Told my mother to fuck off - additional advice needed please

[Nibblingoncrumpets]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to update on the situation as it has had some developments which have been upsetting, and I wanted the wonderful support that I have previously received, again.

Essentially, my son had a birthday and my mother dropped off some gifts from my siblings and her. Left them on the doorstep. No contact made with me (DH was unlucky enough to be leaving exactly as she was arriving and received some victim spiel “leaving some gifts for MY grandson”), cards very much “to MY BELOVED GRANDSON” etc. We kept the gifts as it seemed the least confrontational thing to do, and sent 2 line thank you cards “from our son” to them - to be polite but not have to engage. All very ironic though as her “Beloved grandson” has been in and out of hospital the last 2 months with quite serious medical problems and she is none the wiser as she didn’t want to check in with her daughter living 3 minutes down the road. Add to this that a few village locals have seen me around and mentioned my mother crying to them about being kept away from my son. And unfortunately a mutual acquaintance of ours dropped in a few things she has said eg “I know crumpets had a good childhood because her brothers did”, or “I am so proud of myself I haven’t talked to crumpets in 3 months” or “all my friends agree it’s just awful how she talks to me and I shouldn’t put up with it” etc.

BUT

I am overdue with my second baby. I know that my mother and siblings are bound to be awful and leave some gifts/cards for new baby which do NOT mention me or acknowledge my presence.

Anyway, I feel that boundaries have been crossed. the Toxic Parents book by Susan Forward suggests writing a letter, to just tell my truth to her and express myself. I have drafted such a letter, which I am planning to send when baby is out and presents have been received, along with the presents being returned (or cards - whatever comes up). I am extremely pleased with the letter but I also feel a bit guilty as I know it will upset her/anger her, and it almost makes me wonder if I am exaggerating as I feel so happy now as an adult that I surely can’t care so much about all the things she did to me?

Thank you for any advice in advance. Previous post below:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/3878459-Need-a-hand-hold-finally-told-my-mother-to-FUCK-OFF

Concentrate on your baby now. Not her.

She shouldn’t be in your head now (although I am sure she thinks she should be)

Put the letter aside, have the baby, recover bond with your new family then reconsider the letter later.

@Aussiebean

What would you do if she sends something? Bin? Return? It’s making me anxious that I don’t have a “plan” for that as I stupidly didn’t plan for the birthday and was blindsided

Bin or otherwise dispose of any and all gifts. Such from your mother to you are loaded with obligation and guilt. Gifts should anyway come with ribbons, not strings.

Do not acknowledge any items she sends to you, you must maintain radio silence.

Some of the charity shops near me are opening up again OP. Maybe check the ones near you?

I would ask your DH to intercept any approaches and cards or gifts from her or your siblings.

YOU should not open or unwrap. Instruct him to take directly to a charity shop. They shouldn’t even come in the house - straight to the boot of his car.

The gifts will trigger, preoccupy and consume you.

Assume they are toxic, pollutants - part of her / them that she has managed to invade your home with - so that every time you see or touch it you think of her.

Really be proud of what you have achieved. Keep tapping into the joy of the last 3 months and having her erased from your lives. Feel the power of blocking, rejecting and ejecting anything that comes near.

She ruined your childhood. She has been an abusive and neglectful mother to you and she continues to be that person who will now soil and deplete the bond you have with your babies if you let her in your head. You will have emotional repair to heal the wounds and deficits she left with her abuse and neglect. Put your energies here - she doesn’t get to steal this precious time from you directly or indirectly. Cut off for the flying monkeys and shut down any info about her and her antics - as this will just lodge in your head.

I think you are v v emotional and v v vulnerable on the verge of giving birth. Your hormones are confused as to why your own DM can’t be there for you - but normal rules don’t apply. Keep strong and focused.

I think you are v v emotional and v v vulnerable on the verge of giving birth. Your hormones are confused as to why your own DM can’t be there for you - but normal rules don’t apply. Keep strong and focused

This is exactly it.

Thank you so much for the support x

Also I don’t think it’s a 50/50 split on whether you should send the letter.......and even then I am not sure that anyone has suggested that right now - just before you give birth is a sensible time.

Maybe postpone it for 3-6 months and see how you feel.

If you really want to blast her silence and indifference is a much harder punch than sending the letter at this time.

She should not know that she is front of mind, your priority when you are about to give birth.

