alone

Another two years go by. I have such a love/hate relationship with the holiday season. Within my own little nuclear family, it's bliss. Christmas at home is wonderful. Not going anywhere is wonderful. The thoughtfulness of my children as they get more and more into gift-giving in our little family is heartwarming.Visiting with my husband's family, who live locally now, is mostly nice.

But.

I'm lonely.

Everywhere I turn, there are people celebrating with extended families. Cousins, aunts, uncles, siblings, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents. And I feel so lost.

There is no big extended family for me. I hate this. I chose it, and I stand by that choice, but this "best" choice still sucks. I want it all. I want the lovely Christmas with my children ANDalso the big hoopla of the extended family AND I want them to be awesome, kind, empathetic, healthy people, and to love me, and to love my kids, and for us to be happy.

That won't happen. Can't happen. But it doesn't stop me from wanting it.

It gets me going down that path of "did I make the right choice?" and "how bad would it be, anyway?"

Really, how bad would it be?

I try to remind myself that holidays with my "one big happy family" were never that happy. They involved marching orders from la madre, everybody held in her thrall, total denial of anybody's desires or comfort except for hers, siblings programmed to think of me as a bitch, ignoring anything I say while laughing at each other's stories, driving home heavy with disgruntlement and hurt. I was no less alone then. It only looked less alone, because I had the big family pictures to show for it. See? We're a happy family! Look at this multi-generational awesomeness!

It's like my favorite Vonnegut book comments: "no damn cat, no damn cradle." It was all an illusion.

My kids have five cousins, but only remember one or two of them. They've never even met one of them. I have no contact with my niece and nephews. I'm estranged from one brother and not at all close to two others. That sense of family ties, family tradition? It's all snarled up.

How do I rewrite my mind to accept that the five of us - me, my husband, our three sons - are enough? That this small, genuine celebration is better than the large, fake one? It's really nice not to go anywhere on Christmas, not to worry about competing inlaws.  I grew up with a big, big extended family. Quiet holidays with just us five plus my mother-in-law and father-in-law are so small. So...boring. How do I learn to accept this as normal and love it for what it is?

Do you know?

various and sundry family things

• I have a friend whom I met through SIL#1, although neither of us is currently friendly with SIL. Was chatting with the friend last night and she reminded me about how SIL dumped her (the friend) several times for stupid reasons that basically boiled down to the friend not meeting SIL's total approval for coolness and doing things just how SIL does them. Good reminder to me that when it comes to Bro#1 and SIL#1, it's not me, it's them. I mean, she "took a break" from the friend because she didn't like her house. You know, when somebody invites you to visit their new home and you don't love that house, the nice thing to say is "Congratulations! How do you like it? What's your favorite part? Give me a tour!"

• On the less-nice side, I met yet another person who already knows Bro#1 and wanted to gush to me about what a great guy he is. Ugh. Sometimes my city is too small for me. Yes, he's oh so talented and great with kids and yada yada. He's also an ass who can't separate from his abusive mommy. Can we stop talking about him, please?

• Something I recently learned about my brothers: apparently when my two youngest brothers were in high school, the younger brother (Bro#3) was starting to learn how to shave and my mother videotaped him, then teased the older one (my middle brother, Bro#2) about not being able to shave yet. What kind of a parent does that? I mean, way to emasculate your son, lady. Teenaged boys have enough emotional garbage without their mothers pointing out that their little brothers are manlier than they are. I cannot imagine making fun of one of my sons this way, especially not about something that he's probably sensitive about to begin with. How cruel. 

• Got a Christmas card from my parents. Years ago, I would have returned to sender. Then I would have had my husband open it. Then later I would have just recycled it myself. This time I decided to open it. I can handle it. "We miss you and we love you." Oh, so pathetic. If you miss me and love me so much, where's your attempt to truly heal the rift? It stinks that they hurt, that they caused their own hurt, and that they are so totally clueless about it. 

• Speaking of clueless estranged parents, my husband's brother has been on the outs with my in-laws for about a year and a half, ever since they were total jerks to his girlfriend when she and he were visiting. They're pretty passive-aggressive and judgmental and at some point in my relationship with them I had to stand up to them about it, and ultimately they chilled out a bit and now my husband maintains the boundaries well enough that we don't have major problems. But they had been dicks about this girlfriend since the beginning, and they treated her really poorly, and BIL had had enough of it, and has had very very little contact with them since. The in-laws, of course, don't understand at all and place blame on him, the whole typical dysfunctional parent song and dance. Well, he called them on Christmas and talked to them briefly, after which FIL went on and on about how he wishes he were there to help BIL, that it's so hard when your child lives too far away for you to help them when they're in a time of trouble. Turns out he thinks BIL is depressed. Because, you know, when a kid decides not to spend time with his parents, it's because he has emotional problems, not because the parents are being assholes. *sigh*

• I have a big huge extended family on my mom's side and there's an annual party for my grandmother which I haven't attended in years because I'm a) not close enough to that grandmother to want to drive across several states and pay for lodging for this party, b) not close to any of my cousins who would be there, c) my mother would be there (yuck), and d) the aunt who hosts the party is the "bury the hatchet" aunt. I'm not really into attending things hosted by people who are emotionally unsafe people for me to be around. Spending time with flying monkeys? No thanks. But anyway, another aunt (my mom's youngest sister, who is a bit of a black sheep herself) apparently told my sister to pass on to me that she misses me and wants me to know that she thinks my mom is a bitch and she totally gets where I'm coming from, and that I should feel free to call her any time. I have been wanting to talk to this aunt so much, y'all. I suspected that she might feel this way, but at the same time, I'm leery of talking to people who are probably more loyal to my mom than to me. So it was really good to hear this message from her. It means a lot to me. 

the more, the merrier? not for the narcissist

I'm getting reminders left and right regarding how messed-up my family is. There was apparently some minor family drama regarding the holiday get-together that my siblings and parents have every year. The tradition in our family is that on even-numbered years, the kids (my sibs, and me until I opted out) and their families visit my parents on Christmas day and have the usual gift exchange and Christmas dinner. On odd-numbered years, the significant others' families get precedence on the 25th and some other weekend is chosen for the family gathering. You are expected to appear for sure on the even years and few things are considered a decent excuse for not appearing on the agreed-upon weekend (i.e., the one my mom has designated) on odd years.

This year, my sister is in a new relationship. She mentioned bringing her new significant other (sis would be spending the 25th with the SO's extended family) and apparently my mom got really quiet and weird. My mother is never quiet. She rules all things, loudly and firmly. So when she's quiet, it means you have successfully thrown her and she's scrambling to regain control of the situation. In this case, she pointed out to my sister that the family doesn't really know the SO. My sister pointed out that this is a good chance to start. Mom countered that this really is a family-only event, and they left it at that. Sis fumed and considered not attending at all (she ultimately decided to go and said that she was going because she needed to have a face-to-face confrontation with la madre about it).

While this is not the most egregious narcissist behavior in the whole world, it's pretty typical for my mom. She is really strange about meeting her kids' friends and significant others. I recalled the time, almost 20 years ago now, when she met my husband, who was then my boyfriend of a mere few weeks. She was picking me up from college and there was really no reason for him not to hang around and meet my mom and say hi. I mean, nice people do that, right? It wasn't like we wanted him to meet her because we were planning to elope or anything. Anyway, he was around, he met her, we chatted for maybe 5 minutes, and then I left with my mom. No big deal, right? Wrong. My mom went on and on about how strange that was, as if there were something wrong with him or with me for the introduction. Later, when we had been dating for years, she was odd about holidays. I wasn't allowed by my mother to spend a holiday with his family until we were engaged (I was still in college and financially dependent upon my parents, and she exerted quite a bit of control). He didn't spend Christmas with my family until after we were married, at which point I guess he was officially "in" enough to be allowed.

