This phrase makes me think.  When a therapist once told me many years ago, after I had already been seeing her for six months (in order to deal with my mother's constant abuse), "Yes, yes, your mother did the best with what she had."  It was in response to something I said, while nodding her head.  And I was struck back.   It seemed to come out of nowhere, as she seemed to be on my side the entire time, up until then (granted, she was a terrible therapist who actually lied to me at every visit...it was, strange, to say the least).  I got angry (though not to her face, I am not that strongminded to be real with someone I don't feel completely safe with) and thought she was just making excuses for her out of the blue.  I wanted to scream "Her best?  Are you fucking kidding me?  She did her absolute worst!!"  Because how could anyone believe that doing the worst possible things be anyone's best?  Saying they did their best is like saying they were and are too stupid to do anything better.  But the thing is, I've seen her do better.  So I knew she was capable of it.  Not so much with me, but with others.  So to say she always did her best with me was more than just a lie, it was utterly profane.  She chose to do what she did to me and to my father and others.  She chose that.  And it wasn't her best choices.  They were her worst.  

So safe to say, that when my therapist told me that, it made question whether or not she was a narcissist, too.  And to find out later, after seeing her for almost a year, I realized she was.  So I don't know if her comment was out of her narcissism, to do what they all tend to do and switch sides like a light switch turning off, or if it was some kind of strange way to get to me let it go.  But she never elaborated on it again.  So I am thinking it was the former.  

But then today I read this sentence in the book Mother Hunger by Kelly McDaniel that states "a mother can only give what they have".  And it gave me pause before reacting in my usual triggered way when hearing something like that.  I stopped and thought about it for a moment.  I thought about the fact that my mother was born into narcissism herself (though I was, too).  She had a narc mother and a very, very codependent father (again, me too).  But unlike me, she was born without her brain being able to develop empathy.  Despite how much we think that empathy is something we are born with, we aren't.  We are taught empathy.  Granted, it may be something we learn even despite being brought up in a non-empathetic environment, but if we learn it, we have whatever working in our brain that is capable of learning it.  Narcissists don't.  That's what sociopathy seems to be.  The less empathy, the bigger the sociopath.  Narcissism seems to be a coping mechanism for sociopathy.  So, my mother is a sociopath (as are all narcissists), and how much does a sociopath have to give their children?  

Isn't that the real question here?  Every single person is different: different levels of intelligence, different beliefs, different understandings, different upbringings, etc.  So all of the narcissists in our lives are going to be different.  And they are all going to treat us differently (though if they get together, they may treat us similarly).  And if you mix my mother's extremely low IQ, extremely low EQ, ignorance on most subjects, low understanding of how people or things actually work in life, zero tolerance for things she doesn't understand and virtually zero patience (okay, below zero)...how much was she ever able to give me as a mother?  

Now know that I am not, in any way, shape, or form, giving my mother an excuse for abusing me (and still abusing me).  If you've been reading my blog, then you know that I am always trying to find a way to heal from her abuse while a) I still live with her and b) while she's still alive.  Because I do not want to wait until twelve years after her death to find a way to heal from it, as I did with my father.  I am trying to find a way out of my suffering, now.  Because I do not deserve to keep suffering just because I have to be her caretaker for the moment being.  

The Buddha (I am somewhat Buddhist, but I am not fan of "the buddha" himself, as a person) says that all life is suffering.  And it's all in your mind.  Because situations in life are neither good, nor bad, it just depends on how you see it.  Now granted, we can say that some situations are just plain bad.  Like people dying.  Or living with your narcissist mother.  But we can transform that pain, especially if we are adults, into something else.  Which is what I am trying to do.  

The path to the cessation of suffering is called "the noble eightfold path" in traditional Buddhism.  But I follow my own form of Buddhism, that I call "Essential Buddhism" (meaning just the basics, no complicated frilly other beliefs) and I revamped the eightfold path to what I call "the mindful twelvefold path", which is geared towards adult and teenage children of narcissists.  This includes: right understanding, right thinking, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort (all from the eightfold path), and right consumption, right boundaries, right love, right desire, right healing, and right community.  

So by using these twelve mindful concepts, we can release ourselves from suffering of most forms (though not all, sometimes we still will suffer anyways, because sometimes the pain is too great).  And that's what I am doing here.  I am using "right understanding" to try to understand the basis for abuse.  Or rather, why the fuck my mother always chooses the wrong actions with me (and others).  

And if you look at the path, you'll see that the first step starts with understanding.  And like I said above, my mother has pretty much ZERO understanding of how humans (others and herself) and things in the world work.  It's like she's an alien pretending to be human.  Like so fake that she seems to be always putting on a show, especially when she's being nice.  Just like my old childhood friend Rowlf (which you can read about in my memoir).  The only way these two women operate on a real level?  Is when they are fucking angry. 

