“What happened to you all?” asked Coraline. “How did you come here?”
“She left us here,” said one of the voices. “She stole our hearts, and she stole our souls, and she took our lives away, and she left us here, and forgot about us in the dark.”
“Flee!” said the very first of the voices – another girl.
“Flee, while there’s still air in your lungs and blood in your veins and warmth in your heart. Flee while you still have your mind and your soul.”
“She kept us, and she fed on us, until now we’ve nothing left of ourselves, only snakeskins and spider husks.”
“She will take your life and all you are and all you care’st for, and she will leave you with nothing but mist and fog. She’ll take your joy. And one day you’ll awake and your heart and soul will have gone. A husk you’ll be, a wisp you’ll be, and a thing no more than a dream on waking, or a memory of something forgotten.”
“Hollow,” whispered the third voice. “Hollow, hollow, hollow, hollow.”
“You must flee,” sighed a voice faintly.
It was true: the other mother loved her. But she loved Coraline as a miser loves money, or a dragon loves its gold. In the other mother’s button eyes, Coraline knew she was a possession, nothing more. A tolerated pet, whose behaviour was no longer amusing.
“She hates you,” blurted out the boy. “She hasn’t lost anything for so long.”
“Be wise. Be brave. Be tricky.”
From the novel “Coraline” by Neil Gaiman
In fairy tales and children’s books the sinister, soul-murdering mother is never represented as the abused child’s biological mother. That would be considered taboo, and much too frightening for children. Instead, she is portrayed as a step-mother, an aunt, or, in the case of Coraline, an evil replica of her real mother known as “The Other Mother” who exists in the twisted unreality of a warped “other” dimension.
Unfortunately for us ACoNs (Adult Children of Narcissists) our evil mothers, and or fathers were all too real. Blood real. Malignant Narcissist Personality Disorder Real! And we grew-up imprisoned in their twisted realm without a chance to flee. Indeed, it was like living in a warped “other” dimension. A dimension akin to a perverse and dangerous underworld where deviant behavior is the norm, the wicked preys and feeds on the good, and hate, lies and delusions reign supreme.
To the narcissist parent(s) nothing exists outside him or herself. They inhabit their own imaginary world where those near and dear are nothing but extensions, internal, assimilated objects – not external ones. We only exist as “parts” in the narcissists' demented mind. Welcome to bizarro world: a cruel and unusual place where living, breathing souls are dehumanized and objectified to a mere thought, a role, a function of the narcissists' stranger than fiction Universe. A hellish Universe where normal human feelings are illegal, independent thought is considered a crime, and love is replaced by pathological control.
Don’t feel. Don’t think. Don’t talk. DON’T BE! YOU don’t exist outside of ME! Obedience and silence is LAW! “It’s MY universe!” Screams the narcissist, “You function only for ME!” You better put-up and shut-up and prop-up if you want to survive the corrupt rule of “The Others”: the sick and twisted, needy, greedy, infantile and EVIL MALIGNANT NARCISSISTS.
Anonymous said:
I grew up in hell.
That’s the best description I can give you. My mother severely neglected and abused me.
In between all of this, she managed to parentify me – I ended up the equivalent of a 30 year old social worker in the body of a 10 year old. It was my job to worry about solving her problems and I’d better come up with all the right answers. There were months where she couldn’t pay her bills, so she needed my advice (at age 6, 7, 8) to work it out so that we wouldn’t be on the streets.
I think I had an anxiety disorder by the time I was 9.
Around that time, my mother found a young guy to marry, who quickly became my molester. I reported him to the school counsellor and she in turn reported it to social services. My step father was quickly jailed and I was returned to home.
I walked into the house to find my mother crying. “Why did you have to go to the school counsellor? Why didn’t you tell me?!” was the first thing out of her mouth. I guess I didn’t have a good enough answer because she kept crying. I remember being so upset that I started to cry. She screamed, “What the fuck are YOU crying for?! YOU are the cause of this! YOU put him in jail!”
The anguish was too much to bear. I just wanted to sink into the floor.
