She waited. Patient. Patiently. I’ll wait for you forever, she told him. And so she waited. She waited and waited but still he never came.
She called. Impatient. Impatiently. She called and she called and still he never answered.
She searched. For him. For answers. For hope. And still her hands came up empty.
I am your only hope, he’d told her. I am the one you’ve been waiting for.
And so, she waited. In the dark. Through the dawn. Throughout the day. And still, he never came.
He’d promised to come. Promised to bring her the keys to their new home. The money he owed. He promised to give back the dreams he’d killed. The trust he’d broken. The hopes he’d dashed. Today, he’d promised. Today.
She believed him. She was patient. She had to, believe him. Give him the space and time and support. It was all she could do. She had run out of options. Run out of strength to fight. To make anything else happen.
She waited.
Patient.
Patiently.
And still. He never came.
She started to cry. It had been so long. So long since she could remember a time when fear and shame and self-loathing were not her constant companion.
She prayed. Please, please, somebody make it stop. Somebody come and take away this horror that I am living. Please.
She was patient. Oh so patient.
And still, nothing changed. Nothing ever happened. She stayed locked. Locked up in this hell that was her life. On the outside smiling. On the inside dying.
And nobody could see. Nobody knew the truth.
She was patiently waiting for death to come knocking at her door.
But death was busy. His scythe was slicing through other life-cords. Setting others free to rise up and find their place in that time and plane where all beings unite with the One who lives eternal. That other-world beyond this fearsome world that had become her reality.
She opened her arms to death. Her life-cord remained intact. And she cried.
Please come, she begged. Please come.
But still, he didn’t call.
Her phone remained silent. Her mind screamed in agony. Her body writhed in pain.
Somebody make it stop. Somebody please make it stop.
And all the patience in the world couldn’t awaken her to the truth. Nobody out there could make it stop. Nobody out there could make him go away.
She had to do that. She had to wake up.
And she told herself she couldn’t. She was too frightened. Too weak. Too alone.
Be patient, he said as he held her in the dark. Just a bit longer and then you will see, it was all worth it.
Nothing would ever be worth the terror of his embrace. She knew that. But she couldn’t see it. Feel it. Breathe it. She couldn’t feel. She couldn’t breathe.
She was suffocating beneath the lies. Suffocating in the sea of fear that held her up to the mirror of her shame. She couldn’t see. She was lost in the dark of his embrace.
And so she waited.
And nothing changed except the fear.
The fear engulfed her. The roaring in her head grew louder. She lost all sense of time. Of place. Of being.
She lost.
And fell into the sea of despair that had patiently waited for her to surrender all hope and fall. She fell. She fell and closed her eyes.
Patiently waiting for death to come.
But it never came.
And then, in the dark of despair, the dream of his coming to save her died and she awoke and lost all patience with him.
She lost all patience with his lies, his deceit, his manipulations. She lost all patience with hiding from the truth and found her voice to speak up.
I have run out of patience! She cried. I have no more time for you.
And in her voice she found the courage to speak up. To stand up. To walk away from waiting for him to come and make it all better. For him to sweep his magic wand across the night and raise the dawn. She lost all patience for him and turned her back on waiting.
She turned her back and reached out. Oh God, she cried. Help me.
And He did.
I am here, my child, she heard Him whisper inside her head. She felt the blood flowing in her veins. The warmth of dawn caressing her face. She felt His breath rise and fall within her and she wept. Tears streamed down her face and then she felt a hand upon her brow.
Cry no more, the voice whispered. Cry no more. You are free.
She opened her eyes and saw the wonder of the world around her.
It had been there throughout time. Waiting. Patiently. Waiting for her to open her eyes. To open her ears and heart and mind to the truth within. For her to awaken to the truth of who she was and who she was meant to be. She opened her eyes and her heart beat a wild tattoo of joy upon her breast.
