Before I even took my thumb off the publish button on my phone, Beatrice had liked this post. Beatrice, you're psychic and you have wonderful taste and thank you!
Yay, Beatrice! I would be interested to know if Beatrice also has the experience of growing up with a (diagnosed or undiagnosed) difficult mother. I am speaking about Beatrice in the third person only because she hasn't commented, but if you see this, Beatrice, and want to weigh in, I'd love to know 🙏🏻
I want to know also and you're reminding me that as much as I admire Beatrice for being so wonderfully prompt and loyal here all the time, I don't know much about her either! Love you, Beatrice!
Just the little peek you've given us here reminds me so much of my ex-wife, who I was finally able to successfully divorce a few months ago. Speaking of which, that stat about divorces initiated by women is interesting--particularly because I left my ex and when I asked my attorney when we should file, she said, "Don't file. Let her do it." I asked why, because I was concerned it would cause a perception problem with the court. My attorney said that, from a strategic standpoint, it's better not to file, because then we get to see what line of attack she and her lawyer were using, and we could respond to that. The other reason was to just make her spend the money on the filing fee.😅 She also assured me that the court didn't care who filed first--and she was right.
That's so interesting and I'm glad you figured that out when you needed it! Fortunately, I never got married so I will never have to use that advice. And that's MY best advice: don't do it in the first place. Thanks for the nice comment.
That is so interesting (about waiting for your wife to file). I can't lie; after everything I went through in the story I wrote last year that Jane referenced in her intro, it was so f-ing satisfying to be the one to file for divorce. It felt as though I had finally taken back my power. I'm happy for you that you had a savvy attorney to help walk you through it.
Thank you! I admit I was disappointed when she said we needed to wait for her to file, but it did make all the difference for how we were able to navigate everything.
I think your mother and my mother could be twins. What is it with narcissistic mothers who snoop, refuse to discuss, leave notes? Or in my case, take my poor nerdy high school boyfriend aside and threaten him with a restraining order?
We both left for college right after she pulled that trick. We were together for 2 more years. We are still in touch (50 years later) and he remembers this well! So crazy.
And also, it's not for me to say whether your mother is mentally ill, so please forgive that comment; I have occasionally used that term a little more cavalierly than I should, and if I did that here, I apologize!
Thank You, Jane, for highlighting this important and often overlooked aspect of motherhood. Leslie, I'm truly touched by your poignant and powerful piece. I'm blessed to have a magnificent mom, now eighty-one, who is my world and my life is so much about honoring her professionally and personally. In fact, my obsessive love for Mom often distracts from the demands of my own middle-aged mothering to a fierce and feisty five-year-old daughter!
Thank you for this gorgeous, thoughtful smart touching (I could go on) comment!
I'm so glad you have such a wonderful mom – as do I! (Mine is 87, just turned.) It has impacted my own mothering also but more in the sense that I feel grateful that I have her as an advisor and a role model based on how she raised me and my siblings. I also feel I'm not sure if I can live up to what she was able to do. But I'm doing my best!
I get the phrase that says "everyone is doing their best" but when I read about moms in particular who don't seem to be trying to do their best, that's hard to hear. I love love love Leslie for this story and what's coming up next in this ongoing series. And
I especially want to thank you for NOT defaulting to the "But she's your only mom, and she did the best she could" discourse that so many people fall back on when hearing this story.
I don't hate my mother, and I have a lot of compassion and empathy for what she experienced at the hands of *her* mom, but minimizing the experiences of a trauma survivor by waving off the impact of their lived experience is never helpful.
And I love that you have a feisty five-year-old daughter!
Jane, my answer when people ask about my memoir, 14 years in progress, is, “Did you know that writing books is really hard??” And then I laugh. But it’s true.
It's so true and I am going to try that very answer myself! It might work better when you've been at it for longer than I have but I'm trying it anyway. And also, bless you sweetheart, for being the sole person so far to answer my question, which is actually important to me.
This might be one of those questions that’s more easily answered if you’ve had the same experience. I love that people are interested, but I hate that question. My mind tends to interpret it as accusatory. Probably because of my mom.
Whew, mom issues! I can so relate (details in my upcoming memoir!). I have always had a love/hate relationship with my mom. I have rescued her so many times that I have lost count, and most of those rescues came during times when I had shut down my relationship with her. But she was raped at sixteen at gunpoint, then beaten and abused by every husband and man she ever had a relationship with - and I always have to save her. Now she is 83, and I am 62, and we have an amicable relationship. I go and visit her once a month, take her grocery shopping, and get her a haircut. I know that when the time comes, I will rush in to save her one last time. But she has given me permission to write my memoir and share all the "bad mom" episodes... Mom relationships have to be the most difficult and complicated relationships of our lives.
