I Feel Proud

I have something about myself that I just discovered that is giving me a sense of pride.  Someone gave us a treat of moose steaks.  Now this is a rare treat.  We can't hunt for moose as easily as they did in the pioneer days, we have to put our names in a draw and hope you get to get one.  Then go out and try to shoot one, another chance you won't get it.  So having these couple of pieces is definitely rare.

Well, to get on with what I'm proud of, I noticed how everyone is very fond of moose around here, that is, they enjoy it regardless of it being the toughest meat ever.  I knew this and I knew how to cook it so that it is so good, the only problem is there is never enough.  That good.

I discovered how to do this by reading old books of the pioneer days, such as Little House on the Prairie, and other books, I used to read a lot of them in my early twenties.  My favorite was a book written by a pioneer woman who lost her husband in a wagon turnover, and she was left pregnant and alone.  From there the town married her to a widower with a little girl of the age of three.  She knew nothing of children and suddenly she was the mother of a three year old.  She did not know her new husband at all.  And she was barely able to grieve the loss of  her husband.  The town thought it was proper for her to be married, since she was pregnant, and this way she would be provided for.  But she did not know him at all.

The day they got married, he took off for a few weeks to work, and she was left alone with the child. When he got back, she still did not know him.  I don't remember much more of the story, and I don't remember the title of the book.  I would often read stories like this and it fascinated me.

Well, from one of them, don't know which, I learned how to make moose meat perfect without spoiling the taste of the moose.  I just fry them up all the way.  This is what people usually do, and proceed to cut the pieces up very small and then settle down to the long act of chewing.  Now, lots of the people from my books lived on wild game lots.  It was a way of survival, for farming was tricky and living was hard.  With hunting, they did not have to bother with the lottery of winning a chance to hunt.  They just went out and hunted when need be.  They were responsible for the most part.

So after I fry them up in the pan really well, I make gravy from what is left in the pan.  Then I put this in the oven to "stew" for a while.  Usually an hour or two.  The only problem is that there is never enough.

I know how to cook a lot of things from reading those books.  I know how to bake a pie over an open fire too.  Its weird, for my mother never taught me anything.  I was left to fend for myself at an early age.  It is only by chance I developed a love of old books.

What's Next?

Today I decided to make some soup out of the leftovers in the fridge.  Two kinds, I have some roast leftover and some chicken.  I desperately want to use up the celery I have in the fridge that was 4 dollars.  Since when was celery 4 dollars?  But we needed some one day for a macaroni salad, so I still have lots.

I get a little confused, this is a daunting task, and my current issue is this quilting I'm working on.  I was afraid that I had too little to do for the coming week, and I wanted to make some things, not sure what.  But to tell you the truth, I have this whole installment on a queen size quilt to work on plus the stained glass quilt I'm working on.  I'll have to show you the stained glass quilt I'm making, its gorgeous, when I'm done.  Still I feel like I don't have enough quilting going on.

We have our meeting tomorrow night where we decide on what we are making for the upcoming month of March.  I'm excited to find out what we are going to be making, for I feel like I don't have enough to do and need some more.  I don't know where this feeling is coming from.  As I sit here typing talking about the soup I'm going to be making, and haven't started yet.  And I don't have enough quilting to do?

Makes no sense.  You see it is these feelings I have to deal with constantly.  I always feel like something is wrong.  When DH has his days off, its difficult for me to get things done.  He's off right now clearing the road and that is why I have time to write.

Oh and I'm going to be making meatballs too.  Lots of meatballs.  Still I don't have enough to do. Even though I'm feeling very overwhelmed.  So I feel guilty about writing when I have so much, but it is important, very important for me to write.  Especially right now and share and try to explore why I feel the way I do.

I feel frustrated for I haven't gone to see my sister yet on getting the family pictures.  And I am terrified of getting the phonecall from my aunt telling me that she has paid the bills and the rest of the installment on mother's life insurance is ready for me to pick up.  Lots of little vulnerable things to do, and although I do believe in vulnerability, I don't believe vulnerability works with these people.

And my aunt's husband seems to have an explosive temper.  He is an Irishman straight from Tipperary, well, you can understand my feelings here.  So I'm glad I still have this bad cold and can't venture too far as not to expose anyone to germs.  Although, that is not my authentic reasons for not doing anything.  Authenticity goes out the window for my family, no it is dangerous actually.

To tell the truth, I am not interested in continuing a relationship with any members of my family. They all treat me with disrespect, and cross my  boundaries.  You see, my sister has said and did horrible things to me, but she will not take that into consideration, when she berates me for telling her to get lost when I met her last.

It is a very painful place to be in.  Oh, and I am doing laundry too.  Ok, now that mother is gone, I am still the child that is spoiled rotten.  If you read my older writings, you will see how the game was played, how mother spoiled me and left herself deprived.  She played the martyr, and I was to feed that even when I was very little.  They still see me that way.  It hurts to even think about any contact with any members of my family.

