New Life in Egypt

This is the balcony of my new flat in Egypt. Just inside those sliding glass doors is my bedroom.

Very soon I will be there for my first time enjoying our new place. Hoping to stay for a few months.

All around the villa are fruit trees of different kinds and other greenery.

The guard dogs are to the right of my flat, but outside in the courtyard just inside the iron gate.

I'll be posting from here very soon with other photos of my life in Eygpt. I hope to have a puppy or two there left from the recent litter to train.

My sister in law and her family have the flat above mine. The time for us to all be together is a long time coming, but so worth the wait. I love the whole place that she has designed from the grounds to the building to the interiors.

The weather in Egypt is a bonus... Always sunny... Loads of Sunshine and friendly people, too.

So this will be a trial run, spending time in what might be our retirement home in the future.  For now it's a beautiful vacation home.

Looking forward to lots of laughs, talks, hugs, exercise and fun together!!

The Campaign of the Narcissist

Chuggy says let's take a look at how the narcissistic campaign goes.

A full blown narc campaign usually takes years to come to fruition.

Oh, it starts out normal. You have no idea the person's intentions are nefarious. In fact, you feel sorry for the person and find yourself trying to make up for what life has 'done' to them.

Reactions from you are what's called narcissistic supply for the narc. This would depend on how it is you react to the behaviors of the narc. It ranges from sympathy - to finally apathy, which begins years before it ends with the apathy.

In the meantime it is a myriad of ways in which the narc garners her supply. Usually it begins with sympathy then onto obligation to paying their way, supporting them, driving them everywhere they wish, carrying their items, you name it - it's all about them. When the day comes that you require anything of them you will be told flat out NO.

There are also these reactions which garner great narcissistic supply for the narcs:  Rage, anger, sadness, depression, and confusion.

You can be experiencing all of the above reactions to the narcs behaviors whilst still serving them.

You could drive them all over the state shopping for their whole family ... waiting hours while the narc shops leisurely, but the one time YOU want to shop in a department just for you - the narc is impatient and wants to leave NOW ... only you are driving - but still you rush yourself to finish.

They do things like if you are ill and cannot walk fast enough on an outing - LEAVE you there to catch your breath alone.  Once, after returning home to Pennsylvania from Florida in the Winter by car, she left me out in the snow with only flipflops on my bare feet in foot deep snow, holding my luggage. She had locked the door, I discovered, after limping up the back steps to the kitchen door. I had to stand outside freezing, ringing the doorbell until my husband came running to the door to let me in. He chose to ignore that she'd done this to me at the time.  I thought to myself, then, that this is about it. This woman HAS to go!!  It was right after this event that I began my own campaign to get rid of her. And as you all know it wasn't easy. Hints don't work. Forget it. Disappointment... forget that.  Passive aggression... you can forget that too...  It comes down to after a few years of trying all of this, finally telling her flat out, "LEAVE AND DON"T COME BACK."

They triangulate with your husband and children over many years of bullshit.

They expect that you are going to pay their way everywhere from living expenses to vacation trips - hotels, meals, admissions ... you name it. Then the one time you show up in their country they make it clear that THEY are not going to accommodate you. NO WAY. Not the narcs problem. You didn't even ask her. Other family members gathered to decide where you should stay on your arrival.  Even these other family members are shocked by the narcs answer.

Meanwhile, the cash-cow, the mark/victim of the narc has no idea any of this is really planned by the narc and meant destroy a marriage, family, happy home.

The narcissist NEVER betrays the cash cow. At least not in a way it can be proven for some years. She works on the ruin of all others who surround the cash-cow first.

Nice isn't it?  They aren't very clever in the end though, because they are all exactly the same, these narcissists. They all have the same exact boring traits and behaviors to the point that you can predict usually their next moves. Also, it does take years, but in the end they all either self destruct or die alone. And even that's not any measure of justice for the trails of destruction they leave over a lifetime. It's like when in the court cases, a murderer gets the death penalty, the family members of the victims always say, "It doesn't bring so and so back. We don't get our lives back."

Same with dealing with and finally purging a narcissist from your life.

And so it goes.

BUT. From the time we get these parasites out of our lives, and until we actually die and leave this earth, WE have the chance to have our lives full, whole, and well again. And we can teach our children and their children how to avoid allowing a narcissist into their lives - and we can help others like you all that come to this and other blogs.