AMEN to that. The mother-daughter relationship is so complex, nuanced, and emotionally charged. Your mom's story is horrifying, and it's lovely that you now have an amicable relationship.
It's pretty incredible that you have her blessing to write your memoir and to share all of the unflattering stories about her. I could never. My mom would DIE if she saw this AJPT story. All she cares about is how she looks to others.
I look forward to reading your memoir!
I think that's the next stop on my writer's journey, too.
Mrmoirs are tough. But it looks like you'll be fine 🙂. Yes I told her I will not write to blame her or get revenge, but I just need to tell our stories as our lives were so intertwined, and the events of my childhood led to my child bride situation. Good luck!!
I have a quick part 2 comment after talking with my husband, because my comment has a weak spot. I see both my parents in myself. I have to work really hard not to be a complete asshole, I told him. So all the ingredients are there, but I grew ip undiagnosed and while I do therapy and meditation etc etc for myself, I really increased my efforts with it to avoid passing on my bullshit to my kids. So same phenotype as my parents, same lack of diagnosis and treatment but here I am wholeheartedly trying not to be an asshole for the sake of others. My husbands dad from a much harsher and older generation also remained reflective and willing to adapt up to old age. Sadly he died before autism was on our radar. But my husband too, he has a jacked nervous system that makes him prone to relating poorly, but he works to handle it better. So what is the difference between the ones who try to do better vs the ones who go full tilt narcissist, it isn’t lack of diagnosis and treatment.
Oh Leslie, thank you for this! You really have a beautiful way of presenting your lived experience. I wish I had hours to craft this comment but I’m in about-to-travel panic mode so it’s gonna be real sloppy. But so much of this is familiar that I have to spill now before I’ve even finished reading. I was diagnosed with ASD I as an adult, after my son was diagnosed. Subsequently also with ADD., both relevant because they not only explain some of awful coping mechanisms that result but provide strategies to prevent them developing into full blown personality disorders. I wish I had one concise book or article to refer to here but so much of these behaviors link up to neurological wiring and all that I’ve read in books and bits and pieces of audhd substacks etc is too big for me to be able to summarize. But for example I see in my husband and kids the urge to fight as you so well described it to use the people around you to get your dopamine fix, the almost paranormal hypersensitivity to the feelings of others. I look back at my own parents and see that they had no clue about these diagnoses and no resources to sort out their problems in the way that my sons and I do. I struggle so much not to be an asshole and though I am still processing so much rage and grief etc etc I can see that my mother had those same struggles, my dad too. It doesn’t let them off the hook but it calms me down that I can look back and see the ways in which they were limited are the same ways in which I am. And I am grateful to have brilliant autism therapists where I live and my yoga teacher was a Buddhist practitioner and passed some techniques on to me that would be right at home in the office of a skilled therapist. I think as you grow into adulthood without resources, there is a hardening into a distorted personality that insists on its distorted views and becomes increasingly more rigid and fixed in that distorted view. I’m think I g of your mom’s pride in those immature hate-mails. It’s like their maturing just stops at some point. I cringe to admit I’m also great at writing those but I have matured enough to not send them, but I used to send them 😢 Ugh and that diaphragm story! One day I found blood in the shower and went to my mother full of worry. She just kept saying “Oh Kate just has her period.” And I kept saying “but there’s blood!” She never told me what a fucking period was though it was obvious I didn’t get what she was saying. Thank god for Sassy, right? And when my hormones kicked in she accused me of “being on drugs.” She needed me to be a scapegoat and never acknowledged that I was the only one of her six kids not going out getting wasted in the woods. But alcohol was the family religion so I was bound to be the scapegoat, turning as I did to yoga and meditation and therapy. What a bad fucking apple 🍎. Sorry that turned into a rant, but something about your writing really hits me and makes me want to over share big time. Thank you again for this and I can’t wait for your next piece!
"Thank god for Sassy" is right! I think I was even a little older than the main demographic at the time, but I remember so clearly being genuinely delighted that there existed a magazine for young women that talked about real issues like sex, and whatever other things we had been groomed to feel embarrassed about, as women.
I learned things from Sassy that I had never been taught or told elsewhere. It was truly liberating.
Good for you for dealing with your own challenges. It is deep work, and I wish you all the best.
Wow. I have never loved my own mother more (which is also obvs if anyone here has read my fashion essay collection; I call her throughout the book in times of worry). Thank you for sharing your incredibly vulnerable story. Sadly, given these comments, it's not an isolated one.
As for your own book Jane, I used to say quietly — almost dismissively — when people asked me: "It's coming along." It's the same answer I feel like you give when people ask how training for the marathon is going. In both cases, sure, you really want to say THIS IS FREAKING HARD, but we are better than that. We aren't these mothers (sorry, bringing it full circle here).
