Anita,

I had my walk early today, took the mostly non-icy route from town back home, walking on paved roads.

I appreciate that you share those everyday-life details. Thank you for that. Makes me smile.

It inspires me to change my routine and incorporate daily walks.

 Imagine someone stabbing another person and when the victim bleeds, the one stabbing says: you are too sensitive; if you weren’t too sensitive, you wouldn’t be bleeding!

That is exactly what my mom was doing. Additionally when I tried to defend myself she came up with another term: that I was hormonal. She used it for years, to shame me, to humiliate me. Her partner shouted at me and I responded? – Hormonal. My hands were shaking after she yelled at me and I replied back to her? – Hormonal. Around high school I learnt to not reply – now still fighting to un-learn that.

She disgusts me.

 Seems to me that I was born breech and low-weight (and remained lower weight than my peers at least through elementary and middle school) because she was underweight during her pregnancy with me.

My mother used to be very skinny (grandma used to go with her to doctors to check what is wrong with her), also was skinny while pregnant, also wasn’t showing for huge part of the time. I believe she never cared for her pregnancy. She never expressed that. Being underweight and not caring enough would be a reason.

Underweight women are more likely than those of normal weight to have a preterm delivery or a low-birth-weight infant“.

I weighed 2 kilograms at the moment of birth. She always felt sorry for me but in a cute way.

I am thinking that the silent treatment she gave you must have been very loud, so you hummed to cover the loudness of her silence.

I took a moment to remember her silence. It has been 3 years, I think, since she last gave me silent treatment. Her face, her angry face.. No, angry does not describe it, it was more than that: contempt, hatred, disgust, repulsion combined with anger.  At some point she almost entirely stopped yelling at me and used only silent treatment, only her face expression, it was so powerful, all she needed to do is give me the look.

My mother was silent toward me for days after each rage attack, deathly, loudly silent.

Anita, there are times I confuse your memories with mine. I will repeat after you: “as if I wrote this”.

She used to tell me how grandma was giving her silent treatment and my mother would “wake up at night, feeling like she was going crazy”. I had the same feeling. That’s why I took Xanax as a drug for years. It was too much for me to have this feeling at night – I refused to feel it, for years.

Earlier, when I was a young child I had this weird feeling.. I can’t describe it exactly because I still do not know what it was. Something like a dream, but I wasn’t sleeping, maybe half a dream. Imagining something, like a fantasy. I apologize if this is not clear. I read about dissociation many times but it does not quite fit.

I would have been very grateful if it wasn’t for the fact that… she hated me so much. What a shame, what a waste… there could have been love instead of hate. There could have been a loving relationship between me and her, a loving mother-daughter relationship, something I will never know. I wonder how it’d feel.

How simple and perfectly said. Yesterday after we talked about tics I was lying in bed calmly and thought about how would it be like, if those ticks just disappeared.. There were couple of seconds I did not move my eyes, I thought “what if I magically make those ticks disappear forever, right here, right now”.. no sudden movements, no being tired of doing it every day all the time. I felt it to be true for a moment, it felt so powerful.

It would be delightful to know how life would be.

I felt her warmth and listened to her gentle humming (she hummed to the pleasant, relaxing music playing in the background) and I thought to myself: this is probably how it feels.

This must have been nice. I was in a bus today and saw this girl and a mother. The girl (around 9/10yo) was sick, I think, was not feeling well. Mother was checking on her again and again, could not do much about it I assume, but hugged her a couple of times. Did not even say much. It looked so selfless, she was not looking around to see if anyone saw that, to be praised for that. So nice. Costs nothing.

Anita, I hope you are fine today.

“She indeed celebrated and bragged when she ‘destroyed’ someone“- she felt powerful, and her felt-power intoxicated her!

That is scary. I can see it being true, sadly. Scary! I feel sorry for her. I still recall your words Anita, (may be paraphrased) “We all make assumptions .. Paranoid believes it’s true”. I wonder if it’s curable – from what I researched not really, because of….paranoid. That makes sense!

All excitements- positive and negative- are uncomfortable for me. All excitements trigger my tics!

Exactly. Parties and celebrations make me nervous. I prefer meetings where I have something specific to do, like work meetings: I need to say particular things, present, submit, be official, have my part to play. Gatherings where I can “just” be happy, loud, excited..make me uncomfortable. I used to go to parties though, I was just quiet.

– AMAZING! (I am not feeling excited by the way, when I type amazing in big print letters… wait, I feel a bit excited).

I will refer to this one again. I have been thinking about this, what are the chances.

Me, living through all my misery, and you, in a whole different part of the world, living through yours.

Can I say it makes me feel less lonely now. I wish circumstances were happier though.

I also remember that story about my birth was similar to yours (leg issues), as well as our mothers’ stories about it and aftermath.

