My mother and possible cancer.

reply to post by JessicaS


She's currently biopsy done so we'll know for sure in three days. She finally called me yesterday evening and was her usual post-fight self again, like no argument had taken place. I really hope for both of our sakes that she's clear because it's going to be a roller coaster ride if it is. I'll see if I can suggest the apricot seeds. She's not the easiest person to try to suggest things to as her preference is to see me as the biggest idiot on the planet and she'll just end up ripping into me with accusations of idiocy, "what do YOU know, you know NOTHING" statements and, at worst, accuse me of trying to kill her. She's a bit paranoid on the last part as the rumor in the family was that, when her own father was ill, she did not do everything in her power to save him because he was writing her out of his will. Bit of a projection on her part.


reply to post by ZincMag


Got it. Thanks, ZincMag.

Firstly im really sorry to hear what you have been through, i know what its like to have a relationship like that with a parent. I also know the feeling of your mother potentionally having cancer also, my mum just had 4 tumors removed from her breast that for a few months we had no idea if they were cancerous or not it started with 1 then along came 3 more, she just had surgery though after 2 unconclusive biopsies and we now know they weren't cancer. I hope your mother has a good outcome aswell..
Theres only so much you can take from one person & only so much you can be pushed away by them, it sounds like you have done all you can to be there for her despite what she has done to you and i think your very strong for that! I know its hard having to live your life with no answers as to why you were and or are treated really badly by someone who is supposed to give you unconditional love & its not nice.. Im hoping for a positive outcome for you

reply to post by Shana91aus


Thank you, Shana. She's confusing as heck and that compounds the issues between us. I mentioned to her in passing that I wasn't going anywhere yesterday because I was having some pain. She stopped by and dropped off a samples of an expensive pain relieving cream, vitamins and some healthy munchies since she knows that when I'm in a lot of pain, I lose my appetite severely. This is the same woman only once drove me to the grocery store in the 6 months that my driver's license was medically suspended. And screamed at me for being undependable and worthless because I lost my sight temporarily and told her I might not be able to drive her to her plastic surgeon. Or was entirely put out when I asked her to come over on the day that my brain was going completely haywire with numerous spreading depressions, causing me to tremor violently, periodically lose my sight, and ability to speak. I asked her to come over because my kids were terrified and too young to deal with that alone. She went shopping for a couple hours and then swung by for 30 minutes without looking at me once. She didn't look at me at all until she knew I was rounding the bend and getting healthy again. Then the bag of vitamins, pain killer, and super vitamin packed granola bars gets thrown at me yesterday. She can be inconsistent as heck.

It's frustrating and frankly, I wish she'd be either one way or the other instead of feeling like a yo-yo. It's maddening and half the time I think that her little niceties are simply geared to keep me in the picture just as a defensive measure against getting duped into thinking that she actually cares. I'm either strong or a fool. Jury is still out in my head on which, lol.

Clear! I tell you though, there was a weird moment where she said she wasn't certain if my sister or I were even worrying about it at all or not or if it was something we just worried about on occasion. She sounded so uncertain and vulnerable. That's so weird to me because I've been trying to support her all week and was getting shot down for it. I pointed out to her that yes, I had been worried non-stop, was very glad to know and that if I hadn't been worried about it, I wouldn't be human. Weird.

Glad this is done with. It's been enlightening and thank you, everyone. I would've gone completely out of my gourd without you.

Dulcevida, I'm keeping you and your mom in my thoughts still.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Oh thats awful i know how that feels, she sounds like a very tough woman to work out. That is her problem though not yours and im glad you haven't let her bad parenting affect yours because i've seen its sometimes not a easy cycle to break when its all you are uaed too. But i, like yourself am determined to treat my kids the total opposite to how i was treated, lots of love etc, my kids are constantly saying they love me & hugging me lol. See you are stromg look at what you have battled through, and that is only what you have written in this thread.

Sounds to me like she knows very well how she treats you and that its not right and im sure she has alot of guilt for that, which tends to sometimes make them even worse! You need to put your happiness as priority though, if its too much for you maybe take a break from her. Have you completely cut her out of your life before ? sometimes that is the only way to get people to wake up to themselves but even then some people are that stubbourn even that doesn't work. But i mean apart from the time she came to your house being violent, but actually gone through with not talking to her? like totally cut off. I know its obviously not a good time for that with her health problems but dont let her use it as an excuse to treat you badly. I know it sounds so obvious but do what makes you happy, your not in the wrong here you are making the effort and giving her a chance she should appreciate that! Your certainly not a fool.

reply to post by Shana91aus


How much she knows about her own behavior is up in the air. She used to joke about how I "though I was abused" like it was some big joke or a kid having an imaginary friend. Thing was, I wasn't the only one in the house that saw it. My sister told me that she was going to tell my mother to stop or else she'd take me away (she was 18 at the time). She never took me away and the abuse continued. My dad always talked about how horribly violent my mother could get and her abuse of me. She was the only one that saw it as an imagined thing. I took her to task on that back in 2008 soon after I came back to the area and she did her usual flippant "I don't remember that" routine repeatedly. After I brought up the fact that she was the only one that didn't remember it, she kind of broke a little, wavering voice and whispered that I wasn't understanding her. She said that it wasn't that what I was saying wasn't true but that she really could not remember it. It was pretty shocking and actually consistent with her behavior at the time. It's like the bad events got sucked away into a vacuum.