We are here when you publish it, however long it takes. xx
Training for the marathon is the perfect perfect analogy! I ran the New York one ages ago, but I basically didn't train so I got the same exact feeling in my stomach when people asked me that question then too! And your awesome comment (on top of your awesome book!) Reminded me that I did finish the marathon ran the whole time and I know I will finish this book also. I also always know that I will pack in time to get onto my flight or train or whatever it is. I just don't do things the way other people do and I don't need their opinion on that. I expected to get advice about ways to swat back this question when I get it, but I didn't expect to get a transformational way of looking at the whole thing. I will remain quietly confident that I'm doing what I know how to do with whatever response I give them from now on. Thank you immensely!
Leslie, I just sent this piece to my best friend who has been surrounded by narcissistic family members her entire life and is now experiencing her health declining with no discernible medical explanation(s).
The way our bodies tell the truth, man…it’s no joke.
Thank you, Dana, for the compliment about my writing and for passing the piece on to your friend. I will be sharing a couple of resources in one of these installments (I think there will be three installments, total) that were instrumental in helping me to understand both NPR and BPD, which may also help your friend.
Leslie, I’m so looking forward to the next installment! And man, do I ever relate. I once got the silent treatment for a full week my senior year of high school because my mom heard a rumor that I was going to throw a party. Which I wasn’t. Yesterday she (78) informed me that my dad (77) has a plan to die by suicide if my mom dies first. So now I’m grappling with calling senior services or a mandated reporter. It’s never-ending. I also have CPTSD from my childhood. I’m so sorry you’ve gone through this, too.
Yeah. The stonewalling is brutal when you're a teen, especially when it is about something you didn't do or plan to do!
As far as what you are currently dealing with, with your parents, that is a lot to contend with, and I am sending you all the good juju as you navigate that journey.
Leslie, your description of your mom is quite terrifying. The subtle building you up as an artist, only to tear you down later, "if you stepped out of bounds." Mindfuck--such a good word to describe the crazy praise/withdrawal cycle. Glad you survived and are an artist and writer! I was lucky in the sense that my mom was a good one. She had lost her own mother as a kid, had a dad away in wars, and was raised by a step mom and a boarding school. So she knew what kind of family she wanted to create.
But so many of my friends had toxic moms. I think about it sometimes in the historical sense. Smart women whose power and control turned inward in a destructive way. Hurting themselves and those around them. It was still pretty much a man's world in the sixties--at least where I grew up. Would love to know the stats of the anorexia and narcissism Dxs now women seemingly have more options. I hope they are lower!
I'm fascinated by everything in this comment. Thank you for telling your own positive story and for raising that issue about narcissism and anorexia stats. When you say women have more options, I'm trying to think of how that would affect the narcissism/anorexia. What I'm seeing in my anecdotal "research" is a disproportionate number of moms who seem to fit into those two categories whose daughters are now in their 40s and 50s and also younger. I really want to understand this more. Thanks again!
Jane, so I was thinking this: Let's take a woman of 50 years old, and make her mother 80 years old. The mother would have been born in 1946 (if my math is right). I think women born then had fewer choices of what to study, who to marry, what career to pick etc. They had less control and less power within their family to become their full self. I see anorexia as a desire to control something (the food intake, the human body) and as power without an external outlet. So the power turns inward, seemingly against the anorexic herself. (I can control what I eat, I have the power to do it, and you can't stop me). So I was hoping fewer people would have anorexia as women became more powerful within their families and larger societies--that more choices would have eliminated the illness. But this may not be true. I took a quick peek and it seems the numbers of anorexia diagnoses are greater than ever...but I have not done a deep dive. And of course there are many other theories of why someone develops the illness, and I am no expert on the topic.
Years ago I studied the work of Salvador Minuchin, a famous family systems therapist
of the 1970s. He did fascinating work with anorexics and their families. He found common patterns. Like the family was enmeshed, had poor boundaries, has inflexible expectations/roles for their children. He wrote so much on this. The key I took away was that he saw the patterns as limiting a person's autonomy and independence, which could increase a person's chances of developing anorexia.
Anyway....after this convoluted mishmash you will never want me to comment again!
I find this absolutely fascinating, again. I have an appointment in seven minutes and I want to stay here and answer this instead, but I'm going to come back…
Wow. Your mom sounds incredible; I will say, the good news for me is that I, too, had such a clear vision of the kind of parent I wanted to be, based on my childhood, that my son was never subjected to the same toxic behavior from me that I received from my mom, and for that, I am grateful.
It's a great question, regarding the narc/anorexia stats. I may have to look into that.
