom back home to Oz."  

She laughed really hard at that one.  Because that's how you have to work her.  If you try to be normal with her, she will keep on and on and on about something, like a broken record, or a child who can't understand a joke is only funny when it's said once.  But when you joke back, in a mean way (because she LOVES when you're jokingly mean to her...which I do not get), she will crack up and think you're the funniest person on earth.  She is nothing if not being all about self-deprecating humor.

That was a fun part of the night.  Then came the next part.  

So after the storm, she got the mail (something I try to get before her each day because she will lose bills and the such) and she got a credit card offer.  She opened and said "Oh, I love getting these, I love to sign up and see how much they'll give me!"  I just opened my eyes wide and said "Um, that's not how you deal with credit, ma.  No.  The last thing you need is yet another credit card!!"  She has several and signs up for store cards all the time and shops until she drops online.  So I grabbed the envelope from behind her and ran away, all the while she was screaming "GET BACK HERE!"  Oh lawd she was angries.  But I don't care, my job is to look out for her, but also, if she keeps getting credit cards, she won't be able to pay her half of the bills (this month she almost couldn't pay her half of the furnace payment--something she made us get).  So yeah, no.  I ripped it up and threw it in the garbage with cat litter on it so she wouldn't fish it out.  This is how the world turns at our house.  The neighbors looking out their windows to see a fat middle-aged woman running down the street at full speed, while shoving a large envelope down her pants while an old woman screams at her from the garage.  

Just another day in paradise 😜😅

Do you remember that episode of Friends when Ross "almost" died?  That's how my husband and I felt after almost being swept up in a tornado today.  I mean, there wasn't a tornado, but we were in hurricane level winds, which to us, felt like we were driving directly into one.  We were stupid, thinking we could outrun the storm.  "We can make it home," we said.  We should have known better and stayed at the Goodwill until it passed.  We live in tornado country, so it should have been a "duh" moment, since the weather alert was going off of on our phones every ten seconds and on the radio in the store every ten seconds.  That's not normal.  Even for where we live.  Maybe twice.  But not over and over and over again, in the store and on the way home.  All summer it's been normal with hardly any rain, so we thought "Nah, this will blow over in a few seconds."  Nope.  

We get into the car and it's getting darker and darker out.  Until the entire world turned blue.  Yes, not green, like normal storms do up in these parts, but an eerie shade of dark blue that I've never seen before.  And I've seen a lot of storms.  I've seen yellow.  I've seen green.  But never blue.  I felt like if I had stepped outside of the car, my arm would have been washed in that blue hue.  I really wish I had been at home so I could have taken out my nice camera and gotten better shots.  But my phone was all I had available.  It was fun, watching that storm rolled in.  Until it wasn't.  

Then the wind hit us like a whip, and all of a sudden the tornado sirens turned on right next to us.  We couldn't see a foot in front of the car, and the rain was sideways.  The sound outside was deafening, and I started becoming hysterical.  It's all fun and games until someone turns the tornado on.  

As it turns out, there were funnel clouds in our area and something had touched down.  It wasn't quite an actual tornado, but the winds were around 80mph.  And we drove right through it.  

Of course, we had to move to the cornfield area of our town where all the tornados like to hang out in the summer.  Our area is always the first to catch all the funnel clouds and whatever else storms bring, as we're right by the airport (tornado central).  But when I am at home, I'm fine about it all.  I love storms, as does my husband, who's an amateur meteorologist.  But I do not like them while in a freaking car.  I've watched too many videos on YouTube to see a car there one second and the next, just somewhere else.  That's a big glass of NOPE, thank you very much.  

So my poor husband is trying to get us to the gas station to take cover, and I'm screaming and freaking out and hyperventilating and crying and being all around distracting while he's trying to drive.  He's just concentrating on the road, telling me we'll be okay, being my hero by keeping me calmer than if I were the one driving.  We get the gas station and a bunch of other people have the same idea and we all ran into the gas station together and guess what the people who work there tell us?  To get out.  

Um.  That's not Buddhist at all.  I looked her in the eye and said "There's a tornado warning and the sirens are going off and you want us to leave??"  She didn't reply.  So we bought something so we weren't "loitering" and offered to buy everyone else something so they could stay, too (they declined and bought their own stuff).  And of course, the debit card machines are down and I had to fish out two bucks in dimes from my purse.  By then, the storm had died down and we went home, which was right up the street, thank goodness.  And we pull up to an open garage with everything moved out of the way (I have lots of projects I was working on in there) so we could pull in.  Our home phones were out, so we couldn't call our kids, which was awful, but I knew they were smart and would keep safe.  And they were the ones who opened the garage for us and moved everything.  