When I was a kid, we never just brought a friend home for dinner. In college, we never brought friends home for a school break or a weekend. Other families do these things. Other parents are excited to meet somebody who is important to their kid and welcome them into their home. My husband's family, who has their own dysfunction for sure, is always happy to set another place at the table. Thinking about my kids, I always try to say yet to friends coming over to hang out or spend the night (barring things like previous plans that can't be rearranged, or overnights on school nights). I try to be flexible. I can make dinner stretch farther. I can find a place for somebody to sleep. Someday there may be girlfriends or boyfriends coming home with my kids. Why would I ever, ever turn them away? How would that be good for my relationship with my child, my child's relationship with their friend or loved one, my relationship with the other person?

It occurred to me while talking to my sister that maybe for my mom, it's not really about keeping family gatherings private and family-only. Maybe she's actually uncomfortable around new people? A person should be able to relax and feel comfortable and not have to be "on" in her own home, I can totally see that. But then, if that's the case, why not just say, "you know, meeting somebody new makes me feel a little on edged and stressed-out; can I meet him/her before then?" or "It would be really nice to get to meet them when it's just you and him/her, not the whole chaotic family group, can we get together next weekend?"

I mean, so many ways that my mom could meet her own needs (whatever they are) while still being kind to her kids and inclusive of the significant others. Excluding people without a really good reason only builds ill will. Why would you ever do that? Narcs shoot themselves in the feet and screw up their own good time while alienating their kids.

(Is it awful that I'm kindof hoping that my mom is on bad behavior when my sis confronts her? No word yet on how that went.)

oh, brother

It's on a mousepad! It HAS to be true!!

So, first, something good: on Saturday, I received a text out of the blue from brother #2. He sent a picture of something funny he saw in a store, knowing that I would enjoy it in the same snarky vein that he did. It led to a long text discussion back and forth, and tentative plans for a visit. It felt especially good following the despair I was feeling on Friday regarding him and brother #1.

Now, the not so good: brother #1 was indeed at the party at the mutual friend's house, and I have a definitive answer to the "is he not speaking to me, or does he think that I'm not speaking to him?" question.

He totally blew me off. Totally. Like I didn't exist.

I knew things wouldn't be good when the first person I saw when we pulled up was SIL, and after she returned my wave, she walked off with a friend of hers, literally turning her back on my family, rather than wait less than a minute to say hi to us. If I had been in her shoes, I absolutely would have waited. I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, but I'm having trouble thinking of a good reason for her choice. Once in our friends' yard, I heard my brother greet my oldest son, but absolutely no acknowledgement of me or my husband. Whatever. I tried to give the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he thinks I'm not speaking to him and he's not sure what to say. Maybe he is too busy talking to the guy beside him and doesn't see me.

At some point, I awkwardly tried to join my SIL and her friend in their conversation. She was cordial. No, civil. Cordial sounds like smiling would be involved. She was not warm. I last saw her in August, when she and I and our kids got together at a park; she was cordial but not friendly then, I'd say. I badly wanted to ask her about my brother at the park that day, but didn't. We have established in the past that we don't talk about the family drama.

Back to Saturday's party. A friend of mine arrived (huzzah!) and joined our conversation, and then we went inside to get some food, at which time SIL and her friend broke off quickly from me and my friend, and we didn't hang out any more for the rest of the evening.

Meanwhile, my brother was still not registering my presence. I had been thinking over the past day or so about how to say hello to somebody who you strongly suspect is not speaking to you. Especially when he's your brother. I mean, it would be rude to just come out with "are you purposefully ignoring me?" in a party situation. Real buzzkill for other guests. But you can't introduce yourself to your own brother, and at this point we had both been there long enough that it was too late for the "hey, good to see you!" thing you can do upon arrival. So when he passed by me, making zero eye contact (it was like I was a piece of furniture), I gave him a sisterly fist bump to the shoulder and said "hey!" in a cheerful voice.

Nothing. No reaction. at. all. My friend asked who that guy was. My brother. She was a little shocked by what she later called "the snub."

My husband later cornered my brother - literally, waited until he was in a spot in the kitchen that was surrounded on three sides and took up a position on the 4th side, so my brother was trapped into conversation with my husband. My brother avoided eye contact. Tried to pull other people into conversation - those people are apparently not close enough to Bro#1 to save him from somebody he doesn't want to talk to, and they avoided joining the obviously awkward exchange. So Bro#1 was kindof forced to make small talk with my husband, who eventually, when the kitchen emptied out, asked him point-blank if he's not speaking to me. My brother confirmed that he is not, because, as he put it, he is "just fucking DONE."

You're DONE? Fuck you. And the high horse you rode in on. But at least now I have confirmation of what I suspected was going on, and can rest assured that there is no miscommunication here. It's possible that he thinks I'm not speaking to him, but I think my lame attempt to engage him should prove that incorrect.

He avoided us like the plague after that. We left not terribly long afterward. When I hugged the hostess later, while saying my goodbyes, SIL was next to her and I said goodbye and felt weird - I mean, normal people would hug their SIL goodbye, right? So I asked, "can I hug you?" and she said "of course" (ha, there is no "of course" with her) and I hugged her and told her that I miss them.

The end.

This led to some processing, of course, during which I had some moments of clarity and also some moments of added angst. It is important to note that I felt about 70-80% fine during the party, even after being openly snubbed. I enjoyed the gathering. I met new people, had happy conversations...and for an introvert who was being actively shunned right that moment by her brother, that is HUGE. Those numbers are totally scientifically derived, by the way.

The Clarity

• I am SO grateful for people in my life like my friend, with whom I had a tête–à–tête after my husband's intelligence mission. She acted as a compassionate witness, assuring me that what I experienced was indeed a blatant snub, and also reassuring me that no, not everybody has huge happy family fun times at Christmas. She reminded me of some of her family dysfunction and essentially made me feel less alone in the world. Everybody should have friends like this, who know how to make you feel like a normal human being instead of like a broken lonely freak. 

• I am also grateful for Brother #2, who knows me well enough to share something with me that we will both find funny, who doesn't agree with my choosing NC with my mom but who still wants a relationship with me, and who, apparently, is not totally embroiled in the "Claire is a Bitch" psychodrama.

• I can now go forward with the knowledge that Brother #1 does indeed hold a grudge. It's not my imagination, it's not crossed wires. 

• I need to do some emotional work on how I have previously viewed my relationship with Brother #1. I was closest to him growing up, in part because we are very close in age and had the most experiences in common. He and his wife can both be judgey sometimes (she alienated a mutual friend in not-too-distant history by telling the friend that her house is essentially a temple to consumerism), which put strain on our relationship when our lifestyles were not extremely in sync. When we were all childless and vegetarian, we were friends. When we had kids and they didn't, they got judgey and distant. When they started having kids, it was initially awesome because we make a lot of the same parenting choices, but then it got bad again, in part because I had the audacity to buy a minivan, which, in SIL's words, "represents everything wrong with America".  If I'm honest with myself, the best time in our friendship was when I was 17 and he was 15. That's more than 20 years ago. 

• I need to put more effort into my relationship with Brother #2. He is a laid-back guy who hates the family conflict stuff, so he is not likely to be the one to maintain our relationship. I have been slack because I was tired of people blaming me and felt like, you know what, if they want to talk to me, let them come to me. Time for me to put more energy into it.

