keepingup Asked May 2019
What do you do with the anger that is left?
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My lifelong narcissistic mother passed. I thought all my problems were over. But I still have this mostly unexpressed anger that she took so many years of my life! I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis ten years ago. I spent ten years making a narcissist happy.
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Just pray... God I cannot handle this anger I give it to you!
Have faith He will take it from you!
Blessings
hgnhgn
If your anger is still unexpressed, two things: one, you can't see clearly what you're angry about and two, it will be doing you a power of no good. That's why I suggest spending time on a visual, artistic expression of how you're feeling; so that you can drag out and literally see what's eating you up.
What does your MS specialist say? Have you mentioned this? - you should.
Use the bat and tell the pillow everything you could never say with each and every wack, let it out and let it go. Do this as often and as much as you need to, it will help you feel better.
Hugs, it is time for you now. Don't give her any more of you then you already have. It's over with her, make this about healing you.
I just started in a local support group. There are a lot of people dealing with family dysfunction. I'm not sure how it's going to turn out, but, I'm optimistic. You might check one out in your area. Everyone got to talk, vent, share and laugh. At least it lets you know that you are not alone.
"I spent ten years making a narcissist happy." I understand the feeling. Except my narc was never happy, never satisfied. I sacrificed childhood and the best years of my adult life trying to appease her. I was duped.....and it doesn't feel good. The negative feelings don't always pass with the parent or the parent's loss of cognition.
Mom is still with us. She has dementia and mostly cannot help what she says or does any more. But I still find myself angry at times for losses that can never be "put right." Loss of innocence. Loss of self, time, and peace of mind. Ruined chances. Ruined relationships. Decades of anxiety and depression.
At times, self-loathing nearly ate me alive. I played right into her hand. As a kid and young adult, I was her enabler, believing everything she said, because moms never lie, right? (sarc). As a child, I couldn't help it. As an adult, I should have got a clue.
Keepingup, don't let your mom rob you from the grave. Whatever time you have stretches out before you. Live it. Resolve to be happy, free from toxic feelings. A life well-lived may be your compensation. (((Hugs)))
I can tell you that grief is different for everyone. Sometimes it is grieving for what we didn’t have. I went to therapy for this at one point and my therapist explained that withholding grief as I did hurt me. I lost a brother that I had a love/hate relationship with.
My mom is 93 and living with us. Like most relationships, we have had ups and downs. More ups than downs. I would never describe her as a narcissist.
In therapy I discovered I bottled up feelings inside and thought I was functioning just fine, and for awhile I was but the therapist said grief is very complex. It comes in waves. There will be triggers and some waves will knock us down. I’ve lost a lot of people in my life. Some tragically.
I wish the very best life has to offer for you in your upcoming days. You will now have the opportunity to build new memories. Feel anger, yes it’s normal, but please don’t get stuck in bitterness or anger. Don’t self abuse. Forgiveness is powerful. Not as much for the other person but for yourself in order to let it go.
If you can go to a grief support group or individual therapy if you don’t feel like sharing. Like I said before, it’s so personal. There is no right or wrong with these types of things.
Take care and many, many hugs.
Dear traumatized --to forgive means to not give the abuser any of your thoughts, forgive = to not give them anymore energy or anything.
Forgive by not giving them attention inside your head, their behavior will be held accountable somewhere somehow, yet, your goal is to feel better, so mentally or verbally, tell the narcissist to f**k off.
Forgive or notgive--forgiving or notgiving your mother, is accomplished by kicking her out of your head. Perhaps by saying, aloud (outloud),"Not today b*tch." So everyone thinks you're insane,, as you laugh at yourself, like the confident psychopath she was. I prefer to say, loudly "not today b*tch," repeatedly so anyone near me starts to dial emergency services 911 here in the states....just kidding...I would guess that repeating "Not today" followed by (Silence of the Lambs quote)"it rubs the lotion on the skin" collectively might be a humorous approach for anyone still being abused by a narcissist. I'm laughing, as I'm writing this, blurred by tears of laughter. Amusing myself, is how I'm forgiving/not-giving, today.
I'm so sorry, I know hard it is to be the primary caregiver to a parent that doesn't appreciate you.
The anger is real. I think we all secretly hope that our parents would express some love, acknowledgement and validation for our efforts. So many daughters give their time, their efforts, their money even to help their parents. Its hard not to relive that all even with their passing.
Please know you are not alone. There are many people who understand. And if you want maybe consider going to grief counselling or joining a support group in the community.
I can't tell you how many times I visited this forum for support and encouragement after my father passed.
I hope you will allow yourself to feel whatever you want and know its only natural and normal after such a long journey with a parent.
Thinking of you.
Again sorry for your loss.
Hugs!!
I took part in a psychodrama group years ago, and this is how it goes. You, the playwright, choose the characters from your problem, then nominate from your little drama group who plays them as actors. Perhaps just you and your mother, standing up in front of your little audience of the rest of the group. Then as you playing yourself, you say what you want to say to your mother – what you usually said, or alternatively what you never said while she was alive. You walk off the ‘stage’, and this speech is repeated by the person who plays you as an actor. You then play your mother. You answer as your mother, the way she would have dismissed it, yelled back, what ever you know she would have done. Then you walk off the stage and your mother’s player repeats the same lines you have just ‘written’, while you stand and watch. You then model how you want to reply, stand back and watch your player follow the lines you have given. Next you stand in for your mother again, and reply the way she would have done.
