Corona wrote:Mercy Me,
Crying from your story.
{{{Tight hug}}} for you my friend.
You are not alone.
I can relate to this.
My arms know the nails too.
The only consolation I see, is the beauty of us (all) finding each other.
And the strength to have NC.
Flick, like a paper cup in the wind, NC.
Another hug,
Corona
Awww, Corona. You put tears in my eyes too. :)
I can't be NC yet -- NM has developed a legitimate health issue that may resolve very quickly (think Teddy Kennedy) -- and the decision I have made for right now is that I will stay until I can't. I have been working all summer on going NC, and then this came up, and I am just stuck. Last night, before I posted, her "best friend" (who is just as wickedly covert N as she is; they just swap victim/perpetrator roles from time to time) called me to DEMAND that I call NM's brothers and their families and inform them of her diagnosis, even though that diagnosis has not yet been confirmed, and rob my mother of her right and privilege to make those disclosures when and how she chooses -- and when I put my foot down, she pulled her mask all the way off, told me off (well, sorta, it's not like she could get a word in edgewise :) and then called NM in the hospital to bully her directly, making it abundantly clear that she cares less about NM than I do about my socks.
NM is dying. I mean, legitimately so. And I don't love her. I don't even like her. But these are the people with whom she has surrounded herself, people just like her. I am watching her call her abusers her friends, and mistake controlling, dominating behavior for care and concern on a regular basis. They're the only ones left who will have anything to do with her. Frankly, that's fine too, if that's what gets her off -- and in a very sick way, I suspect it does. But these people -- for all their preachifying about "what's best for NM" -- couldn't be bothered to sit with her in the hospital for more than five minutes, and I didn't expect them to do that much. They made a pity visit yesterday after they happened to have some errands in the same neighborhood, and somehow tossing NM that bone of a visit gave this N "best friend" the right to try to wrest control of NM's most intimate decisions from her. NM is still every bit N, and still tries to wound me on a regular basis. Part of the current situation has arisen because NM herself has been slandering me to a ridiculous degree to them! But I cannot and will not throw her to these wolves if I can help it.
It may be that I am unable to see this through; I know this. If so I have emergency places I can go, though no money and no job once I get there. I am aware that I may have to just up and run. But for the moment, I am here. And remembering all manner of stuff, finally, from my childhood. Whether I am on this board or not, triggered or not, most days I have pictures running through my head of things I repressed for decades, like the fingernail thing above. I have an uncle that, amazingly enough, knows what she is. This is the same uncle I haven't talked with in 25 years, because NM always characterized him as selfish and evil, and I always assumed (until recently) that it was true. Now I assume nothing, and consequently all the skeletons are tumbling out of the cupboards, some of them landing squarely on my head. :)
So, even though you didn't know it, your little post meant all the world to me. So so true. Thank you so much.
{{{{{{{{{{{ Corona }}}}}}}}}}}}
"Pete, it's a fool looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart." -- Ulysses Everett McGill, O Brother, Where Art Thou