Hi joelbear:
How familiar your situation is to me! You are clearly feeling a lot of anguish and my heart goes out to you. What a classic example of "power struggle"! I think you are courageous for taking the steps you have to protect yourself from a crazy-making situation, but it is clear that you still feel confusion, guilt, and ambivalence about what the "right" course of action is regarding your mom.
If I could I'd like to recommend a book I read almost ten years ago that helped me profoundly - The Dance of Anger, by Harriet Lerner, PhD. It's written primarily for women, but anyone of any gender or orientation would benefit from it. Here's a very paraphrased quote:
"... the ability to use anger as a tool for change requires that we gain a deeper understanding and knowledge of how relationships operate.
Thus, we will be looking at the ways in which we betray and sacrifice the self in order to preserve harmony with others ("de-selfing"); we will be exploring the delicate balance between individuality and togetherness in relationships.... the roles and rules that define our lives and serve to elicit our deepest anger while forbidding its expression.... analyzing how relationships get stuck and how they can get unstuck... how close relationships are akin to circular dances, in which the behavior of each partner provokes and maintains the behavior of the other."
btw, there's a chapter devoted to managing / coping with "Anger at our Impossible Mothers"
I was amazed at the insight I gained from this book. She describes control patterns, power struggles, battles of will, manipulative behavior, etc. etc. in just about all kinds of our most intimate relationships, and the effect is has on everyone involved, which is usually anger (!) depression, defeat, despair, and even the decision to simply break off all contact because it's just too debilitating. I really learned how to communicate or at least preserve my sense of "what's really going on here?!" with family members who would stop at nothing to get me to conform to their will.
One time when I was visiting my parents, I had plans to go visit a friend for the night. My mother was having this major fight with my father. She withdrew to her room, and when I went in to tell her "I'm on my way... see you tommorrow at whatever time..." she told me she was having a heart attack. She was lying on the bed, clutching at her chest, gasping for breath.... I lunged at the phone to call 911, but she wouldn't let me. I wanted to get my father in there, but she wouldn't let me. I ended up cancelling my plans, so I could hang out with her in her stupid bedroom, waiting for the "heart attack" to become more pronounced, and she had a captive audience as she described for the kazillionth time how much of a wad-brain my father was, how he'd ruined her life, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, etc.
The things you described about your mother's behavior in the past sound familiar and the only "normal" response to such manipulative extremes is depression and confusion!!
I actually learned how to feel compassion and understanding for certain people in my family even though their behavior was toxic when I learned how to step back and not engage in the dynamics anymore.
There's some kind of weird unwritten rule in families that seems to read "if you don't see things my way, EVEN AT YOUR OWN EXPENSE, I'll do whatever it takes until you relent!" It's weird, but some people can learn to stop this dynamic. Other's can't , and then unfortunately it's time to get away or the price is your own sense of reality.
Anyway. I'm sorry you are in such a difficult situation, and wish you well. Sorry to recommend a self-help book (yawn) but this one does not just describe the problem really well, it gives solid information as to how to change stuff.
lauralisa, who fears mind-control
