You're Not Crazy - It's Your Mother (3 page)

How do you win against that? How can you prove that just because you write fiction you’re not psychotic? You can’t.

The narcissistic mothers don’t care what evidence you have. I once said that my husband had also heard her say such-a-thing, and she said, slowly and carefully, as to a child, ‘Now, Danu. He is your husband. And he loves you very,
very
much. So of course he’s going to support what you say.’

Even better, Laura from the DONM forum, relates the time she showed her mother her mother’s own signature, and the mother still denied she’d signed the document. Laura said, ‘But that is your signature, right?’ And her mother said, ‘Oh yes. But I didn’t sign it.’

This kind of wilful stupid denial is so bizarre and slippery that it’s impossible to deal with. Especially since, if you persist in stating your truth (i.e. the real truth), she’s likely to move to other defensive tactics such as Narcissistic Rage. And you, programmed from birth to fear her rage, will back down immediately. So when she doesn’t confuse you into compliance, she bullies you into it.

If she doesn’t gaslight you by insisting the event didn’t happen, she has another trick. She can admit it happened, but insist that she was right to do so and you are wrong for getting upset. So:  ‘Well, dear, you
are
getting a bit portly, aren’t you? And I had to say it then so you wouldn’t have that cake. And your friends didn’t mind me saying it, they’re well used to your lack of self-control.’

Wonderful – she insists she was right to do it,
and
gets another zinger in at the same time.

Or she might admit she did it but totally dismiss it. ‘Oh seriously, darling, can’t you take a joke?’ Or, a classic favourite: ‘Oh you are
so
sensitive!
Everything
upsets you. It’s like walking on eggshells being around you.’

Invalidation is about dismissing your experiences, thoughts and above all your emotions. Indeed the intention is to not even allow you to have those thoughts, experiences and emotions. It’s a way of invading your head and reprogramming it. It’s psychological abuse (messing with your thoughts) and emotional abuse (messing with your feelings).

I cannot over-stress the enormity of this. To deny someone’s feelings or experiences it to literally deny their reality. And that’s what happens to we DONMs all the time. The only reality that is allowed to exist is our mother’s reality. And where her version of reality clashes with ours, ours must yield.

It’s awful. It’s beyond awful.

One example from my own experience is when I, miserable because of ongoing infertility, heard that my cousin had had an unplanned pregnancy without being married (oh the
schadenfreude
my mother got out of that one as she gleefully shared the news with me!). I said sadly, ‘I’d rather be in her shoes than mine’, and my mother briskly and dismissively told me, ‘No you wouldn’t,’ and carried on with what she was saying.

Other ways to invalidate include statements like:

• You’re over-sensitive (i.e. the fact that this upset you is because you’re over-sensitive; it was not inherently upsetting).
  

• Oh, nothing ever pleases you.
  

• We have to walk on eggshells around you.
  

• Don’t be like that.
  

• No, you don’t feel that.
  

• Oh you’re not
  still
  going on about that are you? That was
  ages
  ago.
  

• You keep bearing grudges.
  

• Stop crying, or I’ll give you something to cry for.
  

• Oh you always take everything up wrong.
  

• You’re always looking for the worst interpretation.
  

• Stop feeling so sorry for yourself.
  

• You’re such a moaner/complainer/whinger.
  

• No one else complains about this.
  

• I
  do
  listen to you!
  

• I
  did
  show enough interest in your big news.
  

• You just can’t take a joke, can you?
  

• Lighten up, I was only
  teasing!
  

• You’re so judgemental.
  

• You’re not exactly perfect yourself, are you?
  

• You’re over-reacting. You always over-react.
  

• You took it up wrong.
  

• I/she didn’t mean it like that.
  

• I’m sick of you always complaining.
  

• Well you contributed to it by doing X.
  

• You’ve upset me now by saying that.
  

• It’s your fault I did it.
  

• You made me do it.
  

• I did it for your own good!
  

• You have such a poor memory.
  

• You’re just delusional.
  

• I’m your mother, you need to respect me.
  

If neither gaslighting nor invalidation work, and you persist on calling her on whatever she did, she may well go next to an absolute explosion of fury. Or she might just start with that. This fury is known as
Narcissistic Rage.
It just means the way narcissists can explode in absolute, terrifying, rage when they feel threatened in any way. And it does not take much to threaten them. If we take it that narcissists are emotionally still in the toddler stage, then narcissistic rage is nothing more nor less than a toddler tantrum. But it can be hard enough dealing with a genuine toddler’s tantrum; dealing with an adult in that same tantrum, especially if/when you’re a child yourself, is beyond terrifying.

When she rages, no insult, no cruelty, no character assassination is too much to include. She hurls abuse at you and tells you that you are an awful person, that you have no right to have any opinion on anyone’s else’s foibles when you are just the nastiest person ever and they are so good to even put up with you. And look at this mistake you made, and that bad judgement? And you
dare
to criticise her?

In vain do you try to stay calm, to use ‘I’ sentences, to share how you feel, to help her understand. In vain do you offer understanding of her situation and maybe even compromises. In vain do you try to keep up with her lightning changes of subject and attacks from different angles, until your brain feels it’s going to pop with confusion and frustration.