I had this head moving tic, shaking it to the right and left, and when she was venting to me, I was doing this tic (maybe partly on purpose.. I don’t know) and hoping that seeing me tic, she will have mercy on me and stop venting, but she didn’t stop. … I still have tics. I was diagnosed for having Tourette Syndrome (as an adult).

I had this tick, where I used to shake my head (like in gesture of saying no, but much more quickly) then I had this one where I kind of stretched my neck (like when your turtleneck bothers you and you move your neck up a bit- also much more quickly). I also used it for mercy reasons, I even thought I was faking it at first, but no, turned out I wasn’t, and it didn’t go away. Now I struggle with blinking too much, moving my eyes but it might have been worsened by the fact that I needed glasses for years and did not have them.

I read those are changes in the brain and they cannot fully go away.

My mother was lucky. Her mother (grandma) is narcissistic too but my mother admires her, wanted to be like her and outgrown her. Grandma was abusing her husband verbally, my mother took a step further (beating). My mother was a victim too but grew up to be an abuser, very pleased of herself, living her life angry-excited. What I got is ticks and trauma for life. She does not have ticks.

Ps. Snow is coming here too. I look forward to it (of course I will regret those words in following months when it won’t stop falling and it will still be freezing) but it’s nice to wake up and see snow first time this season.

Anita,

notice when it happens that you just had a thought that was your own opinion, your own preference on this or that matter (clothes, food, etc.),

Thank you for this idea, Anita. I will.

I already started this but those are small steps – Waking up in the morning and thinking how I feel, do I need to sleep another couple of minutes or feel like getting up. Noticing what I see, hear, smell during walks or rides on my bike. It gets exhausting but it’s a great practice and I want to continue doing this. I will start thinking of my opinions on things, even small things.

our mothers’ judgmental thoughts and feelings quickly and energetically flow into our first impressions of people because first impressions happen before we have a chance to .. entertain our own thoughts.

Unfortunately this happens very often but I am trying to be mindful, take a step back, think it over.

Different people feel differently during an adrenaline rush: some people feel primarily excited and powerful, a positive emotional and physical experience (your mother, my mother); others feel primarily anxious, a negative emotional and physical experience.

This feeling either excites you or amps up your anxiety

This is really interesting. I never thought about this. She indeed celebrated and bragged when she “destroyed” someone. It amazed me how she was never sorry/ashamed when she did something bad, offended people, even if someone “deserved it” (“my cousin was little and was not behaving sometimes and my mother would spank her and ‘it was so satisfying” – as you perfectly pointed this one, Anita. I felt embarrassed for her).

I saw so many rages, screaming, hitting… that I developed nervous ticks since I was 6 (shaking my knees, my head, blinking, moving my neck – all sorts. They change, come and go, some never came back, new ones occur). I think this may be the reason why I cannot feel as excited as she is. She was angry (also powerful, excited – positive experience) but to me: it was scary, nothing more.

I think when I get angry, what I feel is her anger  – and I am scared.

Part of my protection from her anger were those nervous ticks. She encouraged it. I remember her screaming  “Child…child stop, what are you doing! please stop with the head, don’t do it” – with caring voice, but angry (at my dad? as if he caused it?) “Look what you are doing to the child!” (said to my dad). I continued to have those ticks… partly because I developed them and partly because she noticed them and was not angry at me but cared for me (so I thought..) Even though I was 6 or 7 at that time I knew it, I felt that she liked it, it was convenient. (And here I am, 30 years later, still having some nervous ticks.)

Does this lead you to a better understanding of her anger vs yours?

It definitely does and I will read and think more on this excitement/anxious anger in next days.

Have a good day, Anita. I hope the weather is good enough for a comfortable walk and spending some time outside.

edit:  My cousin could have been around 19 yo at that time, not 15.

Looking forward! Good night 🙂

You said that you will post soon and you did (It feels good when people keep their words, thank you!)

That’s really nice, Anita. A little thing, made me smile.

my mother was often angry at other people but didn’t tell them. Instead, she told me about it.. a whole lot, on and on.

– Of course my mother too did this! For hours I used to listen her vent about everyone: grandma, her sister, her work colleagues etc – but she never told them all this, just me. Did not want a solution to her issues with people, no confrontation. She preferred to give them silent treatment or to be passive aggressive. My job was to be a “dumpster” for her venting. BUT then she got angry at random people in the street or post office. It sounds not very logical but we both understand, sadly.

It amazes me how much I do not remember about my physical environment. Let’s see…I am trying to remember the color of the walls in the rooms where I live (for more than 8 years), and didn’t remember.

True, it’s very surprising to not spot some things we look at daily. I painted my bedroom’s walls myself this summer so I can remember the paint was white, but that was easy! However every time I am paying for something with a card, I hear the amount to pay but if someone asked me right away, how much I paid exactly – I wouldn’t know. I hear but I don’t listen. I lock the door and can’t remember doing this.