I am free. I am free she whispered to the dawn. And she opened her arms wide and Love flooded in. Love engulfed her. Picked her up and carried her through her fear that what was would be forever more.
Truth is, the voice called out. Truth is. Within you. Always. Always present. Ever patient. Truth is Love and you are your truth. Love yourself. Love your wounded heart. Your battered spirit. Love your beauty and your beast and let yourself surrender and fall, In Love.
And she did.
And Love embraced her.
And she danced forevermore in the arms of Love.
Kathy you post DOES help☺x It’s really usful and there are other areas where this SO applies! I am certainly going to try very hard to conduct myself and communications like that in any (as Oxy says) authentic relationship. This isn’t one.
I read a book called ‘children of the self absorbed’ that helped me too. I have to/ had to face and keep looking at my unrealistic expectations in all relationships” I have to recognize other’s limitations and their expectations of me. However, a large part of it focuses on dealing with interactions with the narcissist…useful tools to have absolutely…but I found myself thinking, I don’t want to be in a position again, or KNOWINGLY put my son in a position again where we have to use them.
Kathy said:’ It’s pointless to argue at this level. She remembers what she remembers and feels what she feels about it. You can’t change that.’
I know☹ the trouble is she conveniently doesn’t remember the things she does to HURT people. Almost immediately. In the face of overwhelming evidence. We are not talking about ’slights’ here; were talking about taking drugs, having your children go out in the street at night calling for help when they find you on the floor in OD beating children with stiletto shoes. Biting them all over their body so they have to hide in the cubicle during school swimming lessons. ’Cleaning’ them intimately with needles. Leaving them in cars over night outside pubs. Discarding them completely because you met a new man then pretending they don’t exist. Throwing them as babies against walls then telling them they imagined it. Dividing to conquer at the expense of the entire family. Telling all and sundry that someone is dangerous and paranoid to pre-diffuse any flack. Undermining. Grinding down” It’s not ’okay’. This is where I get stuck on the blaming☹ Because it is so crazy making to think that she can ‘get away with it all’ and continue swan-like on her merry way with a ‘new face on’.
I am stuck on angry also at the moment even withot contact because I was ‘paralized’ and still so desperate for her affection for so long despite it all:(
Having your abuser ’forget’ that she abused you and still is or would given a window of opportunity is not a communication breakdown. It’s a convenient tool. And works really well for them.
As does calling your victims crazy.
Kathy also said:’You want her to be different. You can’t get that from her, anymore than she can get it from you. She is who she is. And she’s within her rights to tell you that she’s not going to change. It’s not fair for you to ask her to do so.’
It is certainly UNREALISTIC to ask her to do so. ’FAIR’ would be to prosecute her and have her locked up for good.
She does not wish to be ’understood’ like most people. In fact she finds anyone who would try a contemptible moron. She doesn’t need to be understood by the ’plebs’ ”“ i.e. anyone who isn’t HER. Does not need to talk about anything because she has nothing to discuss having been ’a kind and loving perfect person her entire life against all odds’. To be ’understood’ she would have to expose herself and the things that require understanding. The layers and layers of lies and cover-ups” Hell would freeze over first.
A big thing for me is that I am NOT imagining abuse. This is not about my ’perception’, its about cold hard ACTS. FACTS. REAL DAMAGE to REAL people and their lives. And “she will not change”? Okay so this is STILL a dangerous person. Check.
I still have a lot of anger to process attached to that but I know directing it AT her is TOTALLY futile.
I am moving on”.I hope:S
Aaaanyway
Immediately after I asked her to leave my house in July, she offered my daughter a large amount of money and a rent paid flat of her own… which she took”. And is now having her groceries bought for her weekly by the kind beneficent nutter. My PUNISHMENT for not playing the game anymore.
