Dear DC:

You are welcome and thank you for your kindness and grace.

“As you rightly said, injustice is everywhere“- in my first reply to you I said: “There is so much injustice in our world”, not that there is nothing but injustice everywhere. There is some justice here and there. All your life, your mother created what I referred to as Core Injustice in your life, but not all mothers do. In some household there is justice.

“to heal and move forward, would the way be to accept that all of us are flawed (including my mother), and then let go?“-

– True: all of us are flawed.. but some people go out of their way to be repeatedly abusive, month after month, year after year, no regrets, no efforts to correct. There needs to be a distinction between being flawed and being abusive.

To heal and move forward, do let go after you no longer avail yourself to your mother’s abuse. You must not be present with her (talking on the phone, visiting in-person, etc.) In other words, no direct contact with your mother= no abuse.

In my first reply to you, I wrote about injustice: “Much of it can not (be) fixed and made right”- your Core Injustice can be fixed: no direct contact => no abuse=>injustice fixed.

In your most recent post to me, you wrote: “my own mother is a narc or is toxic“- Toxins are harmful substances, and to heal, we need to remove toxins from our lives. It doesn’t make sense to refer to a person as toxic and keep direct contact with said toxin.

“I think she found it difficult to accept that I have become very independent of her”- do you need the acceptance of a “narcissistic and toxic person”, a “self centred, controlling, critical” woman with “little capacity for empathy”, a woman who availed her children to many years of physical and emotional abuse, torture, as you referred to it,  by a man she brought into your lives?

“And it is perhaps her perverse way of drawing me back to her. What she did plunged me into depression“-your depression was a result of the ongoing Core Injustice. To allow “her perverse way” to win is injustice.

“Perhaps within me is an anger – a burning flame – that has never been extinguished“- your anger is a result of the ongoing Core Injustice in your life. Anger is a natural response to abuse and injustice and it burns until justice is restored, if it does.

Many adult children of abusive parents, wanting to heal, insist (because of Guilt) on keeping contact with the abusive parents, figuring they can find a way to not be affected by the ongoing abuse.. it doesn’t work that way. To heal- you must not make yourself available to abuse. For many, many years I tried to heal while keeping contact with my abusive mother. In spite of heavy-duty guilt I finally ended all contact with her. After ending contact I still felt guilty.. until I didn’t anymore. And guess what: justice is restored for me. It feels as if I am born anew every day, feeling alive in a way I did not experience before.. alive without the inner turmoil, the inner torture. It’s a different kind of living.

anita

Dear DC:

You are very welcome and thank you for your kind words, much appreciated!

“Anita, what you have said is all so true. However I find it next to impossible to go no-contact with my mum. Sorry to disappoint“- I am not disappointed.. I did not expect you to go no-contact with your mother: I know from personal experience how difficult it is, even when you really, really want to do it.

“She says that she prays for me every night and hopes that I return to being a Catholic”– I was brought up as one but no longer believe“- maybe you would still believe and be a Catholic if your mother practiced what the bible says, Corinthians 13:4–7: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres“.

“Perhaps she does love me in her own selfish way. Or perhaps I really want to believe that. While there are tiny moments of love or kindness towards me, they are largely swamped by her abuse. Each time she does the nasty on me, I would go no-contact and she would apologise. Although I realise that her apologies are her way of getting me back into her realm. And when I do, she starts being abusive again“-

– she apologizes not because she regrets, but because she wants you back into her realm of abuse. Tiny moments of affection do not neutralize abuse. No amount of affection neutralizes abuse, or makes up for it.

“I think that I will write her messages to show that I still love her.. She is unaware“- why not add the Corinthians 13 quote, above, in boldface. It says that love does not dishonor others… Add a dictionary, so that she can look up some of the words, like .. patience, kindness.. protection.. love.

“She..  has this inflated and false sense of herself“- “Love.. is not proud.. it is not self-seeking“. If she needs a definition of “pride” and “self seeking”- hold a mirror in front of her, so that she can see her reflection.

“Hence I want to be a little compassionate – while protecting myself from her abuse“- I want you to have a little compassion for yourself while protecting yourself from abuse.

