No Happy Mother’s Day

First of all to those of you out there who are good mothers and who have good mothers, I want to wish you a Happy Mother’s Day.

As for me … I hate Mother’s Day. I know that sounds harsh and bitter and angry. But I’m not mincing words. It’s how I feel. I have no reason to celebrate Mother’s Day.   Mother’s Day is a painful reminder for me that I wasn’t able to have children and that I cannot deal with my own mother.  Some of you may have read the post a few weeks ago about being cruel to my mother: http://empath.educatetheusatoday.com/can-cruel-narcissist-mother/

Yes, I do have a mother. We all have a woman who gave birth to us. And I’m glad for all those women who have a loving, friendly relationship with their mothers. I’m not one of those. I can tolerate my mother in doses of about 5 minutes. My mother is narcissistic and as an empath I don’t like the feeling of all the energy being sucked right out of me, which is what she does to me.

I don’t have children. With PCOS I was not able to conceive children. My husband has 3 boys but because of our age difference his sons are more like brothers to me than sons. I would feel weird to have them even consider me a step-mother. I’m more like a sister to them and I like that relationship.

I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact that I will never have a mother I can talk to, one that I can confide in, one that I can go to for answers to life questions. It’s taken a long time to get here. It has been a hard rough journey.

I tried all my life to help her to love me. I did everything I could to try to be the perfect person so she could love me. But no matter how much I did, how perfect I tried to be, I just could never be good enough for her. It’s crippling to a person’s self-worth, because if our own mother can’t love us, if she can’t accept us at the best we can do, how in the world can we expect anyone else to love and accept us?

After my father died I tried so hard to teach her about love and respect. I gathered my siblings and we worked together to try to help her understand what it means to put someone else first once in a while. Most mothers naturally put their children first. It should be instinct. It wasn’t in mine.

I suppose that comes across as selfish and self-centered. And maybe in words it sounds that way. But to live the life would be to understand. I’m not asking to be the center of her whole world. In fact, in my case, that’s exactly what I don’t want. As an engulfing narcissistic mother, mine tried to revolve her life around my siblings and me. She smothered us.

I want a mother who has her own life, who does things on her own. I want a mother who has friends to go out with. I want a mother who I could call for a five minute conversation just to check in and not feel probed for information and fodder for gossip. I want a mother I could go shopping with and not have her suck all my life blood from me in conversation.  I want a mother who gave me room to grow and breathe and learn and live.  I wanted a mother who knew what boundaries were and respected them.  

I would love to do things for that kind of a mother. I would offer to help her and be happy to do so. Instead I have a mother who doesn’t understand or respect boundaries, who feels that I am on this earth to do her bidding. I have a mother who feels it is my duty to adore her just because she gave birth to me. A mother who refused to try to make a social life after my father died and instead insisted that her children be her life. She will say it was self-sacrificing. I call it crazy.

We didn’t need her constant presence. My youngest brother was 12 when my father died. The rest of us were all older. There was no reason she couldn’t work on a social life of her own. There was no reason she couldn’t make a brand new life for herself. She chose not to, despite our encouragement.

I tried. I really did try to help her understand what we needed from her and to show her how to move on with her life. I encouraged her every chance I could to get out and release those apron strings from us. I told her we didn’t need her to control every aspect of our lives. I started to get less tactful about it. She chose to wear blinders to the words. She chose to misunderstand what I was telling her.

A couple of my siblings expressed the opinion that I might feel differently if I had children of my own. Maybe they are right but the fact is that I don’t have children of my own. In time I ended up having to go “no contact”. Ultimately it’s what you do with a narcissist in your life. If you are like me at first you will hope that you can change them, that your narcissist is different from the rest. You hope that you can love them enough and they will love you enough and the change is possible. As time passes that attitude will change. If you’ve met one narcissist, you’ve met them all.  

I know that Mother’s Day is a special day for most people and the majority of women.  To those women I am more than happy to wish a happy Mother’s Day.  I hope the mothers and their offspring have a chance to make many wonderful memories together.  I hold no resentment toward them.  However, I will be among those who find Mother’s Day to be a trigger.  

I know that my mother’s narcissism is a disease she is unaware of.  I realize there is no cure and that she will always be this way.  I’ve given up hope of her ever understanding boundaries and respect and love for other people.  I no longer feel animosity toward her.  I feel sorry for her. I also know that my health requires that I keep her at a safe distance from my sanity and my blood pressure.  

Can we just get the day over with already?