Cedar, your mom sounds like a narcissist, although there are many overlaps in symptoms of both. Antisocial is actually a tad worse as they have so little regard for human life that sometimes they go off the rails and kill randomly with no regrets except for hoping they don't get caught.They have no ability to feel at all. I think narcissists are a bit better, in a rather ironic sense.
I just learned about it because that's how I am. I like to do research. It wasn't to learn how to make my family beter. I was well aware that it couldn't happen. I did try to protect my siblings a bit. I was the oldest. But I also was a kid with special needs, overly sensitive myself, and trying to survive. So I didn't do a very good job of being a go-to person for either of them. Also, being the black sheep, my siblings were afraid to stick up for me and, in the end, this becamse a lifelong pattern and they both loved mommy so much that they talked themselves into agreeing with her. Or maybe they just DID agree with her. Heaven knows, I was NOT an easy kid. I had tantrums and rages. I had a mood disorder and was sad a lot. I had learning disabilities and did poorly in school and, later on, cut school because I learned it was a place of failure. I gave up on ever doing well. So there are reasons, I guess, why I was the black sheep. My brother was sick with Crohns and that did seem to make my mother overly protective of him and my sister was the quiet one who tried not to cause a stir at all. She paid for it. Anorexia, which she still has, although she denies it. She wakes up at 4am every day to go to the gym and give herslef a knockkout workout and is 5 foot 4 and if she reaches 100 lbs. she knows it's time to diet). When my ex saw her for the first time in years he said she looked like she had last stage AIDS. But she doesn't think she is too skinny. So be it. There is more as well. Drugs...cocaine was her main one until she thought it had given her a stroke. Two abortions before age nineteen. One was with her ex husband because "we couldn't afford it then." I'm pro-choice, but I think that's an insane reason to have an abortion. They were buying a house at the time. Ok, so some may think that is ok. I can't. It wreaks to me of selfishness. She has been suicidal at times too. I am quite sure she has borderline traits.
My brother has been in therapy for at least twenty years. I'm not sure why. We don't discuss it. Never did.
But my family believed in "a house divided, is a house we can control." So my sibs and I never really discussed our issues in detail and had on-again, off-again relationships. I never want to see them again. It hurts too much.
I know this sounds terrible, but this seems to be the one place I can say what I want and how I really feel. I don't know why. Somebody who knows me could find out about this site and that this is me. But I don't really care. My kids would feel sympathy andnd I have never kept anything from them. They all know the story. So does my husband. And nobody else matters.
Ok, here is my confession. I cringe to type it: I may not go to my father's funeral when that happens. It is not because of him, it is because of my DNA collection. I would rather go visit his resting place with my husband, lay flowers, talk to him there...do it alone in peace and quiet. It should be about him, not them and if they're around me, it will be around them to me. Will I actually not go? I don't know. I honestly don't. But since he is so old, I am trying to plan...I know I'll get a call one day...and I have to know what is best to do. For me. He's dead, and I believe that the dead continue to go on in spirit, with new understanding, and that all makes me think hard about this. What is a funeral anyway? A place where a lot of people who don't like each other pretend to like each other, hug, and cry? My mother's was a joke. "She was a beloved grandmother" said the rabbi. (She hadn't seen MY kids since Julie was six years old and she was in her 20's at the time.) It was hard to be there. But at least the sibs were all speaking at the time. I went to support THEM. This time I don't have that excuse.
"Divide and conquer" The cry of the narcissist who wants everyone to herself. An alternate reality from most of us.