There's something to be said for supporting each other in healthy ways and showing ourselves and others how to avoid becoming a victim of these narcissists in the future.

Typical Narc Behavior.... HA ... She's out Shopping!!

Ha! So, here I sit.... mulling over the events of the day.  The narcissist arrives in town, gets my husband to check her into a hotel - puts her money back into her purse and goes up to her room.

I'm thinking alright, but he's here with me now. He's not there with her. He asks what I'm thinking and I tell him well, now she can rest .. it's a long flight and you may not hear from her til tomorrow.

He tells me that she's SHOPPING!!  That's right folks. Moments earlier, she allowed my husband to take care of her hotel bill while wiping away fake tears and the next moment she's shopping at the mall.

TYPICAL NARC BEHAVIOR.

Hubby felt obligated to ask her out to dinner later, but she meows on the phone that she's tired now and called for a pizza on her IPhone 5.  Same phone she could have used to call for reservations from Egypt. But of course she knows that.

So, okay I just said goodnight to the hubbers whose satisfied he did right by his wacko sister and I agree that's what he did - I wouldn't expect anything less from him.

Now, first day down... three to go.

What a total POS this woman is.  I'm not even sorry for saying that.  Whatever.

Okay fellow narc survivors ... you heard it here first.  We just keep setting our boundaries and then HOLD OUR GROUND.  And all of us will be okay in the end.  Probably better than okay.  

The Narcissist Strikes Back

So I feel accomplished as the problem with the sister in law who is bent on destroying me looks to be getting solved.

She arrived at the airport, and my husband started to drive her past the hotel going towards our home when she protested, "Hey, you passed the hotel, go back!!"

She told him she didn't want to go to our house and began to cry. He said if she was going to cry, then he would take her to a hotel as she wished.

At the hotel, he paid for her four days there and she stood there wiping her tears offering him the money.  He told her no, no not now. Just get in your room and get settled after such a long flight.

Bam. Typical narcissist gets the hotel bill paid.

The ball's in his court. How can a brother who sees his crying broken sister ever ask for this money?  Even IF she offers it to him later, she knows full well, he will refuse it.

That bit of money is the only hospitality he's able to give her. I know this man well and asking for this money back or even accepting it if offered, would go against every fiber of his being.  I cannot see it happening. And by the way, every narcissist knows and counts on it never happening. Being raised by a narc gives even a decent person insight into how things go in the twisted world of the narcissist.

It's a win for me because that hotel money is a lot less than the thousands we've spent in the past on her. Still, it's not necessary as she has obviously lots of money to be traveling to the United States just for the opportunity of having this scene and being able to fly back to Egypt and tell everyone she was not greeted at the airport by me and forced to stay in a hotel.

A narcissist will do anything at any cost to be right.  For what she has done to her brother and me over the course of ten years this woman needs to save face in the family.

I can't see how that's going to happen for her, but then again, I'm not a narcissist and some of their nefarious acts, even the child of a narc cannot image or predict.

It's my job to sit tight, support my husband that he's the good man he always was and always will be, and remain confidently quiet.

When I placed that boundary with this narcissist over a year ago, my job was done.

Now, the narcissist will either elicit an inappropriate response from me for her actions, or she will fail.

She can consider that three hundred dollars a "kind" of win and forego her self-destruction with that, but rest assured there's always something more to the overall plan.

Keeping my side of the street clean... watching my back....... respecting myself.

*************************************************************
UPDATE:  The very next day after posting this, she did pay the money back for the hotel. YAY, it's great to be wrong sometimes.  Good going .. good for her.  Better for us.

Again, the hubbers did the right thing.

Dependent NO MORE

So the day is approaching when the person who is insisting on blasting her way into my life arrives.

As you all know, she has been told that ten years of using us and taking my home and my husband are enough. She is no longer welcome in my home.

As a Muslim, I am only required to be civil to her for a period of three days if she insists on inviting herself, so should she forego staying at a hotel, I am prepared to do just that.

My husband says that I could avoid her for the days she will be here, but this is MY home and I will not avoid anyone or anything that decides to enter it.

Instead, I shall be the mother elephant here, and take good care of myself and my family. It is really essential to stand up for that inner child now and forever.

The former sitting duck or baby elephant that rolled over so easily while this person took control now is an advocate who won't tolerate being taken advantage of ever again. I am my own best protector now.

