My mother is not a real person. My mother is fake. A hollow shell of a person, tailoring herself with likenesses and conflicts based on the things she gleans from analyzing you.
I can see it now in everything she does. The way her eyes flutter across my face, reading every micro expression I give off to calculate her next move. The way she picks up mannerisms based on what’s trending in pop culture – sharing minions and her self-loathing gripes on Facebook for pity, lip biting to look cute after Fifty Shades of Grey, laughing with a high pitched “ah-ha!” on the last note to try and act young again. The way she twists the ending to a story two days after she told it the first time so that it can fit into her current propaganda. The way her political views change based on how receptive the other person is to hearing it.
One moment, she’s using feminism in every sentence, telling me she’s a strong woman who worked instead of stayed home with the kids. Asking me to never give up my career for a man. Telling me to fight for my extra 30 cents on the man’s dollar. The next day after I’m all buttered up, she tries to console me after blowing a huge presentation by saying “It’s not your fault. Women are irrational. It’s what we do best. Your boss should realize that.” She’s spewing about how my dad owes her half of the profits from his business if they divorce. She worked hard providing for him.
She’s not real. She’s a walking paper doll, always waiting to see what outfit to put on next. And when she finds the right fit, she dives in head first to chip away at your soul.
At first, she wants sympathy. Everything she does is right, and everyone else wrong. And when she can’t use that excuse to cover up her selfishness and her need to be top dog, she claims “she doesn’t know how” or “never does it right” so that everyone around her caters to her whim without her having to lift so much as a finger.
She’s delusional. Despite being obese, her heart surgery cured her and she is super healthy now. Everything’s fixed. Doesn’t matter that she can’t take 5 steps without wheezing. Doesn’t matter she eats blocks of cheese because she eats it with Triscuits, which are healthy. Doesn’t matter that she has gained weight despite being on supposed diets and cutting back carbs. Doesn’t matter that her portions are twice what they should be and she doesn’t exercise besides two breast strokes in the pool to get onto the floatie. She’s healthy, cured. She’s going to live forever.
She’s probably right because the bad apples usually always live the longest.
From her I learned that everything is a competition. To always compare myself to others, and to only see my self-worth and value based on the things I’ve accomplished, not for who I am. There is no value in bragging about who someone is. She lives through my brother and I. I honestly believe she thinks we are her and through us, our achievements are hers. She’ll brag about anything – me moving to NYC and making it, making tons of money and working on huge brands. Me being 100 pounds. Me standing up for job benefits and fighting for what I thought I was worth instead of taking any ol’ job offer.
She’ll tell these things to people who are confiding their grievances in her – the fact that their son can’t find a job, the fact that their health insurance doesn’t cover the new illness they have, the fact that their daughter isn’t get much traction in the social work market and decided to work at McDonalds instead of using her degree.
She has to be the best. And I fear that there will be no one left in that po-dunk town that will give a rat’s ass when she’s cycled through the limited number of people who will listen.
Everything is superficial, about the image on the surface. I can’t talk too loud or the neighbors will hear about my parents’ separation, even though they can clearly see that my father’s car is not in the driveway for two weeks at a time. She covers up the real problems by busying herself with superficial ones. Easy ones, ones she can get someone else to help her fix. Oh, the house needs to be painted. The gutters need to be unclogged. The basement’s wet again. We need a new refrigerator. She doesn’t do anything major herself but dear god we hear it every time she cooks a meal, does a load of laundry, makes a bed, or scrubs a toilet. She works so hard.
Works so hard on the things that don’t need fixing, or the things that can wait. She doesn’t work on her health, her marriage, her relationship with her children. Those take effort.
When I bring up how much those things are hurting me and my brother, and how they need to be addressed, I can once again see those wheels turning behind her eyes as she latches on to every one of my words, making sure they don’t place the blame on her. As soon as a sentence is worded in her favor, she then speaks and latches onto that detail, that minor detail in the entire problem and steers the conversation away from her faults and places all the blame on my dad. Dad did this to US, she says. I don’t understand why WE have to suffer.
That is not listening. That is not sympathy. That is not empathy. That isn’t hearing me. That is a waste of energy.
How tired do narcissists get, always having to cover their tracks, lie on top of lies, build false realities over and over again, always protecting themselves against the outside world? You know how many times in a day someone attempts to knock, slam, or barricade through my defenses? I can’t imagine holding all of those pieces in place with each attack. Constantly rebuilding. Fuck that.
That’s why I stopped and I am determined to break the cycle.
Submitted July 08, 2016 at 12:22AM by colormeblinded http://ift.tt/29qi6Hl raisedbynarcissists
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