• I'm also having more clarity about what exactly makes a good sibling relationship, and which of my siblings I really enjoy, and why. Ultimately, in order to be friends as well as siblings, we have to have interests in common, compatible personalities, and be willing to talk to each other without namecalling and blaming. It's no coincidence that the two siblings who share my sense of humor and who have a less black-and-white view of the world than Bro#1 are the two to whom I feel closest.

The Angst is a whole 'nother post, I think. But the nutshell version is:

• Do I contact him to try to mend fences? If I do that, am I disrespecting his desire to go NC the way my mom disrespects mine? Would it be ok if the communication was non-shaming and non-blaming and showed a willingness on my part to take responsibility for my actions? But how do I do that when I really don't regret my actions? 

• And...the kicker...isn't that pretty much the same situation as I have with my mom? Being treated by him the way that I treat my mom makes me wonder about how those two situations compare and whether or not my decision to NC is an appropriate one. My husband says yes. My gut says "oh please don't go back to her". But is it hypocritical for me to cut somebody out of my life and then think somebody else is wrong for cutting me out of theirs? More on this later. 

A few good things came of this. I texted Brother#2 back to thank him for our earlier conversation. I told him the things that I enjoy about him. We chatted very very briefly about the family situation. Later, I thanked my friend for being in my life and told her that I love her. I don't say that to friends often enough. And I also thanked my husband for what he did at the party. It was unasked-for and while it was a little aggressive on his part and I wouldn't exactly call it a nice thing to do, it was helpful. (And my brother can suck it if he didn't like it.)

Our city is having a very warm Christmas, and I've been practicing the mental task of focusing on the good in things rather than focusing on what I wish were happening instead. I wish that we had cold weather, because it's nice for fireside cocoa and feels Christmassy and cozy. But I am focusing instead on how nice it is to go out without a jacket in December. How awesome it was yesterday to open up the doors between my kitchen and back porch and breathe in the fresh, spring-like air while I baked. How my friends from warmer climates are feeling happy and enjoying outdoor meals. I'm going to do the same with my social networks: celebrate what is right rather than mourn what is wrong. There's nothing wrong with mourning, but right at this time, seeking out the bright spots and appreciating them is important. So I'm going to do a lot of that. I'll still write about my brother angst, but I'm keeping light alive inside of me and focusing on the people I love.

the holiday vacuum...and avoiding getting sucked in

Some years aren't so bad. Some are great, even. But this year, I'm feeling the loss of my family.

Yeah, I know, you can't lose what you didn't really have, and we were never one big happy family, even if we liked to think we were, but in my head we were, and I miss that feeling. And at the very least, there was never a lack of people. Family = more people to go Christmas shopping for, to share traditions with, to have big gatherings with. I like all of that stuff. I like the planning and the feelings of anticipation and the gathering. And now I don't have people to do it with.

Holidays can bum me out because my friends are all hanging out with their families. Their big, smiling, families. They have plane flights and long car rides to other states or grandmas coming to stay in their guest rooms. They have cousins baking cookies together and photos with four generations on one couch. I know that many of those smiley happy tableaux are masks for the dysfunction underneath, I know. But some of those families really are functional and loving and happy. They really are kind to each other and happy, truly happy, to be together. And I wish I had that. I hate being an orphan at Christmas.

This month, it has been 2 years since I last saw my oldest brother. I will probably see him at a mutual friend's house tomorrow, and that is freaking me out a little bit. I am feeling so, so sad for my kids that they barely know his children, and almost never see them. My kids know their other cousins, my second brother's kids, so little that they wouldn't even know their names if you were to ask them. My kids don't really have a grip on who their aunts and uncles are. I don't think it bothers them, this is their normal, but it bothers me. I'm feeling sad and angry about my brothers being more loyal to my mother than they are to me. It didn't have to be this way. We could have been closer, might enjoy each other more. But when I stood up to my mother and ultimately decided that being near her was unhealthy, I lost my brothers. Collateral damage.

I still have my husband and our awesome kids and the traditions that we have forged together. But it just feels so impoverished to me, so anemic. So isolated.

We also have my in-laws, who live in our city now. In general we have a good relationship, although they've been annoying me a bit lately. Nothing huge. Just imperfect human stuff. I don't particularly want to share Christmas with them...so yeah, I'm whining about not having family, then whining about not wanting to hang with the family I have.

So, anyway, to sum up: I'm feeling depressed and lonely. So I'm blogging after another long break, and googling looking for things to perk me up or people sharing their own similar stories, because solidarity helps so, so much. And now, a few links to holiday-estrangement-type stuff - mine and other people's.

• So good to remind myself that two years ago, I was feeling down and lonely and then had a totally lovely Christmas day. (Also worth noting that the ornament mentioned in the down & lonely link is on the side of my tree this year, not the back. Progress!)

• Also so good to remind myself that the holidays of yore were not all that great. Oh, ghosts of Christmas past, thank you. 

• From E-stranged: "Family estrangement does not shrink your heart. If anything, it touches it with deeper awareness about the essential, universal, human need for connection and belonging." Dig into the holidays/events archive. 

• From Chicago Now: "10 Reasons I'm Grateful to Be Estranged During the Holidays".  Accentuate the positive! I should make my own top 10.

• The Invisible Scar's list of 10 Tips for an Emotionally Healthy Holiday is a good one. I love this one: "purposefully seek to see things during this season that are uplifting and good".  Amen.
  

Ok, I really need to get some sleep so that I can tap into more zen and less loneliness tomorrow. I hope that life is treating my fellow estranged ACONs well. Happy holidays, y'all. 

the day of the mothers

It's sometimes a tough day for us. Mother's Day. A day in which we know the whole wide world around us will be celebrating the amazingness, holiness, perfectness of mothers...while we, daughters of narcissistic mothers, struggle with how to handle the mother-worship, and whether or not to engage in it ourselves.

For the last several years, I have not observed Mother's Day as it applies to my own mother. I don't know exactly how many years it has been. Maybe as many as 6, probably less. The fact that I don't remember which one was the last one is a good thing, really, because it means that this day is not as big a minefield as it used to be for me.

It's still an odd day, though. My husband and sons celebrate me, and it feels nice. I try not to have big expectations of the day and see it as a day which I will spend doing whatever I need to do in order to be the mom I want to be. That might mean having a day to myself, and it might mean having a big family adventure. Today it meant brunch out (so that I could enjoy my in-laws instead of feeling stressed about hosting them in a less-than-clean house)(plus I love that place - they have the best bacon and pitchers of mimosas) and then a quiet day at home. Cleaning off my beloved back porch so that I can enjoy it again. Gardening, because I love the feel of the dirt and the sight of the worms and the sense of productivity. Finishing one great book and beginning another. Laying in the hammock. My family enjoying yardwork and playing in the sprinkler. All of us enjoying a beautiful spring day. It was lovely, and for the most part, it was peaceful. But. There's always a but. Last night I dreamed about my mother - something to do with me wanting to have contact with her, but also wanting to hold her responsible for her actions. And today, occasionally, I would have those twinges, not of feeling like a bad daughter, because I know I'm not, but of knowing that other people think that I am. Knowing that my siblings were all paying homage. Knowing that my Facebook feed was probably flooded with hundreds of "I love my wonderful mother!!!!!" posts.

A friend contacted me. This is her first motherless Mother's Day. She chose earlier this year to end contact with her parents, and said, "it's just this ache in the back of my mind, and today it seems louder and harder and guiltier." I get it. It's hard to enjoy the good things in front of you when you are so conscious of the ways in which you are not a typical daughter and your mother is not a typical mother, when you feel so much pressure to say "thank you! you're wonderful!" to somebody who perhaps isn't wonderful and doesn't deserve thanks.