Even though I have a loving husband, his sister puts him in an awful position. While he doesn't want to see me unhappy, at the same time he doesn't want to see his own sister travel from Egypt to his town and stay a hotel. This is a disgrace to everything he knows and is. I will not force him to make that choice.

I am not controlling. I refuse to be controlling, so this will play out as it does and I will stand beside myself and be emotionally mature about having to have her here should she decide to come here instead of going to a hotel as she has told everyone in Egypt.

Funny how you feel like a child being forced to learn and to grow when faced with life's challenges from which you used to run and hide.

I know when this is over and I did the right thing, I will be all the happier and stronger for having done so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbsPzgectOw&list=UUVFJBbBcV6akw8M1YuDo-Yg

Giver's Remorse

So what's the deal with giver's remorse?

I had a hard time wrapping my head around this issue since it's one of the negative results of being raised by a narcissistic mother - one of which I never acquired.

By the grace of God, I leaned toward my dad's sincere generosity in life over the NM's absolute opposite attitude.

But, when a loved one wants to mirror the giving trait or the trait of generosity - but doesn't want to give, you see what I call "giver's remorse."

It's an awkward feeling being offered something by a person with this condition because you always hope that THIS time they actually want you to have this object or favor because they love you. It's again that fond fantasy about all of those affected family members which just never seems to come to fruition.

There is an element of control in the way a person takes away an item before actually relinquishing it, and in the case of a favor, it is begrudged almost on the spot. But directly after, you feel the resentment that they gave anything of themselves to you. And later still, you are bound to hear how you didn't appreciate such and such enough or at all in their opinion.

If this is, as so many things are, a reflection on the receiver or non receiver as it were, I have more to learn - because it seems to me all about the person suffering from giver's remorse. This person wants to do right, but feels slighted by their own attempts at generosity.

Nobody needs another to be generous - it's a wonderful thing that just happens from the heart of a generous person. I think the person with giver's remorse feels that generous people are looking for something in return and this couldn't be further from reality.

I guess this thing with giver's remorse is yet another category of toxic relating that doesn't seek to serve either the "nongiver" nor the loved one.

One could wonder why would you want such a person in your heart, but as a member of a narcissistic family, I can tell you that those of us who love... love deeply. We are sincere, vulnerable, and mostly, patient. All of us who keep loved one's in our heart and out of our lives, do hold out hope.

This does NOT include for the narcissist. They do not nor will they ever Love.  They know not love, have not love - nor do they want love. It repulses them.  I hold out absolutely no hope for my narcissistic mother and covert narcissistic golden child sister.  NONE.

Standing my Ground....... taking you guys with me

So you guys are right here with me as I am faced with my first boundary keeping challenge.

You might remember the saga with my sister in law who lived here for years. I mean here as in my home where she eventually wriggled her way into my position in my own family??  Yeah that one.  In the end she planted herself at the right hand of my husband, was supplied a cell phone, bills paid, food, gas, even a car made available to her.. and lastly while I lay by then in bed with a black depression, she acquired my wardrobe. She interfered with my children and their father - our relationships. She tried to interfere between me and my husband but he adored me. Sick or not.. he would walk to the ends of the earth for me.

But he is healthy. That means he's not going to take on my battles .. I had to do that myself.  And as you all know, with years of hard work and in the end therapy, I finally did face that major battle on my own.  I got rid of her from my home and my life, AND by the literal grace of God, it didn't affect my relationship with my husband.

Only these kinds of people don't walk away easily. She returned last year and spent the time in a hotel, and is returning this year telling everyone she is doing the same. But my husband has hinted a few times that it would be nice if I would go with him to the airport and "cut the ice"... welcome her to stay here.  

If she were a normal person without an agenda, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Especially since her planned time is so short - but.....  NO.  This is no normal situation. And she is not a normal person. I've learned some really painful lessons in my lifetime and I'm not really up to having to learn another - especially when I already know what not to do.

All the years my kids were teenagers she was living here off from us and it was exactly like paying for four kids instead of three. There were plenty of times my husband had to tell me we couldn't afford the simplest things because we were strapped.  