In a way, nothing had happened at all.  But to us, we felt like we were going to die in those moments in the car while the rain and wind threatened to push us off the road.  I guess it's different than hearing a car backfire and thinking it's a gunshot and thinking you almost died to actually being in some funnel cloud fueled land-hurricane while in the car LOL  It was scary and in those moments, and while I feared the tornado taking us and killing us both and leaving my kids without parents, I feared more the idea of having the same thing happen but being alive while watching my husband die.  I know, that's super morbid.  But that's the crap you think about when you're wondering what's going to come next.  I love my husband so very much and the idea of being in an accident and having him or one of my kids be next to me and dying in front of me was more than I could handle.  So I started hyperventilating and freaking out even more.  Though, I think the most thing I felt was guilt.  That deep down, if he was the one to die, that I know that somehow I had failed him while he was alive.  That I could had and should have been a better wife (or mother, if it was my kids).  And the silly thing is, he feels exactly the same way about himself. 

I never feel good enough.  I never feel smart enough.  If I say something intelligent?  I think to myself  "Wow, look at me, I'm not an idiot for a moment".  If someone chats me up in public or says anything to me at all, I think "What?  Don't these people know I'm invisible and not worth talking to?"  I always feel stupid.  I always feel subpar.  I always feel like a jackass or that I'm always saying or doing the wrong thing.  I cover it up with a thin layer of optimism most days.  Or I concentrate on my projects.  I not always good at the projects I take on, but I don't care really, either.  The things I make for myself do not have to be perfect.  So I only make them for me.  When someone hires me to paint them something or create something for them, my innate feelings of "Oh boy, gonna fuck this up royally!" will surface and I will just fear doing it so much, that I just don't do it for months on end.  This makes my customers angry.  Which I totally get.  Which is why I DO NOT take orders for my stuff anymore.  I just create, and put it up for sale and if someone buys it, cool!  If not, then oh well, I get to keep it.  

I know where it all stems from.  I know where my feelings from today came from (and thank freaking goodness my wonderful husband was with me and not my mother).  I know where it ALL comes from, because the moment I walked in the door, she started in on me again.  She stopped crapping on my cooking years ago, when she realized I cooked better than her (though it's not a competition) and she loves all the food I make (usually).  But that's about it.  Everything I say she has to argue with or make me feel stupid.  I have no idea how to feel worthy.  I have no idea how to feel worthy of my husband's love (he has the same issue, too, since he was also raised by a narc).  I have no idea how to feel good enough.  And today, when I thought I was going to die (both of us or one of us), that's what ran through my head.  

Why are are we, the humans of this earth, so god damned fucked up?  Why have we taken each other and pushed everyone to believe these horrible things about themselves?  I want my kids to feel worthy.  I want them to know their father and I love them and they are perfect, just as they are, never needing to change in order to be good enough for us or for themselves.  We can read every damn meme we want to that says these things.  We can listen to gurus (though you shouldn't), speakers, friends, spouses, loved ones, and no matter what, we will never believe, truly and completely, that we are good enough and worthy to be loved.  That was taken away from us in childhood.  And that's where it needs to start for our children.  I don't know there's hope for us, as adults, to ever really truly accept this fact.  Maybe?  But we can change it for others.  We can change it for our kids.  For the kids we know and come into contact with.  We can let them know they are loved, as is.  We don't want their last thoughts on this earth, even if they're 100, to be "I am sorry for everyone I've failed in my life."  So work hard on healing your own stuff so you don't spread your parents BS to your kids and significant others.  I've tried my hardest, but I will try harder for the rest of my life, for my children and my husband, because I don't want their last thoughts to be when I die "I should have been better for her."  Because they are good enough exactly the way they are.  And I need to make sure they know it.  

There are so many things out there that seem to walk hand in hand with NPD.  Not all of our parents have all the same ones, but if you do some research, you'll find that I bet they have many.  Now, you can do your own research and bring your findings to your therapist, which in turn can lead you to either just feeling better knowing what's exactly wrong with them, or maybe you could even get a diagnosis from their doctors (though highly unlikely, and be careful they don't tell them what you're up to).  My mom saw a therapist when I was no contact with her the last time.  And that therapist convinced her I had bipolar 1.  There's nothing wrong with being bipolar, but she was going around telling her friends that I had this and now they all still think I have it, which is mental health shaming.  She was using it as way to let people know I was crazy, and to not believe the stuff I was saying about what she and my father did to me as a child.  I do not have bipolar 1 or any kind of bipolar, but I am sure her therapist giving her diagnosis of me to my mother was due to my mother's lies about who I was and why did the the things I did.  