“Following on from what you wrote to me, I have been listening to a few videos/podcasts on narcs. They cannot change. They may not be bad people. They just can’t help being the way they are“- abusive parents can’t help being the way they are.. or is that it’s just.. so easy to keep abusing their children (of any age) because no one holds them responsible for it?

“Given my now heightened sense of awareness (because of you!), I have my guard up and will be very calm and unemotional when I speak to her“- this is usually the “solution” of adult children of abusive parents: I will allow her/him to abuse me.. but I will be okay with it.

The rightfully angry part of you (“within me is an anger – a burning flame – that has never been extinguished”) will not be satisfied with a “solution” of such faulty logic. The burning flame within you wants Justice and will be satisfied with nothing less!

There is the good-boy part of you that want to please the elderly abuser. I am speaking for the rightfully angry part of you that .. rightfully wants Justice. I say: be compassionate to her by making sure she has a comfortable home, medical care, access to other people so that she can socialize.. but don’t continue to avail yourself to her abuse in any way, shape or form!

anita

Dear DC:

I didn’t read all of your message but will read tomorrow morning, which is in about 11 hours from now. For now: it broke my heart a bit as I read how she abused you when you were a boy, imagining the little boy that you were, hurt, scared.. maybe confused. I also felt anger at your mother for what she has done to you.. and for what she still does.

Will be back!

anita

Dear DC:

Thank you for your concern and grace, and for your kind words: it makes me feel good to read them. (By the way, I assumed earlier that you were a man, for some reason; now I realize you are a woman).

“It is true that she could abuse us when we were kids as no one held her accountable. We were little and utterly vulnerable. No way to defend ourselves. Therefore easy for her to exploit within the walls of our house. Cane marks were hidden and I used to go to school with elastoplast in several parts of my arms to hide those bruises. She hit us to vent her anger – not to help us be better humans“-

– Be the person to hold her accountable now: not by doing to her what she did to you (abuse, exploit, hit, leave cane marks and bruises), but by not availing yourself to more of her abuse. You can see to it that your mother continues to have a home to live in, food to eat, medical care and socializing opportunities (with people she does not abuse) without you having any direct contact with her: no phone calls, no visits in-person, no letters/ email messages.. nothing.

“She hit us to vent her anger ..Perhaps she did not understand how else to release her own frustration“- she hit you because she had a good feeling when she hit you, same as with my mother. She understood enough to do what felt good to her. Same as having had the affair with the married man: it felt good. She could see, of course, that you were hurt when hit and bruised by her and by that man- but it was not important, in her mind, what you felt.

“I think we continue to care for her – because of a sense of obligation and guilt“- you have no obligation to remain abused by anyone. Guilt belongs to her, it is erroneously with you. Guilt is maintaining your Core Injustice.

“And also, forgiveness? Aren’t we meant to forgive someone?“- only AFTER that someone (1) sincerely acknowledges that they did something wrong (2) expresses sincere regret for having abused you, (3) corrects the wrongdoing and no longer abuses you.. !!! (4) and then.. asks you for forgiveness.

Did she do any of these (1-4)?!

“My 2 siblings (brothers) are looking after my mother now. They are in the same country. My twin brother lives with her and deals with her everyday.  I am the only girl. And the youngest.  Hence, hugely disappointing for my mum that I now live a life independent of her“-

– She doesn’t want you living with her or close to her because she values you as a person, but because she values you as.. something she owns, something she can speak to any way she wants and get away with it. As you deprive her from your physical company, you are depriving her of more frequent opportunities to abuse you.

“It is hard to comprehend how selfish she was as a mother – to abuse her children the way she did, and then to allow a man to further abuse her children”- moving away from pain and toward pleasure is a basic natural motivation of all living things that are able to feel pain and pleasure. Your mother is no exception: she feels distress (pain)=> she hits or verbally abuses=> she feels better (a relief, a satisfaction and/ or joy).

“And I have, in the past, told her what I thought about her abuse and affair with the married man.  I could do this as leaving her – to study and work in another country – has enabled me to look more objectively at our childhood. …at least, called a moderate halt to her abuse, albeit temporarily. I grew!”- congratulations! I hope you keep growing farther and farther away from her.