Personality disordered mother approached me a few days later on being really nice. She said, “You screwed-up, but you can fix this.” Willing to all but gnaw my right leg off to get out of this, I eagerly listened. She told me to go back to everyone (social workers, prosecuting attorney etc.) and tell them that I made this all up, so I did. In the meantime, she told my other family members that I was a liar, so she was covered on that front too. My step father came home from jail and treated me like garbage… until he begun sexually harassing and sexually abusing me again later. The difference this time was that I knew better than to tell, so I sucked it up and dealt with it.
By the time I was a teen, I was suicidal.
Determined to end my misery, I said my good-byes to my brother.
He told our mother who decided to “treat” this herself. She appeared in my doorway as red as a beet with a large leather belt in her hand. I don’t have the vocabulary to even describe the beating that I received that day. All I can say is that she beat me until I couldn’t catch my breath and started vomiting. She left me a crumpled heap of garbage, laying on the floor in my own vomit. All I could do is crawl to my bed, where I curled up in a ball and cried until I feel asleep. I was covered in bruises and welts so I had to miss school, but what sticks out in my mind about my extra time at home with her is that the next day she managed to make a joke about the incident.
She said something like, “Bet you won’t do that again” and burst out in laughter.
What kind of a monster would treat another human being with such brutality, let alone her own daughter?! Someone who is so inhuman that they are incapable of relating to another’s humanity; someone who is so warped in the membrane that they internalize significant others to mere functions of their henious selves; someone whose perverse self-serving control is crookedly disguised as love. A malignant narcissist. That’s who.
Clearly Anon’s mother is violent and dangerous and bat-shit-crazy. But she’s not “mental illness” crazy. She doesn’t deserve that kind of credit. She is of her own mind: a mind so debauched and out of control that she has no internal breaks on her sadistic behaviour. Anon’s mother is evil. Period. She is unfit for human interaction, and should not be allowed around vulnerable children never mind being placed in the power position of “mother.”
The true story of Anonymous is tragic and heart-breaking, and sadly all too common. I can’t relate to all the details of Anon’s horrific experience, but I can surely relate to having an insanely evil mother, and the systematic destruction of narcissistic abuse. My MN mother was covertly sadistic, and whether it’s outrageously cruel overt abuse or sly and skillful covert abuse, the drive behind it is malice, and the intended result is the same: total annihilation of the child. Class, gender or race does not play a roll. I explored this in the blog post (HERE).
If we break-down Anonymous’ story to its simplest form, we can see the process of Soul Murder, be it explicitly malicious and violent, or stealth and subtle and psychological.
Here’s what life is like for the abused and scapegoated child growing-up under the malignant narcissists' conspiracy of evil.
· I grew-up in hell.
· My mother severely neglected and abused me.
· I think I had an anxiety disorder by the time I was 9.
· The anguish was too much to bear. I just wanted to sink into the floor.
· By the time I was a teen, I was suicidal.
· Mother’s response to my agony was to inflict MORE pain and burst-out in laughter.
I too grew-up in hell. My mother severely neglected and abused me. I think I had an anxiety disorder by the time I was 9. She beat-down my confidence, sense of self, and enthusiasm for life. She covertly tried to drive me to suicide and told me that I wasn’t meant to live.
The shame was too much to bear and I withdrew from the world around me. At one point in my teens I was too nervous to speak and my body trembled uncontrollably. MN mother responded to my symptoms of her abuse with delight. When I was visibly insecure she would get an evil glint in her reptilian eyes and say to me in a happy sing song voice, “You have low self-worth.” Then she would walk-off humming, but not before she got a good look at me to make sure that I was deflated. When she was feeling more aggressive she would scream at me, “Your life is a mess!” If her slyly timed put-downs degraded me enough to make me stutter, she would crack a smug grin.
These are stories of SOUL MURDER. This is about won ton human destruction. This is about malice without motive. This is about unmitigated hatred that has no basis in reality. The malignant narcissists’ evil is a result of their sick and twisted mind. It is a by-product of the darkness that lies within them. It has nothing to do with external circumstances. Malignant narcissists are so diseased, so depraved and so disturbed that although their goal is total annihilation, they become even more punishing when their victim dares to succumb to their torture. This is about EVIL finding so much pleasure is another’s suffering, that they drive their victim to suicide and then prevent the suicide by inflicting more pain. This is about CONTROL. This is about OWNERSHIP of another living, breathing human being. Sure, the malignant narcissist wants to drive you to suicide, but they’re loath to relinquish any power so that it’s your decision alone. No. The malignant narcissist decides how and when you will die. And, they much prefer to kill you slowly and surely of their OWN measure.