It was when not only was she shopping for things to take home, but the last straw was when she purchased for I think six hundred and fifty dollars, an IPhone ,5 that I lost it.  We were paying for her all these years and she was making my life miserable and she can afford an IPhone 5!  And airlines tickets.. and .. and ... and...  The woman has her own money.  That's just it. If she were destitute, my attitude would be entirely different, but she has her own money, a newly refurbished flat, and two successful sons - one who is btw very well to do in Egypt as a high placed corporate executive for the American drug company, Novartis.  But, their wives can't stand this woman either, so she was splitting her time between the States and Egypt.  Making all of us miserable.

I remember telling her "Your not my mother or even my mother in law, and I have no obligation to take care of you." Doesn't matter. She was hanging tight to what she thought she had.

I finally told her she got enough off from us for ten years and to be grateful for that - and to not return here for any longer than three days. She replied that she would never step foot in my home again, and I was fine with that answer. THAT'S the way I'd like to keep it.  It was her choice, but a great one.

Now, she's trying the last resort trick of all narcs.  She's telling everyone she's going to the United States and staying in a hotel because she thinks she's been a burden to us for some time and it was wrong of her.

 This is what has my husband rolling over and giving me the doggie eyes.  I can't.  I just can't.  I love and care for myself too much to betray what has taken me so long to achieve -  Self respect in placing that boundary with her. 

So you heard it here first fellow healers...   I stand strong and with my newly acquired voice and self respect. I am going to have a calm, clear discussion with the hubbers.  

Getting back Out-There

The Key to a Successful Future begins with Healthy Boundaries

Now is the time in recovery when we are tested. It's when life goes on and we are a part of it - relating with others in healthy ways.

After learning how to place healthy boundaries and to enforce them, we no longer hope for a significant other to make things right for us. Now we take care of ourselves in every way possible and necessary. We have become in effect the mother that we never had, and our own best protector.

The tools we've acquired over the course of the past many years while recovering from narcissistic abuse must now be utilized daily. From the moment we awake in the morning to the time we sleep again at night our awareness needs to be keenly focused on what it is that is best for us first and our loved ones.

I cannot stress enough the importance of the using and keeping of those boundaries for this stage in recovery. We are going back out there - and allowing some of the out-there, in here. This requires BOUNDARIES to be solid and enforced.

You Do Not Have to Allow Any Person to enter your Inner Circle whom you Find to be Negative, Toxic, and or Damaging to yourself or Others. Period. Trust your feelings and enforce boundaries.

If a loved one tries to inquire whether you might be able to tolerate NOW a banished narcissist say in their family whom they love, it HAS to be your priority to answer clearly. You need to make it known that while it is understandable that since this loved one has been removed from "our" inner circle it's become uncomfortable for "others," but it is firstly UNHEALTHY for YOU to allow them or any narcissist back into your life.

The loved one must love you enough to really understand that this is no longer a possibility because it is a matter frankly of your life or death that you remain narcissist-free, abuse-free.

The value of one's life is way more important than is the accommodation of a narcissist.

DETACHMENT

Well Said, here, Gail Meyers.  I would only add, "People who love you, will love you regardless of what a narcissist tells them. People who are interested in the truth inquire rather than (be silent) or accuse."

Aside from the behaviors of my narcissistic mother, the non belief and non love of these family and extended family members was the most painful experiences from which to move on.

But really, as Gail so elegantly puts it here - all that pain and anguish was for nothing because do you really want people in your life who care that little of you to begin with?  I mean, even if after years of proving who you really are to them, they come around and finally see the truth, all those years of hurt and devaluation don't just go away. You'd have to ask yourself  about what you worked so hard to prove?  And to whom and for what?

I wrote an off the top of my head ... thinking out loud ... manuscript in 1989 called Get the Message documenting everything from early childhood to my then age of 39 with these wackos - my family of origin.  I thought it was to discover what the deal was with my parents, but after rereading the manuscript a decade later, I realized it showcased clearly even more of my dismay and confusion with the enablers of the narcissist.

The manuscript was rife with slights and devaluations from the golden child, my eldest sister.

I was being totally honest in my search for meaning and understanding in writing the whole thing - It was a generous, all be it poorly written, display of absolute realness and vulnerability about which my golden child, covert narcissistic sister said was "Just Crazy" after reading.

The final assault on the assaulted.

Tell the truth with sincerity about the past and present dealings with a narcissistic family and what should you expect?  Only, then I didn't know this thing - this monstrous, confusing thing about which I was writing had a name and science to it called "Narcissism."