So they will cross any and all boundaries I will have, and because of that I can't bring DH with me, he won't understand.  So I have to go alone.  Can't even bring any of my kids either, they won't understand either.  This "family" will make everyone believe I was a spoiled brat, and that I want everything.  I think this is why mother kept me in the will.

When a Narc Parent Dies

I know that it might be easy to feel sorry for my mother.  Afterall, the woman died alone, while destroying her apartment.

I don't know if it is some kind of dream I had last night or something, but I felt a little correction going on in my heart.

Mother may have went to hell, tortured and demons bludgeoning her.  She might have spent the last few weeks like that.  But I'll bet you a million bucks, that even after all that, if she were to come back to earth, she would forget that and be back to tormenting and screeching, and hurting everyone that crosses her path.  No time in hell would cure mother.  It would not change her.

I write a lot on emotions.  It stands to reason as I am the engulfed daughter of a narc, and it was my emotions that were molested.  I spend a great deal of my time, just feeling, to see where I am at.  If my behaviours don't line up well, I see what is going on, I just don't let it go.

Some of my emotions are very programmed.  If I feel those and see where they are at, I notice they are not real emotions, just ones I'm "supposed" to feel.  I notice I feel very low about myself during those times.  I'm supposed to feel sorry for mother, that's just normal.  Of course then maybe its just guilt I feel, very programmed guilt.  I feel bad for not feeling guilty.

Now, I know the time is long past of my no contact.  Nature has taken care of that one for me.  I will be no contact forever now.  So everything feels so strange.  Also a lot of the things I depend upon, came into question.

I depend a lot on a relationship internet site.  Something happened there that really broke me.  One woman wrote publicly to our leader, how she has followed the program, and believes it is wrong, that men do prefer strong women, and that we shouldn't dumb ourselves down for men.  She said that she tried doing this and its not working.

So without any thinking on my part, I started to feel the intense emotions that this woman was feeling.  I felt it too, that I was not going to dumb myself down for men.  I had to think on that one for a bit.  I got stuck.

But I personally never read on that site that we are to dumb ourselves down for men.  That was her interpretation.  But I felt that feeling and went along with that feeling.  Then I started to think of where she might have gotten this.  It is very juvenile of her to say the least.  You see, we live in a society where the expectation is to be smart and beautiful and strong.  This brings you adoration and love.  So the story goes, but it never brings you true love.  We want to be loved for being smart.  Ok, I get that, but it is a lot of pressure to live with don't you think?  And the truth of the matter is that we are not always smart, and beautiful and lovely.  We aren't.  We can't hold true to that at all times, its like this false self, that narcs have.  Me, and other people can be pretty stupid at times.  I might have done something smart at one time, but I just did something stupid, so what am I?  So we need to see beyond that, where we know we want to be loved for love itself, not over anything we do.

 Also too, it is taught, that crossing someone's boundaries is another thing.  We are not to blow ourselves out of proportion in order to look good, to please, to try to add value, to please, it is not in keeping with the teachings.  This is all explained very well, right throughout the site.  I worry about what I am getting at here, do you know what I'm getting at?  Be smart, be strong, there is nothing wrong with it.

How you interpret things, might not be as they actually are.

I'll give you another example.  My son and I were recently talking about mother.  He told me that I should have tried to understand her, that she might just need some help.  He then went on to say that we are all just a step away from being murderers.

Oh really?  I said to him.  I told him that I am not a step away from being a murderer, and in our society that is what people are telling eachother, that we are all a step away from being a murderer.

Its disturbing to see that people don't want to try to understand anything anymore.  They don't want to think for themselves, we have all become pod people.  I talked to my son about that, and he eventually got the idea, that we are not all murderers at heart.  He never felt like one, but he heard that somewhere, I had to tell him to think for himself.

Even in churches, they will berate you on bad deeds, and sin, however, I believe that it is taught very well in the bible, that the act of sin is not the sin, it is the heart.  Ok, the act of sin is sin, but it is not by our actions that we correct that sin, we correct them from the heart.  Read the book of Romans during a bible study and see how the people squirm.  I believe that book requires us to empty out our heads and let our hearts understand.

I never felt our relationship site leader was about dumbing ourselves down to men.  I never got that.  I can see where someone else might make that interpretation though, given what we have in society.

So its hard to talk badly about a deceased parent. It feels wrong, I feel horrible.  But yet I want to, and I seethe with these conflicting thoughts over and over and I can't seem to find my way out.  Its as if by dying mother must have redeemed herself. When she died, she needs to be honored.  But to me that would be totally fake.