So if you do take your findings to your therapist and she or he agrees with you, there is never a reason to go around and tell others what you find out (other than NPD, and only share that if the situation calls for it...and be prepared that it'll get back to your parent, as it did with my mom).  Getting a diagnosis from your therapist without them seeing your parent is not an actual diagnosis.  Remember that.  You, in your heart of hearts, can deeply know and accept your mother or father has one or all of these disorders.  You know them better than anyone.  So I get accepting it as fact.  But use that information to heal you rather than use it against them (unless you're involved in a court case or something, then share that info with your lawyer).  Okay?  We are not narcissists.  So do not play the narcissist's games.  Healing yourself is the only thing you can control about the situation.  

So here are some comorbid conditions that can walk hand in hand with NPD: 

Histronic Personality Disorder

You need 5 of these for a diagnosis, as well as cause an impairment for the person.

• Self-centeredness, feeling uncomfortable when not the center of attention
• Constantly seeking reassurance or approval
• Inappropriately seductive appearance or behavior
• Rapidly shifting emotional states that appear shallow to others
• Overly concerned with physical appearance, and using physical appearance to draw attention to self
• Opinions are easily influenced by other people, but difficult to back up with details
• Excessive dramatics with exaggerated displays of emotion
• Tendency to believe that relationships are more intimate than they actually are
• Is highly suggestible (easily influenced by others)

OCPD (Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder)

Paranoid Personality Disorder

Borderline Personality Disorder

This is a long rant which I am writing more for myself to keep of things later and as a way to get out my frustrations of what's been going on the past few months.  Sometimes I get in a cycle of irritation and I can't seem to escape it, and when it passes, I am better able to deal with everything that's going on.  So when I write about how I feel, it's an outlet for my irritation and annoyances.  So if you don't want to read my silly complaining, feel free to pass this one by.  

Well, we didn't move in with her, we all moved out of our apartment complex (my kids, my hubby, my mother and I) in different apartments and bought a house together.  And this brings us to the first point of my entry:

She feels as though this is her house, not ours.  Her famous line for the past few months has been "When I'm dead, you can do whatever you like with the house", which means "I will do what I want, when I'm gone, then you can be free to actually make decisions for the house you pay half for".  And this first point is probably the biggest point and is the motivation for so much of her bad behavior that I'm going to relay here.  

Yes, the house is in her name.  When we first moved in, all she talked about was "This is the first house I've ever bought alone!"  And I kept reminding her that she didn't buy anything at all, she just used her credit to get a loan that we're all paying for.  In fact, she wouldn't have gotten the house if I hadn't done every bit of the work (and boy, there was work, it's a VA loan--something she wouldn't have gotten if it hadn't been for her marrying a veteran).  And not only that, we pay more each month than she does (except in her brain, she's also paying more, but that's because she's been using her credit cards more and more).  When we moved in she decided to get a new stove, a new furnace, and all sorts of other stuff that really put a strain on our finances.  But I knew while these purchases weren't exactly necessary right away, they definitely would be in the future, so I agreed.  And we pay half for the furnace, but she footed the bill for our new stove because I paid $800 in groceries for several months, which if you divide that by 5, we're paying $160 a month for groceries for her, which is more than I'd be paying for that stove.  I also do all the laundry, all the cooking, and buy all the cat and dog food (and she has 5 cats).  So we are pretty equal in most of our finances, sometimes I end up paying more, and once in a great while she ends up paying for extra.  But of course, this is her house and I am not allowed to make choices for the yard or the inside without her complaining or getting annoyed with me.  

I would get it more if we moved into her house.  I would get it more if she did all the work or paid most of everything.  But we are pretty damn equal, with the heavier side falling to us most of the time.  Which I am totally fine with, because we can afford it.  But the issue is more that even before we moved in, she said to me "I get the living room, the kitchen, and the bathrooms to decorate.  You get your room."  So I knew going in this was going to be hard.  But I didn't expect it to be this annoying.  Or maybe I did?  I think my issue is more about the fact that I didn't expect me to feel so guilty.  