When I get totally well and my little sister is the same, for us one day a relationship might be wonderful. - But for all the others from my FOO to my extended FOO, it is no longer nor ever will be a desire of mine.

No punishment here nor devaluation involved - This is merely radical acceptance of what is, and enough self respect and self love to know and say aloud what is best for the future and for all time.

When kindness and love, and all efforts of reaching out to family and extended family have been met with negativity, ambiguity, and silence, one has to thank the Universe for allowing us in such a massive way to see the direction sometimes in which we seek acceptance would not lead to the place that will serve us best.

THE MIND-TRAP KEY

Having just done this - the letting go of my story, it is important to share that in doing so, the power and control it had over me is now GONE.

I faced it alright. I looked at that story in grave detail from morning til night everyday of my adult life until I recently grew past that last emotional attachment.

My god I lived it, then I tried to forget it, then finally faced it, studied it, dissected, and shared it until I and my readers were blue in the face.

I kept telling myself I forgave the NM, I don't care about her or what she's done or is doing now. I told myself that because of carrying this story, my life was heavy and my body was tired and diseased.

I kept trying to convince myself that it was over - I was finished with the whole NM saga, past, and present.  But, I was still waking up with the stories, carrying them with me everyday, throughout the day until bedtime again.

I said I wasn't angry anymore and I wasn't so my depression left me totally a long while ago now.

I said what the NM has done doesn't matter anymore, but I was holding onto how my siblings and father believed her. I think that was the stumbling block that was holding me back from the freedom I have today.

I just couldn't figure how they could believe such lies about me, and do they still believe?

It was so strange last week when instead of me approaching my mind and emotions, my mind and emotions sort of came to me. I was presented with the thought that the NM AND all of her accomplices and enablers are dead to me so all they do now, and what they have done, no longer exits. If something doesn't exist, there is nothing about which to ponder.

It was like magic. It was over right there right then that day that moment last week.  Finally, I let go of my story and ever since the Universe has begun to write anew.

It began with a cure for the IBS I've suffered with for almost thirty years - which by the way began during the times with the NM when she tried to destroy my happiness about marring Khaled and finding love with my Arab family in Cairo, Egypt.

So, right after this all came to me, I happened to come across the honey and turmeric cure and the IBS was under control within days. But, it all began three decades ago on visits to the NM's.

Instead of ignoring accusations and slander of the Arabs, and her righteous indignation over the history of Israel, I spent a couple of weekends a month for years debating with the toxic narcissist. NM got what is called narcissistic supply from my reactions, and I got sick. Begging her to stop - to talk about anything else, she refused, while I ran back and fourth to the bathroom in cramping pain. This was the beginning stages of the disease. She played me like a puppet, but I wasn't playing games - I was loving my "mother" and wanting to help her understand the truth at the same time.

Only, NM knew the truth.

Truth is always irrelevant with a narcissist. Creating negativity whether with truth or lies, it doesn't matter, it is the suffering that is meaningful to a narcissist.

But, now I know all of this - what happened and why - and how to get better and stay better. It was such a long time coming - this emotional clarity.

There has to be a reason that it took so many years to become an emotionally mature adult.  I think in my case and maybe for many others, it was because the amount of information that needed to be learned required decades to absorb properly.

So, my life began anew with the clarity of mind - the loss of emotional baggage, then directly after, came the cure for the IBS. Then this week I found the cure for constant sinus drainage and the occasional sore throat in my essential oils using a difusser through the night.

I can hardly wait to see what improvement I happen upon next week!!  It's like letting go of that story opened a previously locked door through which is a clear path to the place I've been journeying my whole life.

It's still me, only a cured me. It's still the same destiny, only with an unfettered path on which to walk. It's still my story, only it no longer plays on my mind - it has lost it's power. It's still my body, only healthier. It's still my mind, only now I am FREE.

Stop Walking on Eggshells

I want to talk about utility verses love, compassion, and self.

Do you know someone who tries to do all the right things in life, but they fall short of making meaningful connections and being able to experience real and lasting, healthy relationships?

It could be this person attaches with others in an effort to acquire a ready-made self. No matter how saintly, though, this other cannot ultimately measure up to the distorted image the selfless person perceives in them. This sets off the devaluation, judgment, distrust, condemnation stage called splitting, which is confusing for the person whose self is being absorbed.