So that means their modus operandi, their base level of operating, is basically rage and negativity.  When either Rowlf or my mother are having a conversation with someone and they are pretending to be nice and happy?  They come off sounding like really bad actors, or robots, who are forcing their interactions because they really have no idea how to be real.  I used to call Rowlf a "shell person" (not to her face), because she seemed to always be wearing a mask but the inside of her seemed to be hollow.  But now I know it's because she's actually only angry, sad, depressed, or irritated inside.  As kids, the moment her and her brothers' parents would walk out the door, sweet-Rowlf would disappear and she would begin to rage at her brothers.  Like screaming, yelling, threatening, and throwing things.  She literally scared the shit out of me.  And we were only twelve!  My mother is the same way, except her base level is more just negativity laced with anger.  She's always complaining about something.  And when she's not, she's being fake.  

So, the sentence, "a mother can only give what she has", I get it now.  She can only give me negativity, because she is negativity.  She has no other way to know how to be.  Rowlf is forty-four as of this writing, just as I am.  But my mother is seventy-four.  Imagine living seventy-four years as an irritated crazy cunt.  Like a walking yeast infection.  Damn.  I can't even imagine.  

I am fucking lucky.  My baseline for operating is sometimes irritation, but only when my mother is around.  When I am not around her, I am happy.  So right now, at this time in my life, I cannot get away from her, so how can I find my happiness?  Other than escaping the house each day to go to the store.  How can I find a baseline of happiness?  For one, I need to open my mouth more about what bothers me.  Granted, it's tiresome.  And my old therapist told me to pick and choose my battles.  But I realize that I am choosing to be uncomfortable over confrontational.  How many of us do that?  I bet a lot.  We fear confrontation due to the fact we don't know what to expect from them.  We do this with our parents, our spouses (who are mean to us, like my ex), our friends that we do not feel comfortable being real with, or at work.  We choose this all the time, rather than just saying what's on our minds.  And that leads to massive amounts of stress.  Which is what I am going through right now.  

So when I can understand her, it allows me to think properly about the situation, which allows me to choose better speech (rather than fly off the handle and cause the narcissist to play the victim--though they will anyways), which allows me to take better action.  But where are my boundaries here?  Why am I allowing her to cross my boundaries daily just so I don't have to confront her?  Having healthy boundaries means having less stress.  And I want less stress.  So I need to speak up more.  I can use loving speech (meaning not hateful) to say "Hey, can you stop (insert boundary crossing action here)."  And I can repeat it until she listens, because goodness knows she never EVER stops the first time.   

And I can stop taking offense when she doesn't listen, because again, what can she give me if she doesn't have it?  She doesn't have empathy, so why do I expect it from her?  

I used to expect my children's father to be a good dad.  And he always let us down.  Over, and over, and over again.  But I always gave him the room to choose better.  But he never did.  When I realized he was a narcissist, I let go of his bad behavior, and stopped obsessing over it.  I always expected him to do bad, so when he did, he never let me down again.  When we place high expectations on a narcissist, we will ALWAYS get hurt.  So why do I do that with her?  I didn't realize I was doing that with her until now, but I am.  I am placing an expectation on her to do the right thing.  I am placing an expectation on her to act right.  And she never will.  So, just like with my ex, who could not give me what he didn't have to give, I need to let go of the idea she will ever choose right or do right (or do it genuinely) because she cannot give me what she does not have.  

That's not her "doing her best".  I can't phrase it that way, because we all know that narcs can certainly give strangers their actual best.  It's just that they cannot give us what they do not have for us.  It's like, when our kids act up for us, but not for other people.  That's because of a) social graces and b) shame.  With us, they don't have as much shame for being a crazy asshole.  So they act up with us.  It's not personal.  It's just comfort levels.  That's all.  Levels of comfortableness to show off their shameful behavior.  Because who they are at their baseline is the person they show us.  They are irritable, crabby, negative, full of shame, and self-hate, and rage.  That is who they are.  And their feelings are so intense that they take it out on us.  I am not saying to pity them.  But I am saying that we don't need to take it personally.  

Easier said than done, but if you can keep that mantra in your mind at all times with them, that they cannot give what they do not have, and their "best" is not real, which is why they can only give that to strangers they'd feel ashamed of showing their real selves to, then maybe we can begin to accept their behavior is not personal to us, and never has been.  

And if it's not personal, we can stop taking offense and just live our lives, without letting them bother us.  Again, easier said than done and again, I am saying to myself just as much as I am saying this to you.  But it's an idea worth exploring.  

So check out that book, "Mother Hunger" by Kelly McDaniel (though the forward is annoying to me--but I haven't read the whole book yet-though I will this week and give a review on it).  From what I can tell, it's about getting over your mother's abuse, though I could be wrong...we'll see.