Mother’s day is a hard one. My Mom is still in the picture, but she’s a covert narcissist.
Mother’s day is a hard one. My Mom is still in the picture, but she’s a covert narcissist. She’s not a tyrannical tyrant, but she is emotionally unavailable most of the time, and she controlled us heavily as kids.
The other day I went to visit her and I gave her a pair of blueberry muffin cozy socks (because she likes blueberries, and she’s constantly complaining her feet are cold.) I asked, “Would you like these?” She flatly said with no emotion, “No.” I was quiet, and then she said, “I already have lots of socks.” I replied, “Okay, I’ll just give them to a friend of mine who will appreciate them, I think.” Then my mom tried to recover, “Oh, I feel so bad! I’ll take them, I just feel so bad! Now I feel bad…. Oh! I like the purse you brought with you today.” 🙄 (Like she was trying to do damage control.) It honestly really hurt how coldly she said “no” to my gift.
Then later on, she goes, “I’m really upset, your Aunt called me the other day to say she’s really worried about you and your ongoing sinus infections. It made me mad. That’s none of her business.” I went on to tell my mom how bad my sinuses have been, and how I am going to go see a specialist to try to get help. Instead of having any empathy, care or compassion,
she immediately started talking about herself!! She went, “I had to see a specialist for my foot, and they want to do surgery, because I have what’s called ________ on the bottom of my feet, and then my trigger finger! You remember my finger? I had to get a cortisone shot.” Not one time during my visit did she express care for my wellbeing, or how my sinuses were (since my Aunt had already informed her).
My mom told me how my youngest brother (26) really likes this girl he works with. She went on, “I’m really worried about this. I’m going to really make it a matter of prayer he doesn’t get with this girl.” (Allllll because she’s “worldly” and goes to a non-denominational church. It’s not who SHE wants him to marry.)
She’s also admitted several times that she prays that none of my brothers will be able to father children, because she wants “generational curses” to die. Interestingly enough, out of my 6 other siblings and I—only one is married. (I’m 37. My oldest sibling is 43, and the youngest is 26.) My two older sisters and I have really wanted to be married and have families of our own—but sometimes I wonder if part of the reason we’re still alone is because of how heavily my Mom sheltered us growing up (into our 20s), and hardly letting us have any outside contact with other people. I have my own place now and live by myself, so I understand everything is MY choice now.
This all only scratches the surface of my reality, but this morning I wished my Mom an obligatory “happy mother’s day” through text, but it was hard for me.