Malignant narcissists are despicable parasites and they don’t want to lose their hosts. This might explain why they get more insanely evil when they notice their victim is checking-out. They NEED to keep you around to feed on until there is nothing left of you but a husk and you are hollow, hollow, hollow! Dead hearts, dead souls, and dead minds are much easier to control and fill with their fraudulent selves. And remember, the MN has internalized you to mere elements in his or her demented imagination so being unable to control and manipulate YOU literally means the narcissist is losing his or her mind. This might be why they go berserk when their victim flees. They are not only losing their grip on their host, they are losing their grip on their false self.
What if an adult child doesn’t flee from the evil clutches of a malignant narcissist parent? What then? MN mother has been out of my life longer than she has been in it, so I can’t factually write of the experience. Though, I’ve often wondered what would have become of me if she and evil MN sister had remained in my life. What I know for certain is that I would still be living in a fog of their projection, lies and delusions. I know for sure that they would still be ganging-up on me and messing with my mind. I have no doubt that they would still be trying to undermine my confidence and toy with me every chance they got. The systematic destruction would continue and the abuse would escalate with each passing year. It’s who they are. It’s what they do. They never change. They’re malignant narcissists.
Why would I ever have warm and fuzzy feelings for someone who proved over and over and over again that they are motivated by hatred and their intention is to cause me harm? Because that creature is my mother? Get real. The fact that I’m her daughter is precisely the reason why she should be held to a HIGHER standard of human decency toward me, NOT a lower one. This is not rocket science. This is bare bones common sense. Why would I knowingly and willingly allow someone seething with contempt for me to remain in my life? Why would I even accept a telephone call from such a sick and destructive predator?
I was able to flee from the malignant narcissists' treachery, and I flushed their poison out of my system. But, had I remained in MN mother and MN sister’s evil presence, not only would I still be contaminated, their venom would be compounded by 20 plus years, and I’d be oblivious to new toxins. There’s no question that my mind, heart, body, and soul would be quite sick and that I would be more vulnerable than ever… I shudder to think.
The only way to gain clarity and understanding of just how twisted these freaks are is to get the hell away from them. You cannot protect yourself from the malignant narcissists’ vile nature while they are still contaminating you. MNs are diseased souls and if you remain too long in their presence your soul will become badly infected or die altogether. In other words, your sense of self, your identity will barely cling to life or cease to exist.
Even though Anon’s malignant narcissist mother viciously abused, exploited and sacrificed her to another known abuser, and even though she was a threat to her mental, emotional and physical safety, Anon wasn’t able to flush the toxic witch out of her system, and thus never knew a life without the devastating influence of a malignant narcissist. Anonymous’ story is to be continued. And it’s one of caution to those allowing a malignant narcissist parent to remain not only in their life, but in the lives of their children and loved ones.
“She will take your life and all you are and all you care’st for, and she will leave you with nothing but mist and fog. She’ll take your joy. And one day you’ll awake and your heart and soul will have gone. A husk you’ll be, a wisp you’ll be, and a thing no more than a dream on waking, or a memory of something forgotten.
“Flee, while there’s still air in your lungs and blood in your veins and warmth in your heart. Flee while you still have your mind and your soul.”
Nmom was so cunning, deceitful and crafty.She was very subtle in her soul murder.She wasn't as obvious as n father. Especially when I was a young child.It is still hard to comprehend.
ReplyDeleteNow that she is older,her deeds are not as hidden as they use to be.But she still gets a free pass from nfoo. They see her as the 'victim' instead of the evil b**** that she really is.
Thanks to them, I'm still dealing with post tramatic stress. The effects of what nmom did was worse than ndad and it was no picnic with him either. To one degree or another, I will always be dealing with having to undo the sh** they put in my head.It really pisses me off that us Acons are left to deal with this Sh** and the nfoo go on with life as usual.