Since then I have had the whole family warned that I am a dangerous scyzofrenic. I had her creeping about sending cards to my friends even ex-boyfriends (and their parents??) who until then were completely ‘insignificant’ to her and then had to deal with them responding by sending her cards ’via me’ (as they would not knowing her address!) a total wind up at Christmas” a flurry of cards to the ED arriving at my door from the people I care about(my ’imaginary’ sister rolled about laughing at the out right patheticness when I told her- it diffused my outrage quite a bit)
The only contact I have had since the above correspondence is a letter I sent informing her, after she tried to deliver PRESENTS to my son on his birthday (she has missed every single one up to now, it used to upset me, but I am SO glad now that she has showed NO INTEREST in him… I aim to keep her influence and chit right out of his life) that I had already asked her to stay away, that she had no reason to come near and that if she ever tried to approach or address my son again I WOULD take legal action. Another wind up ”“ where I look like an unreasonable ”“ ’what kind of MONSTER would deny their child presents from a loving grandparent?’ PHAAAAAARRRRRRP!
THANKYOU ALL SO MUCH for allowing me to ’get this out’ and for your comments.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I have deleted it now and I hope I have learnt the lessons I needed to for good from reading it again.
Louise – your posts always have a mythic fairy tale type quality for me so I hope it’s this link has to go here. I found it tonight on my travels and it struck me with the comparison of fairy tale with ‘non souled’ persons. I know this is a ‘metaphysical’ and sometimes considered kooky take on psychopathy, but the parralels really hit home for me reading it – especially the idea of being under a spell – I said that many times while with him and when I was out said ‘The spell is finally broken’. This excerpt is from a book called Psychic Self Defence by Dion Fortune – I don’t know when it was written, but she lived from 1890 – 1946 – some bio and more reading is available at this site …
http://www.occult-underground.com/fortune.html
The Chapter excerpt from Psychic Self Defence is about two thirds of the way down this page – I couldn’t believe what I was reading – especially when I considered how long ago it was written!
Blueskies – that really sucks what your mother has done and is still doing. I had a relative who did the ex boyfriend thing (even though he had only met him once!) and it just drove me nuts! How could these people have nothing better to do than plan hurts like this? It’s truly sick and disgusting. You deserve much better than what you got. Nobody deserves to be treated in that way – least of all a child who is vulnerable and needs care and protection. The pre emptive strike of telling people we’re nuts is really common and you’re right – very effective. It just totally discredits anything that comes out of our mouths after that point – they must surely have an online club or forum where they swap tips! The similarities are just eerie.
Hope you’re feeling a little better about it now – that really is horrible.
http://montalk.net/opsources.pdf
Blueskies, I had no idea of the history. What a nightmare.
And she is still doing damage.
The dialogue alone didn’t make that clear to me. I wish I’d known before I wrote that response. Of course, you can’t communicate with this harridan. She sounds like a total sociopath.
However the kind of authentic speech I described might actually help you to stay centered and defend yourself in this situation. Dealing with sociopaths, or more particularly dealing with people in our lives who are influenced by sociopaths takes a great deal of emotional restraint. One of their techniques is to try to convince everyone else that we are crazy, as she is doing against you.
Even though this kind of communication expresses our feelings (and it actually feels empowering to do so), it does it in a calm and factual way. To say that you are uncomfortable or disappointed or annoyed or horrified by your mother’s behavior, and that it doesn’t meet your standards for interpersonal respect or honesty, and that you have decided not to participate or collaborate in anything to do with her is all pretty straightforward. And dignified.
It doesn’t unfortunately do anything to address or heal your history with her. She sounds like an absolute monster with not the slightest acknowledgement or repentance for her unforgivable behavior or the damage she’s done. I’m sorry and embarrassed that I even suggested there was a possibly for rapprochement.
There is no “fair” involved when a parent abuses a child. There is a story in my family, on my father’s side, that several sons had to flee Canada into the States, sometime in the 18th century, because they had killed their father. It was told to me by an elderly relative as a bit of family gossip in a tone of some horror. As I grew up in my father’s household, I often remembered it and felt some satisfaction that those boys had dealt some justice and escaped the law, even though I knew I never could do that.
