Tuesday, June 26, 2007

A Private Sadistic Moment with My Mother

Torienne's comments on the private sadism of narcissists brought a particular event to my recall. It didn't happen to me personally. As my mother gets older her ability to hide her malignancy diminishes. This event happened a few years ago.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, my mother began grooming my female cousin "Lee" to take my place as a daughter, of sorts. This began in the late 90's. In 2002 I finally was able to figure out that my cousin was under my mother's tyranny, and I did all in my power to help her extricate herself. Successfully, by the way.

My cousin has two sons. One of the reasons my mother was able to get a handle on my cousin's life was because Lee was having problems as a single mother raising her two boys. My mother, who constantly advertises herself as having all the answers in raising kids, presented herself to my cousin as her last and best hope. My mother ran a bit of a "boot camp" at her home whenever she decided my cousin's boys needed to be tormented into better behavior. After Lee had finally gotten her boys and herself out of my mother's hell, her younger son shared an revealing moment with my mother.

He was in trouble with my mother. For what? Who knows at this point. He can't remember. (Which was often true for me as a kid. I would forget what the hell I had done wrong because of the disproportionate punishment which obliterated one's memory of the original offense. When a kid has done a real wrong and receives proper discipline, then they will not forget what they did wrong. They'll actually learn something from the lesson.) His age, around eleven or twelve. She brought him up to her bedroom for the obligatory lecture and then an ass-whooping . What happened next is what I found extremely interesting because it was a short moment where the mask slipped down to reveal the monster. After she finished pounding on him, she smiled a smug little smile and said in a low voice with special emphasis, "That felt good. It's been a long time since I've gotten to do that." If you say those two sentences with a post-orgasmic kind of breathy voice, you'll get the tone of how she said it.

The sadistic bitch. I had long suspected she loved it when she could pound on the asses of young kids, including mine. Finally, I had proof through the witness of my young cousin.

When told this story, I knew exactly why she let the mask slip in that moment too. She had zero accountability. There was no one who was going to come to her and demand an explanation for her admission to sadism. No one. She'd made sure to crap all over my cousin's youngest son's image. My mother absolutely despised him and therefore made sure that any other adult who might hold her behavior toward this boy to some account knew what she "knew" about his bad character.

After I became aware of my mother's dealings with Lee and her boys it became very obvious why my mother hated Lee's youngest son. My mother was unable to find a way to terrorize him into fear and submission. When this happens it actually scares my mother. She is freaked out when she can't find a way to control someone. She is left to conclude they are "evil" and will systematically label them as such to anyone in their sphere in an attempt to isolate them. She hopes the isolation will bring them around to letting her control them. If that doesn't work, they find themselves ostracized by others and she is protected from anything they may reveal about her. It is a win-win for her.

So this young boy was by this time labeled by my mother as "bad seed". Lee didn't believe this about her son, but she was still under the spell of my mother and was depending on my mother's "expertise" to help her deal with her boys. So her son didn't share this particular moment with his mother at the time it happened because he understandably assumed it wouldn't have done any good; after all, it was his mother who relinquished him to my mother's discipline. The only other adult that could possibly hold my mother to account would have been my father. My father would hold no opinion other than the one his wife told him to have about Lee and her boys. Therefore, my mother knew there was no chance he would intervene. This explains my mother's freeness to openly revel in physical violence against a child to his face.

I can't express the level of satisfaction I get when I think how I was able to have a direct hand in depriving my mother of her whipping boy. That sense of satisfaction is accompanied by a revulsion at her vileness. All the years she tormented small children willingly placed into her care by other mothers. All the years I endured the private torture of her sadistic ways.

I just pray she isn't so evil that hell itself will spit her out.

