Oh god.  Oh no.  What was going on here?   Alarm bells rang in my head like blasting sirens and I had to run to the bathroom to see what he was referring to.  And it was exactly what I had feared: my mother had cleaned the bathroom and instead of just taking my stuff and putting it all in one space like she usually does (and is fine by me), she organized it all.  

"Oh Shay, you are so lucky!  I would kill to have someone organized my bathroom for me!"  

Under normal circumstances, I would be ecstatic.  Had it been my youngest son who was home at the time?  Absolutely!  Because in that case, an organized bathroom would be just that: an organized bathroom.  Nothing more, nothing less.  It would mean that my amazing son did something super nice.  But when it comes to narcissism, it means something else entirely.  It means that she's planning to do it again.  It means she's going to get into my closet next.  Nothing in the closet is hers.  Not one thing.  And my mother is the queen of touching other people's stuff and organizing it and reorganizing it, and so forth (and putting it places you can't find it, which forces you to buy a new one, only for her to say "Oh, it was right here the whole time!"--except the times she would actually hide my things so I never found them until WAY later, if ever).  And once she's done with the closet, she'll move onto the other bathroom.  And then, the kitchen.  Granted, she can't actually do the kitchen, I just did a HUGE deep clean of the kitchen and organized all the cabinets.  So that's nice.  But still.  The fear still lingers.

It also means she's sending you a message: "I can do what I like with your stuff."  None of what she organized was hers.  It was my oldest son's and some of my stuff.  My son is grateful and told me I shouldn't be mad over something so nice.  Is he new here?  Does he not know that everything she does is a manipulation?  Now granted, he has no idea I am still worried about this, he just told me that in the moment.  He said "Should I be mad if you organized my stuff?"  Sigh.  I swear.  I love my kid, I really do, but he really doesn't get it.  His ASD is worse than mine in some ways, which makes him both more hyperresponsive to stimuli and more under responsive to stimuli than me, sometimes at the same time.  He wants to go to school to be a therapist, but it took him YEARS to understand what narcissism really was and what it looked like and while he totally gets it now, he still cannot understand my fears with her.  He has really hard time stepping into someone else's shoes (which I guess is a good emotional protection for a therapist) and seeing through their eyes.  I, on the other hand, do that so badly, that I have what you call "mirror synesthesia".  I can literally feel what other people are feeling (both physically and emotionally).  Which would make me an excellent therapist I think, but drain me so badly that I wouldn't be able to function after a session (which is also why photography sessions drain me so badly, too).   

I mean, he's right, if that's all she was planning on doing, then yes, I am grateful.  It looks very nice.  But I know my mother.  And I know that's not all she's planning.  She's bored and looking for things to do.  So she tried out one small thing to see how I'd react.  I haven't said a word.  And I really really hope she brings it up to me.  This is how I hope it goes: 

Her: Did you notice the bathroom?

Me: Of course, we have two bathrooms. 

Her: I mean, did you see how clean it is?  

Me: Sure.

Her: Did you notice how everything is put away?  

Me: Yes, I do tend to put things away.

Her: No, I mean the cart.  How I organized it.

Me: Do you give me a pat on the back every time I clean the stove or every single day when Mr. Brooks does the dishes?  No, so why do you need someone applauding you every time you do something?  That's weird.  I clean and cook and do what I do because that's how things work.  I don't need someone to praise me when I do things.  That's called being an adult.  I never got praise growing up, all you ever did was find flaws in how I did it wrong.  I would wash the mirror at the end of the hallway and all you would say was that there were streaks on it.  If I vacuumed, you'd tell me I missed a spot.  You NEVER gave me praise, so why on earth do you expect me to give you praise?  In case you were listening to the video I put on the other day, know that how you are treated as someone in my care is in direct relation to the way you treated me growing up.  Granted, I actually care about your well-being, unlike you when I was a kid, so you're actually getting better care than I did.  I actually try to keep you safe, when you just completely neglected and ignored me as a kid.  And you smoked in the house which gave me constant bronchitis.  I am lucky that didn't give me lung damage.  You not only did the bare minimum as a parent, you went out of your way to be spiteful and mean to me, to put me down when I did things I was proud of.  If I painted a painting, you would stare at it and find all the things wrong with it.  You made fun of me and made me believe I was stupid and incapable of doing anything right.  Especially in math.  You are the reason I had such a hard time with math, you know that?  Your constant judgement and cruelty to me when we played Yahtzee.  You made me play that game with you almost every single day so you could feel better about your own poor math skills.  What kind of mother does that?  What kind of human being does that to a child?  You made me believe everything I did was not good enough.  So, tell me again how you want me to say thank you for cleaning up stuff that wasn't yours to clean up and praise you for a job well done.   Because I would be grateful, but since you are you, I am suspicious of your motivations for doing so.  Because I know you way too well.  And I know everything you do is a manipulation.  Not only that, why on EARTH would I praise you for a job well done, when you couldn't even give that to me as a child?  Why do you think you deserve it?  You were a terrible parent and now I am your parent and I am a far better one to you than you were to me, but I don't need to praise you cleaning up other people's stuff.  We don't clean for praise, we clean because something needs to be clean.  You did a job that needed to be done.  Big deal.  That's what adults do.  So grow up, and stop always asking for people to applaud you for the simplest of tasks.  You're not a pet monkey.  You're an adult.  Act like it.  

Ahhhh, relaxation.  I feel much better after writing that.  

I may not say all that.  I will probably forget half of it.  But I will say about how she found faults in everything I ever did growing up, to make herself feel superior to me and why on EARTH would I need to praise her when she treated me so badly?  

I do feel much better now about the whole thing.  Knowing why I don't thank her or praise her.  Because that's what she wants from me.  She requires adoration and praise for every little thing she does.  Why have I never thought to say this to her before???  It's wild, but I will now.  I just hope she brings it up.