My advice would be bin or donate and not acknowledge.

You are the most important person here and her feelings don’t matter.

Even if something arrives and you decide to put it in the back of the cupboard to deal with later, that is totally fine.

At this moment, you concentrate on you and your babies.

I get being blindsided, but it gets easier to the further along you go.

you got this.

To clarify: the letter would Be after I give birth - but very soon after. This is all assuming she would send gifts for new baby, as a response to that.

I’ve drafted it which has been extremely cathartic just by itself. It is making my finger a little itchy though, wanting to final draft and send. But I agree that silence is the most powerful of all!

@Aussiebean

Thanks Aussiebean! I’m sure once baby has arrived and I’m in my loved up new baby bubble it will be less of an issue anyway. I’m just very hormonal and uncomfortable now and it’s clouding my judgement.

It’s an emotional, physical urge to send it. Resist it.

It will hijack those precious finite early love bubble days, weeks, months - you will be thinking about when to send it, has she got it, has she read it, has she told anyone, when will she respond......you will be hyper vigilant and distracted with HER.

Can you move away from her?

Agree you should not send. I did it once and was just left feeling guilty (not justifiably but still).

Block, ignore, ask her to stop sending you things in a one line text then never talk to her again. If she sends you anything don't open the cards and throw them out, send back the gifts or give them away. Have your DH be the post opener/receiver.

Stop allowing her all this power over you! YOU survived, got out and built your own family. You owe her nothing. You are in control now, not her.

If anything comes, don’t open it and get your dh to put it away out of sight.

Give yourself 3 months to decide if you want to look at it or if you want to give yourself another 3 months.

I remember this time well and you are doing great.

@Newlittle

Yes, the random guilt feeling is my concern! Because actually she deserves the polite and calm stuff in the letter, but I still know it will hurt her and I’m not in a position where this is something I really want or need to do. I can’t move. We bought our first house last year and spent a significant amount renovating it. It’s our dream house and it’s perfect - our son is enrolled in school and it would make 0 financial sense/emotional sense to uproot now because my mother is a witch. I will get over bumping into her - much quicker than I would get over leaving this house!

@Aussiebean

Love the 3 month rule

I wouldn't send it. Didn't you send her an email when you decided to stop seeing her?

They say write it down if you find it cathartic then burn it don't they - a bit like a cleansing ritual?

I say concentrate on you and your new arrival on their way and protect yourself. No contact, no notes, no letters. No explanations necessary. And all those people you say she is talking to about you - you would be surprised probably by what they really think. Most people know there are two sides to every story.

Didn't you send her an email when you decided to stop seeing her?

No, it was the end of a fight and I just texted her with a list of shitty stuff she had done and told her to fuck off. It was angry and not well thought out/doesn’t really represent me very well as a person.

Most people know there are two sides to every story

Actually it’s been quite ok because I’ve just been saying to these people “you should know me better than that”, and most of
Them will say something like “yes, you’re a good person/there must be a reason”
And leave it at that. Haven’t had any contact from flying monkeys and frankly my response to that would be that it’s nothing to do with them! Although would be tempted to send them my old
Thread!

All siblings etc blocked anyway

No, it was the end of a fight and I just texted her with a list of shitty stuff she had done and told her to fuck off. It was angry and not well thought out/doesn’t really represent me very well as a person.

Given that you have already done this (well done by the way) - the new, calm, considered letter, although factual and blunt, could be interpreted by her as a sort of climb down / back track?

No, i don’t think it’s a back track
Or climb down. I actually
Think
It’s probably
Much more meaningful
Because it’s calm and measured, but the main message is she is not welcome
In my children’s lives etc.

I don’t know
If you remmeber from
My last thread but my old therapist I spoke to thought it was a good idea to send a calm letter to her. I didn’t want to do this as it was engaging for the sake of it, whereas I felt that this would be in response to the gift giving so is less like I’m just randomly reaching out

But I do see a response at all is what she wants!

crumpets

I hope you no longer see that therapist as that person has familial bias despite the presence of mistreatment. That is never a good thing when it comes to therapists.

A response to such a disordered of thinking person like your mother wants in the reward. She will also try and continue to hoover you back in to her dysfunctional world as such people do not let go of their victims that easily.

