As it turns out, that’s what a mental breakdown feels like. I don’t know if I’m still having it.. Probably? I have been meaning to write for months but clearly haven’t. I don’t feel like discussing my mental health in depth at the moment. Not today.
Presently I am sitting in my neighbour’s house, alone. I am supposed to be caring for her disabled daughter for a few hours but she isn’t here, and the carer she is with at the moment is chronically late. I find my thoughts driftng a lot but not into any particular subject. I had been fairly emotionally plateaued, until yesterday. A friend has been having trouble with a new love interest, and asked me how to go about introducing herself to his son, as a new part of their life. I remembered that ongoing contention having not seen Ian’s daughter for 3.5years. I don’t even exist to her.
*Ian and I have been dating this long. I met her at the beginning, she was five months old. But have never seen her again. Ian spends time with her every weekend. Although I try inviting him to bring her along to things with my girls too, or meet us somewhere, or anything… He never does. And occasionally he has lied. I don’t understand it and it upsets me very much. So I decided not to think about it anymore, and not to let the relationship progress further, either.
So I was sad. I spiralled into a pretty crappy place, and I didn’t want to go to work because people were there and I wanted to stay home and spend a third unwashed day in my filthy house. I went to work anyway because I’d hate myself if I was ‘that employee’.
Work literally entails sitting, standing, or laying still, in the nude (Life Drawing Model) and while I usually space out during poses, this time I forced myself to think about things. What I was like five years ago compared to now, what has changed, why I haven’t recovered, whether I like myself now and which parts about my outlook on life that I want to be different.
I should have written things down, but I was naked and staying still.
In any case, I finished work feeling like I had my shit a bit more together. But I still got up late today, and napped until it was time to go next door. Fuckit.
I heard back from my dad today. Not that the topic was interesting (the weather) but I had wondered if he had been ignoring me a little bit. I haven’t spoken to my mother since mid January when she sent me this:
“I didn’t realise being a mother had an expiration date, clearly i have passed mine”
-.-
Shortly after, my father calls:
“Your mother isn’t coping very well… Can you just.. Call her and tell her you love her?”
No. It was the same fucking story since forever. The earliest I can remember I was aged four. This manipulative guilt inflicting bullshit game and I’m not participating anymore. I am not responsible for her feelings.
Over the next five months she sent me strange texts that fluctuated between flowery language and presumptuous connections between how she thought I felt as a teen and my current behaviour, there were a few dramatic tragedy worthy installments too.
Meanwhile, I follow a Facebook page called “Narcissistic Parent Answers” with the purpose of getting support for my children when it comes to coping with their father. Increasingly I have seen the link between Narcissism and my mother. In one thread, I replied to a woman struggling with her Mom, saying how mine had baled me up in my room in August (when my brain was breaking) and insisted I told her (again) what my problem was.
My Father managed to see my reply and the fallout was the most dramatic SMS installment yet, followed by a phonecall. I was calm. During this entire episode I have been calm. This dance has been performed many many many times, and this is the first I have opted to sit out and they don’t know what to do. Dad wanted to know if I would call mum and talk to her. No, it’s not going to achieve anything. Will you send her things on Mothers day? No, at the moment I am not feeling like she particularly deserves a reward for her behaviour towards me. Repeatedly I have said I am not bitter, nor am I behaving in spite, and I don’t intend to cause harm. I’m simply not getting caught up in a relationship that harms me, and has proven to harm me continuously in the past.
He doesn’t understand. He won’t and can’t. And that’s not my problem either.
The dramatic of all tragic SMS, by the way, and I giggle slightly, accused me of having a vendetta and she was my conquest. I had won and I was punishing my girls by keeping them from her. And a whole bunch of other agenda I presumably have against her. It didn’t go quite as far as rotting in hell although if she believed in hell it probably would.
Regards, Your Narcissistic Mother.
-SP
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