I spend most of my days hanging out with my husband (he's laid off due to the pandemic).  Before, when he worked 12 hours days as an ambulance dispatcher, I spent my days alone.  Our kids have their own schedules, though now that my husband is home, we all end up with the same schedule and are always hanging out together.  But even so, I keep myself busy with writing (I'm working on my memoir, and I'm almost done! Hooray!), and blogging.  I spend a lot of time on this blog lately due to everything, but it helps me to keep my mind busy and keeps me away from her.  And that's the issue.  Due to the pandemic, my mother is stuck in the house and can't visit people or have visitors.  And since we moved into a new place, she can't visit people because she doesn't know anyone (she can't drive, after we moved in I took her keys away because she can't walk a straight line, she certainly should not be behind a wheel...not to mention her driving is dangerous as hell).  So she's stuck being alone a lot.  Which makes me feel horribly guilty.  

But, when I do pay her attention or hang out with her, she crosses my boundaries and emotionally abuses me (and even as I write this, I have this nagging voice inside that says "You're overreacting!  You're making a big deal over nothing!" and guess who's voice it is?)  My husband will hang out with her, just to help alleviate my guilt, and because a) she's nicer to her him (he's her favorite, as I said in my last post LOL) and b) he doesn't let her bother him like I do.  Like, she knows I am very sensitive to smoke (it makes me cough and stuffs up my nose and can give me a migraine) and she will always light up a cigarette when I'm near.  It feels like she's intentionally keeping me away just so she can be annoyed with me for staying away from her.  Like the other day, I was sitting in my spot beneath the tree and she came over by the gate near me and just stood there smoking a whole cigarette.  I started coughing and she turned and said "Oh, sorry, I thought I was far enough away" and kept on smoking until she was done, even though she knew she was making sick.  

A couple days ago I bought these wooden garden edgers at Menards.  I didn't buy them because I wanted them for myself (as I don't plant flowers in the yard).  I had to buy them because my mother planted a whole bunch of random stuff in the middle of the grass.  I have no idea why, but that's where she put them.  So she requires us to move in between them, which ends up with us little by little whittling away the edges of all her plants.  So I bough these edgers to put around her plants so we don't have to mow between them anymore.  She knew that's what I bought them for and took them and put them around some plants she planted where my dogs run (in which my dogs ruined immediately).  So I had to remove them to put them where I bought them for.  That puts me in the position to have to explain myself as to why I moved them.  I haven't yet, and she hasn't asked me, but it still nags at me.  I know that's my fault, I should just not care.  But it's hard to just let things go when you've dealt with a lifetime of crazy.  She's so unpredictable, you just don't know how she's going to react to most things, so you end up fearing the worst.   Oh, and speaking of the plants she planted that my dogs destroyed, she planted them in our area where we sit.  Not her, me and my hubby and kids.  So she's making plans to plant a whole bunch of stuff under the tree, just to make it so we can't sit there anymore (though it's dumb, because nothing grows under the tree).  And that's not me insinuating her agenda either.  She's annoyed that I won't move our table and chairs under the tree because a) again, she smokes and I don't want that near me if I can help it and b) my mother is unsteady and all the tree roots will cause her to fall.  

So when we first moved in, she would invade our space, as though, like she said, she owned the entire house herself and did whatever she liked.  She took down my drapes and put up her own without asking (just kidding, she told me to take my drapes down and put up the ones she bought online--because she never does anything, she just yells at other people to do it, without caring if I wanted my drapes up or not...something I complied with, because I didn't want to start trouble).  She would go into our bathroom, our tiny little bathroom (we have two, and the big one is hers and the little one is my family's) and rearrange everything without asking.  She'd also go into the room and use bleach spray, knowing I'm sensitive to chemicals, especially bleach, to clean everything...and all the while again, rearranging everything.  She's twice moved my radio in the kitchen without asking (it's an old fashioned radio, something I use daily while I'm cooking and when we're all eating dinner).  Every time I move everything back to where I had it.  The next day she'll smile and say "Aww, you didn't like where I put your stuff?" in a condescending tone.  The kitchen is a constant battle.  She wants to clutter up the cabinets with tons of the same things (like the same size mixing bowls or 500 coffee cups).  I will take these things and store them just a few feet away in the garage.  The other day she went into the baking cabinet and rearranged everything inside and moved it all to where I couldn't find it.  I got angry enough to say something to her about that one.  

She constantly moves the furniture in the living room around, even though she doesn't use it.  She's always saying "I know this will make you mad, but..." and then tell me how she's going to move the furniture in a major way, even if I didn't like it.  My husband and I get frequent migraines (though mine have been better lately, thank goodness, since stopping caffeine) and the windows let in too much light to face the window (light is a huge trigger for both of us).  Yet, she has ants in her pants and neeeeds to constantly rearrange stuff.  But I always explain to her, over and over again this fact, and she relents with a huff.  So my last post talked about how we decorated the living room, and now she can't move any of the furniture because our stuff would have to come off the walls (all that talk about wanting to be the one to decorate the living room and kitchen, and yet she left it blank until I finally did something for both--perhaps it's to prove a storyline that she "bought a house and became a victim of us being the ones who took over"?). 

