Hollywood gets it right more often than they realize.

I have always really really loved the movie Coraline.  And as a child, Labyrinth.

Granted, I am in love with fantasy movies, but there is something else with these two movies that really speak to me and keep me enthralled, even after watching them 100 times.

And now I finally get it.

I've been journaling in my journal that has been my place to put my private thoughts about my journey with my mother and her narcissism and I figured it out: she is both Jareth the Goblin King and Coraline's "Other Mother".

Here is how both Jareth and the Other Mother are total narcs:

Jareth:

• Lies to Sarah, tells her "if you do what I want, I'll give you what you want".
• Keeps her in a maze of confusion (left is right, up is down).
• Sarah's entire adventure with Jareth is one riddle after another, usually with nonsensical answers that only are made to aid Jareth in confusing her more.
• Sarah's adventure is also filled with uncertainty, and a time-constraint.  My mother loves these games: "Do this in this period of time, OR ELSE, all because I said so!"
• Jareth punished Sarah for words she only spoke out of frustration, and then played a "cat and mouse" game in order for her win his approval (meaning him rewarding her with giving her brother back).
• Jareth's punishment was really just a game he was playing, but made Sarah think it was her fault (another part of the game) and did everything he could to make her fail.

The Other Mother:

So, yesterday was a TREMENDOUS amazing step in the right direction, away from the tyranny known as "my mother".  She's always using her car or money as a way to control my family, and now we don't need either one :)

Because yesterday? 

WE BOUGHT A NEW CAR!!!! 

Score!!  This is perhaps the best idea we've had in a long and now we'll not have to feel it's necessary to put up with her insane bullshit just so we can get places.  Now she can drive her DAMN SELF to all of her doctor's appointments, because when I do it, she's acts like an asshole to me (or my son) OR she thinks SHE'S going to drive and tries to kill us. 

So yes, one step forward, my friends!  One step at a time, that's all it takes. 

I feel freer than I have in YEARS! 

YAY!!

This is the question that begs to be asked: who are we without our mothers?

More than likely, if you have a narc mom, then you have either a narc dad OR you have an enabling father, also known in the maternal narc world as an EF.

These fathers normally support our mothers with fervor, as they do them (when it suits them).  Both my parents were abusive, and both were enablers of one another.  I very much feel like an orphan.  I have no parents.  No real ones, anyways.

So who am I without my mother?

If you would have asked me that a few years ago, I would have said "Girl Lost", as my name suggests.  But now?  I am no longer lost....I am found.

"I once was lost, but now am found, I was blind, but now I see."

I am not Christian, but I do believe this verse applies to all of us who find out our mothers are narcissists. It says to us "It's them, not us.  It's always been them, even though she tried to convince us otherwise."

So, who are we when we become motherless?  Because when your mom is a narc, you are definitely motherless.  It's just that you never realized it before.  So, who do you become when you realize it?

You become found.  

My mother's friend from childhood decided to bring up the fact that my children are homeschooled to my mother and thought it would be nice to talk about how worried she was about them "being socialized".

Then my mother decides to say "They do not have one friend, either one of them."  Then she said about how neither one of the kids know math at all and she "fears for their future".   And then apparently she must have told her other friend (the neighbor--although we ALL are neighbors) that I sit around all day on my computer and don't pay attention either child, so that "other friend", we'll call her BM for Big Mouth, chimes in with "She needs to start teaching those kids instead of sitting around on her computer all day long!"

Who the fuck are these people to think they know ONE DAMN THING that goes on in my house?  And her friend is a fucking idiot to bring up anything to my mother at all about my family in the first place.  Her AND her husband were "worried about my kids" but she never says a damn thing to me.  I just LOVE gossips!!  This is why I refuse to take part in gossip anymore.  I am tired of it.  I am tired of the fucking LIES coming out her mouth.

NONE of those things in the 2nd paragraph is true, btw.  Both of my kids have friends in real life and online.  Both of my kids know math and my mother KNOWS that my youngest is a math WIZARD, yet she decided to lie about them both.

