Mother hates herself.  It's how all narcissists truly feel, deep down inside, no matter how much they try to make everyone think otherwise.  They hate themselves, due to their own narcissistic abuse from their parents and their messed up brains they were born with that causes them to see the world and everyone in it the way they do.  Their black and white thinking that says "all or nothing" contributes to this self-hatred.  But then again, don't we all hate ourselves, at least a little?  And not all of us decide to act the way they do.  They have a slew of very unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with this self-hatred, thinking that if they could push those nasty feelings onto someone else, they will feel better.  It doesn't work, by the way, which is why they keep doing it.  Their sociopathy (whether they have a little or a lot of it) prevents them from realizing that "Hey, this isn't working, I still feel awful about myself, maybe I should stop being such an asshole to everyone else?"  But self-hatred makes you lash out, and with sociopaths, their self-hatred makes them lash out in horrendous ways, because they know no boundaries in which they should not cross.  To them, calling and having your bank card marked as stolen is the same as not talking to you.  To them, one is not worse than the other.  And both are valid ways to react when someone makes you mad.  They don't get that one can FUCK UP YOUR LIFE and other other is no big deal.  My mother did this to me once when she was angry at me.  And she never understood just how evil of an act that was.  

They are emotionally stunted, caught somewhere between being a toddler and being a shitty teenager.  Not all teens are shitty, just the shitty ones are.  So their actions are that of a child.  The child parts of them are acting out when they feel hurt or abandoned or slighted in any way.  And, just like a child, they imagine slights coming from you, which is their self-hating parts of themselves showing through.  Rather than see "Oh, you tell me not to do these things because I can hurt myself" (as in the case of my mother), they see it as "YOU ARE RUINING MY LIFE!  YOU ARE TAKING EVERYTHING AWAY FROM ME!  YOU ARE MEAN!  I WILL GET MY REVENGE!"  

Which is not only childish, but a little bit crazy.  My mother's revenge, nowadays (since she has nothing left to take from me, really), is to do exactly what I told her not to, or to ask me relentlessly to do these things (as in the case of the basement, which is she is not allowed to go into, per her physical therapist's orders) until I scream at her (in that case, I had to scream at her more than once about it).  And she does these things on purpose so I get angry.  It's a game for her.  One she always loses, but still, she loves playing them anyways.  She wants to rile me up, which is the only way she can get her narcissistic supply anymore.  And if I don't take the bait (meaning, if I don't say anything about her doing what I told her not to), she will bring it up to me, saying something like "Don't you realize who did this thing I wasn't supposed to do?" (not in those words, she will actually say thing she wasn't supposed to do LOL).  Though, unlike her, I make good on my promises.  If I say "You bother me about going into the basement again, and I will lock the door so I never have to worry if you're defying me behind my back," I mean it.  I even bought the doorknob with a lock on it.  As a child, she'd threaten me but she'd always be bluffing.  Never once did she follow through on a threat.  I do not threaten her, I just let her know how it will be and then I do it.  

Also, unlike her, I do not say these things for no reason.  When we moved upstairs from her in 2018 after coming back from homelessness, she locked up her house so I'd have to knock to come in.  In my entire life, I never had to knock going into her house...in fact, NOBODY had to knock, as her door was always literally open.  So when we did this to me, and yet all her friends were allowed to come and go as they pleased without knocking, I just stopped visiting her and used the outside door to get to the basement to do laundry.  And now we live in a house together and I lock my door because for some reason she thinks (and has always thought) she can do the same to me, just walk into my space without knocking (or a quick knock and immediately open before I answer).  

Growing up, I wasn't allowed a lock on my bedroom door.  And my mother would always barge right in.  Our bathroom had a lock, and that didn't matter, as she would get a metal skewer and pop the lock open no matter what I was doing inside.  I mean, we did have two freaking bathrooms but no, she had to barge into my private space whether I was showering or using the toilet.  She had/has an issue with shut or locked doors, which must stem from her childhood, as she also never shut the bathroom door while using the toilet or her bedroom door while undressing/dressing.  

And when we moved in here, she did the same thing, just barged right into my room anytime she wanted.  I got a lock on my door a few months later (after waking up with her standing over me and my husband several times).  And now I lock my door most days.  Some days I don't and she always notices and always still, to this day (I mean she literally did it today) and will just open my door because she feels she has the right to do it.  

And with my door lock, I built a boundaries and a rules: she is not allowed to come into my room at all (due to her snooping in my stuff and her barging in) and she's is not allowed to open my door, period.  She has to knock and wait for me to answer and open the door for her.  I thought I made myself clear with her, but apparently, she thinks she can come into my room still anytime she wants.  So I keep it locked up tight whenever I am in here and whenever I leave the house.  

My point is, I do not make consequences for her because I am angry.  I make consequences for her in direct relation relation to her behavior.  Me not speaking to her and going no contact with her due to her bad behavior is not a reason to create consequences for me.  Her consequences for me have always been because she's angry at me, not as a direct result of my behavior.  Even as a kid.  If she feels slighted in any way, shape, or form, she will punish me.  Me locking my door is not a punishment for her.  It's a boundary for me.  I do not want her invading my spaces so I keep my space protected.  It's as simple as that.  