She has to take control of everything, even if it has nothing to do with her. 

This isn't new.  She's always been this way.  If I show her my art, she will make faces and say "Hmm something isn't right..." and require me to change it in order to get her approval.  My therapist says is so she can feel like she's a part of something she can't do (or wasn't invited to do) because she can't do them herself.  It's a type of jealousy, which is why she feels she has to "bring me out a notch" every single time.  If she can't find fault with my art, she will then tell me where to put it or assert some other type of control on my piece.  I made a sign the other day that says "memories and meals are made here".  It's a huge sign that I made to put over our gridded arched mirror (which looks like a window) with two shutters I painted in the kitchen.  And, like a dumbass, I left it out where she could see it before I hung it.  And of course she starts telling everyone "I know Shay wants it above the mirror, but wouldn't it be better over the stove?"  She got everyone excited for this new placement for my sign (I blogged about this a few days ago) and then I looked like the jerk for still wanting it where I was going to put it to begin with.  

I picked up a new dresser on Friday, and spent Friday and Saturday painting it with chalk paint (cocoa bean) and covering the drawers with matching gorgeous scrapbook paper and putting new knobs on it.  She was excited to see it, which made me happy.  But then she came into my room and said "Oh you need to paint all your bookcases, your other dressers, and all your wood to match!"  And then she went on a ten minute speech about how I could redo this and blah blah blah.  It got so out of hand, and all we wanted to do was show her the dang dresser.  That was it.  But it always becomes so much more than just the thing we want to show her.  She has to take over and pretend like it's all something for her to be a part of.  I get she gets excited, but it always gets uncomfortable because I don't want to keep saying "Oh yeah, that sounds neat" through gritted teeth and then after she leaves the area, we forget what she even said.  Because she always asks later why we didn't do her suggestions in a way that's supposed to guilt us (which never works).  

People looking at our house right now might say "Well, your mom is just bored and needs you to include her in your life more!".  I had someone say this to me recently.  But she was like this for my entire life.  Even as a kid.  She was jealous I played the violin.  She was jealous I was a good artist.  She was jealous I had close relationships with my friends.  She was jealous I could easily figure out things on my own and wasn't afraid to try and fail.  And every single one of these things she'd tried to crush out of me.  And still does to this day.  She questions all my choices, all my ideas, everything.  She underhandedly insults me by insulting other people who are like me or look like me.  She insults my kids in ways that are supposed to sound like jokes.  

I know I've probably said all this in other posts before.  But it just all keeps adding up and makes me want to word vomit all over the place and I don't want it to be in my daily life, as my husband and kids probably don't want to listen to it all the time LOL 

She uses her child voice quite regularly.

This is probably one of the most irritating things she does.  She will use her strange voices, sometimes childlike, sometimes just really grating, odd, and unusual voices.  Back when the stay at home order first started, she screamed as we past Aldi "I WANT TO GO TO ALDI! WAAAAHHHHH!  LET ME GO TO ALDI!" and literally screamed it the ten minutes all the way home.  I have no idea how I didn't snap on her.  My therapist says "Remember, telling her how you feel is not aggressive, it's assertive.  It's okay to tell her to stop when she's being really irritating or annoying or rude."  I'm always completely afraid to stand up to her or tell her to stop because I fear two things: a) I fear her reaction and b) I fear I will look like I'm being aggressive or a jerk.  So I sit there, and put up with this kind of insanity and drive myself crazy rather than just say "Hey, we can stop that now, it's not funny anymore."  

She'll uses these voices especially if she knows I have a migraine.  Or she'll bang her cat food bowls together really loudly knowing my head hurts.  Which is why I do not spend time in my living room unless my kids are in there, too.  I only watch TV in my room, because she always has to be the center of attention.  Which is something I write about in my next post.  