I think the only thing we can do with these people is shut them out of our lives, and make it clear from our behavior that we are not the crazy ones. (Assuming we can, that we can control our fury when their names are mentioned or their influence touches our lives again.)
Hopefully your anger will help you find more and more effective ways of keeping her out of your life. And maybe you’ll eventually accept the fact that your biological mother was incapable of being a mother. And then consider where that leaves you now, as an adult, who still contains that child seeking the approval, support and guidance a mother should have provided.
I sometimes think that this, at base, is what these big healing exercises are about. Recovering something crucial that we missed as children, because we were dealing with parents who were simply incompetent. No matter what we want to say about them in terms of their character, the impact on us was that we didn’t get the parenting we needed. And all this deep anger is about grief for ourselves, because something significant was stolen from us.
Can we get it back? I think we can. I know we can’t change our history, but we can identify the pivotal moments where something happened to us that shut us down in some way. And we can go back in memory and simply change our minds. Decide to not acquiesce to authority. Decide to keep our entitlements to good care, understanding, compassion, encouragement and support, whether or not the people around us understood that we were entitled to better treatment. Confront the monsters in memory, or the weaklings, or the people who were incompetent to manage their own lives and certainly had no resources left over for us, and say I’m not depending on you anymore. I’ll take care of me.
And then go off to choose our own teachers and friends and lovers to provide these things for us. These normal human needs that our parents didn’t met. Maybe we can’t get them met, until we are not longer dependent, until we are free to make our own choices. But then, we really do have the power to get them met, if we believe we deserve that.
As I said, you have every right to be angry. But I believe that this anger is a phase in your progress toward true emotional independence. There is no good reason to be dependent or vulnerable in any way toward your mother, or to take seriously anything she says or does that other people believe. She is, as you and Oxy say so accurately, your egg donor, not the mother of your spirit or your potential. And whatever she says or does that seems to be intended to hurt or diminish you is only more proof of that.
There are a lot of wonderful people in the world who can provide the personal and emotional support you need. Even right here on LoveFraud. And I know that you are doing this now. I don’t mean to tell you what you already know. But sometime it helps to have someone else put words to it.
Again, I apologize for confusing the issue. You have all my support.
Kathy
Oxy, I understand. I feel for you, and totally support you in managing your internal resources. Reading your posts lately, I am repeatedly struck by how collected and courageous you are, and how productive in managing everything you have to manage right now. (I know it may not feel that way to you as you go through the emotional issues, but from this side, you look amazing.)
I know that the fact that your life is at risk probably helps. I think about that old saying by Samuel Johnson, “The prospect of hanging concentrates the mind wonderfully.” But the way you define your life, not just physical survival but emotional freedom, and the way you’re processing through your obstacles, is wonderful to watch.
I think you’re modeling a great lesson for me, and maybe for all of us, about turning away from people who deal pain. Simply refusing to give them space in our lives. (Unless, of course, you’re dealing with an active threat, like your P-son, and you have to invest energy in defending yourself.)
I’m sorry you have to go through all this. I’m grateful for the privilege of watching you do it.
Kathy
Kathleen – please dont apologize – I wasnt clear. I have spoken about the ED in drips and drabs but not very clearly here. Its only recently become ‘clear’ to me.
I appreciate all of you so much for your help and advice. apologies for hijacking the thread.x
I feel like I suddenly coughed up a hiddeous fur ball all over LF. I needed to get it out but, note to self, I am going to try to be more focussed and thoughtful about how I talk about things.x
Hi Blue,
It’s been a long time since I posted….but I try to keep up by reading the articles and posts.
I felt compelled to comment on your communications with the P mom.
My best friend (now deceaced) once told me, “Kim, I think you would be better off, if you trusted people to stay in charactor.” Those were very wise words.