And do not send this letter to her under any circumstances. It will be used by her against you with your own self this time providing ready made ammo. Toxic people like nothing more than a fight or the last word and that letter too, no matter how carefully or considerately worded, will be good ammo to her.

I also think you are currently stuck on the guilt bit of FOG.
Do you think she feels guilty for her treatment of you; no she does not. She has never given you any such consideration either from childhood onwards.

What would you have done as a mother if you had received a text like that from your adult child?

Personally I would be devastated and distraught. I would run to my child, beg and plead to have an opportunity to apologise profusely - I would be mortified not knowing how my behaviour had hurt my little girls and would do anything to soothe her pain and hurt.

BUT

She hasn’t done any of this has she .... she has done the opposite - she is allowing you to feel further pain by gossiping and blaming you!

You need to know that she feels justified and entitled to have abused you throughout your childhood.

There’s no coming back from that.

She will see that letter as a “softening” by you.

She will interpret a power shift for her benefit - she will be delighted that she is front of your mind and you have taken all of this time and effort (which is even more time and effort than the text because it is calm, considered etc) to prioritise your time, actions and headspace on HER. It will be such a massive narc reward gift for her that she will be thrilled that you have handed this to her for her to exploit.

She will just work out how to burrow back into your life like a maggot so that she can punish you further.

She needs locking up for what she did to her precious child.

Personally I would be devastated and distraught. I would run to my child, beg and plead to have an opportunity to apologise profusely - I would be mortified not knowing how my behaviour had hurt my little girls and would do anything to soothe her pain and hurt

I completely agree with this. Ar the least you would pop round to their house and ask to discuss over coffee.

But my mother is a child/ she cares about winning and losing and thinks she’s somehow winning by not contacting me. That’s why I’m sad for her, really. It’s not a game I’m playing: I just don’t want her in my life because she’s been nothing but negative and crap and I can’t see any benefit to having her around.

If you had a narcissist for a parent, you lived in a world governed by whim enforced without mercy.

Narcissists have normal, even superior, intellectual development while remaining emotionally and morally immature. Your mother is someone whose emotional development stopped around the age of six. She also completely lacks empathy.

This from halcyon.com explains more:-
"Dealing with them can give you the sense of trying to have a reasonable discussion with a very clever six-year-old -- this is an age when normal children are grandiose and exhibitionistic, when they are very resistant to taking the blame for their own misbehavior, when they understand what the rules are (e.g., that lying, cheating, and stealing are prohibited) but are still trying to wriggle out of accepting those rules for themselves. This is the year, by the way, when children were traditionally thought to reach the age of reason and when first communions (and first confessions) were made.

Having a narcissist for a mother is a lot like living under the supervision of a six-year-old. Narcissists are always pretending, and with a narcissistic mother it's a lot like, "Let's play house. I'll pretend to be the mother and you pretend to be the baby," though, as the baby, you'll be expected to act like a doll (keep smiling, no matter what) and you'll be treated like a doll as an inanimate object, as a toy to be manipulated, dressed and undressed, walked around and have words put in your mouth; something that can be broken but not hurt, something that will be dropped and forgotten when when something more interesting comes along. With narcissists, there's also usually a fair element of "playing doctor," as well of childish sexual curiosity that may find expression in "seductive" behavior towards the child, such as inappropriate touching of the genitals, or it can also come out as "hypochondriacal" worries about the child's health and/or being most interested and attentive when the child is ill (thus teaching the child that the way to get Mother's kind attention is to get sick). Having a sick child can also be a way for the narcissistic mother to get the sympathetic attention of authority figures, such as doctors and teachers".

I have to agree with everyone saying that sending the letter will most likely result in more frustration or pain for you. This next sentence might be the most powerful lesson you will ever learn:- “You can’t actually change your mother, but you can change how you react to her.”

You have stopped reacting in the way you have been conditioned to (so far). Ignoring her and not dancing to her tune will be driving her mad. Not justifying yourself to her lackeys anymore will also put out her fires. If you stop giving her fuel, she cant burn you. Of course any face to face contact would be much harder. I suggest having a list of excuses handy to get out of being out on the spot, or any sudden “medical emergencies” once the baby is born. Be prepared for a false alarm heart attack, so you must be dealing with sick kids or something. She will pull out all stops to get her way.

@AttilaTheMeerkat

Absolutely uncanny, everything in your post.

Right down to being overly attentive and lovely when child is sick. Scary. Thanks for sharing