So I've been keeping busy by buying furniture, redoing our bedroom, cleaning our garage, decorating our living room, and all sorts of other house stuff (because I'm sick of living in limbo, waiting for her to do something with it all, but she won't...that is, until I start doing something, then she wants to do her own stuff LOL Arrgggghhh!).  I've also been doing creative stuff like painting and sewing and I need to do more of that, too.  I need to sew more, as I'm opening a clothing store online and need to get more items done (I do have a lot, but not enough yet).  I've also been writing (non-fiction and fiction).  So I keep pretty busy, but again, it makes me guilty because other than taking care of her meds, keeping an eye on her and cooking her food, I don't have much time for her.  It's such a strange line to walk, to have to alleviate my guilt but not too much otherwise she uses what I give her to take more and more and more, until she starts hurting me again.  Though her hurting me never stops.  It's like built into her DNA.  But it's doable to deal with these days.  It's way better than if she could drive or if we weren't under a stay at home order.  So there's that.  And some people ask "Why do you live with her if it's so bad?"  It's really not.  It's tedious.  Not horrible.  I'm just going through a rough patch right now.  It's not like when we first came back to live above her in our apartment in 2018.  Now that was torture (she was literally cruel to us).  She's annoying now, not cruel like she used to be (though she doesn't have much of a choice, it's either me or a home and she knows it).  

Well, off to go watch this very...um...strange?  Funny?  A little disturbing?  And adorable show called "Welcome to Plathville" on Hulu.  Me thinks the mother may be a narcissist LOL  We'll see.  But if you're dealing with a narc, esp. now with having to stay at home so much, I know things can get tedious.  So feel free to word vomit your annoyances below.  And I hope you're making time for yourself and finding your own peace every single day.  

My husband and I have been together for fifteen years now.  Yesterday was our anniversary.  He and I are perfectly suited to one another.  He's hard-working, I'm a pretty okay homemaker.  He's got great time-management skills, I'm working on mine, but I do remember everything else (like birthdays, appointments, etc.).  We compliment each other like yin and yang.  We've had some rough patches, but never as bad as my worst relationships, so even though the things we've been through were HUGE, they weren't horrible.  We listen to each other, support each other, support our children (he adopted my kids back in 2013), and we have a shit ton of fun together (all four of us).  Unlike my past relationships where I let men abuse me (though not so much my ex-husband, because I basically didn't live with him, though he he was abusive).  When I was fifteen, I was in a relationship with a boy for two years that used to beat me (and abuse me in other ways).  The sick part was that I though it was true love.  Why?  Because my mother and father started dating when they were fifteen and seventeen (like my parents) and to me that meant me and my guy were destined to be together forever.  My parents fucked me up in that department.  Growing up with a father who beat your mother and a mother who controlled your father (and you) makes for some pretty horrible relationship skills.  So I thought that this cycle was going to last forever.  While I fiercely protected my kids from their dad (and would from anyone), I still stayed with him for six years because I didn't know what to do when I left.  But I eventually did (something I'm wrote about in my memoir, which will be for sale later in the year).  

I met my husband in 2007 online (in a YahooGroup of all places) after leaving my ex-husband (though we weren't divorced yet).  He is six years younger than me and we both had the same sense of humor and would spend hours laughing together online until we met a month later.  We dated for about four months before he met my children (though he knew about them the entire time).  I wasn't taking any chances on getting some asshole who was going to flip his personality the moment he met my kids.  I assumed four months was enough to make sure by.  But when he met my kids, they became best friends immediately.  My boys were 3 (almost four) and 7 and since their own father had ignored them for their entire lives,  it was like a breath of fresh air for them to have a man pay attention to them and act like he honestly cared about him.  

But it wasn't an act.  Even though we've been through some hellish times with our kids (they both have ASD) with some behavioral issues (that they've grown out of now that they're adults), he's still proved to them that no matter how bad things get, he's still going to be there, still going to love them and always going to say he's sorry and accept their apologies when they give them (unlike my ex who always made them believe his love was conditional--and it was).  

He makes things easier with my mother (we live with her and takes her shopping so I don't have to, thank god), with my mental health (I have severe anxiety disorders), and splits everything around the house 50/50 with me without much complaint (which should be the norm, but alas, most men are whiny little boys about that part LOL).  He's my other half, in the truest sense of the phrase.  And he's always down for all the whacky crazy ideas I have (and he has his own, too LOL).  

He's not perfect.  But neither am I (I was raised by my mother, so how could I be? LOL).  But we both are understanding with one another, supportive, and forgiving.  We also both have imposter syndrome, so we spend a lot of time helping each other see the flaws in that way of thinking.  

I am one lucky woman (and I mean that, sincerely).  

