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.