My Mama

My mom was born in 1935. The sixth child and the last of the three children that lived. All three were girls. Their mother was born in an immigrant Ukrainian family that had come to Canada at the turn of the century. My baba's dad came in 1901 and her mom and two brothers came in 1907. The settled in the Lethbridge are and guido supported the family by working in the mines. My baba was the 3 or 4th child born in this country as she was a twin. I don't know if she or her sister was older. Many more children would follow and my great baba would be the mother of 16 children that lived.

Baba was born in 1909. Just two years after her mom has arrived in this country. Life was very difficult. Especially with all those children. My great baba worried about her children and loved them. She wanted the best for them and when my baba was just 16 years old they arranged a marriage to another Ukrainian immigrant. He was good looking, had $150 in the bank and owned a house. Baba did not want to get married and she was so young. She did not like her chosen husband either. What her mom and dad did not know was that the charming husband to be was cruel. He was jealous, controlling, abusive, and an alcoholic. He beat my baba and her children all the time. He injured the back of my mama's eldest sister so she had troubles her entire life. Then one day he just disappeared.

My mama remembers then living in an apartment in a house in or near Lethbridge which was near the ice plant. She recalls being about 3 years old and running over to the ice plant in her bare feet with her sisters, to catch the ice that fell from the trucks and front loaders. She said they would suck on the ice like it was candy. Some pieces were so big and so cold that they had to wrap them in their t-shirts to hold them. It they got caught, they were punished, but the next time the ices was being loaded they ran back to get the ice.

The girls in the summer would get gunny sacks from their baba and walk across the prairie collecting dried cow patties for burning in the stoves in winter. They said it was hard work and hard to find the dried on. They would wander miles and the bag would get heavy as it filled.

My mama was a wonderful singer and every Saturday, her and sister would run to the radio station where mom would get picked to sing live on the radio. For doing so she would get a bag of porridge or cream of wheat. Mom said they would tear a hole in the corner to dip their fingers in and eat it on the way home. It was the dirty thirties after all. Poverty was all around and my mom and her sister were forever changed by that poverty.

Their mom would meet a man that had a house and a farm and they would get married. The problem was a little like like Prince Charles. You see grandpa loved someone else, but she was married. Grandma was second best and every chance he got he was with his first love. In a small town, everyone knows everything and people talked. People knew. My grandma was a proud woman and very beautiful. I think the talk must have broke her heart. I think her firs husband did as well as she could never please him. Something changed in my baba. She started to drink with her husband. She would go to parties, leaving the girls at home. Her and grandpa would bring the party home, and there would be late night drunken parties and fights. My mom would be woken up from her sleep and made to sing requests from the drunks. She would sit on their laps while she sang her beautiful songs and they would molest her. This went on for years.

While grandma and grandpa were gone and partying the girls took care of the farm. The animals, the house and if things were not done correctly, baba punished them very harshly. She was a cruel task masker. In later years baba told me that my mom was always bad. Right from the moment she came screaming out of her belly. Poor mama. She didn't stand a chance, did she?

What I see is a young girl, being raised by her older sister. A girl being molested while singing songs. I see a girl who wanted her mom to notice her, her mom to love her. She wanted her mom to be a mom.

Life was really hard for mom and her siblings. It was the end of the thirties and early forties. Many people were homeless, starving, and barely existing. It is the stuff that songs are made from and Woody Guthrie sang many songs about the era. My baba was forced to sell her mandolin which was a gift from her mama and had come from the old country. My own mama had a cow which was given to her as a calf, but it had to be butchered. They needed to eat. My mama never forgot and is angry still today over the loss of her "Joseph" who had blue eyes. She feels very bitter and says that had they not partied and drank, they wouldn't have had to take her cow. She loved that cow and sang to it all the time.