And my mother reminds of me of this quite regularly.  In fact, everyone reminds me of it.  To the point that nobody ever tells him that he's lucky.  Especially not my mother.  His parents hate me, because he's their "little boy", and nobody is good enough for them (in actuality, they think if I wasn't in the picture, they could control his life, which is so very untrue).  My mother hates me because I'm (insert whatever crappy bullshit idea she has about me on any given day).  She LOOOOOVES my husband, to the point that when he used to send me flowers when we were dating, she'd actually get angry she didn't get any.  She loves to tell people how wonderful he is, and how accomplished he is.  She never says anything about me.  Just her golden child, my husband.  She will even tell me and the kids what to do with him, as though she's in control of what he's allowed to do and not do.  He jokes with me all the time "She does realize I'm not married to her, right?"  My therapist says she jealous.  I do agree with that.  She's always been jealous of us, as my dad wasn't very nice to her.  Except in the beginning, when she hated my husband (then boyfriend).  But something flipped like a light switch in her head.  That hate turned into some kind of obsessive golden child syndrome and that turned me back into the scapegoat (though, did I ever stop being the scapegoat?--impossible! LOL).  

So back to our anniversary.  Yesterday we spent the day buying used furniture for our new house, heading over to Menards to get paint and other crap we needed, and then coming home and painting the furniture and hanging out in the garage with our kids, while my husband studied for school (my hubby is going to college online, something my mother LOVES to brag about to people, "Oh my, he works, he goes to school, he writes books and movies, what can't he do??  Oh em gee!"  Though right now he's laid off due to this pandemic, but he still is her hero).  My oldest son helped me paint my dresser with chalk paint, while I distressed it and covered the drawers in cool paper and put new drawer pulls on it.  Our youngest was using our new drawing tablet we just got and he's sooooo stoked about it (not an affiliate link, it's just cheap and AWESOME: XP-Pen StarG640 6x4 Inch OSU! Ultrathin Tablet Drawing Tablet).  We had music on and the neighbor stopped by with his dog.  It was a pleasant day and we had lots of fun and even though it wasn't an anniversary party, it was pretty perfect.  

Except with one fell swoop, my mother had to try to ruin it all. 

Though, it was me who ruined it in my brain.  I let her words make me angry and sad.  Those triggers, man, they are so hard to either get rid of or ignore.  But in the the evening after she went to bed, it felt good for my hubby and I to just let loose bitching about her together.  We both sat there and complained about all the stuff she's been doing lately that's been on our minds.  Normally we are super careful about what we say because we do not want her to hear and to have it complicate things.  But last night, after what she said, we just didn't care.  For the first time in awhile, we just just say whatever was on our minds.  Because I was sooooo angry with her, I didn't even care if she heard.  

Now granted, she's half deaf.   She can't hear when you walk up behind her, which makes so many things dangerous for her (she's a fall risk) which I try to explain to her, but she think it's funny to put herself in these situations to make everyone around her dote on her.  And she was sleeping.  And her door was shut.  And we were in the garage, with the door shut, at the other end of the  house.  So there was really no risk in her hearing us.  But normally, we don't dare say much, because life is complicated enough with her. 

We not only complained about her, but reminded ourselves that our future plans are still there, waiting for us to act on them.  After my mother passes away or is put into a home (I do NOT deal with diapers, sorry, I am not that person, esp, because she has chronic diarrhea like her mother did), we are going to take our RVs (that we're going to buy soon) and travel and find somewhere to settle down (or find out we love the RV life better!).  Then after we find a place to live, we're going to buy some land or a house on some big land and live life the way we want to.  It helps to remember these things, that our situation right now is not going to be forever.  One day, we'll be living our dreams (though we're taking steps right now for that future) and all of this won't matter anymore.  

So back to yesterday: 

She has been on this kick baking all sorts of sweets, because she'd diabetic and for some reason thinks its perfectly okay to eat loads of crap whenever she likes (which she didn't start doing openly until she found out she was diabetic--again, like I said, she likes when people make a fuss over her bad choices).  The kids and I and my husband are all counting our calories.  Our youngest (now 18) has lost almost 70 or more pounds in the past year doing this, so we all saw his progress and decided to follow suit.  And she knows this.  And she also knows we all have a penchant for sweets and have issues with self-control.  In the past, she would got to the grocery store and buy tons of oreos and give them to the kids, knowing damn well they were trying to lose weight.  She really, really loves sabotaging people.  

So lately she's been baking every single day, even though I say "Our family doesn't do dessert every day, ma, so maybe cut down on the sweets?" but that causes her to just double down with more and more and more.  So she made some cake yesterday and showed me and said "Oohhh what should I write on the cake  Happy Birthday?  Or something else?"  I honestly thought she was doing what she always did and was making a joke because she knew what day it was, which surprised me because she has never cared before.  So I said "How about Happy Anniversary, because today is our fifteen year anniversary."  She wrinkled her nose and glared at me.  "No it's not.  You were married in October."  I sighed.  Here we go again.  "Yes, but today we've been together for fifteen years."  

