Narcissistic mother

I want to find peace. Peace of mind. But I don't know how.

So as you might've read, my mother is just bat-shit crazy. It seems there have been problems with her from the start, serious mental problems.

After finally getting my dad's version of the past I reached out to my aunt. I don't know why exactly but it seemed to be something I just had to do. It was a door that never really closed completely, not for me. Ever since moving to Ireland I found myself thinking about them more often. Especially when I was walking around town and could hear sparrows singing. The name of the bird might be wrong, but I always remember hearing those birds when I used to sleep over at their house. Those were the birds that always woke me up because I wasn't used to that sound. So every time I heard them 'sing', my mind went back to waking up an trying to look out the window to locate the birds. Guess maybe something was trying to give me signs all along. That might explain why the bond with my mother has always been so turbulent, I guess some part of me picked up on something. Something I wasn't ready to see yet.

Sometimes it seemed like I was the only one questioning some decisions she made throughout our lives. Minor things that now seem to explain the much bigger issue. Because my mom, turns out to be a narcissist. There is no point in further trying to deny it, she fits the description perfectly! When we were kids she controlled everything, which is normal in a way because as kids, there's not much you can decide on your own. When things started to go South with my dad she did the only thing she thought would make her situation better. Because she only cared about herself. She started having kids as a way to keep men in her life. Sadly for us, mostly, that backfired.

For years we were brainwashed into believing her version, about our dad not wanting us anymore and choosing his second family over ours. He didn't have a second family.
She kept us away from our grandparents, making it clear they were pure evil! Her mother-in-law was a witch and her father-in-law was the personification of the Cowardly Lion. Sometimes we did go over there, although it probably wasn't all that often that it happened. Think we had a sleepover once, but only once. I still remember the pink sheets on the bed and the scent of the upstairs floor. We never went upstairs so a whole new world opened up and I never forgot.

And just as I'm typing this, just now, I'm starting to wonder if she let us visit them when she was running low on money. Because that was and always will be her first interest in life, her one big love. You know how it goes with grandparents, when you greet them they hand you some cash as if they were dealing drugs. But now I get why they had to be so sneaky about it. They wanted us to keep it, not our mom. But we never could. We were always so happy to receive anything that we would brag to each other, which resulted in her keeping it 'safe' for us. So safe that we still haven't seen any of it.
I try to go back in my memories but I just don't have that many. Not sure if that's normal or not, but there are barely any memories I have from that time. Did I block it out myself, did something else happen, I don't know!! Now that I've figured out that my mother is damaged beyond repair I can't help but want to know what else she did to us. How was she capable of turning three innocent children into paws in her grand scheme. (yes, there are four kids, but one of them was lucky enough to be her last pawn so he he only caught the end of it)

All I know is that whenever we had jobs we had to pay her. She demanded money for laundry and cooking she did. It clearly didn't matter that most of what she made came out of a jar or a can. But when she talks about her cooking, it's as if she killed whatever was on the menu herself.

Suddenly I'm getting flashbacks of my mother inviting over our boyfriends for dinner and making some African chicken recipe she found. I will never forget the moment she came downstairs in a supposedly African dress, turning everything into a show. The chicken wasn't even good, it looked as if someone in Africa had actually already eaten it. But don't get me wrong, our boyfriends were never good enough, especially not when they saw through her scams or questioned some things she did. She just hates my sister's husband, but I'm sure she has turned around from that now that she shunned us out. She will cosy up to whomever she thinks she might need in her future scams. She has two friends left, two people whom we've know since birth that still keep in touch. But one is just old and the other only reaches out every few years, I'm sure I can guess why. Makes me wonder how much of the truth they know. But everyone else has left her life. And of course the others were always the problem, not her. Never her!

It does explain why my mom is so exhausted all the time, she has to keep up with all the lies. And whenever I tried to go on about the past she would say she was too tired and just end the conversation. She let me read some divorce papers once, when I was blaming her for everything again. She genuinely thought it would change my outlook on things. But she was wrong, yet again. It made it clear that she lost everything because she made stupid decisions. Everything was right there in the contract, she was just too stupid to see it. But of course that's the excuse she used. "I was naive, I trusted your father." P-lease woman, you just always want to be the victim, even if that means robbing your kids of a decent future. Because now she had the perfect story all made up in her head. Her demon of a husband cheated on her and left his family behind to start a new one across the ocean. That's the version she told us over and over again. How he was a criminal that stole thousands and got away with it.
It's actually amazing how we believed it. Now, as an adult I'm wondering how someone who supposedly stole so much and was a sought-after criminal; could ever land a job in finances again. That would've been the one business he would never be able to return too. The background checks are severe and thus I know for a fact that that's all a lie. Sometimes it's a good thing that my mom has a very low IQ, there's always something she hasn't thought off.

With her it was just lie after lie after lie. She had a doctor reported to a medical board, or however that went in those days, because he didn't give her the treatment she wanted. I think that was the last doctor that ever turned her down. They had figured out there were some serious mental issues going on. So she had to leave. All the other doctors just gave her whatever she wanted, so she would keep coming. What does it really matter to them anyway, a patient brings income. Sometimes I do wonder if she ever drugged us. Because I know she gave us wine when we were kids. She called it kids' wine so I assumed it was non-alcoholic. Well, you should've seen my face when I found that same bottle as an adult and showed my hubby. It was only when I saw his look that if figured out something was wrong with the whole thing. And then I noticed the alcohol percentage. Sure, it wasn't a lot (think 6%) but what effect does that have on kids?! Is that what she gave us when she couldn't find a babysit or something? Because apparently there was a time my sister needed to come back from Germany because mommy-dearest wanted to go on dates. Another baffling thing I discovered through my aunt. That and the fact that mental illnesses might've been present in our family all along. My grandmother's father was known to have some problems too. But he died young and that's basically all I know.

The more I find out, the more I want to dig deeper. But there's also a part of me that is too afraid to do so. What horrors will we find next? Do I reach out to more people or do I let the demons sleep, forget the past and try to build a new future?
But how? She will never give up! Pretty soon the threats will come and later pity. I'm sure I'll get an email soon about how her heart is aching because she misses the girls (yeah, not me) or that's she's worried about us. Or my absolute favourite; she had one of her dreams. It's just another tug on my emotions trying to real me in. And if I answer, she will think everything is fine and she'll probably book her next flight over. But I'm going to be strong. I have to be.
She's not the type of person I want around my daughters, she's already done enough damage there.

The only thing that saddens me the most is how my siblings just threw me aside because of her lies. Especially my elder sister, she's older, she must remember even more. Or it is as I thought and mom just made us forget in some way. How can they believe someone who's literally lost every single family member in her life? How can they believe the woman that threatened not to go to her own daughter's wedding because she wasn't allowed to bring her new boyfriend...
The problem is not everyone else, it's her. And I don't care about this "she's still our mother crap", because she's not. She gave birth to us, but ever since then, we've been paws in her game. Boy did she hate it when we were of legal age and didn't bring in child support anymore. She wanted us out of there as soon as possible. But she just made living there impossible so it seemed it was our decision to move out.

It drives my crazy! I want to put an end to all this shit but I can't. The only way to truly be done with it all is when we bury her. And I know that must be the most horrible thing anyone can say but my god it would solve so many issues. She threatened to kill herself on multiple occasions so I'm sure she'll try to use it again real soon.

Maybe I should write a book about it. But then I would have to do research and that might damage me in ways I never thought off before.
So I don't know. Maybe I'll get another sigh somewhere that will tell me what to do.