Sad story waiting for happy ending.
This was originally a thread post before I learned that there is such a thing as a blog on this forum. Sorry for the long post originally, I had no idea I could just write in here in fact this is my first time in a "forum" so pardon my manners if I have not followed the etiquette very well. :-S

This is an excerpt from a recent affidavit I had to write about my parents.. In brackets are lines I have inserted to give a little more history on our situation. Emotional incest? HPD? I just have no idea.

Meet my mother. If there is any way for progress to be made it's important to be realistic and truthful so here's me doing just that.

4. My first early childhood recollection of my mother’s disturbing behavior is as follows: At a very young age, my mother "S" began an obsessive relationship with Mike D (Mike #1) whom was a married man with a family. While married to my father, "S" would talk to me about Mike D on a regular basis, as though I was a girlfriend her age. I was approximately 6 yrs old at the time. When the love affair with my mother and Mike D went sour, my mother began following him with me in the car. She would pick me up from school, and immediately drive from my elementary school, to the parking lot of the West V Inn located on ---------. The hotel was owned by Mike and his brother E. We would sit in the car while she talked about how "she loved Mike, but he hurt her, and now she wants to see what he's doing, because she knew that he was spreading lies about her to the hotel staff". I recall watching Mike’s red 80's model Cadillac, wondering why my obvious boredom and requests for dinner time were being ignored.

5. Occasionally, my mother would actually go into the hotel with me in tow, to ask the staff where Mike was. I could tell that the hotel staff were uncomfortable with my mother being there. In addition to watching Mike’s car, my mother would tell me in detail that she would go at night to "drive by" Mike's house, for which I was also present for on a few occasions. One of the stories she was particularly proud of included the time when she decided to open a garbage bag from the dumpster at his home, and spread it across his driveway. Her stalking lasted a few years as I can recall, and eventually Mike and his brother E came to our house to confront my mother about her obsessive behavior. With my father and I, Mike, E, and my mother present, an argument ensued and ended with E kicking our pet dog. After this confrontation, my mother continued her obsession but her tone had changed as she began trying to become Mike's savior from his alcohol addiction. She relentlessly sent him information about addiction, and many letters outlining to him that he was going to die. She even began reading the obituaries, and seemed completely consumed (obsessed) with getting a job at the morgue so that she could be the first to know if he died. Shortly after, Mike D died in his sleep from a heart attack and his wife and family demanded my mother stay away from them. This pattern of her trying to “save” people would become increasingly common.

6. After the original Mike D, came her next extra marital lover Mike M. My father also had lovers, but with the exception of one woman named G, whom I met on one occasion, my father did not rub his extra-marital lovers in our face the way my mother would (or even talk about them when we were children), by inviting them to Christmas dinner and by having them interact with us on a daily basis. I remember my brother and I being upset with my parents’ “swinger” lifestyle at a very young age. There was a constant deep sadness felt by my brother and I because my mother and father were yelling and screaming at each other every few days, with bouts of normality in between, when my mother was preoccupied with grooming me for a professional career in music. (At age 16 my mother took me to a restaurant and told me every gory sexual detail about my father's suggestion of joining a swingers club, my mother's disgust, and then my mothers reasoning for her own lovers that followed right until this very day. My mother now shares a residence with Mike M and my father (who is still married to my mom).

7. At a young age, my mother put me into music lessons followed by studio recording sessions, in what would eventually become a (serious) full time hobby for both of us. Like everything else in her life, S became obsessed, this time with securing herself a songwriting career by launching me into the lifestyle of a full time (pop singer) musician. Though I enjoyed this at times, there were many occasions where I felt my mother would go too far and it made me uncomfortable. The older and more independent I became, the more it threatened my and my mother's music relationship which for me was starting to feel unhealthy. Though I loved making music, there was no price for the freedom to follow my other goals and my own dreams in life (seen as a NP trait by my mother). At age 21 and no longer living at home, I had a serious talk with my mother to let her know that our “too close for comfort” working partnership would have to change if I was to remain happy writing music with her. The talk turned into an argument (and though I can not deny that the argument was a heated one, I now hear my mother quoting things that have been twisted into her own interpretation always ending in some mental health evaluation by her). Consequently, from that point on to this very day, my mother has completely abandoned me and has not said a kind word to me since. I am now a 34 year old woman and the argument ensued when I was 21.
(My 20's resulted in a dark and very sad time, my heart still hurting for what should have been an exciting and productive time filled with family support for the dreams I was trying to make a reality for myself. I am still continuously reminded that trying to figure out what career path I was to take in life in my 20's was a self serving and narcissistic disorder because I didn't have my mother's needs in mind.)

8. Though I attempted on numerous occasions to rectify the situation by seeing my mother's many recommended psychologists (8 in total), and by attempting to visit my parents on happy terms by keeping things light and as positive as I could, I have been met with emotional cruelty and unjustified hatred from her. The psychological abuse and her obsession with me became so extreme and frightening that I would regularly change my phone number and address so that my mother and father could not find me. (If I didn't change my phone # I would receive countless text messages at all hours of the night, and if she knew where I lived she would use my mailbox as an outlet for her rage. In the times that she did find me I was harassed with strange packages in and thousands of emails about treatments for a slew of ailments that the 8 psychologists we jointly visited concluded that I did not suffer from. At one point I had received emails stating that because of me, she was going to find a tree to hang herself. (I was completely devastated by this, at first feeling sadness and panic but I also felt very angry that a parent would knowingly inflict this kind of terror on their own child. (Regardless of my mother's behavior I loved her but had no way of communicating without feeling completely violated as each and every therapist was deemed incompetent by my mother shortly after the sessions began). There were times where we would go to therapy on a weekly basis, and after several week we would find conclusions for arguments and even make apologies, amends, celebrating afterwards with a toast of wine or a dinner together somewhere. It never lasted long as my mother would change her mind out of nowhere and start the diagnosing process all over again.