“The last time I visited her (about 2 years ago), she cooked me a fish knowing that I was allergic to it. She could have killed me. I was sick for a few days. I confronted her on that and she said that she ‘forgot’ although a few days before that, she reminded me of my allergy to that very fish. I never know if she did that accidentally or deliberately. I am not in her head. My twin brother said that she never fed them that fish for years and it was only when I was back that she cooked that particular fish. The evidence points to her deliberately doing that – but maybe it was pure accident. It is utterly confusing Anita. I wonder if you have any thoughts on that?”-

– think of it this way: is it possible for a mother somewhere in our world,  to deliberately make her daughter sick, maybe even dead?

Let’s look at some news headlines: “It seems an unthinkable crime. But after a Cornish woman was found guilty of poisoning her baby girl with a lethal dose of salt, we investigate the chilling rise of the mothers who, instead of nurturing their children, slowly murder them… The girl’s mother was yesterday found guilty at Truro Crown Court of intentionally feeding her over a tablespoon of salt, having googled the safe amount a child her age could consume the day before.” (the sun. co. uk/death by salt trend parents murder, March 2018), another: “Mother confesses to poisoning her children: ..A 27-year-old mother of two who was on the run for almost a week after allegedly killing her two children by putting rat poison in their food handed herself over to police on Saturday, Gauteng police said (enca. com/ south africa/ mother confesses to poisoning her children, May 2017).

So.. some mothers poisoned their children knowingly, on purpose and were convicted of the crime.  Why is it then that YOUR MOTHER is incapable of doing what those mothers did?

As children of any age we can’t think of OUR mothers to be evil. We can think of other people as evil.. but no.. not our mothers! But .. the children murdered by their mothers thought the same about their mothers, they did not think it was possible!

“It is hard to see my mother objectively – so many mixed emotions, early conditioning“, “It is utterly confusing Anita. I wonder if you have any thoughts on that?“- I think that your mother, like mine, used to be a good girl.. long ago, before you came into her life through her body. You never met that good girl- that good girl is gone, and what you have in your life is an bad woman who is willing to poison her daughter so to (1) punish you for becoming as independent as you have become of her, (2) to show your twin brother who is living with her what will happen to him if he dares to move out, and to show your other brother what will happen to him if he dares to leave the country too, like you have done.

anita

Dear DC:

You are very welcome. Your kindness is rare and much appreciated!

“I do find myself making excuses for her inappropriate behaviour – just because… she is my mother. If she were someone’s mother, it would be so much easier to cut through the noise“-

– the noise I know said to me that I am a bad girl/ person for being angry at the woman who hated me. The noise said that I must love the woman who hated me. The noise said that the woman who hated me .. didn’t really hate me, that she loved me after all, that all mothers love their children.. all mothers are Good, and if they hate their children than it must be because their children are Bad.

“No one wants to think ill of their mother, however one needs to confront reality or, in this case, have reality presented to them. This is after decades! So, thank you so much Anita“- you are welcome.

“You have left me so much to ponder and work on. And I am very grateful – for your care, concern and help. Why do you do this Anita? Why do you go into these forums and put in so much effort, time to help people like me?“-

– Because to me, on the other side of my computer screen I can almost see you: you are a real person, flesh and blood, thinking, feeling.. just like me. I know how you feel when you feel hope or sadness..  pain. You are just like me, so when I am helping you- I am helping myself, no difference. In yet other words: you are important, there is no person in the world who is more important than you. You matter, your experience of life matters no less than mine. You are therefore worthy of my effort and time.

“I am curious as there are very few gracious people like you on this planet“- this is so kind of you to say and..  it is true about yourself, isn’t it.

anita

Dear DC:

You are welcome, it’s a pleasure to communicate with.. a fellow gem! I would like to meet you in-person too.. that would be wonderful! In the meantime, post again any time you want, and I will be glad to reply. Warmest regards back to you.

anita

Dear DC:

Here is my email address: (edited)

I will Edit this post and erase the above email address in a few minutes. Copy it (if you receive it on time and let me know if you did so).

anita

• This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by .

You are welcome, DC. I will be away from the computer for a little while.

anita