Then another friend shared a link, and I thought I'd pass it along to you.

In Case Mother's Day is Hard for You

Thanks to Jen for recognizing the many, many ways in which this holiday is not happy for many women.

I hope that all of you took good care of yourselves today and shared some love with somebody important to you, whether or not that person was your mother. And to all of you with narcissistic mothers, I hope you celebrated the ways in which you mother yourself.

for all the loving mothers

This is for you

the mothers who strive each day

to nourish

to embrace

to be healthy

to be whole

to raise children

with compassion

with grace

with insight

with humility

This is for my mother-in-law

daughter of a mother who has just left this world

this is for the nurture she did not receive from her mother

this is for the nurture she tried to give my husband

this is for the nurture she gives to me

This is for my friend

daughter of a narcissistic father

daughter of a deceased mother

this is for the mothering she gives to me

this is for the nourishment she gives to her children

this is for the honesty she gives to herself

This is for you

daughters of the self-absorbed

this is for the women you strive to be

this is for the mothers you may become

May you always be willing

to look into your own soul

May you always be ready

to extend empathy to your children

May you receive love

from those who mother you.

this place, this time, this spring

An updatey post that ended up longer than I had originally intended.

In the past week, I had a visit from my sister and also spent a morning with my sister-in-law (wife to brother #1) and her children. The filling in this relative sandwich was the Easter holiday, which I know my extended family (siblings/nieces/nephews/parents) spent together at my parents' house, celebrating with the annual egg hunt and dinner. The difference between my sister and my SIL has never been more dramatic. My sister and I were always close, but she's much younger than I am, so it wasn't really a relationship of equals beforel it was a little-sister-looking-up-to-big-sister thing. During the last few years I've been getting to know her as an adult, and she is seriously a rock, a compassionate witness. She's insightful and articulate in general and about our family in particular. One of these days I must blog about her perspective on the fam. She is the one and only sibling who is able to be accepting and validating to me while simultaneously keeping an open, relatively-drama-free relationship with all of the other members of our family. I have made a point of not discussing my parents with my siblings in recent years, or at least not being the one to bring it up and controlling what I do say even then, but during her overnight visit last week, we just talked and talked and talked, and it was SO cathartic. I think I have needed that for a long time, and it's good to have a fellow daughter of my mother to talk to.

On the other hand, there's my SIL#1. Our relationship is a strange and awkward dance. During some phases of life we seem to have a lot of in common, and be able to talk about lots of important things together, especially parenting-related things (we parent similarly, and our parenting beliefs don't get a lot of support from my parents). During other phases, she's stand-offish or even disapproving of me. She's consistently reserved in how much of herself she lets out, and that's ok, but it makes it hard to really connect. We do. not. talk. about my family, or about my currently-nonexistent relationship with my brother (she only plans things with me at times when he's not around). She has been pretty maddeningly, purposefully neutral ("I can see both sides...both of you are hurting...your mother really loves you...") about my parents, despite their shabby treatment of her in the past. It was very, very strange to know that she and my brother and their kids had just spent the previous day at my parents' house, but for it not to come up in conversation at all. I mean, regardless of my estrangement from my parents, that visit and the holiday in general are what's going on. It's weird to get together with somebody and have them not mention at all what's going on in their life - heck, not to mention the holiday that happened YESTERDAY. It felt like the elephant in the room - or the elephant in the playground, rather. 

I don't know what to make of these relationships. I'm so happy to have some closeness with my sister, and yet ever so slightly mistrusting of her. I don't want to get burned, but I'm happy like a puppy about her support of me, and I really crave the sisterly adult relationship that we're forming. I don't know what to do with the relationship with SIL#1, who isn't open with me, whose children are related to my own and are beloved by my own, who can't tell me the day-to-day details of her life because she doesn't want to talk about anything related to my family, and whose husband has avoided me for nearly a year because he thinks I'm a narcissistic bitch. 

The bookend to this week of tricky relationships is that I had a first-time appointment with a therapist this morning. My reasons for seeing her are threefold. The first, most important reason is that I live with mild depression and moderate anxiety, for which have been taking medication for almost three years, and I want to continue to develop the ways in which I work with those parts of who I am. The second reason is that my oldest son seems to have inherited his father's and my anxious/depressive tendencies, and as he cruises into pre-adolescence, it's getting harder for him to deal with negative feelings and harder for us to support him. I'm working on finding a therapist for him, and I also want support for myself as a parent who also experiences these tricky personality traits. And thirdly, I'm going into therapy because while I've certainly worked through a TON of my family stuff on my own, it's obvious to me that it's never really going to go away. The sibling relationships are hard. The way my mom pops up from time to time in my life is hard. Trying to figure out what to DO with my childhood memories and feelings is hard. So I need support. For all of this stuff. 

I've never had a long-term relationship with a therapist, despite many years of thinking through my family dysfunction. I visited an LCSW three times over my Christmas break when I was in college and engaged, but that was because my mom thought I was crazy. (It did help, but only because it gave me some perspective on who SHE is and how to avoid being drawn into fights with her. In the meantime, she crowed about how the therapist "fixed' me, which, of course, should be credited to her, the genius mother.)  My husband had a few visits with a therapist about a year ago, and I went with him to one session. I also have friends who are therapists, and have talked in general about some concepts as they apply to dysfunctional families. But I have not had an actual, ongoing, self-imposed course of therapy. And it's time. I don't have any particular goals, except to have a person who can help me to sort out hard things as they arise. I don't have a particular time frame in mind - this could last months or it could last years. 

The woman I met this morning, who was highly recommended to me by my family physician, felt warm and easy to talk to. I liked how she drew all kinds of history out of me, especially since that morning I had been wondering where the hell to start. I'll admit that at times I thought maybe she was a little chatty, and maybe she's sharing too much about herself (should I know anything at all about her family, or that she's related to somebody I know?)...but the thing is, those things don't feel like red flags. They just felt like getting-to-know-you first-session stuff. They feel like the way I *want* to relate to my therapist. I actually don't like it when people are uber-"professional" and never reveal a single iota of personal information about themselves. It feels cold and I can't relate to somebody like that. I absolutely LOVED that her first selection for a homework assignment for me was reading a book that is actually one o my favorites. I told her it's the book that saved my sanity. Good sign that we're on the same page! I also discovered that she's not super-religious, which was a concern for me, because my beliefs fall closer to secular humanism than to the staunch Catholicism with which I was raised or the Baptist school of thought that's very pervasive in my Southern town.  I had been worried about the ability of a conservative fundamentalist Christian therapist to put their own beliefs aside in working with me. I'm interested in her other homework - to check out The Book of Awakening and see what I think about it, and to read about dysthymia and see if it clicks with me and my family history more than cyclothymia or depression, which were my previous assumptions about myself. I'm not sure it fits, but I'm willing to explore. So I'm going back in a couple of weeks.

I stopped on the way home and bought The Book of Awakening and also If You Had Controlling Parents, which I stumbled upon. It has good reviews. Has anybody read it?

And that's what's going on in this place, at this time, in this spring. The trees outside are bright green with tiny leaves, the sky has been a beautiful clear blue for several days, and the air is breezy and cool. It feels like good changes are happening. 

part 3: love crumbs

My husband and I got into the car, and he told me what the phone message said. My mother, in a strained I'm-holding-myself-together voice, saying "I didn't get the chance to say I love you." End message.

Oh, sorry, I didn't give you the chance to say you love me. I was too busy defending the boundary that you crossed several times within a half hour - appearing at my door, leaving cards for my children, calling me on my phone. All things I've asked you not to do. But, you know, if I'd just calmed down for a minute, I would have heard that you love me. And then what? It would have magically been true?

