What Else Can Happen??

[sun seeker]

Oh and my sister called to tell my dad (not me) that when she told my mom what my therapist wrote she said "thats ok, I love her anyway".

You do realize this is gaslighting, right? By twisting your words around to make this your problem and not hers?

Likely you do. You're good at seeing through this stuff. Just mentioning it because it took me so long to see through it with my own mother, who would likely have done something similar.

:hug:s to whomever wants them. Thanks for being on my side!

Thanks, I'll take one of those! :hug:

 

[lostforgottensoul]

It's the loss of the possibilty, of what she represents - and in that regard, it is really sad for you.

Thats it i think. My "inner child" had so much hope (and i think my adult self had a little bit) that one day she would "come around" and be the mommy "we" needed cause "we" still needed a mom and that f*cking sucks. I dont know why I held so tightly onto that hope. It sounds so much like dumbass retarded hope to me now but i did.

I also had hope that she would admit to it all eventually and most especially on her deathbed. Shes dying, what does she care how she looks? And that would be of such wonderful help to me but maybe she still wants to hurt me and pull on puppet strings and see if i would still do as she says or something...

You do realize this is gaslighting, right? By twisting your words around to make this your problem and not hers?

I dont know if i would call it gaslighting (though im not sure i have a full understanding yet of what gaslighting is) but im understanding that her asking for me but not admitting anything and see if i come to her...its her way of seeing if she still has control of me. And then, yes, her saying "i still love her" she is making it seem like im doing something wrong or bad or something. Is that what gaslighting is? I read about it in a thread but dont really understand it.

Its insane to watch my family get so sucked up in it all. My mom started it then my brother's wife pick it up and its like my whole family drank her koolaid, they all, one by one and at times in groups, went from talking to me and loving me to not talking to me, hating me, gossiping about me, calling my Drs to lie...all sorts of insane stuff. It was affecting me so much that my therapist made me back away from the drama and when i did its like i can see it clearly...its like my mom is the queen. I would tell my step mom (someone that didnt drink the koolaid) of something that DID happen and my step mom would tell my brother wife and she would call my mom and ask, my mom denied it and then they would all believe her...on her word. Why?

Maybe it has something to do with being a cult leader, I dont know but its like my family (my dad's side so the side thay have been divorced from her for years) bows down to her. They all run everything by her first and take her at her word. If she says it, it must be true. Taking a child abuser at their word...its insanity. I dont get it.

 

[sun seeker]

Is that what gaslighting is? I read about it in a thread but dont really understand it.

Gaslighting is twisting things so it looks like someone else is crazy. It can be done in very subtle ways. Seeing it in my family took me ages, and having someone point it out to me. My take on what she is doing is instead of directly addressing the question of whether she is willing to admit to what she did to you, she deflects attention off of the question and makes herself look long-suffering and forgiving ("I love her anyway" - anyway in spite of what??) while making it seem like you are being unreasonable. I recognize this because it's so much like what my mother would have done. Did do, until I saw through it and cut off contact.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

("I love her anyway" - anyway in spite of what??) while making it seem like you are being unreasonable.

Yeah, my entire family does this. They would ask very unreasonable things out of me and when i wouldnt do it, they'd go on facebook and spread the "she wont even do XYZ but we love her anyway". I was always confused about their type of "love" as they dont love anyone but themselves. It took me forever to figure out that that isnt love except maybe self love. It most certianly is manipulation. Its hard to see it as such but it is.

Ive manipulated but never on purpose. If you set someone in front of me and ask me to manipulate them, i would have no idea how. They would though. I find that very sad...and it feels so alone. My whole family has drank my mom's kool aid. Sure, my sister in law was the force behind spreading it through out the family but my mom was always controling it.

Wow, that sounds like my whole family fell for the cult as i seperated from it...or is that just me?

 

[Sideways]

There's often a lot of fear at play when someone is facing death. No doubt your mum is afraid of dying - even if you put aside the things she won't admit to. The prospect of what people will think of her after she's gone, her "legacy", would also be a huge motivator to perpetuate the denial about the things she's done. She can't afford to have everyone start to hate her just as she's about to die - that would be terrifying.

There's also a very real possibilty that she actually believes her own lies by now. When you spend that long denying something, and you have so much invested in sustaining that denial, some people get to a point where they genuinely believe their own lies.

Hopefully, maybe, after she's gone, part of you may feel a bit of freedom to really redefine yourself on your own terms, free of the influence of her hanging over you. She takes her lies and her manipulation with her when she passes.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

There's also a very real possibilty that she actually believes her own lies by now. When you spend that long denying something, and you have so much invested in sustaining that denial, some people get to a point where they genuinely believe their own lies.