Not to mention the fact we live in a "Blame The Victim" type of society-because parents can do NO WRONG. Even as adults in our own lives, we don't speak....why? No one is listening, no one cares and no one's gonna help in any event.
ReplyDeleteUnless we sell our soul and recant.
Yeah, that makes it "all right." Please excuse me while I go barf. We're not "Quiet" or "Quirky" or any of the other labels those who grew up with normal parents call us.
We're private for a whole bunch of reasons.,,,,the primary reason? We weren't believed then and we don't expect to be believed now.
After all, "these things don't happen" unless you grow up with a narcparent(s).
So true, Anonymous. People blame the victim and no one cares. That just goes to show how narcissitic our society is and unfortunately, it's not going to get any better.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, people still have a hard time believing what has happened to us. People always tryed to give advise to me like it was a "normal" family situation. They never believed that it was really that bad. Who are they to assume how bad it was...they weren't there!
Lisette,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this awesome post. Neil Gaiman has been one of my favorite authors forever, and I was so excited when Coraline came out. It took me forever to read it, because The Other Mother was so, so familiar. I cried buckets, even though I couldn't understand at the time why it affected me so.
Anon's story strikes such a chord with me; I had the same thing happen as it relates to being sexually abused (on top of everything else) by NF and having NM talk me into recanting. I bore so much shame, for so long, because their actions convinced me as a tender child that I was at fault. What a f(*&ing crock of shite.
Thank you for speaking out, and I ABSOLUTELY believe you.
Love,
Vanci
What an ass kicking post! I still consider myself one of the lucky ones. In the acon lottery. Even with all my mothers criminal activity her main focus was on someone besides my sister and myself.
ReplyDeleteWe were baggage and we liked it like that.
That's a great post Lisette. Unless you have lived with it other people have no idea and what's more they don't want to hear it.
ReplyDeleteI am "Anon" in this post, and I just have to say that reading this is almost surreal; it almost seems like these are the experiences of someone else. And for that other person, I am horrified; but for myself, I feel nothing. Just one of the many side effects of being raised by a monster like this, I guess.
ReplyDeleteJust now another memory popped up related to this incident. I was actually punished for "telling" on my abuser. My mother decided to strip my room of all of my books. Considering that fact that my books were the only escape that I had, that was a pretty cruel punishment.
There were also a lot of smart comments being thrown around during this time. If someone said something in a stern way to me, my mother would pipe up with, "Be careful how you say that. You might get reported." I was ostracized beyond belief...I also remember apologizing to my mother for all the trouble that I caused, and begging for her forgiveness. Her response was to tell me that what I was saying didn't mean a thing to her. "Your apologies don't mean shit", to be exact.
Thank you so much for giving me a voice, Lisette. I've been silent for way too long!
Vanci, You're the first person who I've run across who has experienced this as well. While I'm very sorry that you went through this, I would like to thank you for speaking out and for believing me.
Clearly Anon’s mother is violent and dangerous and bat-shit-crazy. But she’s not “mental illness” crazy. She doesn’t deserve that kind of credit. She is of her own mind: a mind so debauched and out of control that she has no internal breaks on her sadistic behaviour. Anon’s mother is evil. Period. >>>She is unfit for human interaction,<<< and should not be allowed around vulnerable children never mind being placed in the power position of 'mother.'”
ReplyDeleteI'd amend that to say shes is unfit to *live*. Ugly lil' skid mark on existence is what she is....
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThank YOU (and Vanci) for sharing your experience and speaking out. Narcs have been roaming the earth untouched for far too long. And if they choose to cause destruction in other people's lives then they better be prepared for their victim to rise-up from the ashes and expose the truth. It doesn't matter when or how we rise-up and claim our voice... just as long as the seeds of truth are planted.
The Ns trained and brainwashed us to protect THEM. Self-defence was met with more punishment, silence was law, and we were forced to bear the burden of shame for THEIR crimes while they lived their corrupted lives without EVER being held accountable. Enough is enough! Rip their masks off and and give them exactly what they don't want: DISCLOSURE and EXPOSURE!