Well, that's narcissism for you.  Can't say I was surprised, but I am so sick and tired of her running her damn mouth.

Her dementia is getting worse, and it can't come soon enough.  Everything she says, good or bad, is a manipulation game for her....she's getting something out of it.  And I am tired of having to pretend to put up with her insanity. The moment she gets bad enough to have to be taken care of, is the MOMENT these crazy fucking people are not allowed access to her anymore.  Her childhood friend is fine, although she says annoying things to get things started, she's still fine to be around her.  But BM?  That bitch will be done.

BM is a user...she KNOWS my mother is losing it, so she takes advantage of her over and over for money, rides, cigarettes, food, etc.  And I am so tired of it.  But my mom is a narc with dementia but with enough brainpower to veto me saying BM can't "play at her house anymore".

It's just a waiting game now.  Waiting to get BM out of her life.

March 7, 2015

*sigh*

So the other shoe finally dropped again.  After months on end of my mother doting on me like someone sucking up for a raise, she went full crazy again. 

It started with her snapping at my son quite a bit, then on to humiliating me at Kmart to the cashier. 

Her driving has become insane...every time she drives, she almost hits at least one car, but recently it was almost 5 in one day.  She can't stay in her lane, and is always swerving around and being quite dangerous.  Not to mention her speeding: 65 in a 40 more than once.  Jerking into lanes back and forth and not using her blinkers.  I need to talk to her doctor because she's going to kill someone. 

And then the shit talking started.  She's been going around telling people that my 13 year old and 17 year old do not know any math at all.  She also says neither one of them have a single friend (yet she knew my oldest just had a friend come over the other day).  She tells them all I do is watch TV all day.  She tells people that my son can't hold down a job because of his "anxiety" (which is said in a high-pitched voice with quotations on her fingers) and makes fun of him for it. 

I honestly wish I could punch her in the face sometimes.  She's picking on my kids because that's what she does when she's in FULL NARC MODE. 

I let her back into my life after the last time, well, now I've learned my lesson.

Thing is, what a stupid choice for her to be talking shit about my family when I am the one who schedules her doctor's appointments and she's having 2 surgeries in 10 days!  I guess she's finding her own rides.

And we used to rely on her for a car during the day, well now we have our own car :)  Yesterday we went and bought a car!!!  YAY!!!  I feel free of her!!  It's a wonderful feeling to NOT have to rely on her for SHIT. 

Because that's what she holds over us: do I want, I'll give you want you need, but then I get to do whatever I want (like talk shit about you).  No more, mama.  You no longer have the upper hand. 

And that's all she wrote  *wink*

I totally have been in a calm place with my mother for the past many months.  Nothing significant has happened.  Although the anger is still there, creeping below the surface, threatening to blow at any given moment when its applicable.  Meaning, when she acts like a fool.

So what happened the other day, I am surprised that I did not blow up.

My mother took my son on Thursday, the 17th to see some WWII planes and I stayed back at her house to play with her dog and our new kitten.  I needed some paper and took a pad down, which was in plain sight.  Totally not hidden.  It just dawned on me that my mother recently had cleaned the shit out of her all her drawers and computer desk and everything everywhere, and that was in plain sight.  Hmmm.....left for me to find "accidentally?"

So the letter started nice, to my mother's deceased husband's oldest daughter (confusing much?), which by marriage I guess would be my stepsister?  Whatever.  I don't call her that.

But anyways, my mom really doesn't like her. 

So she writes in this letter that "Once she stopped harassing you, she then turned on me" or something of the sort.  Or something like "she turned her (something I can't remember at the moment) on me".  I will find the paper and put it in where when I find it.

*sigh*  Goes to show: even when a narc is being nice, they aren't actually being nice.  It's all a pretend joke to them.  A game.

As a child I thought my mother was a saint.  For real.  Like a real saint.  That's the only way I can explain it. 