My mama told me she entered a singing contest in a neighboring town when she was about nine. She bought the certificate and ribbon home to show her mom who was proud at that moment, but then it was never mentioned again. Mom said that as far back as she could remember, she wanted to sing. She sang to flowers, to rocks, to trees, to her dolls, to the farm animals. She sang to the sun and moon and stars. "I only wanted to sing." A young girl with a dream that was ignored, smashed, and broken. In it's place was a broken, empty, and bitter being. Who broke my mama's dreams? My mama's heart?

My mom left her home when she was 16. By 19 she was married and there I was. A child born to parents who were both broken but good people. My dad was very musical and artistically gifted. He wanted to go to Art school more than anything in his life. His parents wouldn't let him and sent his brother to university for something more suitable. My mom only wanted to sing. Now she is married and has a child. Life is going down a different road.

She brings me to visit her mom one day. I am small and she is carrying me in her arms. She goes in baba's house and she hears yelling and screaming from baba's bedroom. She runs to the room and sees my grandpa pointing a rifle at baba's face. She is on the bed and he is straddling her and holding her down. All my mom sees is the gun at her mom's face. She leaves and runs as fast as she can to a neighbouring farm and begs them to come and help and to call the police.

When help arrives my baba and grandpa are having a cup of coffee at the kitchen table. They don't understand the fuss.

Gaslighting, something my mother did very well. It looks like she learned it from her parents.

 A form of intimidation or psychological abuse, sometimes called Ambient Abuse where false information is presented to the victim, making them doubt their own memory, perception and quite often, their sanity. The classic example of gaslighting is to switch something around on someone that you know they're sure to notice, but then deny knowing anything about it, and to explain that they "must be imagining things"when they challenge these changes.

 They blame my mom for lying, having a vivid imagination. When they left, baba got up and walked over to my mama who must be so confused, hurt, and wounded because she loved her mom. Anyway, Grandma walks over to my mom, who is still holding me, and almost spits in her face while saying with venom "Don't you EVER tell ANYONE what goes on in this HOUSE!" With this proclamation, my baba punches my mother and punches her in the face. She broke her nose and gave her a black eye. I can't imagine a mother punching a daughter, let alone a daughter who is holding a child, and a daughter who loved her mother and just tried to save her life.

This was her life, and it became my life. Broken can only create broken. I weep for the girl my mom was. The girl who sang to nature. The girl with a song in her heart. She must have been happy. One day it was punched out of her and there was no going back.


The Bible warns us about provoking our children to anger. I believe there is a reason for it for I saw my grandmother's, my mother's, my mother's siblings, my siblings, and my own children's anger. But I also believe that God forgives us, and can and will heal our wounds.

Ephesians 6:4English Standard Version (ESV)

4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.


And then we need to forgive. If we don't forgive the anger festers like a wonder until the pressure builds up and it explodes over innocent people. Forgive them so you have no desire to hurt them like you were. Forgive them so in your anger you don't hurt others. Forgive them, so you can shine love for the world and give the broken hope. Love the unlovable. The world has made them so and a kindness can change their world.


Romans 12:17-19
17 Do not repay any one evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.
18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.

No More Tears

You had me crying again. Crying because I wasn't loving you enough. You felt I loved others more than you. What is really sad is that I don't think I did. I should have loved everyone more than I loved you. I loved you so much and kept trying to love you more and more that you really got the most of my love. I never tried to love anyone and show someone as hard as I tried to show you. And yet, you feel I loved my SOB (your words) of a father more than you. Someone who never beat me. Someone who made me laugh. Someone who made it fun to be a kid. Someone I couldn't wait to be with. You knew that and took him away. Your jealousy and unhappiness sent him running for the hills to escape from your wrath. I can still see the bacon and eggs sliding down his windshield. I recall on the mountain highway when you pulled the keys out of the ignition and threw them out the window. I think there is a reason that car manufacturers make it so you can't do that anymore while the car is in gear. We ended up crashing in the side of the mountain. You, dad, and four kids. You were willing to risk anything, because to you weren't any"one". We were just things to be controlled and manipulated. Like chess pieces on a board and when you didn't get your way, you'd knock us all over.  I remember when you jumped out of the moving car. I was screaming at you to not do that. "Don't mommy, don't mommy". "Mommy, please don't. We're scared". "Mommy, we love you, close the door." At times I had very dishonoring and evil thoughts and wished you had died.