Think of your initial contact with your mom as a last ditch attempt to heal a disfunctional relationship. You had to try.
But if you also see it as confirmation that she will always be the same…..You won’t be dissapointed. Now you make the decision whether you can accept having any relationship with her at all. ( Although it sounds like you’ve already decided that.)
It seems to me that continuing to try to fix the relationship, you hold on to that malignant hope we talk about, setting yourself up for heart-ache.
Another friend told me once that no relationship ever rises above the level of the more disordered….Imagine trying to play scrabble with a first grader….
You get my point. I’m sorry you didn’t get the love and respect you needed and deserved. You can’t get blood out of a turnip. I’m sending you white light.
I like Kathleens advice about getting those needs met elsewhere.
Hi Kim:)x Thank you for your comment:)xx I am re-reading all of them and absorbing it ALL. x
I hope things are good, or getting there for you.x I left for a while too.
No I dont wish to try to get blood out of turnips anymore! I have my niece living with me at the moment (more ED fall out) but she will be gone by the end of the month and I hope to get a little quiet time after that to get steady.
thanks for the white light – I send you loves back.x
Dear Blue,
I too sought and wanted my Egg Donor’s approval and love. I think that is a natural thing for a child to WANT THAT! However, I never got it…nothing I did was “good enough” and I felt that hurt, that “failure” (I thought) on MY part to be “good enough” to have her approval.
It is only recently when I realized the huge capacity he has for PUNISHMENT. I had felt it before, but never to this extent. It was only when she looked me in the EYE and I CAUGHT HER LYING, with this satanic look in her eye of HATE that I realized she not only didn’t love me, she ACTUALLY hated me if she could not control me. If I would not play the family game of “lets PRETEND we are a nice normal family.”
After my son was arrested for murder in January 1992 (for some reasoon I thought it was 91, but found the paperwork) then we moved here to the farm in 1994, and in order for it to be kept a deep dark secret, I actually rented a PO box in the little town 18 miles away where we had lived since 1989 so that the post master here and the rural letter carrier would not know we were receiving letters from PRISON. This was done at my egg donor’s insistence to keep up the pretense of a “nice normal family.”
It was only in late 2006 when we were preparing for him to possibly get parole that she told ANYONE that her grandson was in prison and had been in prison. If some cousin asked about him before that she would say “He lives in Texas and doesn’t get a chance to get home often.” That wasn’t strickly a “lie” but it obviously was DECEPTIVE and not the WHOLE truth.
When the parole hearing came up we had to get letters signed from people in our area who would say that our family was a “good place for him to parole to”—I mostly did this, but we accumulated 18 letters from the local sheriff, who was a family friend, to our minister etc. business people, etc. who even if they had never known P as a child, at least had known us for many many years and knew we were a “nice normal family”—I went along with all of this at that time, and had sent him money etc during the years, visited him, she had visited him, and he had written her and she him.
I haven’t read most of these letters in years, and actually the “time line” of all this stuff has become hazy over the years, but with the medical records copies, and the various physical exams he had for going to solitary for breakin rules, etc. and coordinating them with the letters he sent (denying of course that his behavior was anything but great!) gives me actually almost a “story” of his behavior and manipulations in prison. Plus, gives “the lie” to the letters he wrote me about those same instances.
At first it was very triggering to read through these letters, but now it is giving me a REALITY CHECK on what was REALLY going on with him. The manipulations, the violations of prison rules, and some of them serious, like the cell phone he got caught with, and the knife he got caught with, and a barely readable slip about him being sent to solitary for attacking another inmate (without a weapon).
Yea, he’s in physical pain, he’s had teeth knocked out, lost teeth due to poor dental care (though reading through the medical records, he’s had more dental care than he told me about) and he’s had his shoulder dislocated multiple times in fights, and his wrist and ankle broken, and probably didn’t have the BEST of care, but at the same time, HE put himself in this situation to be injured, no one else. If medical care isn’t optimum in prison, don’t go to prison. DUH!
