You're Not Crazy - It's Your Mother (10 page)

You might choose to stop giving her hostages to fortune. In other words, don’t share your upsets and worries with her – she’ll only suck them up and feed off them, and will not be any support to you whatsoever. Similarly, don’t share your successes with her either, as she will dismiss and diminish them to your face, and then crow about them to her acquaintances. Try not to share your celebratory occasions with her either, so that she does not get to spoil them.

I consider this option to be a
weather-topic relationship
. In other words, you talk only about the weather and other topics of such little interest. And her. Talk about her. Or rather, let her talk about her. On the rare occasions my mother asked about me after I initiated this weather-topic relationship, she was very (pathetically, hilariously) easily deflected back into talking about herself. It was exactly like diverting a toddler!

I did this for a number of years and it worked really well. It was horrible for me, of course, because there was no authenticity in it, and no connection. It was, in some ways, a denial of my very Self. But it protected that same Self from her abuse, and was a workable solution.

Superficial relationships can work very well with a narcissist. For a certain value of ‘very well’, that is. You won’t get any satisfaction or support or friendship or any good thing from it. But you’ll still be in touch with your mother, and it’ll be mostly bearable.

She might pick up that things have changed. You’re not giving her any drama fodder after all. She might complain about this. ‘You’ve changed’, she might say petulantly. ‘You don’t tell me anything any more.’

And you deflect it lightly, ‘But didn’t I tell you about my trip to the hairdressers just now? Oh and speaking of which, did you get
your
hair done? It looks lovely!’

She might try and pick at various scabs: ‘What happened with that row you were having with the car dealership?’

‘Oh that got resolved’, you say, even if it hasn’t, ‘they paid up.’

She might try to provoke you, to get some drama, some Narcissistic Supply. ‘Have you put on weight?’ she’ll ask.

‘Very possibly,’ you answer lightly. Always choose the answer that agrees with her, as it cuts off the drama supply. And try distraction again, ‘Oh look at the lovely daffodils out there!’

She might persist, ignoring the daffodils, ‘Yes, I was thinking you’re looking a bit fat. You’ll need to watch it.’

‘I surely will. It’s early for daffodils, isn’t it? But they look well.’

And so on and so on. This takes practice, and it can be hard not to be sucked in. But there is a lot of satisfaction in seeing her thwarted and frustrated, and all by you being polite and pleasant.

In this way, one by one, you cut the drama-threads and leave only bland innocuous marshmallows of conversation.

The second option is to Low Contact or LC. A lot of DONMs choose this one because they find that their mother drains them of all their energy when they meet her, and they no longer want to inflict that on themselves. Or at least, they want to limit their exposure to that.

There are two ways to go LC. One is to just do it, and the other is to announce it. They both have their pros and cons, and which one you choose will probably depend on whether she’s an Engulfing mother or an Ignoring mother.

If she’s an Ignoring mother, you can just cut down on how often you see her, and she probably won’t even notice. The fact she doesn’t notice can actually hurt quite a bit, which might be counter-intuitive. You
want
to cut down contact, and you have, and now you’re not happy that that’s what happened … maybe she was right all along that there is no pleasing you.

But here’s the thing. You don’t
want
to cut down contact. You want the contact to be healthy and wholesome and good. You want your mother, and nothing changes that. When you go LC, it’s because you have to, not because you want to.

And if she accepts it without querying it or without even noticing, of course that hurts. It’s proof positive that you meant nothing to her. It does hurt. I know that. There is an EFT script below to help erase this pain.

Now, if she’s an Engulfing mother then it works slightly differently. If you just try to ease off on how often you see her, she’ll notice immediately and resist that with all her might. So you will need to formally advise her of this. She will not like it of course, and will resist. Read up on the information on setting boundaries, below, for more on how to manage her resistance.

What you can do is to tell her formally how often you will see her. You can give her a reason, or not, as you choose. But a good rule of thumb with narcissists is to choose the option that has the least potential for drama. And if you give her a reason she can argue it and gaslight you around it and so on.

I suggest giving her the LC information in writing, by letter or e-mail, rather than verbally, so that she cannot confuse you or distract your or divert you.

So here is a suggested LC letter. Note the diplomatic lie in it – just something to soften the blow for her.

Now, she might well react in a number of ways.

One possible reaction is that she will just ignore the letter and carry on as before, calling three times a day, or just dropping into the house as before.

Or she might phone you, or call around, in a narcissistic rage and demand to know what you’re thinking of to be so unreasonable, and how
dare
you refuse to take her calls/bar her from your house.

Or she might play the victim. Send you an email back, or phone, sobbing that she doesn’t know what she has done to deserve this cruel,
cruel
treatment from you, that she has always done her best as your mother, and loves you so much, etc, etc.

If her other tricks don’t work, she might send an emissary known as a Flying Monkey to plead her case. Your father, or step-father, is a good bet for this role, but really anyone will do once they’ll take her side. This Flying Monkey will tell you something like, ‘Your mother’s so upset you know. I’m really worried for her health. She had a panic attack when she got your letter. We nearly had to call an ambulance. You know her heart isn’t good’. There’s more about Flying Monkeys below.)