Anon, the latest piece of info on your MN mother, is to me, the worst yet: her smug sarcasm. "Be careful how you say that. You might get reported." It proves that she knew EXACTLY what she was doing, and that it was wrong, but she chose to do it any way. She was just pissed-off that she got caught. These freaks truly believe they are so superior that they are above the law. And they'll be damned if some insignificant bug tries to put a stop to them. They are CAPABLE of anything! And they will DO anything if they think they can get away with it. Malignant narcissists have NO rock bottom! They CONSCIOUSLY CHOOSE to harm others because it makes them feel powerful. EVERYTHING they do is premeditated, including stripping your room of your books. I bet the evil bitch always seethed with envy over your love of books. MNs have no real pleasures in life except for harming others. They hate to see us with interests and passions, and any source of joy so they set out to destroy them or take them in order to make their pathetic selves feel less inadequate.
But, it doesn't matter what they say and do. MNs will ALWAYS be inadequate. They are less than human.
Right. Thanks Kimani. The evil bitch is unfit to live and unworthy of "human" life. Actually, she doesn't even deserve the life of a cockroach.
ReplyDeleteLisette, You nailed it. As much as I've joked around about my mother's hobbies being making other people miserable, filing lawsuits along with other frivolous reports, and gossiping, I didn't realize how true it was until now...She truly has no "real" hobbies or interests. Besides reveling in the misery of others, nothing makes her happy.
ReplyDeleteWhat you said about her smug sarcasm also rings true for me; I never thought about it that way before...Wow. She really is evil.
This lack of hobbies thing makes me think of my own MN mother and her constant use of projection on my father. He's an N too, but he's the "nice" one which isn't saying much compared to the pure evil of MN mother and MN sister. He's also an alcoholic so he was scapegoated to a degree. MN mother and MN sister exploited his obvious dysfunction as the cause of ALL the problems in the family. I never saw it that way. Sure, he drank himself into a coma every night (I would too if I was married to someone like my mother) but he wasn't a mean drunk or a party drunk. He would just sit and read and drink till he passed-out... always sitting up in a chair.
ReplyDeleteMN mother would always snipe, "YOUR father has no interests or hobbies." But that wasn't true. He loved to garden, and travel, was a good carpenter always building stuff, a ferocious reader, played the guitar, and ran his own company. But MN mother did NOTHING. She had absolutely no interests other than parking herself on the phone and gossiping for hours and hours at a time. Usually, she gossiped to family friends and relatives about N father. The thing is, the only relatives we had were on N father's side so she was slandering him to his siblings.
One time in high school, I came down with a serious virus. And although my throat was almost swollen shut and I was coughing up blood, I still went to school. By the time I made it to class I passed out at my desk. Kerplunk! I was sent to the nurse's office and told they were going to call my mother to pick me up. I begged of them to let me take the bus home. I knew that MN mother would be on the phone for hours (she was already on by the time I left in the morning) and they would never get through. I also knew she would be really angry about having to pick me up so I kept on insisting I take the bus. After 3 hours of going in and out of consciousness in the nurse's office, they finally got through to the evil bitch. I remember the nurse saying to her, "We've been trying to reach you for 3 hours, your daughter is very sick." My first thought was, "oh oh." MN mother is going to be furious.
I stood outside and the bitch pulled-up in her car still wearing her slippers and robe. She had the most nasty scowl on her face and barked, "Get in!" During the car ride home she seethed with rage: how DARE I go to the nurses office and get the school to call her. How DARE that nurse say that to her.
MN mother couldn't give a shit that I had a dangerously high fever, and was ill... all she cared about was that an "outsider"(someone who was looking out for me) had discovered HER addiction - the telephone. I had unwittingly exposed her dirty little secret: that she was a callous mother who would send a seriously ill child to school, and who spent her time monopolizing the phone to the detriment of her child's welfare.
In the end, I don't think MN mother really cared if the school thought she was a callous mother. She's too delsional to see herself that way. Her main concern was that an outsider caught her in her self-absorbed addiction (pathological use of the phone). It's the MN's weapon of choice and their dirty little secret because it IS an addiction. They're addicted to griping, bitching, moaning, slandering, lying, poisoning other peopple's minds, maligning others, causing chaos and strife, and hogging the life line that is supposed to be available to other family members in an emergency. MN sister is the EXACT same way.
