[some language warnings on this one, I am not perfect]
From a support board, I frequent:
"There are a few different things you might do.
You could show up at the memorial service with a short, blunt speech on a card and read it aloud. Name, blame, and shame. Be prepared for retribution, then and later.
You could show up at the memorial service, speak briefly to your brother, and leave.
You could skip the memorial service--if there even is one--and hold one on your own, calling the saints to witness, praying, lighting candles, and so forth.
You could make a memorial page for her, speaking the truth of her life and death
You could--and frankly I really, really think you should--cut all contact with these poisonous creeps."
I've written about my Aunt Scapegoat dying, and I am on fence about going to memorial service and wrote about that since several narcs would be there, I have been NC with for three years.
One thing I noticed with this aunt is she was squeezed into labels and molds given to her by narcs years and years ago. She was a woman on dialysis with severe disabilities but was seen as the this life long "rebel" and "black sheep" because she smoked some pot and drank a bit in the early 1970s which was what all her peers were doing at that time. It occurred to me even though she was 60 years old she was never allowed to escape the bad labels put on her and never able to live down how she lived 25-40 years ago. She died at the age of 60 and they twittered on about crap from 40 years ago. They treated her like she wasn't even a human being outside of a couple cousins, with her own dreams, aspirations and more. This is a fate I feared and was one of my main motivations to cut contact and walk.
For example one cousin posted on his Facebook that she was a "rebel". IMO she did not rebel enough and tell the narcs to take a flying leap which is one reason she never left home and ended up under my mother's guardianship. She never ran away. There are times I wish I could just disappear, me and husband and go poof! I hate the narcissists knowing where I live.
My brother told me the day she died that she was a "black sheep". I got mad and cussed him out as I admitted and said, "The entire family treated her like sh**, all you did was buy all the lies."
I actually cussed him out some more, "The family are never going to own or control me like she was"
I feel they are trying to do the same thing to me. They did everything in their power to cut contact between us for years and the depth of their lies have come to full fruition to me. The other day I was crying my eyes out about this but then it should be no surprise to me. The depth of their evil has been fully exposed to me. When they lied to me, about her hating me and probably vice versa, this showed what absolute snakes they are. Maybe the mail was intercepted. Did she ever see my holiday cards with full letters in them during the early 2010s?
I feel like they are trying to shove me into the SAME life-long box, and I realize they SHARE the SAME OPINIONS about ME. She died never breaking away. I broke away but NC has been hard for me. I LOST just about everyone, and now I have on my conscience never seeing or talking to this aunt again but had no other choice for my own sanity and well-being. Even worries about my brother dying before I see him, have cropped up for more feelings of lost and guilt, but then where was he this last 7 years? He was more busy spending thousands on Christmas gifts, then driving up here. He told me on the phone, he was going to see me FIRST for once, but then he got sick. There was plenty of years before that when I asked. Has he ever worried about me dying before seeing me again? Remember how bad my health is.
I'm 40 something years old and they still want to put me in the same damn box, they put her in for 60 years. When I saw the way they talked about her even after she DIED it made me ANGRY. This was on Facebook and on phone with my brother. "Rebel", "black sheep". The same labels foisted on me. My no contact was about walking away from their labels and becoming someone else.
Oh and by the way, she is the first one the rich family are not burying with a full coffin funeral [Catholics against cremation] with a tombstone in the family plot next to her mother, a sister and two brothers, but cremating with no funeral and a nebulous promise of a "memorial service" THREE MONTHS after the fact. My brother claimed to me my mother said, it's because she didn't go to Mass and was an atheist. I left the Catholic church in 1987, with one and half years back in leaving again. My grandmother quit going to church in 1987 and was buried in the church graveyard in 2007.
So that crap I noticed.
Outside of one cousin with a conscience and his brother and their children, just about all of them make me sick. With my brother, I told him it's time to piss or get off the pot, either you start seeing what my mother really is and stop being a mind slave to her money or I'm done.
I have realized with horror, my own situation is FAR MORE PRECARIOUS NOW. I hope this makes sense. The family fed off her like vampires. Do you all think I am paranoid to have those thoughts or do you understand.? When one feels "afraid" to be in the same room with people, the book The Gift of Fear would tell you to say the hell away.
It is occurring to me outside of two cousins with consciences and their kids where I have distant Facebook contact, that with the rest they have no interest in any real relationships one on one outside of the family system. I tried to form one on one relationships with others since I went NC with the main narcs, and it has failed.
I hate this feeling of helplessness, and like no matter what I do, it's a lose/lose situation. I realize having feelings is a detriment in being treated like a human being in our sick society and sick families like this.
The sad ending when it comes to my aunt will always stay with me. The spiritual struggle of dealing with evil winning at least in this world, brings me a feeling of inner sadness I'm not sure will ever go away. I'm "losing" too even though I've broken away. I'll be the one sitting alone but then I was always alone when it came to this faux family anyway. I have mourned for years even long ago when I was young, seeing what was happening to her.
Hi, Peep. I'm lowish contact with my family and I feel more alone with them than in my own home by myself. I think my situation is somewhat more manageable though because my remaining family is tiny ie mother and sister. My mother doesn't have a cast of thousands to manipulate, thank goodness. She certainly does her damnedest to manipulate me, including calls to the police to report me missing (three hour walk)and phony visits to the emergency (nothing wrong). None of us kids had kids. It has taken me years to realize that this was one of the best decisions of my life. In my twenties, I just had a vague feeling that I didn't like the world enough to want to have my kid live in it.
