Baby Shower Advice
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Also, in regards to the trivial issue that brought this all up – I received another email list of names from my mom, where she wanted confirmation of last name spellings, and she had Sharon listed with her name crossed out. Which was slightly comical. So I guess she’s still making Sharon into a thing but might actually accept my want and not invite her? Who knows, we’ll see if she goes to my former place of work or not, but for now she’s crossed out her name and I’m just not going to bring it up. what happens in regards to that will happen.
I do think it’s important to look at this situation with Sharon. Leslie is right, she steamrolled you on this and your last sentence, whatever will happen with Sharon will happen- that’s you accepting and allowing her to dictate what should happen, and she knows if she works on you, you will cave.
I believe you’ve created space, but have you really? Or did you just attempt to.
You should be proud that you’ve made the progress you have. I highly recommend that you work with your therapist or your partner on practicing techniques to avoid, deflect or otherwise shut down the shit that comes your way, from your mom or others. And I mean practice – say the words out loud. Preparation like you were rehearsing your lines for a play will make it more comfortable when you need to exercise these exercises. Think muscle memory but for your brain and mouth.
Little bit of an update on boundaries: my mom was talking about giving me my old baby clothes for my daughter, and how she has all these things in the attic so I don’t need to get anything really because she’s saved almost everything from when I was a baby. 1) I know mice have been a situation in the attic over the years & none of these things/clothes have been gone through or moved around in any way in probably 10 years. So I doubt these are in good shape to begin with. 2) I’m in my mid 20s, hand me downs from siblings or cousins or friends’ children are great and welcome but why on earth would I want my daughter to have all of my old 20+ year old clothing? And isn’t that completely strange when an entire wardrobe of hand me downs comes from your own mother? Like not an item or two – an entire wardrobe. I don’t want my daughter photographed in the same clothing I was photographed in, so we can be going through family photos years from now and see how we’re both in the same outfits. Again, in my opinion hand me downs from siblings or cousins are cool, but your own parent?!
So anyways, I point blank told her no, no, no. It’s strange. My reasoning for it being strange. And no. She clearly disagrees with me and doesn’t understand my problem / thinks I’m being too uppity. If she winds up giving me all my old clothes which will be musty and probably have touched mouse droppings from 15 years ago – I will be washing them and dropping them all off at Salvation Army. She will flip out surely, but I’ve told her no. So. Yeah. I’m feeling good about my little no & plan if she disrespects the no. And I know this is a little thing to even be proud of so that’s kind of sad that I’m proud, but oh well. Proud of myself anyways, haha.
Ok that’s a start, and are you reading up / watching YouTube videos on how to deal with a narcissistic mother? Is your therapist helping you with a strategy or referring you to someone who can? This is a really serious situation and you have to know what you’re doing. It requires professional help and the time is right now, before your baby is born.
Oh I’m always watching videos and reading up on adult child of narcissistic parent stuff, etc. It’s another thing that has helped me immensely over the past few years but I still have SO far to go. My therapist is very much of the mindset I should go no-contact with my mother and then tries to help me focus on me & self care seeing I’m not in the situation to go no-contact yet. We’ve been working on things slowly, which I think is the only way to really drill things home or practice things, but at the same time I’m halfway through a pregnancy and I don’t have all the time in the world before I’m going to be a stressed new parent with a mom who’s going to be overbearing and try for controlling.
Don’t wash the clothes. Don’t donate them. For the same reason you don’t want them. Bring them straight to the garbage. I’m all about reuse. But all I can picture is you taking those mouse eaten clothes and going through them while pregnant, sniffing up powdered mouse droppings up your nose and spreading powdered mouse droppings around your laundry room.
I don’t want to be a jerk, but you’re not seeing a therapist, are you? I get it, it’s expensive. It’s takes a lot of work. Years of work. Just be honest though, it will help us give you better advice.
I’m glad you came up with a plan and said no, but that’s not really much of a boundary. Please at least get some books from the library and do some reading. I can give you a list of books to read. Telling her no is good practice, but the situation hasn’t played out yet. Celebrate the win, but it’s a very, very small one.
If there is a way you and your husband could budget a few hundred for a few therapy sessions for you explicitly to create boundaries with your overbearing mother- you should really, really do it. I can’t tell you how worthwhile it will be for your peace of mind. He could go too just so he can hold you to it. You’re the one holding yourself back right now, you don’t want to rock the mom boat but really she should be considering your feelings, not the other way around. What’s the big deal if you upset your mother? Why are you afraid of her?
I am seeing a therapist, once a week for the past two years minus a couple of months somewhere in the middle there. I’m not seeing a psychiatrist or a psychologist, but just a run of the mill therapist. Little annoyed at not being believed, but I get from reading other posts here that people will lie up a storm for no reason. And yes, it’s much more expensive than it should be. My therapist does help me with boundaries, but again, she’s very much of the mind that I need to be no-contact and seeing it’s my decision to not be at this time she’ll help me with strategies to cope in the situation and work on me being my own person. At the beginning I needed her to tell me I could allow myself to buy myself clothes I deemed “cute” and not just clothes that “served a purpose”.
If you have any books you’d like to recommend though I’d be interested, so far books by Karyl McBride have been the most useful to me.
I am surprised you’ve been seeing a therapist for two years to learn skills to cope with your mother but you don’t seem to have any. If you are really seeing a therapist, you should stop seeing that one and look for a new one. Basic boundary setting is what you need. That’s not hard or weird for a therapist.
Narcissistic mothers, adult daughters. Mothers who can’t love. Children of emotionally immature parents. Those are all easily googleable. You really can’t half ass this or do it “nicely” so that your mother doesn’t get upset. Good luck with her, I would drop all the mother bullshit and focus on yourself as soon as you can because she will just keep sucking your attention away.
