My Mothers Love……Arsenic, Grain Alcohol and a Straight Razor

It’s no secret that I grew up with a narcissistic mother, and only recently found she might have (no she has) borderline personality disorder.  I think everyone in our family knows but what I think they don’t know is that other than narcissism, she’s also self-absorbed, self-centered and I’m pretty sure she has Munchhausen’s syndrome.  Which is considered a mental illness in where a person repeatedly or deliberately acts if they are sick or has a condition that they really don’t have.  My mother, that evil spawn from hell (I shouldn’t say that my biological grandmother was the kindest person on earth, so I’m at a loss as to why my fucking mother acts the way she does) called to tell me last Tuesday that she’s having yet another surgery.

I’ve counted, since I began keeping count, she’s had over 16 surgeries, and I’m convinced that she didn’t need most of them.  Why, you ask?  Because she’s spent her entire life wanting, craving, demanding attention from anyone who would give it to her.  She is hell bound to be the center of the universe no matter who you are or what position you have in her life.  So she figured out that if she tells everyone she’s sick, she’ll get that attention.  I’m so sick (no pun intended) of it, that I’m ready to disown her, if not for my poor dad.  But my dad is an enabler, so maybe his penance is living with this nightmare of a woman.

I have spent the entirety of my adult life trying so hard NOT to be like her.  I told myself that my kids were going to be told that they are loved, every single day until I die.  That I was going to be as affectionate as possible with them, even if it embarrassed them, at least they’d know what a loving mother was like.  Something my brother and I NEVER got from my parents.  We were never acknowledged when we did something right, or accomplished something good or special in school.  The only attention we did get, was when we did something wrong, and boy that seemed like it was more often than none.  My parent’s never showed us any sort of affection, they never told my brother and I that they loved us, that they were proud of us or that they wished us well in any capacity.  We were not raised that way, so she mentions that my boys are always hugging and kissing me, telling me they love me.  I told her “That’s right, and you know why? Because YOU DIDN’T raise them, I did.”  My parent’s lived by the school of “spare the rod, spoil the child” kind of thinking.  And let me tell you, the rod was something my brother and I were all too familiar with in our childhood.  Or should I say the belt, wooden spoon, plastic or wire hanger, or shoe…….whatever was in her grasp at that particular time.  And my mom seemed to love to punish us, or embarrass us or make us look stupid in front of her, now long gone, friends.

In one instance, I remember being eight years old and going shopping for my First Communion dress.  This was a special occasion in the Catholic faith, and all I though was, I’m going to look like a bride, little did I know this was the only time I was going to look like a bride, we all know how that turned out.  But I digress, on this particular shopping trip, we went to a store that specialized in special occasion dresses.  Just myself, my momster and brother, and I tried on what seemed like dozens of white, frilly, embroidered, lacy dresses.  Then I found one I was happy with, then came time to decide on a veil.  I was more excited about the veil than the dress,  because what little girl doesn’t want to be a bride, in a white flowing dress and a beautiful veil on her head?

We went through a few veils, some which were very plain that were just a white hair comb with the veil attached. But the one that I wanted was a beautiful white veil with lace at the edge and it had a….CROWN of pearls!!!  I thought to myself I’ve hit the jack pot, that was of course until I told my momster that was the one I wanted.  Mind you, it wasn’t a huge crown of pearls, it was a tiny crown, made of synthetic pearls.  But it was beautiful, and because I wanted it, my momster said no.  She said I was going to get the cheapest thing she could afford, and I was devastated because she said this in front of the saleslady.  She gave the lady money, and took the dress and veil with the comb.  She also told the lady that I didn’t deserve to have the veil I wanted because I misbehaved all the time.  I knew this was a lie, my momster lied a lot, she still does and that is part of why I don’t believe her when she says she’s sick.

It looked like this but without the top tier, it was beautiful

She’d lie to my dad about how my brother and I misbehaved, she lied to our doctors about how we weren’t sick, she lied to my aunts about how awful we were to her.  And for the most part, everyone believed her.  That is, until we became adults, then shit started to hit the fan and her web of lies and deceptions began to fall apart.  Back to her having her 17^th surgery, so she called me last week to TELL me, not ask me (God forbid) that she needed me to take her to her surgery on July 31^st and that she had to be there by 6am.  I told her I had to make sure because my boss was presenting the next fiscal year’s budgets for the clinics and she wanted me to be there that week.