Your little pawns in your game of life. That's all we were. If you could make us look bad to make you look good, well game on. You did not care about the level of shame or humiliation you brought on us. You had us steal for you and told us not to get caught. Good one there. If we got caught you would berate us and shame us in front of the authority and play the poor single mom, or the poor struggling mom with some terminal illness. How you tried so hard to keep your kids in line but they just won't listen. Oh, the tears came so easy. They'd be so suckered in and feel so sorry for you and they'd look at us with disgust. We would have to make apologies and retribution to them. We'd work for free, cleaning yards, houses, whatever they needed. All the while filled with shame and embarrassment for something we did not do on own accord. I hated my life so much. I really hated it.

Then the knocking the pawns over. The rage that would take place because you had to act your academy award winning part due to your nacissist injury. We would have to be humiliated even further for doing you bidding. We would have to be "punished". Not punished for stealing, but punished for getting caught. "Didn't I tell you not to get caught?" Thwack! "What are you crying for? I haven't even hit you yet!" Thwack! "You brought it on yourself so don't cry to me!" Thwack! "Pull your pants DOWN!" Thwack! "What does "Don't get caught me to you"?" Thwack! "So what are you going to do next time?"

It would go on sometimes for an hour or more. I'd cry and beg "Please don't hit me." She'd laugh and say "Take it like an adult. You're such a baby. Can't even follow the simplest instructions. How are you ever going to make it in life if you can't do the simple things?" And the conveyor belt would lash out over and over on my bare bottom, my back, my legs, my shoulders. She'd pull my hair if I tried to move off her lap and slap me in the face if I wasn't responding to her in the correct tone of voice or the right words. When she was all done I would have to tell her I loved her before I could leave the room. Sometimes that would entail more beating before I would break down and say "I love you mom."

Shortly after that we'd be sent out again to raid gardens, steal pop bottles, a carpet sweeper once and a carpet, apples off trees. We'd get home and MNM would demand "Did anyone see you?" We'd say no and she would exclaim that they better not have because you know what will happen if they did. Next we'd she in doo doo up to our necks because we didn't get enough of this or that. Then we'd have to decide which us useless ones would do without since we hadn't thought to bring enough for everyone.

I cried then. Every day. Every night. All the time. I cried the other day. It washed away some of the blindness I had for you. I don't think I will cry because of you again. My heart is drying up.

I await the blessed return of Jesus and believe and live in hope of his words:

He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." Revelation 21:4

Gaslighting

Definition from Wikipedia: Gaslighting or gas-lighting is a form of mental abuse in which false information is presented with the intent of making victims doubt their own memory, perception, and sanity. Instances may range simply from the denial by an abuser that previous abusive incidents ever occurred, up to the staging of bizarre events by the abuser with the intention of disorienting the victim.

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The term "gaslighting" has been used colloquially since the 1970s to describe efforts to manipulate someone's sense of reality. In a 1980 book on child sex abuse, Florence Rush summarized George Cukor's 1944 film version of Gas Light, and writes, "even today the word [gaslighting] is used to describe an attempt to destroy another's perception of reality."
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Psychologist Martha Stout states that sociopaths frequently use gaslighting tactics. Sociopaths consistently transgress social mores, break laws, and exploit others, but typically, are also charming and convincing liars who consistently deny wrongdoing. Thus, some who have been victimized by sociopaths may doubt their perceptions. Jacobson and Gottman report that some physically abusive spouses may gaslight their partners, even flatly denying that they have been violent.
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Another explanation from an excellent site "Daughters of Narcissitic Mothers"

Gaslighting is one of the most insiduous, viscious, nasty and effective forms of emotional and psychological abuse.