We talked about how I reacted - I wanted to know what he thinks would be ideal, and he said that he thinks how I handled it was perfect. I wanted to know what he thinks about how I process this stuff - I need to talk about it afterward, mull it over. He thinks I'm at a good place - definitely not the way I was years ago. His hope is that someday it wouldn't bother me at all, just be something I could toss off at the end of the day: "hey, my mom dropped by."

He mentioned that he doesn't feel angry at her, because it would like being angry at a dog that bites you. It isn't really the dog's fault. It's a dog. It's in its nature. That reminded me of the story of the scorpion and the frog, which always comes to mind in the form of this scene from The Crying Game:

He has a point. I know she's never going to change, and that means she will probably continue to drop by with these "innocent" gestures. It's in her nature. This is what I can look forward to on birthdays, Christmas, Mother's Day, Halloween, Easter, Valentine's Day, forevermore.

Over cocktails at dinner, I told him that it just makes me feel so mean. I preach compassion, and then I bluntly refuse to have anything to do with her? How compassionate is that? "Shouldn't I just suck it up and be kind to her? Not let it get to me?" "What would that do for you?" he inquired. It's a rhetorical question. We both know that I extended that kind of compassion toward her for many years, knowing that she couldn't help who she is, and that it hurt me, and hurt him because it hurt me, and hurt our kids. It's like the airline-inspired bit of wisdom that I've seen applied to parenting: put your own oxygen mask on first, before helping others.

I confided that her ambush coincided with a resurgence of left-out feelings. I recently saw some photos of my siblings and my parents and my nieces and nephews together, and it dragged up old baggage. A few days later, I read Jonsi's post about immunizing yourself against narcissists, which quoted an article from Dr. Martinez-Lewi:

Don't be surprised at the number of people who follow and are true believers of narcissists. They crave being a member of the inner circle even if they are infrequently thrown crumbs or are honored to kiss the ring of the anointed.They have thrown away their identities, strapped themselves to the narcissist for the E ticket ride. They will do anything to be identified with this person. They believe that he or she is a good human being because of outside trappings and the wielding of power over others.

In my comment on the post, I wrote:

This was very true of me before I extricated myself and is still true of my siblings. Getting over it is a little like being an addict - you're never truly all-the-way better. A glimpse of your old drug can bring new cravings. I saw some photos of a sibling/Nparent gathering last week and even though the rational part of me doesn't want to be part of it at all, the old inner-circle need is still there. I still feel left out, even though I've chosen to BE out! I don't want to kiss the ring, but I still sometimes miss the crumbs.

It's hard to find yourself wanting the crumbs even thought you know that they're crumbs, and stale ones at that. I recalled the time when my mother called me, wanting my support during a trip to a funeral. I felt flattered even though she told me that she had already asked two of my four siblings (yay, third choice!).  I wanted to be helpful, and went, even though it meant leaving my still-nursing baby, suffering engorgement, reorganizing my husband's work schedule, and hearing all about my mother's fabulous mother-daughter trip with my sister the year before. "We stayed in that gorgeous hotel and went to this wonderful restaurant and that beautiful museum..." I had never been invited on a mother-daughter trip before. This was it. The whole weekend was filled with driving from funeral location to funeral location and hearing about my mother's fabulous adventures with other people. My baby cried inconsolably every night while I was gone and I had to buy a cheap electric pump to avoid getting mastitis. It was clear that the bereaved family hadn't expected my mother to come and that she wasn't as important to them as I had always been led to believe. It was also clear to me that I wasn't as important to my mother as I had hoped.

Crumbs. Dusty, dried-out, moldy crumbs from other people's banquets.

Well, last night, I didn't dine on crumbs. I had a feast with my own Valentine, who has seen me through almost two decades of emotional development. We had delicious food, we joked, we told stories, we held hands across the table. He validated my feelings and shored my self-confidence back up. I told him how much I appreciate what he does for me. I felt wanted, and loved, and valued, and enjoyed. All of the things that I don't feel when I'm near my mother.

She didn't screw up my Valentine's Day dinner. In fact, maybe she made it just a little better, because of the clarity I felt by the end of it:

There is no place in my life for her.
My children are precious to me and I will protect them.
And my husband is a gem. I'm so glad he's mine.

part 2: aftermath

I shut the door in my mother's face.

I shut it and locked it.

It was a little stunning. My heart pounded in my chest. I texted my husband to tell him what happened: "I just shut the door in my mom's face. Fuck."

I closed the curtains to my room, because it was getting dark and I was about to take a shower anyway, and I thought I noticed a van parked behind my car. My parents' van.

Text: "I think they're still parked out there."

I felt grateful that the kids were all watching a video in the office, oblivious to what had just happened. In the past they have been around when my mom showed up at the door. I told them, "I'm going to take a shower. You guys stay here. If the doorbell rings, please don't answer it. I don't want you to answer the door while I'm in the shower." I felt fairly confident that they were too tuned in to the video to hear the door. I shut the office door, just in case. I felt like I couldn't actually get into the shower, because what if she tried to get into the house? I couldn't believe I had just shut the door on my smiling, Valentine-bearing mother.

Text: "I need a shower, kids are in office watching video. I feel like a jerk." My parents' car was still at the curb, nearly five minutes after the door. I tried not to imagine the scene inside the car. The driver-side door was still open.

The phone rang. Nervously, I checked the ID: my husband. He had been near an exit at work and left as soon as he got my first text. I felt sheepish that he did this for me, but also relieved. He walked in the door moments later. By now my heart wasn't racing, and my parents' car was gone, and the adrenaline in my system was making me just a little shaky.

I turned on a playlist of favorite, energizing songs to try to drown out the nerves and the oh-my-god-I-shut-the-door-in-the-nice-granny's-face feeling. I felt shitty. Who the hell does that? She was smiling. I had a flash of happiness to see her before remembering that she's not a safe person. I shut the door on her smiling face. I didn't know how to feel about that.

I reminded myself that I would not condemn a battered woman for shutting the door in her ex-spouse's face if he showed up unannounced at the door. I would not ask anybody else to let their abusive parent in.

I reminded myself that her happy-everything's-ok face was typical for her, brushing things under the carpet, pretending we're all loving and great. I reminded myself that there has still not been any communication from her containing her own thoughtful reflections on the past, or her plans for the future, or an apology of any kind. Only cards telling me why I'm wrong or saying "I love you" without any recognition of what happened in the past or what's happening now. I reminded myself that I have set a firm boundary and that she continues to ignore and disrespect it.

I still felt like a schmuck. What can I say, old habits die hard. I know that she was hurt and/or angry. I hate having had a part in that. I wish she hated having had a part in my own hurt.

I got out, dried off. My phone rang. My parents' area code. First three digits of one of their cell phones. I pressed ignore. Downstairs, I heard my husband welcoming our babysitter. He came up, I asked him to check my voicemail for me when he was able.  He told me he had told the sitter that my parents might drop by and asked her not to let them in. "Sorry for the drama," he said.

New blouse, red shoes, earrings he gave me for Christmas. Eyeliner in the new way I've been doing it, which he loves. Lipstick kisses on the kids' cheeks. Out the door. I look up and down the street. It's quiet. The cars belong to our neighbors. I'm safe. When will I actually feel safe?

part 1: the door

I just shut the door in my mother's face.

My middle son and I delivered Valentine's Day cookies to neighbors and when we came home, he went upstairs to give the heart-shaped lollipops from the kids across the street to his brothers, and I straightened some stuff in the foyer. The doorbell rang. Expecting a neighbor, I opened it. There's my mother with a "hello! I'm here! I'm bringing presents!" cheery smile on her face, waving pink and red cards in the air.

