The Story of Anonymous - 3

Anonymous said...

A little update - I went NC several weeks ago. 

With each passing day away from the bitch, my vision is become more and more clear.  For once I am truly seeing her for what she is, and I am deeply ashamed that I allowed her to remain in the lives of my children for so long. No one should allow their effed-up parents access to their children. HELLO!  If you parents are too toxic for you, they are automatically too toxic for your kids!  

Although it's challenging for me to compose my thoughts at the moment because my PTSD symptoms are flaring beyond belief, I would still like to attempt to address the "why".  Please keep in mind that I'm still trying to figure out what the hell I was thinking, so I'll share with you what I know so far.

When I first made the decision to allow my mother into my life as an adult, I wanted to give her another chance.  I thought that the things that she did to me when I was young were mistakes and that she would never do that sort of thing again.  I had an image in my head of her being a real mother for once, a grandmother to my kids, and that we would all be a big happy family.  

She annoyed the hell out of me shortly after moving in, but my kids seemed happy with her.  She didn't hit them, yell at them, or do any of the abusive things that she did to me.  In my mind, she only got on my nerves, but since my kids were happy, I thought I'd suck it up and try to get along with her.  I tried my best, even going as far as purchasing so many books on communication, studying them at length, and then applying what I learned.  I truly believed that our problems stemmed from a lack of good communication, and I was determined to *fix* it.

Despite using a very validating, non-threatening form of communication, she managed to twist around whatever I said and slap me with it.  Sometimes she denied that some events happened at all.  She told me that I was crazy, delusional, a liar, and too secretive...I believed it.  Something happened to me during this time.  The world became fuzzy; I began feeling like nothing was real; I was a passenger in my own body, sometimes feeling as if I was watching my own life on a movie screen. (I've recently come to realize that these were dissociative episodes) The thing is that I was gaslit from here to hell and felt totally out of control.  My thought at that time was that I was crazy and maybe the best thing that I could do for my kids was to stay away from them.  

As time went on, my eyes began to open.  I began to hear things like, "I would love to let you do that, but Mommy Dearest said no, so we'll just stay home today."  There was an incident where I told my daughter that she could not have a second piece of cake.  My mother opened the container, took out a piece of cake and handed it to her saying, "Here you go."  After that, she just looked at me like what are you going to do about it?  Not wanting to cuss her out in front of the kids, I remained silent.

One of the incidents that came up right before I asked her to leave was when I discovered letters from inmates on death row in my mail box.  Using my *good* communication skills, I approached her very gently, saying something like, "I feel uncomfortable with inmates having this address.  Could you possibly use a P.O. box instead?"  She flew into a rage, throwing the bowl that she was holding across the room.  "You're not going to f*cking control ME!!!  They're on DEATH ROW!  How the f*ck are they going to come here?!!" Still calm, I held my ground, and said, "Listen, I'm not trying to control you, but you need to realize that there are little girls in this house.  What if one of the inmates has a friend or relative who wants to pay us a visit?  I'm just not comfortable."  I hardly remember what she said after that, but she was still screaming.  I lost it and screamed back, "These are the rules of MY house and if you don't like it, you can get the f*ck out!"  She started crying and made me feel horrible for being so mean and unreasonable, so I ended up apologizing for my part in this and she ended up staying...By the way, every once in a while, I still receive letters from inmates from all over the U.S. - apparently they passed my address around.

Shortly after this, I began growing increasingly tired of her b.s., so I pulled back and started keeping to myself.  This pissed her off royally, so to teach me a lesson, she cornered my husband outside and tried to get him on her side.  She also tried to convince him that I was a horrible person and told him that she was surprised that he would settle for someone like me.   

That was the end of it for her.  My husband came to me and said, "This bitch has to go.  Any mother who would say that crap about her own daughter is no good and I don't want her in my house."  So, I asked her to leave.  And as I previously told you, she did leave...with my kids.  She also left a scathing letter here claiming that she was running because she was in fear for her safety and that my kids were in danger of being neglected or abused if they were left with me. Funny thing is that I have subsequent emails from her contradicting herself.  She claims that she took them because they "wanted to go."  She actually ran with them to a homeless shelter, where she stayed for about a month.  After that, she went on to a nasty apartment in a very seedy section of town. (I live in an upper middle class area, so my kids had never seen anything like this).  When they came back, they were dirty in appearance and both had lice.

My kids have suffered emotionally because of my mother; one more than the other.  My oldest is having difficulty coping, and is displaying NPD traits herself.  For this, she is receiving intensive mental health services, and only time will tell if she ends up becoming a full-blown narcissist.  Best case scenario, she is displaying traits that she picked up from my mother, much like fleas that can be picked up from a dog.  Maybe a few years of  'flea baths' will cleanse her enough for her to become a functional adult.

I'm planning on moving to another area to give myself a chance to live for once. Up until now, all I have been doing is merely surviving.

I feel so ashamed that I exposed my kids to this. I am still in shock that I didn't recognize my mother's inappropriate behavior for what it was, and put a stop to this much, much sooner. I have to live with the fact that I didn't protect them from this monster every single day of my life, just as they have to live with their own mental scars that developed as a direct result of being exposed to this.

I still receive letters from my mother which are laced with covert threats, distorted facts, and FOG-inducing statements. 

Fuck her! SHE should read THIS:

I hate the fucking bitch from the bottom of whatever is left of my soul. My whole life, she has tried to destroy me, then she moved on to my children.

When that bitch kicks the bucket, I’ll be shipping a nice bottle of champagne to my friends (only the ACONs) so that we can toast the world being minus one evil-ass MN!!