But she, like all narcissists, act from a place of self-hatred and a childish understanding of life and relationships.  So she lashes out (as they all do) and does things in order to keep herself feeling like shit.  Like her defying me today about taking out our HUGE garbage can when she's not allowed to walk down the driveway without her walker (per her phys therapist's orders).  She knew it would make me angry.  And she wanted to rile me up and get me to be mad at her so she could sit and revel in the feeling of "my daughter hates me because I am a bad person who does bad things" or "I can do what I want!  You can't tell me what to do!"  But mostly, now that she's super depressed because every bit of her narcissistic supply has been put in check, she's looking for ways to pout and be angry about stuff.  

When you take away every bit of a narc's supply, they lash out, act out, and try to punish whoever is taking their supply away.  Even if that means hurting themselves, as in the case of my mother.  So my job is to not care and just put in precautions to keep her safe, even if it pisses her off.  Right now, the garbage cans are chained to the lawnmower in our garage, so she can't think of doing that again.  No reason to get angry with her.  No reason to give into her depressive feelings or whatever she's looking to get out of doing these dumb things and no reason to let this kind of stuff rile me up (which is what she wants).  All my job is to lock everything up, including her if we have to (just kidding, but she has dementia and eventually, she will wander), to keep her safe.  That's it.  

I do feel that learning about IFS (internal family systems) has allowed me to understand narcissism a bit better.  To see that these actions have NOTHING to do with me or anyone else, whatsoever, and are just very volatile, childish, and harmful coping mechanisms, helps me to separate her behavior from my feelings.  BUT it doesn't mean that I think what she does is okay or is somehow "not her fault", as my cousin Mindy once said to me.  Of course it's her fault.  I have bad coping mechanisms to protect myself from pain, too, yet I do not hurt people on purpose.  

Nor do I put myself into danger so others feel sorry for me or make a big deal out of what I do and I get pity, which is what she constantly does.  Which is why I need not get riled up when she does do things.  She wants that.  She likes it.  She wants to complain about it to her friends.  "Oh Shay was angry with me because I did something I wasn't supposed to do!"  She even used to call me from her nursing home a few months ago to tell me all the bad shit she did behind the nurses' backs.  It's really sad to see how much she wants people to see her as a rebel or a "naughty girl".  I don't get it.  But it's just another way she gets her supply.  And right now, it's the only way she can get it.

I have become such a let-down as a daughter.  I know this.  I don't give into her bullshit anymore.  I don't find her amusing.  I don't join her in gossip.  I don't fawn over her anymore.  I don't let her be an obnoxious asshole around me, and when she is, I leave.  And it makes her feel horrible, because she has no idea how to be anything but an obnoxious asshole.  And I don't approve of her, so that hurts her feelings.  Oh well.  I don't like hurting anyone's feelings, but c'mon, she's lived my entire life hurting mine so honestly, she doesn't deserve me as her daughter.  Hell, nobody deserves her as a mother.  I used to be at her beck and call.  I used to play her games.  I used to let her use me and abuse me.  But ever since I stopped, she has turned on herself and become depressed.  It really makes me wonder if it's all a ploy to guilt me or not.  If she's depressed as a way to "show me" she's still in control of the situation.  If she were anyone else, I'd never think that.  I know that depression is a real thing.  I get mental illness.  But knowing she's a manipulative narcissist, so anything is possible.

It's strange to hold so much of someone's self worth in your hands.  I never asked for that.  I never wanted it.   Granted, she used to hold a majority of my self worth in hers (and still does to some respect, which I am working on).  I don't like her being depressed.  But I also really don't like her when she's not depressed.  She's a nicer person when depressed (though, not really, she's more agitated and rude, but then again, she's always agitated and rude).  But I hate that her being depressed makes my life easier.  I feel so very guilty about that.  Because when she's hopped up on good mood fumes, she makes crazy decisions and has crazy thoughts and makes my life 100x more difficult because I have to rein her in.  I feel bad that with her it's always all or nothing.  It's either balls out crazy or balls out depression.  She can't just be normal or in between either.  She will act normal for a small bit, but then she'll use your trust to get balls out crazy and try to abuse that trust.  

Which is why I can't trust her in any moment, on any day.  I've never been able to, even though I used to think I could.  I tricked myself into believing she was normal.  But she never was.  And now, living with her for so long, I can clearly see just how manipulative she really is.  And the massive amounts of guilt I feel for her depression (even though it's not my fault in the least, it's a mixture of moving to where she has ZERO people to control so it cut off her narcissistic supply, along with the pandemic, and a huge part is her dementia), I should remove myself from it.  Because I didn't cause it and even though she treats me like I am the one at fault for how she feels (she also treats my oldest son the same way), I am only her scapegoat, not the cause.  I always have been, I always will be.  And I don't need to take responsibility for any of it.  

Even though deep down, she's always taught me that I am responsible for everything that's wrong in her life.  My father's abuse.  Her need to drink and smoke.  Her mental health.  Her loneliness.  I wish I could just learn to let go of it all.  Perhaps one day I'll stop taking responsibility for her pain.  Until I do, I'll just take it one day at a time and hopefully get through it with my own mental health intact.