All this is quicker to do than to describe. You, the playwright, are providing the lines for your mother and for you. You can do it the way you actually did in the past, and you can do it again yelling your guts out and saying the things you wished you had said. Your mother can reply the way she usually did, or you can write the lines for her to break down and apologise for her bad behaviour. And you can watch it all, played to your script by actors playing the parts for you and your mother. If other people in your group get into it, they may want to ‘play it again Sam’ with their own suggestions for how to respond, and that can be useful too.
The recommendations are of course for an expensive session run by a professional, but you may be able to manage it with a group of intelligent friends (who may then want to go on with their own dramas to model – mine were about dealing with an employment situation). It can be very helpful: first you can say all the things you never said (and it is amazing how real it becomes – yes you feel that you are talking to your mother), and second you can watch your players acting out your live dramas, while from outside you can form a different take on it. It is also quite good fun to play around with this.
If you are left with anger that you have never been able to deal with, see if you can find a way to go through the sequence I have just described. Standing up and saying it all is a real help. The most dramatic example I was involved in as an actor (complex family), turned out to be a problem with a parent who was dead! My own ‘drama’ was to model how to handle a living situation, but it works for the past as well.
And if all that seems like rubbish, go back to 1) It never goes away and 2) It fades with time.
Give to others. Give your time, your expertise, your money. Help those who are less fortunate.
Move forward —-don’t trap yourself forever in your sadness from the past.
On the other hand volunteering can be beneficial. One year I had a huge row with my narc father and I was told not to come home for Christmas. Not wanting to sit home with a bottle of wine and turkey meal for one I volunteered with a charity that gives Christmas dinners to the homeless annually. I found it a very positive experience because I witnessed first hand that obnoxious aggressive behaviour is not acceptable. Anyone who behaved aggressively and upset everyone else was told to leave. I had grown up seeing my family tolerate aggressive behaviour from my narc father every Christmas. If he had attended that dinner he would have been thrown out.
OP take time for yourself, get massages, join a painting class, do whatever YOU want for a change. If you're up to it you might find T'ai Chi beneficial. It isn't like yoga and meditation where you have to stay still, with T'ai Chi you are moving but it is a very focused movement.
Perhaps avoid using "could" or "should," since victims of abuse have their decision making capabilities stripped from them. As a survivor, I learned to never doubt my decisions, sine they were made during a different time, under a set of different circumstances. The word "should" caused anger, since should = not going to change. I "should have" or "could have" are the most dangerous, since the circumstances in your life were different during that "should have" or "could have" realm. To rid yourself of anger, understand that you were conned into thinking that the abuse was your fault, which helped distroy your ability to make basic decisions; since narcissistic abusive Asshats, scream at us no matter the decision we make. Evaluating results, concrete results of those decisions helps to negate the screaming for making the decision. Now that she is dead, you'll connect more dots in your memories and will understand why weird things happened. Anger fades, when you have abuse removed from your life. It takes time, focus on the future, and upon learning how to navigate life with M.S. Auto-immune incurables seem to occur within bodies of those who have been abused, by douchebags. Personally whilst in the midst of a narcissistic cesspool, I had a stroke. I'm exiting the anger phase, since now, their douchebaggery has finally faded, they were exercising their narcissistic manipulations while I was hospitalized, and continued through my move into an old farts home, I'm 48...old, yet still cognizant? My counseling degrees are filled with recommended resources found on Amazon: two books, collectively provided more insight than my M.S., and M.Ed. Counseling Psychology degrees (formal education): 1). Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft 2). Emotional Blackmail by Susan Forward.
I'm guessing that -->you spent more than 10 years dealing with psychological abuse? Following other recommendations--> the idea of finding a counselor is excellent, More specifically a trauma counselor, or a counselor familiar with psychological abuse.
God bless him, he simply said 'It's okay.' When we got her refill there were 300 Xanax in two bottles the size of Gummy Vitamins. She cried and told me she loved me for talking the doctor into that many. It still hurts that it's the only I love you that I can ever remember. I'm letting that sucker go asap. Thanks xx
I too suffer from MS. All though my mom didn’t have the same problem as your mom. My mom suffered from a horrible case of Lewis body dementia. It made her very combative and hard to handle. In the end it was all on me and my husband bc my dad was in the hospital suffering from a major illness himself. The day she passed away I tried to give my best friend cpr to bring her back. She was gone. Anyway what I am trying to get at is this. You and I and everyone else who care for our loved ones with whatever illness they NEED to be taken care of too. You need to decompress. You probably would benefit from one on one therapy. That’s what I did for almost 21/2 years. I needed someone that could understand me and what I went through. Someone neutral.
It’s always nice to have a supportive family HOWEVER they can’t understand everything your feeling. You have other problems to tend to as well meaning you ms. So you can’t put the anger your feeling inward it’s not a good idea to do this too your body. Please consider trying to contact your doctor or you’re insurance company to find out how to get a therapist. It will be worth it. You need too get this anger out. If you keep suppressing it it’s only going to make you a mean and angry person. Believe me I know first hand.
Best of luck to you.
This is more true in your case.
Your Mother was a narcissist and if you let her drive your anger still she wins again!
Don't think of the years that are past...think of all the things you can do now and not have to worry about ...
explaining yourself, defending yourself, running errands, denying your own needs mentally, physically and emotionally.
Take your life back and don't let her ruin what is left.
You can write things down and put them into a burn-box and sent flame to them to remove them from your memory too. And you can do it as often as needed.
When my mother passed, leaving me to take care of my father, I went to her grave and talked with her. It helped me immensely to ask her why she never told me the things I would need to know to tend to my dad.
Also, get yourself a good therapist you can build a trusting connection with. Someone who specializes in abuse/trauma. Because that's what your mother put you through.
How did you deal when she was with you?