When I was a teen, I thought perhaps it was a form of Korsakoff's but after being visited by her bad mom side a few years ago, it really got me wondering if she, instead, suffers from DID. That possibility makes it really complex because then I'm dealing with two "mothers". One who is hardened, tough as nails, unsympathetic, and with an extreme school of hard knocks mentality and another who is clearly and totally insane. Theoretically, one is just an overly tough mother and the other one is the abuser. She's both significant victim and criminal and the two could very well be utterly divided. Do I alienate the one because of the other if I might as well be looking at two different people? That's a massive source of the conflict with me.

That's why I still have some contact with her. I'm watching her for signs of possible DID. Makes a difference. Makes it harder and if she is, what confusing world she must live in.

Hi Alice

I hope everything is going well for you & your mother at the moment!!

It sounds incredibly frustrating that your mum says she can't remember the abuse because for you to heal you need to be able to tell her how it made you feel & how it impacted you everything that needs to be out there to gain closure. Have you tried to write it in a letter? Just sit down and let it all out on to paper, you don't even have to send it just write it. I always find this really works for me & im a highly anxious person that dwells on every little detail of everything so if it works for me maybe it will work for you aswell.
Yeah it is really sad if that is what she is living with & sad for everyone around her also, including you.
I hope things are looking up now!

reply to post by Shana91aus


We're back to the low contact here, thank goodness. Trying to broach the subject directly once and for all is what led her to enter my home and beat down the door that my eldest and I barricaded ourselves behind. She was not there to talk. Outside of the end result, it did help a whole lot to state what she had done to me both in the past and its effects. Was something that had been coming for a long time. My only regret about it is that my eldest had to see that other side of her but even that is only a half regret as it is in his and his sister's best interest to comprehend her.

I've tried writing on the subject and even tried making an audio journal talking about it all. I have a whole lot of difficulty with sticking to the practices, lol. In a way, I think that is one way in which I became similar as I shed the bad on a daily basis as a remnant of the way I survived when I was younger. Not talking or letting it out at all is probably my biggest problem. As you can see, I'm trying to overcome that. I was really floored not that long ago when I realized that my best, dearest, and closest friend had no idea what it was that I had gone through as a child though she'd known me for half of my life. All she'd known was that I had been abused. My fiance knew more and, honestly, the only reason why I think I may have talked about it more fully with him was because he happened to overhear it and was shocked. I was taught to purge and be quiet but I'm working on that. The way I look at it is that I don't want to die with people not knowing who I am and why. I don't want to be a ball of secrets like my mother.

Thanks, shana. All of us in her life have learned to live with it, which I frequently and increasingly think is a mistake. Pretending doesn't help her and I've tried saying that. Everybody else is just too scared of her, I think.

Im sure your relieved to be on low contact! sounds honestly way too draining on you to deal with her on a daily basis, sometimes its good when kids see the bad side to someone i think then they can form their own real opinion atleast and you sound like a awesome mum im sure you helped your child to understand what had just happened & too comprehend why, kind of hard for you to explain why she is like that though when even you don't really know why though! but its better to be upfront with them than keep it in the dark.

Yeah you definitely need to talk about it i know how numbing it can be holding all that kind of stuff in, i know we all deal with things differently but keeping it bottled up inside really doesn't help, i can't talk though i keep alot of stuff bottled up inside too i know i shouldn't though! Your best friend not knowing would have been a bit of a wake up call to how much you don't talk about it though. I know its not easy though but your doing a good job at it and you will probably find people understand you a hell of alot better aswell, carrying all that on your shoulders everyday isn't good i wish there was more i could say to help your situation i do know a bit of how you feel though & i know you don't know me very well, sometimes thats easier when venting but if you ever need to talk just message me! Yes i agree 110% pretending and going along with how she is acting and just dealing with it isn't the right thing to do, not only because by letting it go on, whatever is making her like this is obviously consuming her mentally and it would just get worse and worse as time goes on but also its not fair on yourselves, you have put up with enough why should you have to go through the rest of your life still dealing with her being like that? You need to start healing yourself from everything you have been through, you don't need her for that though, only yourself!

reply to post by Shana91aus


Thanks, Shana. The experience my eldest had was a pretty harsh reality check. My youngest, who wasn't there, did ask why her grandmother wasn't coming about much anymore. When I tried explaining what happened, she was puzzled and outright asked for an example. I actually cautioned her to remember that I was only play acting and then emulated what my mother was doing verbally. My eldest came down right away, completely freaked out and between those two things, my youngest got the picture. Ironically enough, he was mad at me for emulating the behavior and my youngest defended me, lol. He's pretty scarred by the experience, I'd say. Witnessing pure and true madness is not a pleasant thing at all and while my daughter knew I was pretending, what my son witnessed was quite real.

Talking about it more openly really has helped those people who are close to me really understand why it is that I tick the way that I do and that's been incredibly comforting. Keeping it in just keeps one isolating and one of my worst fears is really being alone. Even if people can't imagine what it would've been like because my experience was so divergent from theirs, as long as they can understand, it's enough for me. Being quiet about it is something that I think a lot of former abused kids get grilled into them by their abusers and that also does nothing for really comprehending how much madness an abusive home can entail. That's a win-win in my book.

Thank you again. Your words and offer are very much appreciated. It's still blessedly quiet here and yes, I'm absolutely basking in it.