Dear Cali Chica:

Regarding the first part of your post:

“I was brainwashed into believing that if my mother said something it was true for her and for me”- all children are brainwashed this way, automatically believing what the mother says, that is because our neuropathways are formed while interacting with the mother, the child not being a separate mental entity from the mother. All children then are brainwashed.

“She is omnipresent- center of stage- conductor of the train. She never ends.” Again, this is true to all children, as the child is not a separate mental entity from the mother. When the mother is histrionic, self centered to the extreme, as your mother is, and mine, what happens is that she… makes sure this beginning reality stays this way for the rest of the child’s life (without healing, that is). She remains center stage forevermore.

“Yes my mother is powerful (we give her power)” – no, we didn’t give her power. She had power, automatically and immediately once we, as babies, formed that attachment to her.

“If despite endless firm boundaries and efforts to uphold our own well being, it fails. The only Option is no contact”- those endless firm boundaries and efforts to continue contact with your mother will exhaust you. How much will it take out of you, those “endless .. efforts”- in the context of still having a marriage that needs to be nurtured, maybe having children who will need so much from you, a career that is so demanding… after all, you are not superhuman.

You are on a vacation now. It is easy to form a sentence like this, the one I quoted above. But living it day in and day out with the other stressors of life, that will be… well, not so easy. I agree with your understanding, with sitting with the distress and acting differently. Thing is it will take so much out of you. Your mother is well practiced at what she does. You have less practice at what you intend to do, you are just beginning. She will wear you down. How much will she wear you down, I don’t know.

Regarding the second part of your post: I agree of course, all your efforts did not change your mother’s experience of life nor your sister’s.

Notice this, you are still motivated to improve their experience of life, this time by setting your boundaries. I believe you are determined to do so not only for your own well being, but you are hoping it will help them. A motivation so strong doesn’t die.

All you see now is the people in your life, your mother, your father, your sister, these three you have known for thirty years or so. You don’t see your future children because they are not here yet. He or she will be born with a brain ready to form those many, many neuropathways. As you continue to invest in those in your life who already have powerful neuropathways that fail them, you will be less able to see to it that your child has effective pathways formed. So that he or she will not struggle like you have, like your sister had. Those struggles can be prevented.

See the bigger picture.

anita