I thought my mother didn't do anything wrong, like ever.  She never cheated in a game.  She never ate sweets.  She didn't drink soda (but yet she drank beer---LOTS of beer).  She was perfect.  But I also remember her planting that into my mind.  "Oh I HATE sweets, I only make them for you guys!" She constantly was making homemade cookies.  Like, CONSTANTLY.  But I never saw her eat any. 

I, on the other hand, was fallible.  I ate my share and her share of cookies.  I'd sneak them during TV time before bed.  I'd sneak them any time she wasn't in the room.

Eating at my house was a thing.  It was always a thing.  Sometimes a good thing, but usually a bad thing. 

Breakfast was sugary cereal.  Always. 

Lunch was non-existent.  She would make pb&J when I was a kid, but that was the most she'd do.  She never "cooked" anything for lunch.  Ever.  Or it was leftovers from the night before.  I do recall her making chicken salad that would last a week in the fridge for lunches, but that was the absolute most.  When she got custody of my step-sisters, she NEVER ever cooked.  They had to make their own sandwiches.  The most she did was get out bags of chips.  That's it.  When my kids are hungry for lunch, they are Satan.  She sighs in disgust and is like "OH god, hurry up!  We've got things to do!"  Or she takes us out for lunch, but normally at some strange hour, after everyone is starving to death.  I am hypoglycemic, but she treats me like I am crazy.  Although her brother has diabetes, and treats him like "OH GOD THE WORLD WILL EXPLODE IF HE DOESN'T GET FOOD!"  True, his world WOULD explode....but for the same reason I need to eat at certain times too.  But I don't count see.  My issues aren't real to her.  Never have been, never will be.

Dinner on the other hand....now that shit was sacred.  You HAVE to be at the dinner table.  You HAVE to be sitting in your seat at 6pm on the dot.  Or else all hell broke loose.  She cooked these huge dinners with enough leftovers to feed an army. 

I don't know what it is from her own childhood that she treats food like the devil.  Or rather treats being hungry like the devil.  She doesn't eat breakfast, and for lunch she eats popcorn.  She's not supposed to eat sweets, but I find wrappers hidden in her wastebasket sometimes before she empties it.  LOTS of wrappers.  Makes me wonder all those years if she was also eating the cookies and kept making more to cover that fact up? 

And why is dinner so important?  That must be from her childhood too.  Must have been ingrained into her brain.  She must have been impressionable because even though she tried to ingrain that into me, it didn't work.  I wonder....were her dinners as a child fun?  Were they scary?  Did they have to clean their plates?  I am sure they did.  My mom used to say "I was the first one at the dinner table and the last one to leave".  I always wondered what that meant?  She was rail thin as a child...sickly looking even.  Were they starved?  Did they not get breakfast and lunch?  If my mom ate so much, why was she so sickly looking?  Was dinner the only meal?  I don't think so.  She always said they walked home for lunch (the school was right there).  What did they eat?  Did they have to fix it themselves? 

I think I will drop questions now and then to figure it out.  Inquiring minds want to know!  She has this really horrible, horrible relationship with food.  Was she shamed as a child for the food she ate?

Also growing up, my mom fed me full of sugar (could be why I am hypoglycemic now).  We always had kool-aid.  Always.  And cookies.  And sweets of all sorts.  And poptarts.  And nasty shit.  She fed the same diet to my step-sisters.....and they got fat really quickly living with her.  The little one was bone thin, and when she left to go back to her mother, she was pudgy.  Why would a mother of any sort do that to children?  What's so deep inside of her that shames her that she feels like she has to make others fat?

She does the same to my kids.  My son said "I am trying to lose weight, could you not bring cookies out every time I come over?  I have no willpower and will eat it."  So what did she do?  Put MORE cookies and shit out.  Her house is stocked with so much sugar, all the time.  She buys hordes of sweets for my family and I just chuck it into the garbage.  What is her relation to sugar?  Why is she like this? 

I will investigate, but since I do not speak to my family...I don't know how far I will get. 

I never wrote about what happened with my cousins.  I will write that next, but for now, my fingers are tired of typing. 

But until then.....

Oh and btw, I still fight with sugar addiction to this day.  Its a constant daily battle for me.