For a second, my brain said "oh, it's Mom! Hi, Mom!" and I reached for the knob.

Then I came to my senses, said, "sorry, no." And shut the door. And locked it.

And now I need to get ready for my Valentine's Day date.

all is calm, all is bright

I hope that you and your loved ones had a very Merry Christmas, free from drama and family strife. I'm happy to see that Jonsi and Mulderfan did, and I'm also happy to say that mine was the most drama-free yet. Was it completely free from the taint of my narcissistic mother? No. But as far as her intrusions and my reactions go, it was mild. 

The last Christmas we spent with my family of origin was five years ago, when my oldest son was turning four.  The following year was when all manner of hell broke loose. I confronted my in-laws about their long-term passive-aggressive treatment of me and of their son. Later that same year, I stood up to my mother, who was attempting to impose her choices upon me during my pregnancy and the birth of my third son. When I stood up to her, it was completely different from any other confrontation we had ever had. When I was much younger, she would do or say something unfair or cruel, and I would argue. Later, I learned (upon the advice of a therapist) not to take her bait. Instead, I ignored it. I avoided touchy subjects, changed the topic, or just didn't respond to her when she was trying to pick a fight. That was progress of a sort, but ultimately, it only served to allow me to detach from her while allowing her to think everything was fine and dandy, with her in the dominant position and me as her loyal serf. The result was that she was completely taken aback when I didn't back down to her demands regarding my birth plans. I was calm, let her know that I was aware that she didn't approve of my choices and that I accepted her disapproval and needed her to accept that I was still making these choices. She attacked me for not giving in to her demands - for "denying" her "requests." "I do NOT accept it," she snarled. "Yes, I know," I said. Lengthy pause. "Well, would you like to talk about anything else?" I asked? "No." she growled. "Ok, then I think this conversation is over. Goodbye." I said, and hung up. And then shook for two hours. It was the very first time that I had stood up to her in this kind of calm, rational, mature way. I was so, so proud. I followed it up with giving myself a full month of no contact with her. That month was the best thing that had ever happened to me, and not just because it ended with the fantastic birth of my wonderful youngest son. I had never in my life had a time when I knew that I would not see her or talk to her. I loved knowing that she wasn't going to pop up and be a bitch to me. 

In the months that followed, I allowed her many opportunities to show love and acceptance. She chose instead to sulk, to lash out, to accuse, to abuse. Each time she did so, I remembered how lovely that month without contact had been, and allowed myself a little more time. Eventually this grew into longer and longer breaks from her. Each time I joined in a family gathering, she was colder and more disconnected from me and from my children. This was not a mother/grandmother who missed her daughter/grandsons and was hungering for connection. This was a jilted woman, a deposed dictator, a sulking brat. I was able to realize that I never really enjoyed family gatherings, and that she and my father hadn't ever tried to really get to know my kids. She reared her ugly controlling head a couple more times, and I was done. I finally made my non-contact official last April, with a brief email requesting that she not contact me in any way. 

She, of course, has not respected my request. You all know narcissists, so I'm sure you saw that one coming. The optimistic side of me always hopes that things will change, while the practical pessimist in me knows that her intrusions are inevitable. Even when she hasn't actually jabbed her finger into the actual day of a birthday or holiday, there's always a tension, a certainty that she's lurking on the periphery. Often she sends a card that arrives just before my birthday, or leaves packages at the door just after an event.

Last week, I mentioned to my husband that I was wondering what form her intrusion would take this year. Would she send a package? A scathing letter or email? Would my siblings be recruited to drop off her "gifts"?  Would she try to see my children at my in-laws' house, like she did last year? He said that he was sure she'd leave us alone after the sneak-gifts and the Christmas cheese. I told him that I was pretty sure those weren't Christmas gifts, and that I was expecting something to happen. My concern was that I couldn't predict exactly what and when. It could be anything from a small annoyance to a grand gesture. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, I was right. 

On Christmas morning, after opening presents and enjoying a lazy morning with the boys, we set out for my in-laws' house. They live in town and we had decided to brunch there and do the birthday celebrations at our house for dinner. My husband (he needs a name for this blog, doesn't he?) opened the door and said something quick and low to me about getting rid of something ASAP. I glanced toward the entrance, and there, between the storm door and the front door, were three shiny gift bags, all lined up in a row. Each bore the name of one of my sons in big block letters on stark white cards. I imagine this was supposed to be a GOTCHA!!! moment in which my kids opened the door to go outside and found the gifts waiting for them, and that I wouldn't be able to swipe them away fast enough to avoid the moment in which they recognized their own names on the cards. Fortunately, hubby did catch them, the kids weren't at the door, and he swooped them up and deposited them upstairs. We headed out and had a lovely brunch and gift exchange at my in-laws' house. When we got home, my husband went through the "gifts," recycled the packaging, and deposited the items in his closet, to be donated later. The rest of the day was without intrusion (including from my siblings, none of whom wished us a Merry Christmas - I contacted the one I care most about at the end of the day). Mostly drama-free.

I say "mostly" because as the child of a narcissist, I have a hard time ignoring these intrusions. So while we dealt swiftly and quietly to defuse the bombs Nmother left at the front door, I was still aware of them. It still bugged me a little. I still had that feeling in my chest of confrontation and panic, the trapped-little-girl sensation. 

Here's the "all is calm" part, though: it didn't wreck my day. I had the feeling, but was able to put it aside. She cannot hurt me. She does not control me. And her sneak-attack? Laughable. 

Here's her gift to me this Christmas:

• Her "I'm still here and you can't make me go away" doorstep leavings are a lovely reminder that I'm not imagining her disrespect for my boundaries. This isn't the action of a person who truly wants a loving relationship with me. This is the taunting of an immature, obnoxious person. 
• Her "I don't know anything about you" gifts for my children serve to reinforce what I already knew: that she has never even tried to think about who they are as people, or what their ages are and what they might enjoy. They were the kind of gifts that we used to have in a "present box" in the attic when I was a kid - a bunch of generic, inexpensive, impersonal items that you could grab if you had a last-minute birthday party situation. 
• The contrast of her impersonal gifts to my in-laws' very thoughtful ones, the brunch that considered my children's tastes, the planning of the day that took my kids' needs and my preferences into consideration, all reassured me once again that my kids have grandparents who love them, and that they aren't missing anything by not seeing my parents.
• The intrusion also showed me that I don't have a huge reaction to her any more. Yes, ok, I still feel a little icky in my chest. But I was ok. I had a fun day. It didn't dominate my thoughts. I didn't need to vent to my husband. I just acknowledged it and went on. 
• Her leavings also allowed me to see once again how completely on my side my husband is. He took charge of disposing of the gifts. He didn't want me to have to even see them. I was OK with seeing them but appreciated his understanding of the emotional impact she can have on me.

In short, I learned that I can handle her intrusions, and that they mean nothing to my family. To quote Shakespeare, her actions are "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". I'm sure there will always be a next time for her, and it doesn't matter. She has no power over me. 

I'm really out. I'm an orphan, and I'm ok with it. My life is good - really good - without her. And she's just a pathetic crazy woman ding-dong ditching somebody on Christmas. 

2012 can come and get me. I'm ready! 