Its not where I am with mother.  She has done horrible things, and no amount of dying on her part will change that.  I am not going to wake up tomorrow without the pain of narcissistic upbringing, I'm not.  This goes on.  What we struggle with on a daily basis is the result of that.  Do I love mother? Can I at least appreciate her leaving me in her will?

I can tell you what you think you want to hear, but in reality, I can't change the horrible past she inflicted on me.  It affects my future.  I will continue to have to sift through the painful emotions, its as if her dying made things worse for me.  She has made herself into the ultimate martyr.  Forever, she is the alone woman who spent her last moments dying in her apartment trashing the place.  This is the truth about who she was.  How could someone end the last moments like that?  I think as ACONs that we never said that narcs don't have feelings, just that they have feelings just for themselves.  And primarily, that is what mother had, and was doing and feeling.

Overall, I do feel a sense of regret in my no contact.  It was taken right up till her death.  It was necessary, and my life would have been horrible if I didn't go NC, but still the feeling lingers.  With passage of time, I'm sure I'll get to the point that this was necessary, not only for me, but for removing mother from supply.  So for her sake it was good.

Still the struggle goes on.  It is a trick of the mind.  We think, we actually make up things that we want to see,  but they don't really exist.  If mother were to come back now, she would not have any regrets, tell me she was sorry, she would be right back doing the same evil stuff she has always done.

As far as the money in her life insurance goes, well, mother had to leave it somewhere.  She couldn't take it with her.  Why did she have extra after the burial?  Why would she make sure that we had this extra?  I don't know.  But I am surely not going to jump to the conclusion that it is because she loved me afterall.  

How do you interpret love?

How do you interpret real compassion?

How do you interpret reality?

Interpreting reality is very important if you don't want to just go with the masses.  I like volunteer work for it feeds my soul, it meets my needs, and brings value to me.  If I focus on being self sacrificing then I'm not really doing it for real, am I?  Think about that for a moment.  And this whole thing in churches, is that we are to "die to self", kinda throws a kink in the idea that God wanted people, not robots.  Lots of things I think about.  Things I'm not supposed to think about.

Mother Rampaged her Apartment

I think this is the worst cold I ever had.  I think it must be like cholera, or typhus or plague, I've been just down for the count.  DH has been sick too, he took the bereavement leave from work just to recover.  Bereavement leave for mother's death.  He said he wouldn't have, but he's so sick, we both are.

Yes, he's been home, off on "bereavement leave".  This means that mother is still making my life miserable.  lol Of course I'm just kidding.

I am taking cold medication, and I swear I am getting high from it.  This dopey feeling lasts for hours, I've been talking in circles about little things, but its either dopey or feel like sheeet.

On the bright side we did get a new water system installed, for we got scammed from the last company.  Would you believe we have been trying to get good water here for years and all we run into is scammers?  Unfortunately, it is kinda our fault really, we did not want to pay what was needing to be paid.  He tried to get it cheaper, and nothing worked.  We ended up with a pH of 0, almost poisonous, so we got a real water company in.  Water is good now, water feels good, I got to see what stainless steel sinks actually look like without being constantly covered in sludge.  Had to pay the real price though, but it was a learning lesson.

So back to mother.  I was asked what her place looked like.  Well, she decorated from yard sales, and had no taste for color schemes, couldn't decorate, but don't tell her that, not unless you want to get permanently emotionally scarred for life.

But she kept things clean and orderly.  Washed dishes after every meal.  Made the bed by pulling off all the covers right down to the bottom sheet, and put it all back together.  At the end she lived in an apartment.  She did her laundry at the laundromat for she hated to use the laundry room in her building, for she didn't like who would be there.  She never liked anyone really.

She owned too many towels, too many blankets, too much of everything.  You could almost feel sorry for her, you would think this was caused by a life of deprivation.  It very well could be.  She had no education, and no she would not even care which fork to use at dinner or for what course.

Her mannerisms were masculine.  She did not approve of frou frou, would make it wrong.  She made everything else that she wasn't wrong.  Not just wrong, she would hate you for it.  I was afraid to dress up around her.  I would have to be down and out to get her approval.  But then again, I would not get her approval, for she would have just said that it was cheap.  I remember buying 10 dollar curtains and she said they were too cheap.

Everything she did was right.  She scrubbed her floors down on her hands and knees and then put down very frayed mats.  She never seemed to notice the frays, just that they were clean frays.  She would not try to tuck them under, just leave them stick out.  Btw, don't let mother catch you using anything else but Lestoil to clean your floors.  Don't you dare!  But this was her least offensive quirk, the rest are just deadly.  Sunlight to do the dishes, Tide for the laundry, etc.

No, nothing fancy.  Pink jogging pants and blue shirt, she was off to the grocery store.  She actually left the price tags on her running shoes that she wore, just in case she wanted to bring them back. Actually, lots of her stuff had the price tags on them, just in case she wanted to bring them back and get her money back.

