First, let me say that I'm very happy I found this forum. The realization of what my mom's problem is just hit me last night after a discussion with my husband about her. My mom's in a nursing home right now, and two weeks ago I thought I was planning her funeral. She's 76 and has had 5 heart atttacks, still smokes, and generally keeps everyone's life in upheaval, not only because of her deteriorating health, but because her life has always been in turmoil, and there was no way to deal with my mom without having your life in turmoil also. My sister and I have spent our entire lives wondering WTF is wrong with our mom? How can her behavior consistently defeat every positive aspect in her entire life, including her children? As much as my sister and I detested everything my mom stood for and stood against, she still managed to drag us through the mud and involve us in all of her sick delusions. There was nothing we could do to make her happy or healthy. It didn't matter that we constantly dropped everything to do whatever mom's beck and call was. No one else in their right mind would. We'd get in the car and drive for hours to come to mom's house to help her with something stupid and assinine, that anyone else would have been able to take care of themself. I can't tell you how much time from work I've missed. My sister's even being paying my mom's rent for the past 4 months, since one of her last heart attacks. Since this last hospital admission almost 2 weeks ago, they transferred my mom to a hospital in the same town I'm in. Once she was able to use the phone in teh ER, then the games begin again. She has the nurse calling me telling me to bring her fish and chips. I brought them. She didn't eat one bite. It was all a ploy, another one of her sick ploys. She had me running doing all kinds of unnecessary crap for her. My sister drives 4 hours to get here and my mom starts in on her, wanting us to go and fix everything in her entire life that she considers wrong, even if it's just calling a bill collector for her because "she's sick and can't do it herself". Right, she talks very well and a telephone is one of her weapons of choice when it comes her games. We naturally want to help her, because we've been conditioned to think we have to, and because no one else will help poor mom in any way. They won't. Everyone else hates her and has distanced themselves from her, including my brothers including my mom's own siblings. None of them will get within her reach anymore. I know this is a long story, I could describe 45 years of this abuse from her.

My main point though, is that I didn't not know until last night what was wrong with my mom. When I finally starting reading about antisocial behavior and psychopathic behavior, I almost fell on the floor. This was my mom to a Tee.

I had decided 2 days ago, when she called me from the nursing home screaming at me to drop everything and bring her some clothes from Walmart because she was sitting there naked after having an "accident" in the middle of the night, I had to leave my job, go buy the damn clothes at Walmart, and then put up with her abuse and manipulation and tears when I got there. It was over 100 degrees outside and everything I had hauled inside the nursing home was not good enough for her. I got the stuff there and then she didn't want it. So I had to haul it back out to the car. I cried all the way home.

I decided that day...even though my mom is dying...NO MORE. I can't take one more ounce of my mom. It's killing me. It's killing my sister. We both felt that we were the ones who would have to find a place for my mom to live after the nursing home, because she can't go back to where she lived before. I want my sister to turn her back on my mom also, even though she's old, even though she's dying. My mom WILL find another victim to cater to her. She's had 76 years to perfect this art of master manipulation. The fact that she is psychopathic and/or narcissistic or anti-social (I'm still trying to learn the differences) tells me that it's not going to bother her or pain her very much just because I'm not there anymore. She won't like the fact that she's lost another person she's manipulated for her own gain for so many years, but she doesn't have the capacity to truly miss me or mourn me.

I feel sad that I have to desert her at this late stage in her life, and that she might indeed die lonely with no one there, but I have to start recovering from all these years of feeling mentally destroyed by my mom. My sister needs to recover also. I don't see that happening as long as my sister continues to "help" my mom. I don't call it help anymore. I call it enabling. I wrote my sister last night an e-mail and I quoted many passages from online articles about this mental disorder. She read the descriptions and the symptoms for both the Alienated AntiSocial person and the Psychopath. She wrote me back this morning and said OH MY GOD. YOU ARE SO RIGHT!

I'm just happy I know what it is now. I feel like a big weight is off my shoulders. I also don't feel any guilt or sympathy now towards my mom as I have for 45 years. It's strange. The compassion from my end towards her is gone. I'm just almost numb.

Thanks everyone for reading this. I hope I'll find more help here on healing and getting on with my life without the pain.

Hi Chris,

Welcome to the forum. Unfortunately the weather here is horrible, just got a break from the thunder, should have time (weather permitting) to reply tomorrow.