I love that you had a clear vision of the kind of parent you wanted to be. There is so much hope there, in your power to do that. I feel that way about my mom. She intentionally chose moving forward.
@LeslieWard and @janepratt — are you dialed into my personal life down to the date!!
Thank you so much for sharing this and writing this. my experience is identical. And I keep writing about it, but actually I’m too afraid to publish it. thank you very much for publishing it. My mother has been stalking me on social media and it’s like guacamole, not guacamole, whack-a-mole.
I feel like it’s changing daily. It’s so strange and sometimes I can post a picture and then other times I can’t. I don’t know it’s a crapshoot. I’m gonna try to at you right now @Jane.
I tried to do it the other day too with Ani because I wanted her to see something about her and it didn't work for me either. I'm also still trying to figure out how Ani posted a picture in the comments when I've never been able to do that and Substack didn't used to have the capacity for it. Who here knows?
Amanda! Wowee. I am happy/sad that you related to so much of my story, which is exactly why I agreed to write about this. It can feel pretty isolating, especially if you don't know other women who have had a similar experience.
And OMG about your mom stalking you on social media. SAME!
I had a mini panic attack when Jane emailed to tell me this installment was up on the site, to the point where I asked her to remove my last name from the byline because my mom follows someone else on here, and somehow figured out last year that I had created a Substack profile and started following me, and I was like, "OH HELL NO" and blocked her, but WTF. So I've never posted anything under my own Substack (which, tbh, has worked out just fine because I love writing for Jane and being a part of this community anyway).
"Guacamole, not guacamole, whack-a-mole" made me laugh and is so perfect.
Oh my gosh, I love this. I couldn’t figure out how to reply to you privately so I sent you a message on Instagram. Thank you so much and no, we are not alone. Substack the new therapy thanks, Jane 🤌❤️👏🏽👏🏻🙌
Thank you so much for sharing your story, Leslie! I can't wait to read its conclusion, but I hope you know that you were completely justified in whatever decision you made regarding resuming contact with your mom - or not! I also hope you're peacefully living your best life today. 💕
Thank you for that, Alyssa! I do have a life that I love today 💕
I appreciate the support for my decision to resume contact with my mom. It was basically a no-win situation, and I had to choose the path I could live with.
I will say more in the next piece, but I was only able to do it because of all the trauma recovery work I had done, but it still wasn't my first choice.
Oof! Relatable Leslie, very... fucking... relatable. When people ask me what growing up with my mom was like, I think about that scene in Mommy Dearest when Christina is sitting in the closet post mommy tantrum and through her exasperated tears simply says "JESUS CHRIST!" She says it with the weight of a war veteran, someone who has seen and done more than they should have to. I've never felt more seen in a movie, although my own mother was definitely no Hollywood legend, or even ambitious in that way. Ironically she aspired to be a mother and a wife only, and depending on how you define accomplishment, succeeded on a technicality. I'm very much looking forward to the rest of your story and will go back and read your previous story in the meantime. As someone who grew up with an f'd up mother, I crave stories of other disfunctional mother/daughter relationships.
Jane...I can say that I too feel like I'm being punished for my own procrastinating ways whenever someone asks me about my long promised, but totally unfinished (maybe never started?) writing projects. I very much like the advice about turning the tables and asking the person about their own projects. All my suggestions are just snarky and mean things that I think are funny, but would probably not be great to say in reality, unless you want to start developing a new, Cruella type persona for your book writing era. In which case, I got you.
That is a great line, and I hope I get to read something you have written (in your own time, of course!) because I already love your style.
I am, of course, very sorry for your experience, and I appreciate you joining the chorus, although I am sorry for those of us who belong to his particular club that we never wanted to be a part of.
This is SO beautifully and powerfully written, I read all of Leslie’s writing in one sitting, in one breath, it feels like as I race through each of her articles. I feel so seen and pennies constantly dropping. Wow, this one really touched home for me and I am patiently awaiting part 2! 💓
I agree with every word of this. Thank you so so much for saying it. And Leslie should be giving me part two any day now and we will work on it to get it out to all of you ASAP. Thanks again!
Before I even took my thumb off the publish button on my phone, Beatrice had liked this post. Beatrice, you're psychic and you have wonderful taste and thank you!
Yay, Beatrice! I would be interested to know if Beatrice also has the experience of growing up with a (diagnosed or undiagnosed) difficult mother. I am speaking about Beatrice in the third person only because she hasn't commented, but if you see this, Beatrice, and want to weigh in, I'd love to know 🙏🏻
I want to know also and you're reminding me that as much as I admire Beatrice for being so wonderfully prompt and loyal here all the time, I don't know much about her either! Love you, Beatrice!