It came as a surprise that my aunt told me that mother tore her apartment up badly before she died. The police put up the ropes and stuff and ran a full investigation before letting anyone in.  The place was in shambles.  Everything was torn up, thrown, broken.  Apparently, there won't be any of mother's possessions for us to take for there is nothing left.

She died right next to the door to the balcony.  They figured she was heading that way, and it looks like she bumped her head.  They think she was dead for 3 days before they found her.

Here's what I think.  I think she was going through a narcissistic crisis.  This is where they are void of any supply for a long time, and well, they just go crazy.  I remember reading about that.  I heard that they can practically turn into a vampire.  I don't know if she was trying to get the other tenants to come over and see what was going on, to try to get some supply or whatever.  But no one came around and she just died.

I've been thinking of it a lot now lately, and it seems so strange.  What a way to go.  Nothing left, she tore her place apart.

I was her best supply.  And she was without me for years.  God did not design me to be mother's narc supply, but I still feel badly.

I can feel sorry for her.  Part of me feels wrong.  What if I'm the culprit, and I didn't do what I was told, and she died because of me.  And she did leave me in her will, I get half of mother's life insurance after the bills are paid.  So I started to feel really badly.

You see, I've been on this lifetime quest, trying to figure out why I'm so messed up and scared all the time.  I've felt I was blamed for it.  How did this happen to me?  And why?

So when I got the answers online, I was so relieved.  It gave me the answers.  Not "cured" of my problems, but now I know why.  And really that is all I wanted.  So when all goes wrong and I feel messed up again, at least I can see why.

Mother died that way threw me for a loop.  I was worried I was wrong.  Then I would be back at the drawing board.

If this is confusing please let me inform you of more in the comments section.  There are more specifics, I just can't think of them.

Mother Died

I've been enjoying life lately, living in peace.  I was trying to put this posting up about a MN friend I used to have, but it was taking me forever, I was just wanting to enjoy life.

Mother died a couple of days ago.  I'm surprised the family called to tell me.  They were quick calls. One from the niece to inform me, another one from my brother, which I could hear his MN wife in the background, so I told him I had to get off the phone, I didn't want to talk about it.  I didn't want to hear his wife.

So it was back to quilting.  I am making these tote bags to give away for birthdays, and I've got lot to do.  Then a friend that I grew up with a long time ago called, same one I posted about before, I just shoved her off too.  I'm busy, I'm working on some other quilt projects too, somehow this is becoming quite the addiction.  Even with DH banging on the walls for his supper.

I had quite the series of doctors appointments.  In my country, we don't pay for healthcare, so you get a call from the doctor to drag you in at a certain age.  You don't have to go, but its good to go.  I went.  I remember a few years ago mother would have had me freaking out about it, and I would have cancelled.  But since I know now that fear is no place to make decisions from, I decided to go.

So it was everything.  The mammogram, the collorectal cancer testing, the blood tests, bladder, like I said, everything.  If there is cancer roaming in my body, they will find it.  Or diabetes or anything. Its been a week since, and I lived through it.

The mammogram is not that bad.  It hurt a little, and the technician said I had the normal one.  But she was funny, and bounded with some kind of energy that had me completely laughing at her antics. She said, "I'm going to run really fast to go and take the picture", in a very whimsical tone.   I think if the tech was nonchalant I would have been singing grand opera.   When someone is completely present with you it can make all the difference.  I was very fortunate.

Then I treated myself to a nice pasta lunch and I found some nice fabric at the thrift store.  When I got home I was sore, which I didn't notice during the testing.

So when I found out mother died, all I could think about was freedom.  I can now go into that little town she lives in.  And that mean nasty voice I hear is not so bad anymore.  She is dead so has a lot of the old me.  It feels safe to be myself.  She can't talk to me mean anymore, she can't do anything destructive.  She has not the keys to eliminate death.  She couldn't live forever.

There is so much in the bible about MN's and I don't know how anyone avoids it.  I just opened my bible and I found this:

DO NOT ENTER THE PATH OF THE WICKED, AND DO NOT WALK IN THE WAY OF EVIL. AVOID IT, DO NOT TRAVEL ON IT, TURN AWAY FROM IT AND PASS ON. FOR THEY DO NOT SLEEP UNLESS THEY HAVE DONE EVIL:

and here is my favorite part:

FOR THEY DO NOT SLEEP UNLESS THEY HAVE DONE EVIL, AND THEIR SLEEP IS TAKEN AWAY UNLESS THEY MAKE SOMEONE FALL.

PROVERBS 4:14-17

I've seen mother not sleep for she couldn't do evil.  I also had a friend once who was so restless.  She called it restless.  I know a lot of Christians who will say that we all are like that, and that only speaks of a person's behaviour but not the person.  But it is clearly written in the word, I don't need to say anything more about it.

Another thing, my older brother that died is not mentioned in the obituary.