An Introduction...

Where to begin? I think the two most central emotions in my life have been anger and pain. Especially pain. Oh, the stories I could tell detailing all the ways my mother has hurt me! The ways they all hurt me - NM, my stepjerk (SJ) and, the golden child, narcissistic half sis (NHS).

One of my earliest memories of NM involves her handing me a knife and telling me to stab her for 'betraying' her. I think I must have been about 6 or 7 at the time. My crime? Earlier that weekend, I'd told her I didn't want to go to visit my dad so NM told him I was sick and couldn't come. I don't know if I knew about her lie or not but, at some point, my dad called and I told him I wasn't sick. He asked to speak to my mom, they got into a fight and mom hung up on him (as she nearly always did) and proceeded to rage at me while waiting for my dad to come pick me up.

The entire time she was screaming at me, I remember crying and telling her that I loved her, that I didn't want to kill her, that I was sorry. At one point she forced me to take the knife. As soon as she released my hand, I dropped it. Obviously I was half hysterical not to mention totally confused as to why she was raging like this.

My earliest memory of SJ involved the two of us lying on the living room floor. He was trying to teach me how to subtract double numbers, as in 25 - 12 =, that sort of thing. Each time I'd miss one, he'd slap me hard in the back of my head and shout, "NO, you idiot! THINK!! THINK!!!" Naturally, I began to miss more and more because I became upset. The more I missed, the more he yelled and the more he yelled the more I missed. Such a lovely way to learn math! It's little wonder I hate math and it is not one of my strong subjects.

Forward to present time. I am now 33 years old, happily married to a wonderful, loving man and the proud mother of an awesome little 3yo boy. And yet, most days, I still feel like that 6 year old girl, standing in the living room with her NM raging at her and telling her to stab her for 'betraying' her. I still haven't found the courage to make the break from my NM, though I have tried to limit the amount of time I spend with and around her. However, that may soon change.

Back in March, I cut my NHS out of my life for good. It was a long time coming and the entire story of how it happened is long but it was also the beginning of the end for my relationship with NM. Perhaps I'll post the full story in another post but, for now, I'll try to sum it up as best I can, as quickly as I can. Basically, one day back in March, my NM came over to visit. While she was here, she mentioned some rather disturbing behaviors being exhibited by my NHS' stepson, who I'll call "A". From what I was told, "A" (14yo) was frequently caught masturbating right out in the open and, at one point, was supposedly caught trying to teach NHS' other two kids, "B" (7yo) and "C"(5yo), how to do it too.

Now, admittedly, I am NOT an expert in psychology, nor am I an expert in abuse. I DID however, take several psych classes back in college and made A's in all of them, plus I have read extensively on the subject (in addition to my own abuse experiences growing up) so I think I have a bit more experience than the average person, if I may be so bold as to say so. Still, I admit that I am NOT an expert by any means. That being said, I felt what I was told possibly pointed to the fact that the child might have been (or was being) sexually abused. I mentioned that to my NM who agreed with me, as did my MIL who happened to be here at the time as well.

Not one to rush into anything, especially something this serious, I immediately emailed my NHS to tell her what I'd heard and get confirmation. Her exact words to me (which I have saved on my computer as proof) were, "It's all 100% true. He did all of it." Given that confirmation, I expressed my concerns to NHS and told her that I wasn't an expert and thought she and BIL should have "A" taken to a professional who could properly evaluate him.

Rather than thank me for my concern and tell me they'd look into it like a NORMAL family member might, NHS was her usual flippant, rude ass self. She said things like "He ("A") has antisocial personality disorder. We know this for a fact." Apparently, this was supposed to explain "A's" behaviors while at the same time blowing me off. I, not one to be deterred about stuff like this, pressed on. NHS grew increasingly rude on top of backpedaling and trying to claim suddenly that I'd "heard wrong" and "A" hadn't been masturbating but was "only scratching himself".

Long story short, I lost it and sent NHS and BIL a rather "not so nice" letter which prompted NHS to cut me out of her life forever. This was done via BIL who felt the need to send a copy of the email I'd sent to NHS out to the rest of the family along with his own curse word laden message about how none of this was "any of my fucking business" and how the two of them wanted nothing more to do with me, blah blah blah. NM, who just a day or two before had been in total agreement with me, suddenly did a 180 and sided with NHS and BIL. I got a call on my voice mail saying how "disappointed" she was with me and how it was "none of my business", blah de freaking blah.

I don't know why it should have surprised me that NM would take their side and turn on me. After all, she's been doing it my entire life. But surprise me it did. I was caught off guard and very extremely hurt........and angry. It was also a real eye-opener for me though. That NM was willing to risk an innocent child possibly being molested just to keep the peace with NHS and BIL (as well as to hurt me) was just too much for me. I wound up cutting her off for a little over 10 weeks. In late May, I decided to call NM up and try to re-establish a relationship with her. Biggest regret of my life, I think. Since then, it's been one thing after another and it's left me wishing I could go back in time and never have made that call.

NM's most recent offenses have involved her ruining my son's pride in his ability to read a certain book and completely dissing me for the holidays. (Okay, so he can't REALLY read it and has just memorized it. So what?) He came out that day, so proud to show his grandma he could read the book and NM had to shit all over it until his little face fell and his pride was crushed. Why that wasn't enough for me to cut her off forever, I don't know. But I have huge guilt over continuing to speak to her. (I will say that I no longer leave her alone with ds though and have seriously limited our exposure to her.)

As for the holiday dis from NM, for three weeks now she's gone on and on about how she's going to be all alone on the holidays since NHS and I aren't speaking, etc. And I, like the good little daughter of an N I was raised to be, immediately set to trying to soothe her and assured her I'd be there, NHS or not. This past Monday, NM casually mentions over the phone that NHS has decided to host Thanksgiving at HER house this year (clearly so that I couldn't just show up) and that NM will be attending the holiday there. So basically, the message was, "I don't care what you do. Go find your own holiday plans."

Currently, I've grown very tired of playing her games and it's really begun to finally sink in that my NM doesn't love me, never has, never will and will never change. So unless I want to spend the rest of my life catering to her sickness and playing her dysfunctional games, something's got to change.