The problem is that you and she have different aims. Yours is to sort out this issue. Hers is to put you most emphatically back in your box.

Depending on how vicious the row was, there might be silence between you for a while – a few days or even weeks. During this time she might well be waiting for you to get back to her and apologise, even though you did nothing wrong. But in her mind you did; you attacked her. She is, in her mind, punishing you for your misbehaviour with the worst punishment she can think of, her absence. And you, even though part of you might relish the peace, the other part of you might be terrified and stressed and upset by it, and really need to get things back to normal. And so you, well trained, might even end up contacting her and apologising.

But if you do not, after a while she will contact you as if there was never any row, with no acknowledgement that any time has passed. She’ll send a cheery message: ‘Hi, I was wondering how you’re doing. I got lots of jam made. And the dog got a sore foot but she’s fine now. Give me a call some time.’

And you’re left wondering … what? Did you
dream
the row you had the last time you spoke?

This, of course, leaves you in a classic narcissistic no-win situation. Because you are left either having to play the game by her rules, and pretend all is okay, and answer her message on face value, and that means she’s getting away with her previous behaviour.

Or you say to her, ‘Hang on, Mum, remember the last time we spoke? We need to sort that out first’, and end up exposed to the edges of another Narcissistic Rage: ‘Are you
still
going on about that? God you’re a terrible one for bearing a grudge entirely. That was in the past, and here you are still going on about it. I can do nothing right for you.’

And so, somehow,
you
end up being the bad guy, the unreasonable one, while she gets to play the victim card … how did that happen?

The fact is that they are the ones being unfair. It
is
appropriate to want to sort out a row before moving on. To find out why it happened, and negotiate to do your best that it doesn’t happen again. What is not appropriate is, if the situation was sorted out and the person genuinely apologised, to keep mentioning it. That
would
be bearing a grudge. But that is not this situation.

In practice what normally happens is that we DONMs learn well not to rock the boat, and we just accept her cues, and respond as if it were a normal situation. Which of course is what she wants.

Narcissistic mothers absolutely hate and resent your special days and successes. This makes sense when you think about it. Since everything is about her, then
your
graduation,
your
pregnancy
,
your
baby,
your
book deal,
your
wedding, is almost a crime against nature. You’re trying to make it about you, when everything should always be about
her
.

I think that practically every single married member of our forum has her own wedding horror story, and you probably do too. The details vary, but they all have their roots in the narcissistic mother: a) trying to ruin her daughter’s joy, and b) trying to get the attention off the bride and back to
her
where it should be.

And if they cannot garner the attention, you may be sure they’re not happy. Amanda from our forum relates how she hadn’t noticed at the time, but in every one of her sister’s baby shower photos, her mother has those pursed lips and glowering expression of the classic Narcissistic Huff.

Now, dismissing our successes does not mean that they cannot at the same time claim them and get attention for them. You may be sure her friends and acquaintances hear
all
about your graduation, your baby, your book deal, your wedding. Because then
she
is getting the attention and maybe even the kudos, the subtext being that it’s
her
daughter who’s doing so well.

Narcissistic mothers will go as far as to sabotage their daughters’ success. The lift you need for the job interview somehow doesn’t materialise, for example. Or she might look at the paintings you’re going to offer to the gallery and dismiss them. ‘They’re
quite
nice’, she might say dismissively, and part of you dies and you don’t even bring them to the gallery to show them there.

Well, she loves them
and
she hates them.

Narcissistic mothers hate our tragedies because, again, our tragedies are about us and everything has to be about them. So they can be downright callous and dismissive. ‘Get over the miscarriage already, the baby was probably deformed anyway.’

Or they’ll trump you. ‘Get over your miscarriage already. I had three of them, so why are you complaining about one?’

Or they’ll trump you another way. Marianne was told not to inflict her upset about her stillborn baby on her mother, ‘Because I’m even more upset than you. I’ve lost a grandchild
and
I’m worried about your grief. You only have yourself to think about.’

Or what about the classic, ‘Oh, you just got a diagnosis of cancer, did you? Sorry to hear that. Which reminds me, my appointment to get my adenoids done is coming up. I tell you, I’ll be glad when they’re done …’ and cue half an hour of talking about her adenoids, and your cancer never mentioned again.

But having said all that, in another way our narcissistic mothers
love
our tragedies and disasters. They get a real Narcissistic Glow going on when anything bad happens to us (or happens to anyone, actually). I believe there are two elements to this: they love the drama, and they love the Narcissistic Supply they’ll get from their friends about it.

This can sometimes be funny. My car was stolen from outside my house one night, by so-called joy-riders. They crashed it in a ditch and abandoned it. It was found by a kind man who searched inside and found an envelope addressed to me at my parents’ address, and this is how my mother got involved.

She was so excited about this I can’t tell you. Total Narcissistic Glow. She was having the time of her life! She was excited, talking quickly, about plans. She and my father would come over to my house that evening to collect me and bring me to collect the car. Fair enough, good plan. She said, ‘I don’t think there’ll be room for John [my husband] though. Not with you and me and Dad and your sister and Millie in the car.’