Merry Christmas, y'all!

christmas present

Assorted thoughts about the impending holiday:

**********************************************************************************************

I'm finding this Christmas season lonely. The first couple of Christmasses that I decided not to spend time with my parents, I felt liberated. I loved not making the trip, not having to endure the visit, not feeling frustrated with all the things I wished for that didn't happen, not dealing with overtired kids who weren't acommodated at all, not having the post-visit recap/rehash with my husband as I sought validation for the things that bothered me about my mother. This year that freedom is something to which I've become accustomed, and in the absence of the newness of freeing myself from spending time with people I don't really love and who don't really love me, I'm feeling the void that's left. Friends are sharing images of extended family together. Nearly everyone I know is traveling. Friends here at home are wrapped up in their own holiday preparations. We're spending time with my in-laws, but it's not enough for me this year. I miss belonging to a tribe not of my own making, but of my birth. It was never what I wanted it to be, but for a long time I believed that it was, and today I'm missing the blind faith of the enmeshed.

**********************************************************************************************

Last week brought a minor victory. While decorating the tree, I came to a little box that contains a blown glass ornament given to me by my mother to commemorate a vacation we took together. Last year, I felt bitter when I found the ornament, and I ended up hanging it on the back of the Christmas tree. This year I realized I didn't need to hide it. The trip was fun. My mother was herself, of course, but I was in her favor at the time and felt special to be included on the trip. The city itself was brilliant, and I felt adventurous and energized. When I picked up the ornament, I had a moment of remembering the good stuff, then hung the ornament in a place that's not extremely prominent, but not hidden, either. Then I moved on to thinking about other ornaments.

**********************************************************************************************

I've been listening to the local "lite" radio station a lot lately while working in our basement. This is partly because I don't have other options in the basement, and partly because they play Christmas music at this time of year and even though most of it is really schmaltzy stuff, I'm still a sucker for it. "Lite" stations are often a tad on the excessively-cheesy, mom-and-apple-pie side of things to begin with, but they really amp it up at this time of year. Sometimes while I listen, I get really annoyed by the blind devotion our culture often has to a certain sense of family. While I understand that for many people, there really is "no place like home for the holidays," it bugs me that this is held up as the ideal, the standard. People who don't go home are to be pitied. Dysfunctional families are celebrated (seriously, if I hear Delilah laugh about the wonderfulness of family dysfunction one more time, I'm going to scream...or send a sympathy card to her 12 kids). I wish there were more diversity in the way people conceive of holidays. Not everybody goes over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house. Some of us spend those days with friends. Some of those like to be alone with just our nuclear family. Some of us think family dysfunction is anything but laughable. Some of us think that the best gift you can give to yourself is freedom from this ridiculous idealization of blood kin.

**********************************************************************************************

This is the first year that I'm not aware at all of what my parents and siblings are doing for Christmas. Not a single detail. It's weird.

**********************************************************************************************

the ghosts of christmas past

Every holiday at my parents' house takes for-ev-er. My siblings and I would try to make plans so that we could work around all of our kids' naptimes and bedtimes. We considered the likelihood of kids falling asleep in the car on the way there and/or the way back. We thought about their happy and grumpy times of day. We figured out what time of day worked best for all of us and advocated for having family gatherings during that time. In short, we did our best as parents to set ourselves and our kids up for the smoothest, best-mood holiday gathering possible, and we did our best as siblings to accomodate each other. And really, it would have been fine, if it had been up to us. Problem is, my mom wants to host everything. And she is completely incapable of serving a meal less than two hours after the planned time. Inevitably, we ended up with hungry, tired, cranky kids and way-too-late bedtimes. And, of course, my mother commenting on the kids' bad behavior, which wasn't bad behavior at all, but hungry, tired, cranky behavior. I remember her thinking very poorly of older relatives who acted the way she does and who had no sympathy for the families with young kids. And now here she is, choosing to sneer at our parenting rather than choosing to help us plan a gathering that is actually fun for the people involved. 

The last several times I spent Christmas with my extended family, the gift exchange was hard. Since my brothers have gotten married, my mother, despite badmouthing the women behind their backs, gives them beautiful presents. The strange thing is that the presents don't suit the recipients...and they do suit me. They are, in fact, pretty much exactly the sorts of things somebody who knows me and loves me might give to me at Christmas. I ached when one SIL unwrapped a pair of beautiful, beautiful dresses from a label I had coveted in my early teens. The symbolism of giving a dress like that to me would have been wonderful. Instead, they were given to SIL, who doesn't wear dresses, and even if she did, she wouldn't wear these dresses. They were my style, not hers. She also received jewelry that was so totally *me*.  The same SIL once received gift certificates for pampering, and she hates that kind of spa service. I love it. Another SIL received home decor items that looked like they would fit perfectly in my home, not hers. Both SILs received mother-in-law/daugher-in-law weekends in gorgeous Bed & Breakfast inns with tours of museums. I have never once had a mother/daughter weekend. Not once. (At some point I let her know that it would be meaningful to me, and she begrudgingly promised one to me, then later asked me to plan it myself and insisted that I choose a specific weekend even though I was in my third trimester, hugely pregnant and uncomfortable, and not really disposed to travel at that time. The weekend never happened.) Meanwhile, my husband and I would receive strange, useless gifts, the kinds of things you give to somebody whom you don't know at all but feel obligated to buy for.  Gifts for my kids are generally completely out of sync with their age and interests, and more often than not, they break immediately, at which point she might mention replacing them, but never does.

Then there is the matter of my son's birthday. Kiddo had the good fortune to be born on Christmas Day. This means that on the 25th we have not one, but two occasions to celebrate. We have found ways that work for us, generally switching over to "birthday mode" in the second half of the day. Dinner is his choice rather than the turkey dinner I grew up with. We have birthday cake for dessert rather than other Christmassy desserts. Thanksgiving is when we have turkey and pumpkin pie; Christmas is when we have his birthday dinner...except when we go to my parents' house. Because apparently my parents and siblings are more attached to their traditional Christmas meal than to their grandson/nephew. Even though growing up, the birthday kid always got to choose dinner, when it interferes with the turkey, we can't have that! And can we all share cake? No! I would bring a cake, but they would still prepare the usual pies. Nobody except my husband and I would share cake with my son. My siblings and parents didn't even sit down at the table while singing their unenthusiastic birthday song; they were too busy trying to get their pie. The whole day would be CHRISTMAS!!!!! and no thought about the birthday kid. This is why so many people think Christmas birthdays suck. They don't have to suck if everybody else gets over themselves and gives some attention to the birthday boy. (I'm not asking for a parade, just geez, actually sit down and sing happy birthday and watch him blow out his candles and share some cake together. Be his tribe for a second, will ya?) This whole dinnertime dismissal of the birthday would also be hours later than planned, as indicated in the first holiday memory above. The whole thing felt awful. It felt like my son's birthday was an inconvenience to everybody, like oh, geez, yeah, we hafta squeeze in the birthday song somewhere here, ugh. I don't expect anybody to love my son like I do, but I do expect people to be gracious hosts, grandparents, aunts and uncles. I do expect that a child celebrating his birthday should get to pick the meal, eat it before his bedtime, and have everybody make him the center of attention for just fifteen minutes. I tried discussing my concerns with my siblings and parents, and they acted like I wanted excessive attention. They said they would *try* to compromise. It didn't happen. He was four. After that, I decided that if honoring his birth is such an inconvenience to them, we wouldn't subject them to it. We haven't been back for Christmas since.

Our first Christmas completely on our own was WONDERFUL. No agenda but ours. Nowhere to rush to, no dinner too late for the kids, and the birthday boy would be celebrated and appreciated just as he deserves.  My in-laws usually come to see us, or we might visit them on the other side of town. They make plans with us, asking about what works best for the kids, and they honor those plans. They are genuinely excited about my son's birthday. We enjoy each other's company. Isn't that how Christmas is meant to be? 

event planning with a narcissist

Today Jonsi is sharing her thoughts on my post, The Demons of Doubt and Disappointment. I find her perspective, as the daughter-in-law of a narcissistic woman, very validating. Her husband is so fortunate to have a spouse who understands his struggle and supports him! 