Just the little peek you've given us here reminds me so much of my ex-wife, who I was finally able to successfully divorce a few months ago. Speaking of which, that stat about divorces initiated by women is interesting--particularly because I left my ex and when I asked my attorney when we should file, she said, "Don't file. Let her do it." I asked why, because I was concerned it would cause a perception problem with the court. My attorney said that, from a strategic standpoint, it's better not to file, because then we get to see what line of attack she and her lawyer were using, and we could respond to that. The other reason was to just make her spend the money on the filing fee.😅 She also assured me that the court didn't care who filed first--and she was right.
That's so interesting and I'm glad you figured that out when you needed it! Fortunately, I never got married so I will never have to use that advice. And that's MY best advice: don't do it in the first place. Thanks for the nice comment.
Don't. Do. It. 🚨
That is so interesting (about waiting for your wife to file). I can't lie; after everything I went through in the story I wrote last year that Jane referenced in her intro, it was so f-ing satisfying to be the one to file for divorce. It felt as though I had finally taken back my power. I'm happy for you that you had a savvy attorney to help walk you through it.
Congratulations on leaving a toxic marriage!
Thank you! I admit I was disappointed when she said we needed to wait for her to file, but it did make all the difference for how we were able to navigate everything.
I think your mother and my mother could be twins. What is it with narcissistic mothers who snoop, refuse to discuss, leave notes? Or in my case, take my poor nerdy high school boyfriend aside and threaten him with a restraining order?
Whut? A restraining order?? That's totally nuts, Sheri.
Did you stay with your boyfriend, or did your mom scare him away?
I'm trying to imagine a grown woman threatening a nerdy, adolescent boy with a restraining order, based on absolutely nothing.
I am so sorry for all the things you have also been through as a result of having a mentally ill mother. It's a lot to unpack.
We both left for college right after she pulled that trick. We were together for 2 more years. We are still in touch (50 years later) and he remembers this well! So crazy.
And also, it's not for me to say whether your mother is mentally ill, so please forgive that comment; I have occasionally used that term a little more cavalierly than I should, and if I did that here, I apologize!
Me the hell too. I did it in the headline and all my promotion of this piece also. I apologize as well!
Thank You, Jane, for highlighting this important and often overlooked aspect of motherhood. Leslie, I'm truly touched by your poignant and powerful piece. I'm blessed to have a magnificent mom, now eighty-one, who is my world and my life is so much about honoring her professionally and personally. In fact, my obsessive love for Mom often distracts from the demands of my own middle-aged mothering to a fierce and feisty five-year-old daughter!
Thank you for this gorgeous, thoughtful smart touching (I could go on) comment!
I'm so glad you have such a wonderful mom – as do I! (Mine is 87, just turned.) It has impacted my own mothering also but more in the sense that I feel grateful that I have her as an advisor and a role model based on how she raised me and my siblings. I also feel I'm not sure if I can live up to what she was able to do. But I'm doing my best!
I get the phrase that says "everyone is doing their best" but when I read about moms in particular who don't seem to be trying to do their best, that's hard to hear. I love love love Leslie for this story and what's coming up next in this ongoing series. And
I love you too!
Thank you so much, Cara.
You are blessed, indeed, as are you, Jane.
I especially want to thank you for NOT defaulting to the "But she's your only mom, and she did the best she could" discourse that so many people fall back on when hearing this story.
I don't hate my mother, and I have a lot of compassion and empathy for what she experienced at the hands of *her* mom, but minimizing the experiences of a trauma survivor by waving off the impact of their lived experience is never helpful.
And I love that you have a feisty five-year-old daughter!
Jane, my answer when people ask about my memoir, 14 years in progress, is, “Did you know that writing books is really hard??” And then I laugh. But it’s true.
It's so true and I am going to try that very answer myself! It might work better when you've been at it for longer than I have but I'm trying it anyway. And also, bless you sweetheart, for being the sole person so far to answer my question, which is actually important to me.
This might be one of those questions that’s more easily answered if you’ve had the same experience. I love that people are interested, but I hate that question. My mind tends to interpret it as accusatory. Probably because of my mom.
Haha I love that poetic ending. Let’s all now add “probably because of my mom" to the end of every comment here on this story. It works!
Personally, I plan to add "Probably because of my mom" to the end of every conversation I have going forward.
I 100% support this response 🤜🏼🤛🏼
Whew, mom issues! I can so relate (details in my upcoming memoir!). I have always had a love/hate relationship with my mom. I have rescued her so many times that I have lost count, and most of those rescues came during times when I had shut down my relationship with her. But she was raped at sixteen at gunpoint, then beaten and abused by every husband and man she ever had a relationship with - and I always have to save her. Now she is 83, and I am 62, and we have an amicable relationship. I go and visit her once a month, take her grocery shopping, and get her a haircut. I know that when the time comes, I will rush in to save her one last time. But she has given me permission to write my memoir and share all the "bad mom" episodes... Mom relationships have to be the most difficult and complicated relationships of our lives.
