For an extremely short time, I lived with my mother after I returned back to my hometown from living in another state. My stay was mainly to be overnight, and after that, I had planned to stay with my dad in my old room until I found my own residence.
I was in my early twenties – 22 or 23. I had was on the verge of starting my career. It was unfortunate that the job market in the particular city in which I resided was taking a downturn at that time, or I would have never had a reason to return home.
As it was, my parents were pretty much still wanting to control certain aspects of my life. So returning back to my hometown was not a want for me at all, but my hometown was the only place I felt confident that I would get a good paying job aligned with my career at the time.
Needless to say, when I first arrived back to town, I needed a place to stay. Since my parents were somewhat newly divorced, and my father was in the throes of a new romance that had taken him out of town for a few days, my only choice for residency at the time was with my mother.
As it was, my siblings lived back and forth with both my parents, but they were mainly living with my mother at the time. So, I figured I would manage dealing with my mother’s narcissistic ways as long as my siblings were around too. Plus, I really wasn’t keen on staying with my narcissistic father either.
At the that time, I figured staying with my narcissistic mother was choosing the lesser of two ornery people. Nevertheless, my stay with my mother was only to be for a few days, but that ended abruptly in just one night. It turns out that a narcissist never wants to reminisce at all about the past, particularly when the past paints them in a negative light.
For the most part, I hadn’t seen my siblings in nearly two years. So we were catching up and ended up talking about the “remember when” times when our family was an un-divorced unit. It wasn’t as if my siblings and I didn’t include our mother in on the discussion. In fact, she joined in until things about the past came up that made her look less than a saintly mother.
In fact, talking about anything that captured my mother as narcissistic triggered her into a rage, and before we all knew it, she not only threatened to throw us all out of her house, she actually placed a call to 911. She literally told the 911 operator that she needed the police to come to her home to remove an “intruder”. Since my siblings already lived with her, my siblings and I knew that I was deemed as the intruder.
For lack of better words, I was incredulous and dumbfounded. How did a conversation about the past spark such a rage within my mother to call for the police? We weren’t even arguing. We were simply reminiscing about the past! In fact, there was a whole lot of laughter. Yet, somehow my mother incurred a narcissistic injury because some parts of our discussion were unsavory for her, and she unleashed her rage upon us – mainly me.
Needless to say, when the police were dispatched to my mother’s address, my heart was in shambles and fear. I questioned within myself, “How did we even get here? Am I going to be arrested?” I kept thinking that this was no way for me to start out with the possibility of being arrested when I was in pursuit of a professional career.
Once the police arrived, they were inundated with my mother’s complaints that she was being ridiculed and harassed by us [her children]. Talk about confusion! The two police officers stared at each other and then stared at us trying to make sense of it all. The wonder was, “Are you having a dispute, and if so, what is it about?”
So, the officers had my mother start from the beginning to explain what had occurred, but they couldn’t make sense of what she was saying. In fact, my siblings and I couldn’t make sense of what she was saying either. It was like she was talking in circles – one huge narcissistic word salad of craziness.
Then one of the officers looked to me since my mother pointed me out as the culprit. It was then that my brother spoke up to explain what had happened that caused my mother to call them. My brother explained how a trail down memory lane began had made my mother upset, upset about aspects of the details. As far as the officers were concerned, the situation didn’t permit an arrest of anyone, but since my mother wanted me gone, I had no choice but to leave the premises. After all, it was her home, and I didn’t live there.
Thus, my mother had me removed from her home. So I gathered my stuff and got into my car and drove to my father’s home (my original childhood home). It was the only place I could go. Although he wasn’t home, I parked my car in the yard and slept in my car. Then the next day, I checked in to a local hotel and remained there until my dad returned from his trip.
I didn’t see my mother again for a couple of days. When I eventually saw her, she made no excuses to me regarding her actions, and she did not apologize either. In fact, I will never forget the smirk on her face as she looked at me. There was no sense in me questioning her about anything because her smirk told me all that I needed to know.
It was at that point that I realized I’d never be safe with my mother again, and that I needed to tread very carefully with her at all times. I never set foot onto her property unless one of my siblings were around, or I’d stay in my car if I really needed to speak to her. Otherwise, I’d eventually taper off visiting my mother altogether until I finally made the decision to go no-contact for good.
My Voice Unchained 