She then rolled her fucking eyes at me.  

"Oh god.  You were married in October.  That's your anniversary.  Your father and I were together for four years before our wedding, and you don't see me counting all that time.  God."  

Okay.  So if someone wants to make your wedding anniversary the only one that matters, fine.  But to my husband and I, while our wedding was, well, interesting, it wasn't the point in our relationship where we decided "This is it.  This is where we actually commit to one another".  In all actuality, our wedding kind of sucked.  It was stressful.  Many people wanted to make the day be about them, rather than us (even though we had a very low-key, alternative style wedding).  It was my husband and I jumping through the hoops of making everyone else happy.  We didn't have our wedding for us, it was for all of them, so they would take our relationship seriously.  So our actual anniversary was the day we started dating.  Everything we've been through (some of which you can read on this blog), every step we've taken, every storm we've weathered, everything, was due to our choice to be together, not our choice to get legally bound to one another (and some of that shit happened before we even got married, esp. stuff with her).  Our wedding was about everyone else, but our choice to be together was about us (and our kids).  So that's the one that matters.  Yesterday was a very important day for us.  And she laughed at it. 

You know why?  Because I am the one who said it.  Had it been my husband, her favorite, she would have been nice about it, even if she thought it was stupid.  

She didn't even say "That's really cool."  Or "Congrats!"  Nothing.  Just a sneer, an eye roll, and some stupid comments.  Which is what really hurt my feelings and triggered me.  She could care less about what's important to others, only what matters in her narcissistic little head.  

So when she served up her cake, I just left the room.  She kept yelling for me to come eat it (which is what she does when we eat, she SCREAMS for people to come to the table, even if there are already some of us at the table, it's freaking irritating).  Every time she makes this stuff, I refuse to it (I don't crave sweets like I used to, which really bugs her, because as a kid I LOOOVED sugar, which she knew, and she would make huge amounts just so she could shame me for eating it--she did the same to my dad).  So now when she offers me any, I just take a jab right back at her and say "I would eat that stuff, but I don't want to get diabetes" with a smirk and I walk away.  

Childish?  Perhaps.  True?  Very much so.  Deserving?  Absolutely.  If she wants to make others feel bad, she can get it right back.  No that I would talk to anyone else that way, or even want to.  But I will make an exception for her.  I'm not being mean.  I'm literally stating the truth.  I'm losing weight, but I am still fat, and eating that crap on a daily basis will give me diabetes.  And it will stall my weight loss, which is what she wants (she doesn't fat shame me, but she does fat shame strangers to me, which is pretty much the same--which I'm also going to put an end to the next time she does it).  And yes, I'm taking a jab that the fact that she has diabetes and is only eating that shit because she knows she's not supposed to.  And it probably shames her that she's eating it and I'm not.  And that makes me feel bad.  But I have to do what's right for me and not do something I don't want to do just because it hurts her feelings when I don't eat her 500-calorie-a-piece cakes and breads and pies.  I'm in my 40's.  It's not easy to lose weight at this age range.  And I'm not letting some crazy old woman sabotage my life just to make her happier about herself.

And I won't let her ruin our anniversary, because it truly was a great day, even with her little "unapproval" of our choices.  She doesn't need to approve.  We'll be just fine without it.  Yes, it hurt my feelings, but then I have to remember who we're dealing with: a shriveled up old woman who hates herself so much that she'd rather make everyone around her miserable than try to be nice.  I have pity for her.  But I also don't concentrate on it.  I'd rather concentrate on my awesome hubby, our two awesome kids (who actually like us...which is a feat in itself), and our billions of furry babies.  

Oh, and because of all this, I decorated our living room last night.  Because I was so angry with her, I decided to stop feeling bad about putting our stuff on the walls (we've lived here for four months with not one thing on our walls) and just went and decorated the whole room while she's sleeping.  And now it looks like we actually live here and I couldn't be more happy.  So, maybe it was a good thing she was pissy to me?  I didn't eat her calorie-dense cake AND we got our living room all situated!  So yay us!  

There's a silver lining in every narcissistic storm cloud, isn't there?  Sometimes you have let your anger fuel you for doing something constructive and good for yourself and your family.  And that's what I did yesterday.  

Happy 15th Anniversary to my hubby 💋💗  15 years and still going strong!  Here's to at least 40 more!!  (or maybe 100 if scientists work on some bionic shit for humans in the meantime LOL!)