Hi Dana!
AMEN to that. The mother-daughter relationship is so complex, nuanced, and emotionally charged. Your mom's story is horrifying, and it's lovely that you now have an amicable relationship.
It's pretty incredible that you have her blessing to write your memoir and to share all of the unflattering stories about her. I could never. My mom would DIE if she saw this AJPT story. All she cares about is how she looks to others.
I look forward to reading your memoir!
I think that's the next stop on my writer's journey, too.
Mrmoirs are tough. But it looks like you'll be fine 🙂. Yes I told her I will not write to blame her or get revenge, but I just need to tell our stories as our lives were so intertwined, and the events of my childhood led to my child bride situation. Good luck!!
I have a quick part 2 comment after talking with my husband, because my comment has a weak spot. I see both my parents in myself. I have to work really hard not to be a complete asshole, I told him. So all the ingredients are there, but I grew ip undiagnosed and while I do therapy and meditation etc etc for myself, I really increased my efforts with it to avoid passing on my bullshit to my kids. So same phenotype as my parents, same lack of diagnosis and treatment but here I am wholeheartedly trying not to be an asshole for the sake of others. My husbands dad from a much harsher and older generation also remained reflective and willing to adapt up to old age. Sadly he died before autism was on our radar. But my husband too, he has a jacked nervous system that makes him prone to relating poorly, but he works to handle it better. So what is the difference between the ones who try to do better vs the ones who go full tilt narcissist, it isn’t lack of diagnosis and treatment.
Oh Leslie, thank you for this! You really have a beautiful way of presenting your lived experience. I wish I had hours to craft this comment but I’m in about-to-travel panic mode so it’s gonna be real sloppy. But so much of this is familiar that I have to spill now before I’ve even finished reading. I was diagnosed with ASD I as an adult, after my son was diagnosed. Subsequently also with ADD., both relevant because they not only explain some of awful coping mechanisms that result but provide strategies to prevent them developing into full blown personality disorders. I wish I had one concise book or article to refer to here but so much of these behaviors link up to neurological wiring and all that I’ve read in books and bits and pieces of audhd substacks etc is too big for me to be able to summarize. But for example I see in my husband and kids the urge to fight as you so well described it to use the people around you to get your dopamine fix, the almost paranormal hypersensitivity to the feelings of others. I look back at my own parents and see that they had no clue about these diagnoses and no resources to sort out their problems in the way that my sons and I do. I struggle so much not to be an asshole and though I am still processing so much rage and grief etc etc I can see that my mother had those same struggles, my dad too. It doesn’t let them off the hook but it calms me down that I can look back and see the ways in which they were limited are the same ways in which I am. And I am grateful to have brilliant autism therapists where I live and my yoga teacher was a Buddhist practitioner and passed some techniques on to me that would be right at home in the office of a skilled therapist. I think as you grow into adulthood without resources, there is a hardening into a distorted personality that insists on its distorted views and becomes increasingly more rigid and fixed in that distorted view. I’m think I g of your mom’s pride in those immature hate-mails. It’s like their maturing just stops at some point. I cringe to admit I’m also great at writing those but I have matured enough to not send them, but I used to send them 😢 Ugh and that diaphragm story! One day I found blood in the shower and went to my mother full of worry. She just kept saying “Oh Kate just has her period.” And I kept saying “but there’s blood!” She never told me what a fucking period was though it was obvious I didn’t get what she was saying. Thank god for Sassy, right? And when my hormones kicked in she accused me of “being on drugs.” She needed me to be a scapegoat and never acknowledged that I was the only one of her six kids not going out getting wasted in the woods. But alcohol was the family religion so I was bound to be the scapegoat, turning as I did to yoga and meditation and therapy. What a bad fucking apple 🍎. Sorry that turned into a rant, but something about your writing really hits me and makes me want to over share big time. Thank you again for this and I can’t wait for your next piece!
"Thank god for Sassy" is right! I think I was even a little older than the main demographic at the time, but I remember so clearly being genuinely delighted that there existed a magazine for young women that talked about real issues like sex, and whatever other things we had been groomed to feel embarrassed about, as women.
I learned things from Sassy that I had never been taught or told elsewhere. It was truly liberating.
Good for you for dealing with your own challenges. It is deep work, and I wish you all the best.
Wow. I have never loved my own mother more (which is also obvs if anyone here has read my fashion essay collection; I call her throughout the book in times of worry). Thank you for sharing your incredibly vulnerable story. Sadly, given these comments, it's not an isolated one.