ReplyDeleteBeing alone can be tough, especially in times of trouble, but like you, I was alone when I lived with my family. Actually there is no little everyday problem that my mother can't make ten times worse, so times of trouble were times when I said nothing to my family anyway. I don't even know what it would be like to be worried about something and be able to discuss it with my mother and have her respond in a rational, sane manner. She loves to dredge up the past as well. If I had just done what she wanted when I was fifteen, I wouldn't have this problem now. No matter what the problem is.
Facebook and social media seem to make going no contact much harder than it used to be. Also FB is ideal for liars and misleaders. Leaving home and going no contact used to be almost the same, in an age before cheap long distance phone calls. Letters were never popular except with the small number of people able to read and write at that level.
My uncle left home at the age of 17, ca. 1920. He went out west to work. He went no contact almost by default. It just happened. He was the oldest child and was treated as illegitimate, although he wasn't.
Hi Tenacious, yes I understand that feeling of being more alone with them then alone in my own home too. Even talking to them feelings like I am talking with walls, and even for the distant cousins I have to work hard to hold up my end of the conversation. It is tiring isn't it. Just having two to deal with then a network of 30, would be a lot easier.
DeleteThats horrible that she has called the cops on you, anything to cause trouble. Sheesh.
Understand you not having kids. I was infertile and too sick but the very idea gave me immense dread. I even used to read child-free boards, all the years of being a residential home counselor--house parent, day care and rest, told me what raising a kid was all about. Very difficult for the people with health and money to pull it off, next to impossible for someone like me. I felt I didn't want to bring a kid into this horrible world either and then there was the problem of passing on the medical problems even before I knew exactly what they all were.
Yeah it's just me and my husband, but we were alone even around the family. They barely tolerated us and disrespected us at every turn. Sure the same happens with you. My mother made all my troubles worse too. Like when husband lost his career, I never got over how she treated me, it makes me sick, it's like his ex bosses signed up to destroy us too. There was never any empathy and sympathy, just that narc belief that bad things happen to bad people to torture people. So sure no one wants to share problems with people who just rip them down for having problems in the first place. Yes they will dredge up mistakes and act like they would have done it perfectly expecting us to solve problems they really set up in the first place on some accounts.
Facebook does make it harder, yes, I think should I keep Facebook contact with the cousins, with brother? It's hard. It's like having people who aren't really in your life being in it. A ditigal form of a person. I think something has happened to people where too much social interaction is online. It's affecting relationships in an insidious fashion. I had the fake online catfish or false friend too, to bring this more to my attention.
Yeah in the old days people did leave home and no one knew what became of them. It's weird to have a group of people who seem to want to keep "track of you" but have no interest in actually being around. It's weird. As I wrote in a post from some weeks ago, we are all really strangers. I know 30 years ago things were different. I am glad your uncle got away.
I have been on a Marlon Brando kick recently and your graphic makes me think of how he described being the driving force in a new movie. If it's successful, you are a welcome cog in this well oiled machine, but let it not do well at the box office he says you find yourself way way up there alone on a goat path with all of the people who were once praising you now blaming you for every shortcoming of the whole production.
ReplyDeleteYeah that describes the process doesn't it. Come out on top and your the greatest thing on earth, not and you are standing all alone.
DeleteI was thinking this morning, how our world thinks in a scapegoat mode.So many family scapegoats,scapegoats at work, at school etc.. Even Christians use Jesus as a scapegoat. "He took on my sins so I can keep on sinning."I'm not actually thinking that's what he said, but what do I know...It's just scapegoating all around. Lack of personal responsibility..Then even that concept gets distorted when people want to blame the victim. It's really distorted out there..You've got to have really good critical thinking skills to weed out all the bullshit. Most people just want to tout their party's line...
ReplyDeleteI agree, it's scapegoat land out there. The whole society is based on king of the mountain scapegoating and squashing people. It's getting worse too. Agree about false Christians using Jesus that way, I had some real extreme types tell me even if someone murdered and raped, they would still go to heaven if it was post-salvation. Hmm they miss the plot, those fruits show salvation never happened. Those are the same types who tell us to forgive sociopaths and reprobates. I agree there is a lot of blaming the victim. Even trying to make it through the narc thicket of lies is tough. They lie to me constantly and realize how much especially with stuff pertaining to Aunt's death.
DeleteSorry about your Aunt. My narc father has cancer and is totally using it to bring all his children to him. Everyone was sick of his abuse and weren't talking to him much until the cancer.. I'm pretty sure it's going to grow old fast except for my brother who will suck up till he inherits everything...One phone call was all it took to remind me of who he was.A man who couldn't care less when my life was threatened.
ReplyDeleteJust that I called him makes me see that it must be hard for you to keep no contact, because of your aunt. You always think "maybe" as enough time goes by and you start to forget. I hope I always remember now.
The only good thing that came out of it is I really saw what a narc my brother was, which I always kinda new but needed to really know. Now I decided to have no contact with him..
Good luck. I hope you get clear and figure things out.And whatever you decide, it goes well for you.