Questions that only my abuser can answer

[Shetookeverythingawaythatday]

And never will…

How can I overcome this ? I’m having therapy and I’m struggling as there are unanswered questions. In the past I had asked my abuser (my mother) and she would feel faint / cry that I’d never let her forget or she would shut herself in her room and refuse to talk to me , other times would threaten me that it was a banned subject.

To this day I feel like I need answers but is this her way of exerting power over me ? How do I deal with this

I would ask your therapist, I’m sure they will have come across this before. I try to believe that most parents are doing their best with what they have and find this helpful but might not help you.

I’m sorry for your experiences and wish you well in your recovery.

It’s just hard to have missing information and things are deliberately withheld but then I suppose I need to think how would having those answers help and would it help because the actions were so horrific that I should think logically there’s nothing that could explain a mother doing those things to her child . Part of me wants to see what she says though is that weird ? I just can’t make sense of it

https://www.tiktok.com/@phd_doc_troyc/video/7420038940016659754

She may not ever answer
She may not even acknowledge the abuse
She may not even acknowledge the harm she's done

You may never receive an answer

I think it was just so severe and things said which were so awful my mind just cannot comprehend it at all I can’t make sense of it and feel like I need answers. I also know that answers won’t change it but it’s like a part of is trying desperately to somehow understand why she acted the way she did

She runs, hides, changes the subject whenever it's asked about from shear embarssment I should think. Do you want her to defend the indefensible? Has she been able to stop doing/saying abusive things to you?

No answer you get from your mother will help you make sense of her abusive behaviours. She cannot explain or justify her behaviour - no abuser can.

Work on acceptance and healing, you need to move forwards rather than trying to make sense of the past.

Not my mother (thankfully) but an ex partner. For ages after I escaped I would scream internally "Why? Why did he abuse me?" Then one day I came across this story.
-
"A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” said the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back!”
“Be logical,” said the scorpion. “If I stung you I’d certainly drown myself.”
“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Climb aboard, then!” But no sooner than they were halfway across the river, the scorpion stung the frog, and they both began to thrash and drown. “Why on earth did you do that?” the frog said morosely. “Now we’re both going to die.”
“I can’t help it,” said the scorpion. “It’s my nature.”
-
Some people take this story as a caution to be wary of danger: what I take from it is, "It's your mother's nature. There is no logical explanation to be found - it's her hideous nature. She is not capable of acting like a decent human being."

I hope that you can find peace x

As PP said, the therapy needs to focus on living with not knowing. I have many unanswered questions myself and (I think) I have made peace with not knowing. Strangely though, when I stopped looking and accepted, some things did become clearer. The distance gives perspective. Work on, not quite letting go - it's always there, but standing back as an onlooker. You will see things differently, perhaps you'll see more. I don't think you'll ever get what you want from your mother, pursuing it may be harming you but therapy could be v useful.

It's a hard pill to swallow, but even as the victim of abuse, you aren't owed anything, you aren't owed answers or explanations.

If you want to move on from it and find peace it's something you have to do for yourself and still approaching your abuser, expecting them to put it right somehow or justify the actions or even acknowledge them at all, shows that you haven't yet processed or accepted that this person behaved this way and it can't be changed. Nor have accepted that it can't be put right. Nor have you accepted that this behaviour, this need for more interaction around the subject and confirmation from your abuser, is actually a symptom in and of itself.

If you aren't already you should go low contact maybe even no contact depending on your relationship now and the extent of the abuse. You need to process this away from her and make peace with the fact it can't be changed or explained, and nothing you did caused it or could have stopped it.

Book helped me heal

It's not you its your family dr sherrie campbell

Also daughtersofnarcissisticmothers.com

You willl never get answers apart from yourself.

Your healing journey will be your answers. You aren't alone...

Also consider going very low contact and taking the reins back.

This is a brilliant story. Sometimes it is just that... no rhyme or reason or logic but its in some people's nature.

You wouldn’t be able to trust her answers anyway. It’s so hard to live with unanswered questions but you have to find a way to accept that you won’t ever know for certain. It must be a thousand times harder when it’s your mother, but with my ex I had a similar feeling and found it helped to sort of assign mental probabilities, and to have faith in my own judgment even without certain knowledge. So for example knowing who he was and how he treated people I’m about 80% sure that an ‘accident’ that he caused wasn’t an accident. And I’ve told some close friends and my partner that. He’s dead so no one will ever know now, but he wouldn’t have admitted to it anyway so no difference really. Part of the dynamic of abuse is making your doubt your own reality and question details, you can only really win by opting out. Trust your judgement of the overall situation and find a way to live with the fact you won’t ever know the truth of every detail.

Hiya,

I think it's a stage that we go through in healing. It is really unfair when there is no redress, no acknowledgment, no authorities know, there is no support and the abuser gets to get away with it Scott free. It's a stage where we say how unfair the whole thing was, and lots of other stuff too probably.

And it IS unfair that they get away with it and never have to stand there and answer to the many things they did and said, one by one, which are true and factual.

For me, I just left that bit unanswered because like you I had to, and I grew other things around it instead. I looked at my coping mechanisms and how easily they cropped up, I looked at my lifestyle, relationships, responses, chips on my shoulder, attitudes, the language I used, whether I was manipulative out of fear of being direct, my career, my music collection - everything.

Now I can look back and see that what I was doing was wriggling free from HER and growing in MYSELF and I slowly left all things to do with the abuse behind me.

So my advice to you OP is to keep on rowing your boat away from the shitty island of abuse and in time you will stop looking back at it all and instead need to look around and forward xxx express how unfair it is that you will never get the answers you deserve and let that energy come out and go away with time.

i think that a very big part of trauma isnt just "what"happened.Its constant void,a missing page of why?
your head continues to seek reason.
The horrible truth is -when its been continued abuse-there is none.Nothing explains her words\actions. Nothing excuses her /words actions.
You were a target but essentially EVERY bit of it was about her. you didnt deserve or entice or merit being mistreated.
thats a hard pill to swallow. Its not YOUR story.its hers.
She acted like that-because she can.simple as that-its how abuse works.
but cos its been a stronghold over your life THAT is really hard to adjust to-pretty much your entire self narrative HAS to stop-and be redirected.
Theres no point in offering "understanding"or attempt to establish her trigger.Just know it was NEVER you. Youve suffered her wrath,but your still doing all the grfting-because theres no accountability from her.
Let it go. know that YOU. are not this.Its so very hard,but focus the compassion on you- you didnt deserve this.