I am very sorry about your situation but think you are making a wise decision.

TTYL,

Di

Thanks Di, I appreciate that very much. I'm just relieved to have found a place here that understands and cares. It means a lot to be able to validate to my feelings in this way.

Thank you so much.

Hi Chris,

It is always interesting when that ol' light bulb goes off and we fall into information that can help us move on and put the pieces of the past together.

It took me years to figure my mother out. If you decide to seek some help via therapy, be very cautious and interview until your find someone who understands Psychopathy. I am in the process of writing up some info for finding a therpist, it's on my list and I'll work on it soon. Sometimes in the wrong hands they (therapists) can cause more pain which is the last thing you need at this junction of your life. I finally found a decent shrink a few years ago and his advise to me was "don't let those people in your house". I didn't really pay much attention at the time and never really put the pieces together until the last few months. Although my mother is not a Psychopath but a diagnosed Borderline I can understand and you have all the sympathy in the world coming your way from me. I think when it your very own mother walking away can be difficult.

Everything with these people has to be right now. The sad part is to think that things will never change and your own mother never had the capability to love you. Really all you can do at this point is protect yourself and it sounds like you will at least have the support of your sister. Psychopaths can never love anyone but themselves (I am not really sure if they even love themselves - which is an interesting question to explore) but they will always be the victim while they victimize those around them, particularly those close to them.

Lacking a conscience I wonder how much they really care if you stop taking her abuse or not? The idea of how you are doing certainly probably doesn't cross her self centered world. My guess is they probably just move on being the perfect victim and find others to abuse or feed a pack of lies.

My mother is 79 and after spending the last few years waiting on her, getting abused I have decided to move to another state to escape her. I am sure you must have some conflicting feelings about your mother. You deserve better and the longer you stay in contact the longer the abuse will drag on. Hoping for change is a worthless waste of time, imo. I now resent the time I spent trying to help when she was sick, in the hospital, you know the drill and allowing myself to be so manipulated. With a Psychopath, whatever you do will never be enough or even remotely right, it is more about just yanking your chain and why risk your job rushing for her constant demands. The worst thing she can do is run around telling everyone what a terrible daughter you are but really who cares? You know what you are.

I sincerely hope the forum can help you, I look at it as electronic journaling and most times putting things in writing can get them off our backs and help put things that used to be so confusing into perspective.

How is she around the nurses etc? Certainly it isn't my money but boy I would sure cut off dishing out money to her. Let the system deal with her. I hate to sound cold but I am sure the hospital has pajamas etc.

I would consider either getting a new phone #, or screen the calls but erase the messages without even listening to them. Having someone like this continue to be in your life will only be harder I would think if you have to even listen to her rants and unreasonable demands would drag you into a place not healthy while healing yourself.

Di

Hello Chris

It is great that you are going to be able resolve a lot of things before your mother dies, instead of realising all of this afterwards. I am sure it will help you along with having your sister on your side. It is a slow process to recover from this sort of abuse, but being here will give you the support you need so stick around, there are some great people here and do as much reading as you can.

It is my daughter who is definately a Psychopath though she only has a borderline diagnosis, and I am still unsure about my ex husband but he has a serious personaility disorder. Between them they have ruined my reputation, and have turned my two sons and grand-daughter against me. I have broken contact with them both and feel much better for that. It really is the answer. If anyone here remembers, she issued me with death threats once I started to withdraw. I actually found someone to phone her and issue a counter threat if anything happens to me so I hope that is the end of that. I went through a lot of guilt because I do not love her and I thought that mother love is unconditional, but she has done so much harm to me that I think the love died. Please don't feel guilty about breaking contact with your mother. Your pyschological health is at stake. You have not abandoned her. She is in a place where she will get all the help she needs.