I understand it can be annoying to other people, to myself, and that I need to get better, to work on this, and I do. But I have been the victim of my own anger (as well as my mother’s) for more than 20 years already. Nothing good came of it. I want to be accepting towards myself. If I don’t remember locking the door – I come back and check. I know it happens and will happen once in a while. Next time I am attentive and say out loud to myself:  “door locked” (my neighbor thinks it’s funny) and I do not come back and check. I consider it small success.

Riding a bike helps me because I have to be attentive and although I sometimes get lost in thoughts, I watch myself and try to get back to being attentive. It’s better than meditating for me because it’s active. It is a kind of meditation, I think.

it is freeing: freeing from the guilt and shame that we felt as children, shame and guilt that did not belong to us then, and do not belong to us now!

Indeed. I transfer all my guilt and shame to her because it was hers to begin with. She projected it on some people in her life including me, but it did not fix her. With time she has become a master in abusing, evil person. There’s resentment but it is directed at my mother, not myself – I deserved to have a loving mother and she failed me.

My plan for tomorrow is to spend more time outside and to think through some things we discussed so far.

Anita, Take care. I am happy we communicate here and appreciate it a lot.

Anita,

Thank you for your response. It is shocking how our mothers are similar. I had some time to think about the Paranoid personality disorder (PPD). I knew she assumed the worst of me and of other people. We even wrote about this here, on forum. Reading about this disorder made me see how sick she is. So many times I tried to convince her people do not mean that. She sometimes imitated this but it was much worse because I could see she was faking it. So many times she took one small detail, analyzed it for days, weeks, years and build a whole new story around it. Now I cannot tell for sure whether people disrespect me or mean well – most times I am confused.

like your mother, my mother – as an adult – was mostly a wounded child, focused on her pain and seeing NONE of mine

Once my mother said to her mother (my grandma) that “Mother is supposed to do parties and Christmas for her children!” (grandma never did) – shows how delusional my mother is. She hardly ever made me a party or Christmas! I was sitting there listening when she said this. How ridiculous.

I forgot to mention Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD)

I read about it some time ago. I watched this tv show, “Sharp Objects” with Amy Adams – that was interesting. I saw a lot of my mother’s behavior there. She fits some of the descriptions but I am not sure if this is enough.

I was always ashamed how she was showing off in front of men. Behaved differently, joked, smiled, talked weird, so fun and talkative. Embarrassing. Grandma is the same.

She also has those attacks, rage. It could be anywhere: in the street, in the shop, post office. Someone would disrespect her, refused her and she would call this person names, offensive words, yell. There was no limit to it. Let’s say she wanted to get in the bus and someone was blocking the way, she would destroy that person, (not physically – not in those situations at least). She expected me to be angry too, so I learned to stand by her. But I never learned to rage – standing by her side and being on her side was good enough apparently, she never made me yell and rage as she did. Now when those situations occur, someone “disrespecting” me, refusing, not noticing me in a queue – I feel my heart beating faster, reliving it again and again. Being afraid is what I feel. I am not afraid of this person – sometimes it is a mother with a stroller, I am not afraid of my reactions – I cannot and not feel like attacking the other person. I just stand there and relive those past situations.

I remember very well how very difficult it’s been for me to make decisions.

How well I know this feeling. Even today I got ready after work and just sat for minutes, thinking if I want to go. If yes, where? groceries/ bakery? by bus/ bike? or just go for a walk and do shopping tomorrow? Funny thing is I don’t know. I make decision based on little things, I just choose randomly because I don’t know.

Anita, you wrote about wasting your creativity and intelligence. I think of the times I liked to do things, sing and cannot imagine how much effort it would be for me now to do those things. One time a girl from my work told me she used to play board games but since she does overtime at work her mind is so occupied she cannot focus right now. This is how I feel for years, all my life since childhood. When I go for a walk I force myself to notice trees, signs, because I normally don’t see them. I am not attentive at work either, I have to force myself and focus to see things – it’s something I need to do, it does not come naturally. There are days it is too much for me to focus to music.

I feel sorry for myself – that I did not have a real mother, that I wasted so many years, could do so many things, travel, meet people. Instead I was dealing with her all those years. I regret living with her for so long, but I do not blame myself for it. She is to blame that it was hard for me to find job, to be successful, to be in healthy relationship, that I had cuts and wounds on my face and it kept me from moving on with my life – it was all her fault that I was stuck. If she was supportive and loving I would not have had all those difficulties.

I feel sad, betrayed, tricked. I miss having a mother. It is really lonely.

It is freeing, though, to know all this, to realize she is in fact sick.

Anita, I figured I just misunderstood. Thank you for explanation.

I hope you have a good rest.

Take care.