How to stop the anger & guilt?!

So, I have been purposley distancing myself from my Narc mother after taking her on vacation with us for two miserable weeks in August. She lives 6 hours away from us and is now bitching to my siblings that my husband and I are unreliable. Over what? She can't change her AC filter because its in the attic (she is 74) and she is furious that we couldn't drop everything over Labor Day to drive up there so my tall husband could change her filter for her (because it MUST be changed every six months to the day). She's not sorry that she wasn't able to see us. She's just pissed that we're unable to do something for HER and that we're not taking vacation days from school & work to change her damned filter!! She's accusing us of breaking promises she claims we made to help her after my father died in 2005. I am at my wit's end and can't stand the fact that she is trashing us behind our backs. I want to write her a scathing letter because I am so angry. But that won't get me anywhere, will it? I am agitated now and can't focus on work. How EVER does one learn to brush it all aside and ignore it?

You can't stop it. Don't let it eat you up, take your life over. Who's guilt is it anyways?

Sometimes I feel that anger and guilt we feel is not always our own. I have been feeling this very intense sad/painful sensation upon waking up in the morning. It has always been there I think, but lurking deep inside. I think it is pain and grief that I have absorbed from my mother as a child. My narc ex used this pain try to controll me with. He tried convince me that it was me who owned this guilt and anger, therefore I was less superior and objective than him. That I needed rescuing because I was week in his eyes. I remember thinking "whaaaat???????" when he was hammering my brain with the idea of him saving me. I mean I actually know people who are borderline and need constant rescuing, but I think the narc-ex got that from someone else or his own need to be rescued and projected it unto me.

What I know though is when I feel guilt or anger, it is always tinged by this deeper pain that I can only experience in this "semi-lucid" waking state. I do not know if this makes any sense. I think I need to explore this new thing with my therapist.

I just finished reading Understanding the Borderline Mother: Helping Her Children Transcend the Intense, Unpredictable, and Volatile Relationship. I can say that it made me look at things in new light for sure. I recommend it even if your mama is not borderline.

I think that I will own every book that even remotely describes her! Thanks for the tip - I'll buy it. At least when I am reading these books, I at least feel a level of control. I ask this next question not out of anger, but really out of sheer wonderment - why even try to have a relationship with these awful people?? I'd never choose my mother as a friend, that is for sure! I think that biology is way overrated (look at the children physically/sexually/emotionally abused by biological parents. Should those parents have custody simply because of biology? Our society tends to go that way!) Has anyone out there ever moved on to a "successful" relationship with a Narc?

maybe the only difference is that we cannot choose our parents, but we can choose our friends and sexual/romantic companions. I think that being raised by someone who has a personality disorder conditions us, the adult children, see the world differently and establish relationships based on this view. But sometimes these differences get blurred and there is a tendecy to seek out the ###$ up familiar. because it's comfortable. Or hard to "feel" and "trust" healthy relationships because they seem so foreign and unfamiliar. I mean with me I might know logically what is healthy, but I might still be drawn to the unhealthy and hurtful. I have to constantly monitor that.

I think it might be a bit more difficult to have some kind of relationship with a narc parent. The ties run much deeper. But I think it's possible.

With a narc bf/gf/spouse, as much as it is difficult sometimes (they tend to linger in the head much after they leave physically) it might be easier just to have a clear cut separation. Sometimes that is the only way.

How important is it for you to have a sucessful realtionship with your mother? Maybe not so much sucessful, but working? Also, what is the definition of "working" for you?

Oh, also about custody....I know so many parents who should not have kids. I mean, they really do not want them or care about them. They view their children as their extension/nuisance or something to have so you can say you are a sucessful breeder. It is rare to see good parenting, but when I see it, it feels good. I think I would like to have kids somedays, but I am afraid of passing on all that $#%^ I have been given. I think I would be a very mindful and consciencious parent, especially considering some of the awful stuff I see on everyday basis. But it still scares me. Sometimes I think I sould not have kids until I sorted myself out, but then again that might be a long process, until the day I kick the bucket.

Honestly, I don't really like my mother. I probably don't even love her, although I'd have to think long and hard about that. Was I delighted to move away from her house? Yes! Have I ever missed her while away from her? Never. Did I wish as a child that my parents would get divorced so I could live with my dad (I was lucky - my father was a fabulous parent)? Emphatically, Yes! Every now and then, I feel pity for her and that is what probably keeps me involved with her. I also feel such an obligation to my deceased father because without him, I'd be a lost soul and he kind of "dumped" her on me in his final days. Every now and then when she forgets about "self" and gets genuinely amused by something, I say to myself, "She is actually fun right now!" That usually involves a glass of wine on her part. I am a total weenie, though. If I knew that I could cut the line and never have to deal with her again, I'd do it. However, that is not how it works and I'd loathe dealing with crying phones calls and pleading emails. Its all so freaking exhausting! I guess my best "revenge" is raising my daughters in the polar opposite manner and when I see any of her traits in myself, to fight them!

I moved out of my mother's at 16, never ever wanted to come back. It's the best thing I have ever done.

Sometimes I get nostalgic about her, I have some good memories. It is hard to accept that that can exist within such ugliness and awfulness.

Yes, my mother threatens with suicide on regular basis. I have to hold my boundries really hard. When she sees the boundires, she freaks and feels annihilated and then she threatens with self-annihilation. Pretty nice, especially on holidays. I usually have to tell her "I need to go now" on the phone when she starts freaking out. Then I have to kind of resist the urge to call her next week to check how she is holding up. After a particulalry nasty fit, she will not talk to anyone for a month or two. During that time I have learned to live with the idea that she might have killed herself. Not much I can do about it. It might sound hartless, but in reality there is nothing you can do to keep someone from killing themselves, yet you cannot always live in the shadow of it also.

I think you are doing the right thing, raising your daughters very differently from your previous experience. They are lucky to have you!

I used to drag myself home in middle school fully expecting my mother to be dead in the bathroom with blood all over the place. I am sure that neither of my girls have ever had that thought. My mother is in exactly the place that you have described with yours - she is in the midst of a fit. The best thing for my sanity is to step out of it just as you have said you have done when talking to your mother over the phone. Not call her. Not email her. Not send her any kind of email blasting her for trashing me to my siblings. There is no point in subjecting myself to anything. She's done quite enough. Only when I receive a "pleasant" communication will I respond. Do you agree?

This is just like dealing with a freaking toddler having a tantrum![/i]

Well, yeah it is ususally pleasant like nothing has happened. But I am always weary of the next fit. Btw I like the word "fit"and "tantrum". It describes it exactly