take care
mati

Mati,

Thank you so much for those encouraging words to me. It seems you all know what I'm going through right now better than I know myself, the grief, the denial, the doubting if I made the right decision or not. I noted tonight I haven't heard from any of my family members now for several days, where before at least my sister and I were talking every day. I suppose she is trying to honor my wish of no contact with my mom, and maybe she feels there isn't anything for us to discuss besides my mom. I don't know. At some point I will be able to agree with you, that this was and is the best thing I could do for myself. I was just telling my husband that if my mom passes away today, tomorrow, or a week from now, it's probably better that I not know. I don't want to grapple with feeling like I abandoned her on her death bed. It's tough. I'm pretty certain that my mom always thought that out of all five of us kids, I would be the one to stand behind her the whole way. Last week as I sat with my mom at the nursing home (before I decided I'd had enough), she was being interviewed by a social worker there who was asking her some mental status questions to determine if she was fit to make her own decisions. One of the questions she asked my mom was "What is your favorite memory?". My mom answers "The day Chris was born." Gee, can she lay it on any thicker? I don't believe that was her happiest memory for one second, but that's the kind of thing she would do to make me feel indebted to her. I have five siblings, yet since I'm the one my mom leeched onto the most, of course, my birth was her favorite memory. Please, give me a break. She never did believe anyone could see right through her facade, and 90% of the time, she can B.S. you into believing whatever it is that is coming out of her mouth. She's pretty damn good that way. As you can see, I'm still trying to work through a lot of this, and I suppose it will take quite a while.

Okay, now I've rambled probably too long. I did want to say Mati, and Di, that I do understand how there can be people in your life who will stop at nothing to destroy your entire bright future. I don't understand the illness or mentality behind it, but it must be an awful life to lead when all the matters is using other people for your own selfish gain, no matter who gets hurt along the way. It's almost like the war between good and evil on this earth, that's how different we are from these people.


Thank you again - it was interesting to read about your experiences, too. I can honestly say I know how you feel.

Chris

Hi Chris, many times this kind of horrible trauma and the realization can take some time to work our way through.

I read everything I can on this subject and I am not totally convinced that they feel any pain or shame for their direct attempts at dragging others down by using them either financially or mentally. My personal belief is when a person doesn't have a conscience, feeling any guilt or pain isn't part of the picture.

I haven't looked this up in quite awhile but will spend some time later digging up more information.

What is a psychopath?
A psychopath has no concern for the feelings of others and a complete disregard for any sense of social obligation. They seem egocentric and lack insight of any sense of responsibility or consequence. Their emotions are thought to be superficial and shallow, if they exist at all. They are considered callous, manipulative, and incapable of forming lasting relationships, let alone showing any kind of meaningful love. They typically never perform any action unless they determine it can be beneficial for themselves.

It is thought that any emotions which the primary psychopath exhibits are the fruits of watching and mimicking other people's emotions. They show poor impulse control and a low tolerance for frustration and aggression. They have no empathy, remorse, anxiety or guilt in relation to their behavior. In short, they truly are devoid of conscience. However, they understand that society expects them to behave in a conscientious manner, and therefore they mimic this behavior when it suits their needs.


It is my personal belief that knowledge is power. We are all here for you and wishing you the best. My hope for you is to have a great life, sometimes processing the pain and betrayal can take time. Like a therapist told me, we can't erase years of abuse overnight, but at the end of the tunnel there is light for you and we are all pulling for you.

Di

Thanks, Di!

I identified and agreed with the description of the psychopath you provided in your post. I'm still surprised when I read things like this - that there actually is a name and an accurate description for my mom's antisociality and oddity of a life, and even more amazed when I learn how many people out there are just like her. I literally thought I was the only one who had a mom so out of sync with reality. I've been embarrassed of her my whole life, ashamed for people to know she was my mom because she just behaves so crazily and irrationally. You can never be sure what might come out of her mouth, whether it's impulsive and shocking or bitter and seething. Either way, it's usually always painful.

I did want to let you know, as I was laying in bed last night, I started having a lot of realizations coming to the surface for me about my mother which I have never entertained before. Almost as if someone took the smoke screen away and I was able to begin seeing my mother and her behavior clearly for the first time in my life. And then I got angry when I started looking back on all these years of her daily psychosis pushed onto me or any one who was dumb enough to connect with her for any length of time. The cold, calculating agenda she had every step of the way. She knowingly destroyed 5 little kids' right to be raised and nurtured by a healthy mother because she is so sick in the head. We all deserved to have a nurturing role model for a mother, and instead we were abandoned time and time again while she left my dad and us, then would come back, then she'd leave again, sometimes dragging me with her (literally kicking and screaming). The times she would drag me with her I never went voluntarily, and she never took me because she felt she was indeed the better parent for me, she took me to get to my dad and hurt him. She didn't care about any of us kids. If she did, she could have never walked away from us so many times without ever looking back. She had no business ever having children.