Hands down, I would say the MN's drug of choice - gossiping on the telephone - is far more dangerous and destructive than an alcoholic drinking alone until he passes out.
I just want to add; I'm not giving N father and his addiction - alcoholism - a free pass. He was pathologically self-absorbed and not present for his family when he numbed himself out every night. He was neglectful and indifferent, and his drinking made for an unsafe environment for children: the family protector being comatose. My point is: the way N father self-medicated didn't involve deliberately and outwardly harming others like MN mother's telephone terrorism. She could pack a lot of lies into a 3 hour period and do a ton of damage to other's reputations! If N father didn't mellow every night with booze he would have likely been a serious grump. I just wish MN mother had taken to the bottle. I would have much preferred her too numb to attack.
ReplyDeleteWow, this is really funny. I have the exact same family, it's a softer version of the exact same thing. My dad's an alcoholic, just to the point where he has to have two beers or two wines or two sojus every single day, with every dinner, after dinner. Then my mom talks on the phone for at least three hours every conversation and yeah, most of it is and always was and always will be talking shit about my dad (and assorted people). Then my mom calls my dad an alcoholic and makes suuuuuch a big deal out of it and growing up, oh god, even his days off was hell because I had to sit through her complaining about how she HATES it when he's at home because he's SO DUMB and DOESN'T DO ANYTHING and how she HATES how he has no hobbies. The fuck. Maybe that's true but they're both fucking insane.
ReplyDeleteThis is hilarious, talking on the phone must be a NMom thing. My mom didn't talk every single day, sometimes she'd go without and it would come and go in spurts but talking on the phone was ALWAYS a big deal and she always did it for hours at a time, waste the whole fucking day away on the phone, and then make a BIG DEAL out of it. She's up to no good. Haha, that talking on the phone thing, I'll never look at it the same way again.
Damn.
Not to mention, they're both gambling addicts. Mother fuckers!
ReplyDeleteOh, and I just wanted to say, you have an awesome blog, Lisette! This is an awesome blog.
ReplyDeleteLisa,
ReplyDeleteLOL! Marathon sessions on the phone must be a NMom thing! They spend at minimum 3 hours per call, but I've seen MN mom and MN sister clock 6 - 7. What the hell are they talking about?! They have no interests or hobbies. Oh yeah. That's right. They're "talking" about everyone else's lives. Have you ever tried to end a call from one of them? It's next to impossible... they freakin hold you hostage. You could set the phone down, cook dinner, watch a movie, re-organize your cupboards, do a paint by number, take a bath, climb into bed and read War and Peace and their gums would still be flapping.
Thanks Lisa. I appreciate that. And thanks for your awesome contribution to the comments!
ReplyDeleteWhat is up with that? The phone festival. My mother should have a headset like the lady on the time life book commercials.
ReplyDeleteShe ratchet jaws and watches Regis and Kelly. That and soaps. I haven't laughed as hard in years as I did when I heard he was retiring.
I was walking through her den when I was staying with her. She was standing in front of the TV and she was so involved that I expected to see a tractor beam shine out and suck her in to it.
I walked past and saw that the credits were rolling. But she still was transfixed by it.
Haha! MN sister has one of those telephone headset! I guess she needs to have her hands free so while she lies, gossips, slanders and barks orders over the phone she can lie, gossip, slander and bark orders online. She's a multi-tasking manipulator and controller.
ReplyDeleteShe is an assault on two fronts!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much Lisette. Your blog has helped me so much and I just wanted to thank u deeply from my heart to give me closure on a feeling that I knew that something was around with my family as far back as when I was 4 never had a name for these fuckers. Narcissist describes the bitch sisters thats how i refer to them now narc 1 2 and 3 can't say their names have officially gone no contact for a year now it is tough i often feel so disassociated from my feelings, hollow, empty, shocked, ultimate betrayal as i write this i still can't believe it and that I'm never bona see the fuckers ever again.
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year Lisette and to al the recovering souls who have found or will find their way here. We do recover. However we need the truth to find our way to recovery, to be truthful to ourselves about our past experience and the bigger picture which Lisette so acutely perceived.
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year. We do recover.
ReplyDelete