Here is how keeping to boundaries works. You need to decide on a consequence for every boundary. Leaving her company (if you’re with her) or hanging up (if you’re on the phone) are good ones. Asking her to leave if she’s in your house, but having a plan for if she doesn’t leave, such as going upstairs and locking yourself in your bedroom. The consequence must always be something that is in
your
control to enact.

So the steps are as follows:

Set the boundary. You can do this in the moment: ‘Mum, I’m asking you to stop bad-mouthing Gerry’, or ahead of time, ‘Mum, I need you to stop bad-mouthing my siblings to me’.
 

If it continues, you say it again, a bit more firmly: ‘Mum, I really am asking you to stop bad-mouthing Gerry to me. You need to stop doing that.’ Or, if you’re reminding her of a pre-set boundary, ‘Mum, remember I asked you to stop bad-mouthing my siblings to me? Well you’re bad-mouthing Gerry now and you need to stop.’
 

If she continues, you threaten the consequence: ‘Mum, if you don’t stop, I am leaving/hanging up.’
 

If she continues, you say, ‘I told you I would have to leave/hang up if you didn’t stop. You didn’t stop, so I need to go/hang up. Goodbye.’ And – this is the essential bit – you carry out the consequence, calmly and firmly with no further discussion. If she asks why you’re leaving you can repeat, ‘I told you I would leave if you didn’t stop. You didn’t stop, so I am leaving’. But you do
not
get into an argument or discussion about it – that is essential. You let nothing at all stop you from carrying out the consequence. No apologies, no tears, no appeals. She has to learn. Remember that she’s a toddler in a grown woman’s body. Toddlers (and puppies, think of training puppies) learn by enforcing consequences.

And repeat the next time. And the time after that. It might well take several episodes of you carrying out the consequence for her to understand that you mean it. And she will probably never stop trying to push the boundaries. She might sneak in a tiny, mild, criticism of Gerry, maybe, looking at you slyly to see how you react. And if you let that one go, she’ll come in with a slightly worse one. Pushing her luck, in other words. You will have to be very clear on how tightly you enforce the boundaries, and then do that. This is
exhausting.
There is no denying that. But you have no options other than to do it, or to go back to how you were.

She will resist the boundaries another way too, by complaining about them. She might say (tearfully, or crossly), things like, “You’ve changed! You’re always angry. Why can’t you be the lovely daughter you used to be”. It can be hard to resist this, but remember she’s just a toddler protesting about not getting her own way.

You can respond to these statements in the same light way recommended above, ignoring the wobbly lip or the snarl she might be showing. ‘I haven’t changed a bit, Mum. Oh, look at the lovely daffodils’.

LC is hard to maintain. Going to see her that once-weekly (or however often you’ve decided upon) is still hard. It opens the wounds each time. She’ll no doubt get a dig in every time. You are constantly manning the boundaries. It’s not easy. But then, nothing with a narcissistic mother is easy. They are masters at creating no-win situations.

One thing to remember, however, is this mantra:

‘If one of us has to be upset, it doesn't have to be me.’

Now, of course, in an ideal world, populated with healthy people, we would work on the situation and come up with a win-win solution in which neither of us is upset.

But as you well know, that ideal situation does not ever apply when we're dealing with narcissists. Or even other dysfunctional people.

And so a situation is created in which one of you
does
have to be upset. Either she gets her way and then
you’ll
be upset. Or you get your way and then
she’ll
be upset.

So, this is a situation in which the first half of the mantra applies, i.e. that one of you has to be upset.

But ... it doesn't have to be you!

This is revolutionary. At least, it was for me when I first realised it. You mean, I could just let
her
be upset at not getting her own way?

For sure, I didn't want her upset. It wasn't nice when she was upset. But at the end of the day, I still had a choice. Either she could be upset, or I could. And it didn't have to be me. Especially since she was the one creating the situation in which one of us had to be upset. If it were up to me I’d go for the win-win situation every time. Not my fault that wasn’t possible.

Now, it's possible that you will feel an inordinate fear of her, and be terrified of upsetting her her. Totally natural, given your upbringing. But you can erase that fear, and see her posturing as just the tantrums of a toddler. (This of course, does not apply if she's genuinely violent or otherwise dangerous. But if she is those things, she probably isn't narcissistic alone.)

You can use EFT to erase this fear, and there’s a script below to help you and allow you to do that.

And remember, if one of you has to be upset, it doesn't have to be you!

Going No Contact, or NC, is a big decision. Be in no doubt about that. It means to cut off all contact with your narcissistic mother, and possibly other family members too, by default, as we shall explore later.

This is such a big, complex, difficult step. Many DONMs genuinely do love their mothers, and it seems impossible to cut those ties. And even for those of us, like me, who never ever loved her, it’s still a huge step. Everything in our culture
screams
at us that you must stay in contact with your mother. It’s ironic because no one nowadays would ever tell you to stay with an abusive spouse (and it’s hard to remember, but they used to), but they all tell you to stay with these parents. Especially since the abuse is so subtle, it’s even more difficult to explain.
             

Remember I spoke earlier of how there are three layers of abuse to this NPD? The first layer is our mother’s abuse. The second layer is her denial of it and invalidation of our experiences. The third layer is
society’s
denial of it, and invalidation of our experiences.