It can make the victim feel as if she's going crazy. If your perceptions of reality are constantly denied, and above all, denied by your mother, the person you look up to and who you think knows everything, it is very, very head-wrecking and crazy-making.

Read more:Daughters of Narcissist Mothers

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Just recently I went through some tough days of gaslighting with my malignant narcissist socipathic/psychopathic mother. It was trying and extremely difficult. At times I am as crazy as her as I get caught in her web of drama and end up engaging with her. I have been warned and have learned NOT to engage yet find myself unable to react at times. I will have to learn to be more aware and disengage those buttons or she will use that crack to tear my to pieces.

I listened to her for days telling me about my father and how he treated her so badly. I am fully aware that it takes two in a marriage and my father is not without fault, although his hands were extremely full being married to a woman with this personality disorder. She went on and on and ran him continually into the ground. She wore me down and I broke. Another tactic and I tripped and fell for it.

My father was one of the very few good memories I have in life. He was my hero, my ray of sunshine. He left my mother when I was 10 years old. We knew he was not coming back as he had put his wedding ring in a coffee cup and left it for my mother. He had caught her numerous times with other men. I had caught her with men. She abused him and I a witness to the violence. I lost my composure when she told me that her marriage had been annulled by the church as my father was no kind of husband.

Me: Incredulously ask "How can your marriage be annulled after you have 4 children?". In addition, one of the four is likely not his.

Her: "Because he was gone for 5 years so the church said he was likely sleeping with someone else and had abandoned the family."

Me:  "He left you because he found you sleeping with another man!"

Her: "Oh no, what are you talking about? That never happened. I would never do that. He left because he was alcoholic and sleeping with every woman that came around, including the babysitter."

Me: "I have dad's divorce papers right here and it says that HE divorced you."

Her: "What do you mean you have them. That is impossible because our marriage was annulled because of his infidelity. What do they say, IF you have them?" Yep, she's baiting me and I'm falling for it.

So I read the divorce claims and judgement to her where my father claims infidelity, listing the names and occupations of the men, and how HE was awarded the divorce and my MNM next husband was to pay damages to HIM!

She says, "Well I don't know where you got those because I was never in court." I remind her that the document states she failed to appear in court. So she states that she wasn't served with papers so how could she! I remind her that courts can't proceed without proof that she was served. That she had to sign that she received the summons. So next, she says, "Well, I don't even know who those men are that you read to me. I don't even know them."  I tell her that you can't go to court with made up names. You have to have proof, you have to have evidence. You can't make up names and get a judgment.

"Well, he had to, because none of this makes sense. I got an annulment because your b****** father was s******* around and I never got served, and I never went to court, so it is impossible that he divorced me. I don't know where you got those papers or where they came from. They have to made up!"

See, even with the evidence in front of them, with the lawyers name on the letterhead, the stamp from the court, the date, signed by the judge; it doesn't exist. Someone made it up. You are a liar. Someone tricked her. She didn't do anything wrong, the wrong was done to her. Everybody does things to her.

She was hospitalized after her suicide attempt and making me watch her die. I asked her what the doctor said to her. She said that he said she was stressed and it was like she was fighting a war with the entire world on one side and only her on the other. She was fighting the battle all by herself. I thought it was very apropos. I asked her what she thought of that. She said, "It made me mad. What kind of crap is that? I didn't even understand what he was trying to tell me. I just got madder."

Malignant narcissist people cannot admit their faults because they don't see that they have any. That is why they are so evil. Most people have a conscience. They have feelings, they care. Because these people don't, it is what makes them so evil.

Scott Peck writes in "People of the Lie"
It is necessary that we first draw the distinction between evil and ordinary sin. It is not their sins per se that characterize evil people...The central defect of the evil is not the sin but the refusal to acknowledge it.

My mother cannot acknowledge anything, because nothing exists for her, except herself.

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. James 5:16