So, like I said, it seems these realizations are really starting to come to the surface for me now. I'm happy they are. I'm happy I made the choice to walk away from my mom last Sunday, because if I hadn't, and if she had passed away before I knew all of this, I would have never seen the truth about her. I would have made excuses for her the rest of my life.

Thanks for reading this. It helps. I don't want to bombard my husband or anyone else with all these feelings as they erupt, because these feelings really are coming fast and furious when I take the time to just listen to my inner voice. I'd like to just be able to put it all down here, and that way I can come back and reflect on it later.

Chris

Hi Chris, I am glad you are making the choice to share with us. Think about it as your electronic journal being shared with us. We may all be strangers to you but do sincerely care very much and want to help you on your journey toward freedom and a healthy life. I believe that without reflction we can keep on the same track and somehow journaling helps us focus in and then let go. One thing Cheri told me one time was that if we aren't careful we can be more attached to our pain than finding happiness.

At one point, I made a list of the positive things that came from such abuse. I was a consultant for many years and was excellent because I knew how to keep myself from showing emotion which made the clients like me better because I may have reacted after I left them but I could remain calm and reassuring because I wasn't allowed to show emotions when a child. One of the crazy ones is that for my age I don't have a lot of wrinkles on my forehead because of having to hide how I felt, lol.

I think it is very healthy to look at what went on, sometimes it can help us modify behaviors we have created from being raised by evil. Most times just by going through the pieces can help us become functional and all those things we were never taught to know about.

I am a firm believer and this is only my opinion but the best way to get rid of toxic energy/people is to finally see it for what it is. In the end, once we recognize and write these things down, the puzzle can come together. You didn't deserve any of this, bad luck of the draw. I have a feeling with your posts that in the end you will learn a great deal about yourself and why you did/and or did things you may not have understood at the time. Reaching out to that little girl you were will hopefully bring you some long deserved peace.

Di

I can't tell you how uplifting your post is, Di, and I'm definitely going to take on the mental task of trying to see what good I can salvage from all the years of being raised that way. I'd like to think I gained some life skills from it.

I will re-read your post here a few times because it really, really makes sense and right now, sense is what I need more than anything...well, a couple extra grand wouldn't hurt, either!

Thanks, Di. And by the way, my sister did get in touch with me today on Messenger. She didn't know if I wanted to hear anything about my mom or not, and I said sure. She needed to vent and I have such a different perspective about it now than I did a week ago, so maybe I can help my Sis find some strength of her own through all of this.

You all are very wise here! I look forward to learning and sharing the same wisdom with you. Most of all, I look forward to the inner strength I'm naturally acquiring for myself through this whole ordeal and recognition that I would not have obtained otherwise. I'm almost to the point where I can find something to smile about now regarding this whole thing.

Thank you for your continued help with this!

Chris

Hi Chris, it's kind of a relief when all the pieces fall into place and you realise you're not imagining things or being hypersensitive about things. I made the break from my psycho-mum about 5 years ago now and I can honestly tell you it was the best decision I have ever made. Unfortunately she still has a lot to do with a good part of the family, which does make things awkward at times (especially when they are still swallowing all her lies), but not having to deal with all the drama and BS has made life just SOOOO much easier.

I truly hope for your sake that you don't feel guilty for making the choice to save your sanity. People who haven't dealth with these sort of people - or those who are still beguiled by them - often don't understand why we have to make such a clean break. I know my partner really struggled to understand until an unexpected counter with my mother - after which his eyes were opened. Prior to that he would tell me I was being unreasonable and cutting off my nose to spite my face, and that I should make more of an effort... what he didn't understand was I wasn't dealing with a "normal" person. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is stick to your guns. You know the truth and that is the most important thing. The people who truly know you and care for you might not understand what you are doing, but will know you well enough to respect your decision.

Meanwhile I so understand that level of numbness. I think there's only so many tears you can cry, only so much pain you can absorb until there's just nothing left inside. In a way it's kind of scary how easy it can be to move on once you've made that decision... but maybe that's because you've already done so much grieving.

Wishing you (and your sister) all the best.

Chris

Sorry I have not been back for a while. I hope that you are feeling stronger.

love
Mati