As for your own book Jane, I used to say quietly — almost dismissively — when people asked me: "It's coming along." It's the same answer I feel like you give when people ask how training for the marathon is going. In both cases, sure, you really want to say THIS IS FREAKING HARD, but we are better than that. We aren't these mothers (sorry, bringing it full circle here).
We are here when you publish it, however long it takes. xx
Training for the marathon is the perfect perfect analogy! I ran the New York one ages ago, but I basically didn't train so I got the same exact feeling in my stomach when people asked me that question then too! And your awesome comment (on top of your awesome book!) Reminded me that I did finish the marathon ran the whole time and I know I will finish this book also. I also always know that I will pack in time to get onto my flight or train or whatever it is. I just don't do things the way other people do and I don't need their opinion on that. I expected to get advice about ways to swat back this question when I get it, but I didn't expect to get a transformational way of looking at the whole thing. I will remain quietly confident that I'm doing what I know how to do with whatever response I give them from now on. Thank you immensely!
Leslie, I just sent this piece to my best friend who has been surrounded by narcissistic family members her entire life and is now experiencing her health declining with no discernible medical explanation(s).
The way our bodies tell the truth, man…it’s no joke.
Also, I love the way you write.
Thank you, Dana, for the compliment about my writing and for passing the piece on to your friend. I will be sharing a couple of resources in one of these installments (I think there will be three installments, total) that were instrumental in helping me to understand both NPR and BPD, which may also help your friend.
I screenshot her your Narc Abuse Hack #1 in case she doesn’t have the bandwidth to read the whole thing.
I’ll be following your series closely.
Leslie, I’m so looking forward to the next installment! And man, do I ever relate. I once got the silent treatment for a full week my senior year of high school because my mom heard a rumor that I was going to throw a party. Which I wasn’t. Yesterday she (78) informed me that my dad (77) has a plan to die by suicide if my mom dies first. So now I’m grappling with calling senior services or a mandated reporter. It’s never-ending. I also have CPTSD from my childhood. I’m so sorry you’ve gone through this, too.
I am so sorry, Robin.
Yeah. The stonewalling is brutal when you're a teen, especially when it is about something you didn't do or plan to do!
As far as what you are currently dealing with, with your parents, that is a lot to contend with, and I am sending you all the good juju as you navigate that journey.
Leslie, your description of your mom is quite terrifying. The subtle building you up as an artist, only to tear you down later, "if you stepped out of bounds." Mindfuck--such a good word to describe the crazy praise/withdrawal cycle. Glad you survived and are an artist and writer! I was lucky in the sense that my mom was a good one. She had lost her own mother as a kid, had a dad away in wars, and was raised by a step mom and a boarding school. So she knew what kind of family she wanted to create.
But so many of my friends had toxic moms. I think about it sometimes in the historical sense. Smart women whose power and control turned inward in a destructive way. Hurting themselves and those around them. It was still pretty much a man's world in the sixties--at least where I grew up. Would love to know the stats of the anorexia and narcissism Dxs now women seemingly have more options. I hope they are lower!
I'm fascinated by everything in this comment. Thank you for telling your own positive story and for raising that issue about narcissism and anorexia stats. When you say women have more options, I'm trying to think of how that would affect the narcissism/anorexia. What I'm seeing in my anecdotal "research" is a disproportionate number of moms who seem to fit into those two categories whose daughters are now in their 40s and 50s and also younger. I really want to understand this more. Thanks again!
Jane, so I was thinking this: Let's take a woman of 50 years old, and make her mother 80 years old. The mother would have been born in 1946 (if my math is right). I think women born then had fewer choices of what to study, who to marry, what career to pick etc. They had less control and less power within their family to become their full self. I see anorexia as a desire to control something (the food intake, the human body) and as power without an external outlet. So the power turns inward, seemingly against the anorexic herself. (I can control what I eat, I have the power to do it, and you can't stop me). So I was hoping fewer people would have anorexia as women became more powerful within their families and larger societies--that more choices would have eliminated the illness. But this may not be true. I took a quick peek and it seems the numbers of anorexia diagnoses are greater than ever...but I have not done a deep dive. And of course there are many other theories of why someone develops the illness, and I am no expert on the topic.
Years ago I studied the work of Salvador Minuchin, a famous family systems therapist
of the 1970s. He did fascinating work with anorexics and their families. He found common patterns. Like the family was enmeshed, had poor boundaries, has inflexible expectations/roles for their children. He wrote so much on this. The key I took away was that he saw the patterns as limiting a person's autonomy and independence, which could increase a person's chances of developing anorexia.
Anyway....after this convoluted mishmash you will never want me to comment again!