The person whose developing self was interrupted during early childhood development usually by the unloving mother wound, often behaves this way refusing to see that the misery in their life is because of this behavior as opposed to the behavior of their significant others.

This person avoids deep emotional connections by making utility the priority in relating. When in a real relationship, love and compassion, trust and understanding is essential, for the person without a self, it is things and even time that is most meaningful. They are in a relationship with their money, cars, home, animals, time, and in the end image - the image they are taking on at the time.

You discover that if you pay your way with them and more - they devalue you less, if you respect their things and time, they devalue you less, and if you offer them yourself, your compassion, values, time, trust, belief, validation, and understanding, they can be fun and interesting - ambitious and exciting to be around. But, this is exhausting to keep up to have a "relationship" to the degree the utility-seeking person expects and demands.

When this person isn't running from the last falling out, they busy themselves with measuring things. Judging attitudes, amounts, money, and time, they are forever calculating the fairness of everything in their life and relationships. They actually cock their head from side to side in a quick gesture, meaning, "It might do for now."

But it isn't too long before the walking on eggshells resumes. You used the paper towels, you didn't appreciate enough a favor of utility - anything - the list is endless. If the person feels like they've taken on your personality to the point of feeling engulfed, devaluation is their only recourse.

So, while in your personality, using your vernacular and your tone of voice, same inflection, this person begins blaming you for everything from A to Z, only most of these things while meaningful to them have nothing to do with the relationship. They are blaming you for loving them by judging your every move and breath in a negative light.

In the blaming much is actually true, since the toxic culture creates reciprocal bad behavior.

This person is a competent, responsible employee, and maybe even friend. If you needed something done right or help with something - they would be great and happy to help. This wounded person is not a liar. They pride themselves on their integrity. But all along it's about situations and utility, not kindness, patience, real love, and compassion.  It's about being on time, paying the bills, telling the truth (distorted though it may be).

BUT you will never be able to pay them back enough to satisfy their endless measuring.  If there is a falling out they will choose to forget your qualities and the things you offered them and the relationship freely without measure.

I had a person like this in my life and I was bound and determined to show the person trust and love until they would be able to do it too. Only it doesn't work that way.  Once a person of utility always a person of utility, unless they choose to get better. They take on your personality, all but the capacity for love and compassion. Not because they don't want to love. In fact, they think they do love - but conditional love is not love. It's because they are so wounded that they cannot love and trust and believe until going through the work and stages of in-depth therapy.

The idea of this is so painful to this person that they choose, instead, to run their whole lives from doing so. They run from relationship to relationship or from relationship to the same relationship - from house to house - to rental - from state to state - back to relationship to relationship - from job to job - idea to idea - It never ends until they physically can no longer run.

It goes like this with a person of utility over love:  Woundedness, distrust, judgment, fear = CONTROL.  For the person with whom they are attempting to relate: Love, trust, confusion, being devalued = WALKING ON EGGSHELLS. 

I guess that emotionally I get this now. It is detachment. NM's negativity was all I had of her, and I was still attached to it up until it hit me last week. It's over. The negativity is gone. The no contact with the NM and all other toxic people has afforded me the opportunity to totally heal and detach

Life needs to be Lived While one is still Living

When I see this I can't help but think of my dad. He just didn't live his own life until the last two weeks he was alive.

This man lived everyone else's life from his mother's to his employer's, to his narcissistic wife's. His own life lay dormant, awaiting permission to proceed.

This man was literally selfless in his zeal to do right, work hard, provide, and overcome the poverty of his own childhood.

Even as a small child I saw this in my father, which made me try all the harder to be the kind of child that would make him happy. Those efforts were not unnoticed - Dad loved that about me, as he often enjoyed my little personality.

He used to call me Suzie Q., and he would sing to me Oh Susanna, take me fishing, and really he did all he possibly could to be a sweet, kind, and generous father, aside from his limited patience and own wounded inner child self.  Also, all the while raising me and my siblings he was dealing with a cruel malicious narcissistic wife who he absolutely adored, anyway.

It wasn't until about three weeks before his last breath that he finally realized our mother, his wife was behind ALL the toxicity in our lives from our earliest memories, and from the moment he met her. He, like most enablers and co dependents was totally taken in by her lies and manipulations for half a century.  My god.