One of the links in her post, to an entry about her daughter's first birthday, dredged up some old stuff for me. I identified strongly with this: 

The problem is that they are always late, they always have excuses (and only some of them are valid), and they don't allow that their plans might be disrupted and they might need EXTRA time to deal with the disruptions.

It was always the same story when we went to their house for dinner as well, which is not at all conducive to the schedule of a napping infant. There was only one occasion where they hosted dinner earlier, for our sake, and they complained about how difficult it was to get dinner on the table so early, as though we were just such a big inconvenience to them. 

Ah, yes, the perpetual refusal of the narcissist to live by anybody's agenda or clock but her own. This reminded me of a couple of holiday gatherings in the past:

One Christmas morning when I was hosting the family gathering, we had planned to have a mid-morning brunch, then exchange gifts. My mother showed up two hours late. She lives one hour away. That means she left her house an hour after she should have been at my house! While things sometimes happen to derail one's plans, she already had a history of doing this sort of thing. And while a normal person would call and apologize and ask everybody to start without them, she  a) didn't even give us a phone call, b) didn't apologize for being late and holding up the meal, and c) was annoyed that we had started preparing the meal without her. She didn't seem to have any sense of the inconvenience that she had caused. She didn't seem to realize or care that my young son needed to eat and that the original timeline - to which we had all agreed - had worked well for his happy-awake times and would have avoided his grumpy or needing-nap times. She flat-out didn't care about the plans we had made as a group. What suited her was to show up late, and now that she was here, the party could begin! 

Another year, we were planning a family Christmas get-together at her house. We were all spending Christmas Day with our in-law families and then our family of origin would get together a few days later. This coincided with one of my sisters-in-laws' birthdays. During a phone conversation about our plans, my mother told me that we would also be celebrating my SIL's birthday with cake and presents. A short time after that, I was talking to my brother (SIL's husband) on the phone, and her birthday came up. He was surprised to hear about the birthday plan, because my mother hadn't told  him or SIL about it at all. SIL hates surprise birthday parties. HATES them. This is one of the things my SIL has in common with my mom, so I had assumed that my mom could relate to the hatred of surprises, and that the party was common knowledge. I later got into huge trouble with my mother for telling my brother about the SUPER SECRET PARTY PLANS. I pointed out that I hadn't known that they were secret, and that my mother knows that SIL hates surprise parties, so why would I think I wasn't supposed to mention it? It just came up! My mother's response? She treated me like I'm this completely unreliable, untrustworthy person. She informed me that my brother and I (and the rest of our siblings) shouldn't discuss Christmas plans together. We should only discuss them with her and stop "stirring each other up." So, um, adult siblings who often see each other or talk on the phone should completely avoid discussion of a date in their near future when they will see each other. We shouldn't even say "hey, what time are you getting there?" We should check with her. Ok...that's reasonable. Except that it's not. It's completely crazy.

I guess the moral here is that if you want to plan an event with a narcissist, 

• do not speak at all to any other person in the whole world except the narcissist
• make sure that the details of the event suit the tastes and attention needs of the narcissist, rather than those of the guest of honor
• plan everything around the naptime and mealtimes of the narcissist, so that she won't get overtired and cranky

As for me? I don't plan to attend such an event, ever again.

'round and around and around and around

The fickle finger of fate has been flicking my anxiety disorder all week. It's part Christmas preparations, part home repair projects, part financial concerns, part sick/injured kid, part business development. But the thing that I think is putting it over the edge from just life-stress-that-I-can-handle to stress-that-makes-my-brain-go-whirly is my mother. Or more specifically, the gift she sent.

All I want is to be left alone. But like a kid in the back seat of a car whose sibling has declared a particular line uncrossable, she cannot resist the temptation to put a finger over the line. Just. One. Finger. And just as kids can't stand that kind of willful defiance of a boundary line ("MOM! He's looking at me!), I can't stand that she's continuing to contact me. It interrupts my calm and it pisses me off. 

While I had been decreasing contact with her for years - first without realizing I was doing it, then later more purposefully, No Contact "officially" began last spring, when I wrote this to her and my father in an email message: 

"I am writing to ask you to stop contacting my family, including myself, [my husband, and my children]. Please do not attempt to contact us in any way, whether by phone, in person, via postal mail, or by email or other internet services."

I knew that she probably would not stop, but I felt the need to lay down a specific boundary, so that if she continued to contact us, I would know that it was in direct opposition to what I had requested. While I wish that she would just LEAVE ME ALONE, every time she sends something, it's a reminder that she has never respected my boundaries and still does not respect them. It's a confirmation: nope, you did not imagine this, she really doesn't give a damn what you want. 

Since I sent that email, she has shown up on my doorstep once, sent multiple postcards to my children, sent birthday cards to my children and to me, sent email multiple times to my husband, stalked my personal blog, sent a holiday card, left birthday presents for my children at the door, invited us (via last-minute email to my husband) to Thanksgiving dinner, and sent a bag of gifts for my children with relatives, who sneaked the bag into my car. 

So far, birthday cards and postcards get recycled. Gifts for kids are spirited away before they can see them and the items are donated. One son has some awareness of this, and seems both curious about the gifts and indignant that my mother disrespects my wishes. I hate that he knows about it, but it's hard to keep a pre-teen in the dark when stuff just shows up at your house. I can't intercept everything.

Anyway, I'm used to this, even though I dislike it. As each birthday or holiday approaches, I wonder what form her contact will take. I sigh inwardly and prepare to whisk gifts into the attic and into donation bags. 

I wasn't ready for the gift that came last week, though. 

This time, it came by mail, in a small box. I have been receiving parcels recently in preparation for Christmas, so I assumed it was one of the items I ordered, and picked it up, and recognized the return address as the source of one of my mother's go-to gifts. It's edible, and it's something my entire family really loves. It's also perishable, so I couldn't stuff it in the attic and think about it later. I had to either preserve it or throw it away, right then. 

I put it in the fridge, still in the cardboard box. I needed to figure out what to do. 

This is the first time I've received something from her that I actually want to keep. The thing is, I also don't want to keep it. I don't want to accept a gift from her, on principle. I don't want to eat food that I know came from her. I don't want to be reminded of her while I try to enjoy it. I also don't want my son to know that I kept this item (he asked my husband what the box was, and my husband answered honestly instead of dodging the question) even though I get rid of toys and clothing sent to him. I feel like my sanity requires that I get rid of it. My sense of ethics demands that I not throw it in the garbage. My sense of consistency demands that I treat it like any other item sent by her. Get rid of it. 

My husband is lobbying for taking it to the in-laws, to share with them, so that it's out of my house but he and my son can still enjoy it. This makes me uncomfortable. It can't be easily donated because I would have to find a person who can take it off my hands and put it straight in their refrigerator. I don't want to give it to friends or a neighbor. I want it out of my social circles. (Is that crazy?) I'm frustrated that I can't give it to Good Will. 

I partly want to go downstairs right now, grab it, and take it out to the trash can. But I know what it costs, and that it was made by hand by hard-working people, and I know that it could be enjoyed by somebody, and I can't stand to waste food like that. 

And so I go in circles. I can't decide what to do, and so it haunts me every day, woven in and out of the background chatter of my other daily concerns. It's pretty bad for ye olde anxiety disorder. 

I can imagine that someday I won't care, and will be able to either eat it without a second thought or pitch it / re-home it right away.  That day has not yet come. 

What would you do?