I find this absolutely fascinating, again. I have an appointment in seven minutes and I want to stay here and answer this instead, but I'm going to come back…
Wow. Your mom sounds incredible; I will say, the good news for me is that I, too, had such a clear vision of the kind of parent I wanted to be, based on my childhood, that my son was never subjected to the same toxic behavior from me that I received from my mom, and for that, I am grateful.
It's a great question, regarding the narc/anorexia stats. I may have to look into that.
Leslie,
I love that you had a clear vision of the kind of parent you wanted to be. There is so much hope there, in your power to do that. I feel that way about my mom. She intentionally chose moving forward.
@LeslieWard and @janepratt — are you dialed into my personal life down to the date!!
Thank you so much for sharing this and writing this. my experience is identical. And I keep writing about it, but actually I’m too afraid to publish it. thank you very much for publishing it. My mother has been stalking me on social media and it’s like guacamole, not guacamole, whack-a-mole.
I feel like it’s changing daily. It’s so strange and sometimes I can post a picture and then other times I can’t. I don’t know it’s a crapshoot. I’m gonna try to at you right now @Jane.
Also, what happened to the being able to @ people in the comments? Did they take that away? Is that something new?
I tried to do it the other day too with Ani because I wanted her to see something about her and it didn't work for me either. I'm also still trying to figure out how Ani posted a picture in the comments when I've never been able to do that and Substack didn't used to have the capacity for it. Who here knows?
Amanda! Wowee. I am happy/sad that you related to so much of my story, which is exactly why I agreed to write about this. It can feel pretty isolating, especially if you don't know other women who have had a similar experience.
And OMG about your mom stalking you on social media. SAME!
I had a mini panic attack when Jane emailed to tell me this installment was up on the site, to the point where I asked her to remove my last name from the byline because my mom follows someone else on here, and somehow figured out last year that I had created a Substack profile and started following me, and I was like, "OH HELL NO" and blocked her, but WTF. So I've never posted anything under my own Substack (which, tbh, has worked out just fine because I love writing for Jane and being a part of this community anyway).
"Guacamole, not guacamole, whack-a-mole" made me laugh and is so perfect.
Oh my gosh, I love this. I couldn’t figure out how to reply to you privately so I sent you a message on Instagram. Thank you so much and no, we are not alone. Substack the new therapy thanks, Jane 🤌❤️👏🏽👏🏻🙌
Thank you so much for sharing your story, Leslie! I can't wait to read its conclusion, but I hope you know that you were completely justified in whatever decision you made regarding resuming contact with your mom - or not! I also hope you're peacefully living your best life today. 💕
Thank you for that, Alyssa! I do have a life that I love today 💕
I appreciate the support for my decision to resume contact with my mom. It was basically a no-win situation, and I had to choose the path I could live with.
I will say more in the next piece, but I was only able to do it because of all the trauma recovery work I had done, but it still wasn't my first choice.
Oof! Relatable Leslie, very... fucking... relatable. When people ask me what growing up with my mom was like, I think about that scene in Mommy Dearest when Christina is sitting in the closet post mommy tantrum and through her exasperated tears simply says "JESUS CHRIST!" She says it with the weight of a war veteran, someone who has seen and done more than they should have to. I've never felt more seen in a movie, although my own mother was definitely no Hollywood legend, or even ambitious in that way. Ironically she aspired to be a mother and a wife only, and depending on how you define accomplishment, succeeded on a technicality. I'm very much looking forward to the rest of your story and will go back and read your previous story in the meantime. As someone who grew up with an f'd up mother, I crave stories of other disfunctional mother/daughter relationships.
Jane...I can say that I too feel like I'm being punished for my own procrastinating ways whenever someone asks me about my long promised, but totally unfinished (maybe never started?) writing projects. I very much like the advice about turning the tables and asking the person about their own projects. All my suggestions are just snarky and mean things that I think are funny, but would probably not be great to say in reality, unless you want to start developing a new, Cruella type persona for your book writing era. In which case, I got you.
"Succeeded on a technicality" 🏆🏆🏆
That is a great line, and I hope I get to read something you have written (in your own time, of course!) because I already love your style.
I am, of course, very sorry for your experience, and I appreciate you joining the chorus, although I am sorry for those of us who belong to his particular club that we never wanted to be a part of.
This is SO beautifully and powerfully written, I read all of Leslie’s writing in one sitting, in one breath, it feels like as I race through each of her articles. I feel so seen and pennies constantly dropping. Wow, this one really touched home for me and I am patiently awaiting part 2! 💓
I agree with every word of this. Thank you so so much for saying it. And Leslie should be giving me part two any day now and we will work on it to get it out to all of you ASAP. Thanks again!