Conflicted

Recently, I found out that my mother is ill. Her life expectancy may not be long, and I consider this tragic on so many levels.

It’s mainly tragic because, in hindsight, we have both encumbered a great deal of loss as it relates to our mother-daughter connection. There can’t be a reunion if there’s never been a connection, and we can’t reconcile what was never had. I can’t even pretend. My mother and I don’t have a relationship. MM We have, in fact, never had a relationship.

My mother is a narcissist – a malignant covert narcissist. This description is enough to explain the disconnect in a relationship that never happened between us because by my account, narcissists don’t “relate”, and if they do, there’s always an agenda behind doing so.

To my mother’s defense, though, I am selectively mute. I don’t talk because sometimes I just can’t. This makes for difficult communication with just about anyone. Although, I will say that even with this condition of severe social anxiety that stops me from verbal expression, she’s openly never ridiculed me for not having the ability to always speak. Those were the times I somewhat felt close to her because there was no pressure to conform in the way that I am, but at the time I didn’t realize that she used who I am as an avenue to target me for more of her abuse.

No-Contact

I have been no-contact from my mother for a number of years – almost 10. Any contact that has happened during that time has been sparingly brief. For the most part, I just can’t bring myself to interact with her for any reason even when doing so would seem legitimate or even the morally loving thing to do. After all, this narcissist is still my mother, and I do still love her.

By all accounts, my no-contact from her is perceived as my hatred for her when this is nothing further from the truth. I just cannot engage with someone who doesn’t engage with me in a healthy manner. My mother has always sought to control my life and control me. She has always treated me as her object – not her daughter. Her gross attempts at relating to me have always fallen short and have always been a part of her plan to use me and disparage me.

As a narcissist, she has always been incapable of “real” love, and the times I thought she took a stab at being a loving individual was only a ruse to get what she wanted from me. Yet, here I am conflicted over losing her for good … at the possibility of her impending death. She’s ill, and I’m not even there. I’m nowhere to be found. Most people who know my family consider me to be the prodigal daughter and that maybe I’ll get over this “funk” of bitterness I’m in.

However, as much as I am conflicted by what to do in this situation, there is a flash and thought of relief. She’d no longer be a burden for me to worry about, but even that does not make me bitter. That just makes me ready to be done with dealing with the narcissistic cycle of abuse. I’m not in a funk of bitterness. I have no resentment at all. I just want an end to this narcissistic cycle of abuse.

Yes, this is perhaps shocking for me to say and for you, the reader, to see in print, BUT, it is my truth, and it’s all that I’ve experienced. If anyone reading this is a child of a narcissist parent, you may relate to what I am saying. I don’t love my mother any less because of what has occurred between us, but I am indifferent to her ability to change. I’m indifferent to ever establishing a connection.

It’s not something I do with narcissists again once I go no-contact. I don’t reconnect. The glass is full of their toxic drink, and that’s all I can ever see. I won’t refill it again. Doing so is like drinking a cup of literal bitterness and taking myself through the cycle of abuse again. I don’t see her ever changing, and I’ve given up that hope. I’ve placed her in God’s hands. It’s really up to her to change.

If my mother chooses to remain the same, I will choose to remain no-contact. This will be so even though she has fallen ill and may not have long to live. Unless God changes my heart in this area, I will remain conflicted but ever steadfast in keeping my boundaries against her. Once a narcissist, always a narcissist. It would indeed take a miracle for her to see past her desires to remain the same person. She has to want the change more than I want it for her.

In The Now

Presently, my mother is still the same. Her attempts to hoover me remain thwarted by me. I will not give in. Despite her illness, I will not open my home to her. She is not welcome. I see just from her living with one of my siblings the agony that it brings them to have to constantly deal with her nagging narcissistic behaviors.

My mother is still a manipulator, and I have a very low tolerance for this type of behavior from anyone. For whatever reason, when I see manipulation in anyone, I feel myself wanting to rage. I am diametrically opposed to any and all attempts for someone to control and encage me. Encaging me is all my mother has ever attempted to do to me. She doesn’t want me to be free. She wants to control every aspect of my life, but on a dime, she can drop me just like that and free herself from me when she decides to discard me.

In actuality, there is no conflict when I consider how much I don’t want to be controlled by another adult when I’m an adult too. I am not conflicted in where I stand there. However, I am conflicted when I think about the time lost as well as the time never had … and how wasted a life this has seemed for both of us. But there’s nothing I can do about it, and to those who think I can just make nice and forgive and forget, it’s not even about that.

I’ve forgiven my mother and let go of a lot of things, but that doesn’t mean that I still need to keep her in my life when she refuses to change, when she refuses to respect me, and when she refuses to stop trying to control me. She hasn’t changed, but I have, and I have less tolerance for the behaviors I once put up with. It wasn’t easy for me to walk away from her either. That was the breaking of a trauma bond or soul tie. In fact, I recall waking up one night and crying in agony over the decision to never speak to or see her again. I don’t even know what she looks like as she’s aged now.

I’m not conflicted on where I stand about my boundaries with her; I’m conflicted over a life we could have had if things were different. This is when I realize just how free a person’s will is … when I realize I can’t control them either … and I leave them to be who they are and may always continue to be. This is the love I have for her … that I won’t bother to try to change her because that’s who she wants to be.

I’m conflicted in knowing that the mother I’ve always wanted is not the mother I’ve ever had, and she’s long since been dead to me in that aspect. I’ve cried the tears of losing her long ago. I’ve made my peace.

I guess the actual conflict comes if I don’t cry because she’s really gone, and there’s nothing I can do to bring her back.

I can’t relive lost moments when all I’ve ever been is conflicted.