For the first time in his life he betrayed our mother's wishes by doing everything that was right while he was dying - instead of what would destroy his own children. It was NM's plan to keep me from getting to say goodbye, after being kicked out of the family the year before. He lay there thinking this over and agreed with my little sister to get word to me. I flew to Florida the next day and was there with him for three days.  Our NM nearly had a coronary, and he would pay for this action.

He enjoyed watching baseball on the television for the first time in all his married life in those last two weeks. He didn't care what the NM thought or wanted, for once. He paid attention to his children - all of them, and the NM was annoyed.  He was prescribed morphine which made him sleep and NM had a fit. She wanted him awake to listen to her. She made it her business to have that morphine taken away from him and it was a huge fight between her, the nurses, and doctors about it. Finally, while still in hospital, it was decided that when he needed it HE was to call the nurse. Only, NM threatened and warned him about THAT drug and wanting her way that he wouldn't get it. He never called once.

When he was released to her custody,. the morphine went home with them, and he did ask for it as the days went on while he was suffering greatly, but NM refused to give it to him. I was flown back to Pennsylvania by then and my little sister was being kept from entering the house,...  stopped at the door... told he's tired.

NM's enablers, my brother and his wife and my covert narcissistic sister were the ones watching all this torture taking place. Dad was begging for help and NM told him to "Calm down. You are upsetting everyone." This is typical NM treatment and response to desperation and pain of anyone other than herself. By the way, she was on Percocet, herself.

Finally, my brother was about to lose his mind, and he turned her into authorities. She was forced to sign Dad's care over to State nurse who while on her way with his first injection of morphine, was notified by cell phone that my dad had just passed away. The nurse arrived, and instead of relieving him of his discomfort, she ended up declaring him dead.

My little sister was called to the scene from two minutes away and after going to our father, she turned her focus to the medication bottles on the counter, his original bottle of morphine stared back. It was during the mulling around of family members still in these moments that the siblings all came together in the screened in porch, sharing the above events. My brother at this time swore to never speak to the NM again. This, however didn't last.

Everyone was totally spent. My little sister and I suffered from PTSD for quite a while after this ordeal. My brother I don't know now, but I would imagine he is still suffering. The covert narcissistic golden child sister - no way. She couldn't care less about Dad's suffering then, and it didn't phase her after. She told me that she didn't care about him, he was dead. She said, it was the NM she cared about. I wasn't surprised That's kind of par for the course, I thought.

Dad was not stupid. He was a voracious reader - loved learning new things. He was quick to admit when he was wrong, and he was careful when speaking, unlike the NM. This man had some wonderful character traits like loving to see when someone else succeeded in something, won, or acquired something they'd really wanted. Not a jealous bone in his body. I loved that about him. He wasn't a liar like the NM, but he believed her lies and was paranoid and distrustful of others.

About his children, our dad was confused. He loved them, but he believed NM's lies about all of us and he was just confused and constantly forgiving without saying a word. He forgave in his heart because he wouldn't want to confront us with these lies and we did the same for him.  The things the NM said one said about the other were so hurtful and so outlandish, often embarrassing .. that none of us would confront each other. We just forgave in our hearts after sometime.

So, in these years, all of us (my family of origin) weren't really living. And until last week even I in therapy and working so diligently to recover wasn't fully living. I was improving, but totally living free was on hold. It wasn't until the myriad of assaults and stories of the NM on all of us ceased to exist with me emotionally that I decided it was over. They existed, oh yes, they all happened, and could still be happening where she is now, but all she has done has lost it's power.

This radical acceptance and conscious choice won't allow what NM's done in the past and is doing now to affect me ever again. She is dead to me, so whatever is going on with her doesn't exist to me - and what has been done in the past remains there. All of her enablers remain there also. I no longer even think about them, what they believe, and what they've done with her against me.  I don't care. I really do not care, FINALLY.

I guess that emotionally I get this now. It is detachment. NM's negativity was all I had of her, and I was still attached to it up until it hit me last week. It's over. The negativity is gone. The no contact with the NM and all other toxicity has afforded me the opportunity to totally heal and detach from them and what they've done.

Detached from all negativity feels really freeing, and as I write this, I have no desire to revisit the details of the stories of the NM and her enablers.

That's huge. That's living. And that's a good thing.