11 comments:

  1. I, too have experienced the mask slipping on my sadistic narcissist mother as she viciously beat me. I, too cannot remember my offense but it was always something small that was elevated when when I questioned why I had to stay home and micro clean the house instead of riding bikes with my friends outside or something like that. She had a long teachers wooden pointer stick that she would beat me with across any exposed body part leaving huge painful welts. In extreme pain, I cried out "You are crazy!" She demanded I put my hands down at my side (I was trying to use my arms to protect myself from the blows) and not resist as she now aimed for my face and head with the cracks from the stick. I was terrified and closed my eyes as she beat me but the memory that always stays with me is when I opened them in shock after a extremely brutal crack, she was smiling as if enjoying my pain. Seeing her pleasure in my agony, terrified me to my core of my being. They enjoy inflicting pain, fear, and confusion on innocent children yet some of them appear to non-family members as perfect parents as they work endlessly at promoting that perfect "image" to their neighbors and authorities.

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  2. I just wandered into this site while surfing the web at night. Everything you wrote is familiar to me. My own mother is and was a purple faced shrieking tyrant who was well-beyond self absorbed. She hated everything and had no desires in life other than to hurt her children and dominate their lives. All my time with her was nonstop physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. She laughed when my alcoholic stepfather played Russian roulette with my head – she liked to marry alcoholics with anti-social personality disorder; soul-mates I guess. I can’t remember all the times I was held down as a child and had burning cigarettes shoved between my legs….just endless sick abuse. Of course it was “for my own good” and Jesus approved. My older bother and two sisters ended up living in poverty, without job skills, miserable, and dependent on SSI to live on. Most of them cannot even work they are so messed up. They are as self-absorbed and narcissistic as my mother. I move away from my family 26 years ago and will never go back. I have three year now and it’s just beyond me how anyone can take pleasure in causing an innocent child pain. Thanks for you webpage. I will read it over.

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  3. my dramama passed a week ago. micro cleaning, strip naked beatings with wet leather choking, sexually abusing boyfiends..i never realized how much i hated her until the day she died (i guess i was still afraid)
    the hardest part...people who get all chocked up and want to feel sorry for her passing. i grow cold and once again become the bad kid to my drop dead gorgeous, charming , witty mother

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  4. Yep, I was always the "bad kid" to all of my relatives who then took the opportunity to punish me more for "treating her so badly."

    I was pretty much the "family pinata." Beat up, picked on, made fun of. The holidays were the worst and I usually locked myself in my room, until they learned to literally break in.

    I love your blogs. Thank you.

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  5. Correy,

    Thanks! Glad you like the blog, although I'm sorry you can relate. I hope you've shucked the abusers out of your life.

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  6. Hi Anna!

    Sorry it took so long to respond! LOL.

    Yep, I have. I had many many periods of NC with her, with the latest being 7 months.

    I was once confronted by a cousin about a blog I wrote on myspace about the abuse. I asked her "Okay, well what in this blog isn't true?"

    She admitted "well, nothing." What even got the conversation started with her was she said "I think you wrote this blog out of revenge."

    I said "revenge for what? If nothing happened to me during childhood, as you're claiming, what on EARTH what I want or need revenge for?"

    After she pretty much admitted that everything I wrote happened she stopped talking to me.

    Thank you sincerely for having this blog, Anna. You ROCK!

    Correy

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  7. Anna,

    Wow. This one incident alone is justification for cutting off all contact with your mother forever. What an evil sadist. I'm so sorry that you or anyone else has ever been terrorized by someone like that. My NM delighted in emotional sadism, which was bad enough, but luckily she wasn't the physical disciplinarian in the house.

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  8. Wow, I can't imagine why she would be spanking a twelve year old anyway, let alone, someone else's child.

    Sometimes they do let the mask slip, I know my mother did. One of our last meetings, she was picking on me and she said she liked to do that because I get so upset. I've been mulling that one over for years. That was before I woke up, so. I couldn't even imagine saying that to my daughter.