That’s when I told her that I had gotten another job within the university, and the first thing out of her mouth?  “How come you didn’t tell me and how much more are you making?”  I told her I didn’t tell her because I knew she’d ask about how much more I was getting.  Because then all she’d say is “Oh, no now you can afford a BIG house so you can take care of me and your father” and you know that shit isn’t going to happen.

I didn’t divulge how much more I got, and told her why.  Then she said “Its your responsibility as our daughter to take care of us in our old age.”  That’s when the Huntress lost it, and I replied “If the sole purpose of you having kids was for us to take care of you in your old age, you would have been better off without having us!” Honestly I’m so tired of her antiquated thoughts about how her children HAVE to take care of their parents in their old age, I think this is more heavily emphasized in the Latin cultures than others.  That’s when I also mentioned that I didn’t believe she “needed” to have this other surgery.  Well that was the sledgehammer that broke the demons back, and she went into a tirade about how I was ungrateful, the worst daughter in the world, how I never listen to her, how she took care of my kids when I was with Lestat.  THAT’s when I threw her shit back at her, saying that I never abandoned my boys for her to take care of.  I’d always worked to support them even when I was living with her and her stupid “This is my house and you live by my rules when you live here” bullshit, even though I was 33 years old.   When I’d give her money from my student loans to pay for the goddamned property taxes.  Of course she says I didn’t, but she’s full of shit because I know how I helped out while living there.  I told her not to martyr herself thinking and saying she did what she really didn’t do.  Then she stopped and asked “What’s a martyr?” and then I hung up on her.

As if this wasn’t enough, she began to text me, and I loathe getting texts from her because she doesn’t know how to spell correctly and uses words out of context.  But her text was just as nasty and vile as her voice, saying again how ungrateful I was even after she “HAD” to take care of me when I got pregnant at 15, how I almost killed her while in labor with me, how she spent so much money on me as a little girl, how all her friends kids all love, adore and take care of them.

By this time I was tired, and simply text her back saying to find someone else to take her to her surgery, and that it wasn’t my fault that I didn’t believe she was sick because, all my life all she’s ever done is cry wolf about her illnesses.  Then we all find out she’s not really sick.  That my brother, I and undoubtedly my dad was tired of her shit, and that she wasn’t the center of the universe.  If her friend’s kids took care of their parents it’s because their mother’s weren’t like ours, demanding, demeaning and just a plain fucking bitch.  Yes, I called my mother a bitch, because no one knows but me what she’s put me through in my lifetime, and she will only tell others her side of the story.  Like she does with my aunts but even they stay away from her now because they see what a lunatic she really is.

I told her I was going to block her from my phone because I don’t need her to aggravate me when she doesn’t get her way.  My mother has never asked, she only demands, she never wishes or hopes only wants.  She’s never been affectionate and now she wants to be hugged and kissed, she wants to be adored because she thinks she “deserves” it, but mostly because her friend’s kids are that way.  I blocked her for my own sanity,  and if that is to disown her and her evil, narcissistic, self-serving ways, I’m okay with that.  My therapist Terri once said to me that when we don’t reconcile with our parent’s it leave us with remorse when they die.  And that ultimately we will wish we had said or done something to set the record straight.  I told her, that some of us only wonder whether or not it will be seen as a relief when that parent dies, and feel guilty over not feeling the remorse.  She nodded her head, wrote notes down in my file and said “Valid Point Huntress, I never thought about it like that.”  There is such a thing as narcissistic mother PTSD, and I’m bound and determined to break the cycle.

I do so for my boys, because I love them more than anything in this life

Thankfully my boys see their grandmother exactly for who she is, they’ve also been at the end of her forked-tongue tirades as well.  I don’t have to explain their grandmother to them, they just say “we understand mom.”  And for that I’m grateful and thankful that my boys are my family that I depend on and love wholeheartedly.

This the Huntress, over and out, remember to stay safe and WEAR YOUR MASK!!