I saw oon the news the other day where DNA evidence released a man who had been in prison for 35 years on a rape case he did not commit. THAT is the man I have compassion on. I have pity on him. HE was not only “not guilty” but INNOCENT.
And, yea, some of the guards and wardens are psychopathic, I’ve met a few that I would have bet they well deserved that diagnosis. They got off on “persecuting” the families to the best of their abilities when there was visitation, and I could even hear them muttering under their breaths about what trash the families were. But you know, I just don’t have a lot of pity for my P-son that he has P-guards that get off on persecuting him. Whatever they do to him, it isn’t as bad as what he did to that 17 year old girl.
Many times I have thought about tossing these old letters and documents, but I am SO GLAD I DIDN’T and I have proof in them that (A) he sent the Trojan Horse P to rent a house from me (B) he had motive to have me killed and (C) was involved in smuggling thins into the prison that were dangerous and illegal. (D) Has no respect for the law or the rules and prison has not changed or improved him in any way. He is as dangerous now as he was when he went in, maybe more so since I think he now has a PhD in lawbreaking.
He will (according to law) come up for parole at a minimum of every year, and a maximum of every five years until he gets out, but the parole board does NOT ever HAVE to let him out. Realistically, he will get out when his health becomes so bad that they don’t want to pay for the medical care he needs, so at that point they will parole him to a half-way house and then the street to get out from under the expenses for his medical care, and hope he is too sick to commit many more crimes.
But that MAN in prison isn’t my “son” who is a cute little boy who is GONE from this earth. I’ve thrown out any photo of the MAN and kept all the stuff from my dead little “boy” that I can remember with fondness and smiles.
Dear Blueskies,
My thoughts are with you today as you navigate through a very sensitive and difficult time.
Being told at a young age that my Mother was not mentally well – allowed me to process that the things she said and did – were nothing more than the things only she believed to be true. I was able to disassociate and go on through life accepting that she was not well.
I did not have to live with her once my father got custody. So my experience differs greatly from yours. I just wanted to say that I recognized the “loss” of my mother on an emotional level very early on -although she was still living…. I also became aware as an adult that me, my life, my actions, my relationships and the way I led my life was separate from my Moms (as well as things she said and did to others and me – were a reflection of her – not me) and that she was never going to change, be a part of my life unless she got healthy again.
I cant begin to imagine how my life wouldve been affected if I had to rationalize the things she did and said in my everyday life – Im not sure I would have “emotionally” survived.
You reached out Blueskies…. you went out of your comfort zone to take responsibility for the things you are less than proud of and for the things you take great pride in about yourself…. you did a good thing… for YOURSELF and for an attempt to make peace.
If peace was not made, i hope some sense of peace was found for yourself, within, that you did the best you could and now must move on and keep focusing on yourself and your son and any other family member you wish to find peace with -who is mature and healthy enough to do so.
Its painful, but its healing to know you did what felt right for you and what might bring you a little more inner-peace – to know she is a separate entity than you and she does not define you. You make and create your own path in life!
((Hugs))) to you Blueskies. xoxo LTL
blueskies
I’m laughing at the hideous fur ball metaphor.
Make no apology, Cough it up and get it out, that’s what we are here for at times and that alone is so healing.
Be able to vent, describe, make sense, and ultimately separate out from the android soul thieves.
No matter how many times I’ve been thrown against walls no one was ever able to change the way I feel inside about love and life. I stand alone and apart from psychopaths. I hate psychopaths and enjoy hating them. I entertain the type of revenge fantasies that movies are filled with these days. There is no point in me pretending to be “nice” about it, and yeah maybe its a “phase” but lets stay real and true to our feelings around people who dont. keep your wits sharp and recognise evil when you see it.
Blueskies, the anger inside you, is rocket fuel for creating your life, on your terms…celebrate it.