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  9. My MN "Mother" was also a sadistic abuser well into my adult life even beyond NC until her physical death. (PI's, relentless stalking of me, my family etc.) I also don't remember the transgressions but I sure do remember the abuse and of course, it was always behind closed doors. Bruises fade. Broken bones mend. Burns scar over. It is the psychological/emotional abuse that leaves the longest Legacy.
    On my last "mandated" (by her, of course) Xmas Pilgrimage to her home (and the last time I was in her physical presence, probably in my mid-20's) I had a ganglion cyst on my hand-no pain, no impairment, just a bit unsightly. MN "Mother" honed in on that cyst like a heat seeking missile and made a huge deal about it repeatedly throughout my visit. As a Medical Professional, she suggested with great excitement/anticipation she would relieve me of this malady by having me place my hand flat on a firm surface-like a table-and she would take a large, hard covered book (the PDR) and "smash the cyst." I declined her offer firmly and consistently much to her obvious disappointment/anger and told her I would have the cyst attended to when I returned to my own home a few hundred miles away. It never occurred to her I would not willingly place myself in a position to be further physically abused by her, her disappointment later giving way to rage: How dare I defy her?! I dared and continued to dare: I NEEDED my hand and it was functioning just fine even with the cyst.
    As the day approached for me to leave her House of Crazy, her rage giving way to the Silent Treatment for several days, she suddenly announced to me she had made an appointment with a Hand Specialist-a few days AFTER my departure date. Clearly she was scheming for a way to keep me at her residence longer. But this wasn't just any old Hand Specialist, OHHELLNO! This was a Board Certified Plastic Surgeon HAND RECONSTRUCTION Specialist. In other words, the kind of Specialist I might want to see if I just happened to grab the moving bar of a chainsaw on over-drive. I'd be embarrassed to even sit in the Waiting Room with all ten fingers. I declined yet again and reiterated I would take care of it when I got home. As the days dragged on endlessly towards my departure she started to infer perhaps the best medical recourse would be a complete amputation of my offending hand because "those cysts grow roots that will strangle all the muscles and nerves in the hand resulting in impaired blood flow to the hand and..." blaa-blaa-blaa. I was relieved to escape with both hands, all digits and no broken bones in my hand courtesy of MN "Mother's" insistence on having me offer my hand willingly so she could break the bones/"smash the cyst" with her PDR. I could see her practically salivating over that essentially harmless cyst.
    When I returned to my home I made an appointment with a local GP who took care of the cyst in his office. As I was sitting holding the compression bandage (he had his back to me as he was putting the instruments etc. away) I told him about my MN "Mother's" suggested interventions. He was silent for about 30 sec. and then turned to me and said with a perfectly straight face, "So, is your mother in inpatient or outpatient mental health treatment?"
    Ahhh, sweet validation! ;)
    TW

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  10. I just imagined punching my sadistic mother in the face when she comes to my apartment. I want her to die in the street like a dog.

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  11. Thank you all for the honesty. I am so ashamed that I knew my mother and father and sister. So ashamed of my hateful violent ignorant family. I know it wasn’t my fault but I have all these memories and fears, so many. Of her revulsion, contempt and glee at my pain and confusion. It helps me to read your rightful outrage at your own mothers—and passive or violent fathers. I left at 19, thanks to a therapist who called her a prison guard. And another who said they thought my sister was a schizophrenic after showing me a picture she drew of a boy with his head turned one direction and his body 90 degrees the other. Yes, commenting on my body and talking to me like I was a hooker almost got my dad beat up by strangers trying to protect me from him. The were dumbfounded when I told them he was my dad—in the company of my brother in law. Words don’t quite convey the multitudinous and terrible ways a person can torment someone behind closed doors, and humiliate them in public. My mother refused to buy me a bathing suit that fit when I was 14. We went to the basement of a store for women. The top fell open exposing my breasts and the bottom fell off my bottom. But it was always my fault I was so ugly and embarrassed. And they laughed at me. Constant belittling and humiliation. I’m amazed I survived it.
    I’m in awe that you all survived it, too, and speak the truth. :). Thanks
    It helps to say even a little.

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