My therapist and I spoke about this months ago. I know i started to believe myself in denial...but it purged its way out of me on its own. Can someone really fully believe their denials for this long? Like i was in denial for 10 yrs and it started to purge its way out of me before i went into therapy. She outed herself and her beliefs on facebook years back and the family just brushed it under the rug as just labeled it weird but just ignored it. I know she can make herself believe its christanity...thats what she called it back then anyway. Can she really have made herself forget it all? I couldnt fully.

I dont know. Either way it doesnt matter. I accepted that i will remain alone and without family the remainder of my life. The family will always be circled atound her. Maybe i wont feel her control anymore, but when my step dad died, i still felt his control so i dont know.

I guess it was stupid to hope she would admit it one day.

 

[sun seeker]

I guess it was stupid to hope she would admit it one day.

Not stupid, just hopeful. It's normal. It's the wounded child in you still hoping for the mother she never had. This is common when those of us who are not psychopaths or narcissists try to communicate with those who are. We would never knowingly or willingly do the things they do to us, so it's hard to get our minds around the fact that some people do. We think if only we explained it the right way, or for the fifty thousandth time, or when the moon is in the right phase, they'd get it, finally see the harm they are causing and stop. But it doesn't happen that way. It's not your fault. There is nothing more you could have done, or can do now, to make her see. I know it's harder to take that in than to blame yourself. I'm so sorry. :(

 

[lostforgottensoul]

It's the wounded child in you still hoping for the mother she never had.

I never thought of it as the wounded child in me, i always just said my inner child but "she" has so much to say but so struggling to find the words. I talked about "her" in therapy yesterday and said my "inner child" has a lot to say about all of this. I dont often speak about my "inner child" in therapy but i can feel "her" screaming inside of me while Im auto-numbing and muzzling that part of me...

I know it's harder to take that in than to blame yourself.

Yes it is, for sure!

 

[Pakadlangitok]

(((((Lost))))))) When you said she was not supposed to die before you healed, that was a like knife to the heart! That summed it up! It is such a hard thing!

When you are hurt at first you want that person to go ahead and lighten the earth because you think it will make you heal. Then they live on and you still suffer. Then you just want to heal and you want to reconcile, not being hurtful and dangerous like them. But most who do these things do not care. They do not feel and do not understand how they made you fee.

Then they do die and things were not made right and all the anger starts to change into a deep heavy sadness, like it never had to happen, like you could feel like everyone else at the funeral and just feel sadness, not all the huge flood that starts to crash in!

We are changed by abuse, that is for sure. My friend was terribly abused by his mother and still has scars on his face. Somehow he forgave her when he was in his 20s. I do not know how but he did. She never reciprocated, but she tried. When she died, he cared. He was glad she was out of pain and he even told her he loved her. It is something I feel is out of the range of possible and almost never happens BUT it set a precedence in my mind. He just threw it all out and looked at her like HE WANTED to see her. And he thought it did not matter how she responded. She really did try to understand and tried to explain but it was all very vague, but he did not care. He just loved her...........and he got through it and he is happy. Truly it brings me to tears whenever I think about it because he overcame so many feelings to do what suited his journey and what he NEEDED to do and what he felt she needed as well. To have that much compassion after the abuse he endured was something I cannot fathom.

We are all on this journey and we will see our abusers die as most were older than us. I don't know how that will feel for me. I really don't. Maybe I will never know when it happens and that may be best.

 

[Thizette]

You are not required to attend her funeral. Funerals are social functions, and the only person who decides if you have to go is you. You are not obligated to attend just because of your biological relationship to her.

In response to your previous comment, no one can predict your regret. But, I think, you going to the hospital is more for them than for you. You aren't ever going to have the kind of relationship with her that people deserve from their parents. I feel the same way about my dad. I already know that I won't attend his funeral, because I've already mourned for his loss. I never had the dad I deserved, and that is what I mourned. Today he's just someone I don't really care about. When he dies, that won't change.

 

[Heather]

Is it weird that im going to miss my mom? .

No, what you feel is what you feel. If you miss her, you miss her. If you don't, you don't. There's no right or wrong here.

I agree with Ragdoll as well: it's the possibility of what she could be that you're gonna miss. Rather than what she was/is.

Hugs to you @lostforgottensoul

 

[lostforgottensoul]

it's the possibility of what she could be that you're gonna miss. Rather than what she was/is.

I think so. The hope that one day i will have a mom...a normal non-abusive mom. A mom that loves me and cares about me.

I think it was rather dumb to have that hope to begin with....