Three Years Anniversary of No Contact Today

  Today is my three year anniversary of no contact with the main narcs. With the rest of the family I am at three months no contact. One cousin was cut off more recently. Years ago I put up with my mother to be low contact knowing the price of walking could be losing the whole family. Be careful of making that mistake yourself. If they already are turned on you, the final outcome will be the same no matter how hard you try. I feared losing the nieces and nephews but have anyway.

Has it really been that long? I guess so. My mother never apologized or really "tried" to amend the breach. That would never happen in a million years with a malignant narcissist. I think of the long line of cards sent to me that said over and over "You choose to believe things about me that are untrue." and dead corporate lines like "Thinking of you." Her lack of feelings don't even shock me anymore. Her ability to make herself seem like a loving and caring person to outsiders remains unmatched.  She's a hardcore one, no fake apologies or nice words to even fool me. The woman has never cracked or shown an iota of fear in her life.

I am hoping my life will change more for the better. It has in some ways, since 20 years of panic attacks and worse anxiety have left me alone since the day I walked. I have thrown a lot of narcissists out of my life and put up with a lot less from people. I am done being a charity project or pushed around. We wrote and made a complaint against the rude secretary. I even wrote the "autistic" and told her what I thought of her behavior. No more driving up some well off woman's drive way, with a feeling of building dread. No more talking to people who with every word make me feel like I am "nothing" and "nobody" and never fail to remind me how I failed, severe disabilities notwithstanding.

I looked at some old pictures the other day, sometimes this can be an interesting enterprise. My collection of pictures is small from my childhood, I regret not having those the most because pictures help me remember, but the faces in them all tell a tale. There was a sense of closure looking at those pictures the other day. The pictures put in front of my face what I had left behind.

 In one picture my father is literally bowing to my mother, while she sits in a chair, and in old Christmas photo she is leaning on him smug like a queen. He seems to shrink even with time, I noticed as I went through these pictures. Becoming smaller and smaller, in the emotional sense. It was a strange phenomenon to see. The "in thrall" status never letting up.

In the pictures, he did not look at me with any love, but blank eyed stares. He never smiled at me. I realized none of them did and when I was the one taking the photo there was only flat eyed stares. In one picture, I am extremely ill, and I am standing in between him and his sister Aunt Confused. My face is bloated, and extremely swollen, my hair has fallen out, I am one year away from the peak of the weight gain having at that point gained at least 300lbs.

It is telling to me that only one year later, he would leave my mother every dime and provide nothing to me for any help knowing that I had become disabled and lived in my most extreme poverty. It occurred to me too as they came on that visit in 1997 and to my wedding, he knew how ill I was and how impoverished I was and he did not care. That picture of me standing in between them where a loving parent would have gotten me post haste to a hospital, told me everything I needed to know of his absolute failure to help or care and subjugation to my mother. Even if facing health problems himself, there was no excuse. She owned his soul.

Betsy shows up in one photograph, the "second daughter", in one photo my father is ignoring me while videotaping Betsy and Betsy is jumping around with my sister right next to her. Both are smiling. I noticed how she always had a big poop eating grin on her face that never let up. Her poop eating grin reminds me of the smile on another phony now ex-friend's face. She was a clown invited to the narcissist party to entertain.

 In another photo, I have given my mother a painted photo frame for the holidays. She sits there staring straight ahead not even a smile, for her gift. There's no feigned politeness just a look of annoyance, with the underlying emotion of disgust.

Another picture matches from an informal bridal shower a friend gave me. Mother sits there, and does not smile. I can tell it is because I am taking the picture. In another we are sitting on the couch at Christmas, my mother is looking haughty looking down at a figurine, my sister is looking prim cleaning up wrapping paper. When looking at the few pictures I have, I was blown away by the way they were all looking at me with hatred and disdain.

How was I so blind to it all and why had I gone into such deep denial in wanting to "have a family"? Facebook helped wake me up seeing my mother pictured with other relatives, smiling, hugging them and saying nice things like "I am so proud." The proof of my reality was laid out before me in picture form. I am sure if I could see more photos, even more truth would come to light.

 My sister literally sneered and rolled her eyes in photos, where I was taking them or the very few times she was sitting next to me. Haughty eyed looks began by our early teens and worsened as the years progressed. In pictures from 2009, she looks at the camera annoyed during one of her rare 10 minute visits off the highway on the way home from a week at my mothers. One photo taken at my wedding is shocking in it, my sister sits prim and thinner in a blue dress next to her husband, and my father is there in the photo too. My sister looks bored but my sister's husband and my father are glaring at me. They appear identical in countenance even if one is far younger.

In another photo I am sitting at a Christmas dinner or Thanksgiving dinner. I think I am home from college judging from the clothes I am wearing, I look distant like I wish I could be anywhere else. My mothers face is cut off, but she is angry with gnashing teeth and devil looking eyes while wearing a red sweater,  that is the face I remember many times. She isn't mad at me in the photo, I think it is my brother, but I saw that face way too many times to count. This picture is 25 years old but that face appeared many times before, and many times afterwards. It is a face that could appear on a horror movie. She ranted and raved enough for their to be some photographic evidence of it.

I have no family left and I can't say no contact is easy but it is far better then sitting there and being a punching bag and trash can or willfully ignored on their whim, just kept around to be kept track of by a bunch of spoiled people who had no love for anyone. I do not regret the decision at all, even though life has a lot of other challenges right now. I walked and glad I walked.