9. I also received graphic packages with oddities in them such as a Barbie doll with a sash on it that read "V(my name) Princess Barbie". That same package came with a binder with a picture of my face plastered on the cover and a "Princess Barbie manual" manifesto written inside, complete with a cartoon drawing done by my mother depicting a bloody crime scene on a desert island with us and people we knew as the characters of her bloody illustrated story. (Herself lying in a bloody pool as the victim and a cartoon drawing of me holding the knife) Among countless packages just like the Barbie one, there have also been recent packages left at the business I now own, left for my employees who were instructed to be given to me while I was away from my office. The package she left for depicted me as the plant from the musical "Little Shop of Horrors", and my mother now calls me by the name of "Audrey" instead of V, with Audrey being the carnivorous plant from the movie..

10. Among the thousands of strange and unsolicited emails I received from S, a few stood out as especially disturbing. I received a few emails from my mother graphically describing my father’s alleged “sex addiction”, which has not been diagnosed by a doctor or proven by any qualified therapist. In the emails, my father was having an online romantic relationship with another woman. The exchange between my father and the other woman consisted of regular everyday chit chat, romantic sentiments, and it was soaked in loneliness and a longing for affection from another human being. Considering the state of my mother and father's marriage I found this to be completely understandable. My mother included photos of my father’s penis for me to see, completely violating my father's privacy by sharing photos that I know my father would not have wanted me to see. I felt it was a disgusting violation of both my father and my boundaries, but I believe my father has a problem waking away from her even if it's to protect his very own sanity.
(More on the emotional incest angle: My mother's intimate details of her affairs when I was a youngster, as well as some of the traits that the other readers have described. IE) Barging into my room against my wishes when I was changing in my teens, making comments about my breasts and growing body, telling me that "sex sells" when I was a very young performing artist (age 13), sewing sexually exploitive clothing for me and taking photos of me when I was 13 and even younger (a very sexy green polkadot tasseled bikini for a child in grade 4) and allowing me to wear makeup to school as early as grade 2 and 3 then defending me when teachers felt it was inappropriate. I always felt exploited by her and though I went along with it (what little girl wouldn't want to wear makeup to school?) I look back now and see how unhealthy it all was. She should have been helping me with homework which is something that never happened though she did like to remind me that I had better do well in music because I was "handicapped" in all scholastic areas. My mother encouraged teachers to help me in school but I do not ever remember her helping me with homework and because the situation at home (and after school) was so inconsistent it was very hard to concentrate. I recall being very aware that my parent's behavior was toxic even at a very young age. Later on I also felt violated by her attempts in my early 20's to marry me off to some religious fanatic she had met (while I had a steady boyfriend). Though I have always made healthy choices in the men I dated before I met my husband, she would try anything to drive them away and didn't even like the polite med student who was my first boyfriend, calling him gay. Every man I dated was labeled with the possibility of being "a #######1" or "#######1" as my mother would put it, or was degraded as a weirdo etc. Continuing with boundary violation, she ended up contacting boyfriends by email to warn them about me. She sent one email to a previous boyfriend telling him that I had someone else on my mind, and that he wasn't going to last long because I belonged with the previous fellow. It was a mess. Every man I had a relationship with in my 20's has moved on, some with families and not even one was on the fence with their sexuality. I remain friends with people from my past and thankfully everyone had a mind of their own and saw right through my mother's attempts at sabatage.

11. Even after all of her abuse, like any child who loves their parent, I tried to make amends by pretending things were "normal" showing up once in a while at their hotel and residence. The resulting visits oscillated between hopeful, ok, and a complete disaster, and I found my mother’s emotions so unpredictable that I was either a villain or an angel in her eyes, depending on the day.

12. During my last (and final) trip to to visit my parents, I brought along my Fiancé "D" for the first time to meet them. Though there were definitely uncomfortable moments, for the most part the trip was passable with everyone getting along relatively okay. I managed to put aside the loud comment made by my mother (at the moment my mother greeted us at the door and before she had been introduced to my fiancé for the first time) about how small my breasts were looking in the coat I was wearing.
A short while after D and I returned home, we received an alarmed phone call from D's parents who live in a different country, a 4 hours drive from my parents. We were informed that my mother and father had showed up unannounced at their home, introducing themselves for the first time. Apparently they had looked up D's parents last name on Google Maps, and had decided to show up at their acreage in the evening unannounced, to warn them of the many psychological disorders that my mother had diagnosed me with. As confirmed with D’s parents, after 3 hours of being talked at, my mother and father in law had to ask them to leave. My mother asked them for their email address and D’s parents declined. Once we were told about the very tasteless visit, I called my mom and dad to simply ask them "why". I was met with yelling, preaching, and belittling on the phone, with a refusal to apologize for frightening D’s parents. After begging my parents on the phone "please do not contact D's parents again", my mother put together one of her famous creepy mail packages and contacted D’s parents once again, via post mail. I am not sure what was sent as D’s parents are now protecting me from having to read or deal with any more abuse and boundary violation from my mother S. Subsequently I was forced to plan my wedding without my parents attending as everyone felt violated.

13. In summary, I believe that both my brother and I have suffered lasting emotional damage from the erratic behavior of our parents. By now we deserve some peace and quiet and some stability that we have found in friends, extended family, and loved ones.

14. There is not a day that goes by that I am not longing for love from my parents. It was not an easy decision to cut off communication with them, but it is a necessity. I would love to have a healthy relationship with them, but I feel that after too many failed attempts, there needs to be closure, unless my mother is able to get an assessment and proper treatment.

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