Via Isabel Davidson

My father and I figured out long ago that my mother and my grandmother share the same patterns of attention-seeking: they want to feel like a victim and receive sympathy from their friends and family. In my mother's case, she likes being considered "abused."

When my brother and I were children, my mother would occasionally lock us up in her bedroom to "hide" from my father, promising us he would get violent if we were to venture outside of her room. My brother and I would spend the night terrified, our mother crying and telling us "it's okay, babies. We'll escape him some day." But the next day she would be perfectly pleasant and it was like nothing had happened. I recently spoke with my father about these incidents, and he elaborated on the effects it had on his relationship with my brother and me. Up until I left for college and could finally see my parents from an outside perspective, I thought my mother was right and that my father was abusive. She would repeat the words "deadbeat" over and over again until it sunk in my head. Whenever her friends came over for lunch they would ask her "is he being nicer to you?" only to have her cry and claim that no, he's still a "deadbeat." Meanwhile, my father was working 70-hour weeks as a lawyer, providing for a family as the household's lone breadwinner during a recession. When texts from my mother's friends started coming in more frequently telling me to be "nicer" to my mother, I realized the same thing was happening to my reputation.

There are very occasional moments where I sense my mother's friends may be privy to her antics. Sometimes I even become hopeful, but I know the way she talks about my father to her friends, a majority of it untrue or exaggerated; and horrifyingly, I know she does the same to me. A few of her friends, even her sister, have even tried to get involved in our relationship without asking me my perspective. One of her friends earlier this year texted me out of nowhere, "you need to be nicer to your mother." As evil as my grandmother is, her friends do the same thing. There's an internet community specifically for loved ones of people with personality disorders similar to that of my mother and grandmother; it's so common for a manipulator to use their friends to intervene in their relationships that these friends have been dubbed "flying monkeys" in the community. I want to believe these friends know better, or that they must see the bullshit, but deep down I know if I had a friend telling me "my daughter hates me, she's abusive and a bully," that I would probably believe it, too. We're an emotional species, and unless you're a trained professional, it's nearly impossible to pick up on manipulation tactics. When we see someone suffering, we naturally want to help. My mother knows this, and she uses it to her advantage at my expense.

My mother also likes being considered as "suffering" in some way. In recent years, she's expounded on this by using my autoimmune disease as her crutch.

In high school, I was part of a theater organization, where my mom and a few of her friends created teams, and we would compete in multiple tournaments around the state. My high school team moved on to the global competition, where the closing ceremonies were held in a huge gymnasium with about 17,000 people in attendance. My mother, without my knowledge or approval, talked to the people in charge of the event and told them her "very ill daughter can't get around very well, and our team needs to have front-row seats to accommodate her physical weakness." We were granted the front-row seats, but her friends as well as my team members, my friends, were furious. They were very aware of how she would milk my illness, which in no way required front-row seats or really any kind of special treatment, to get the very best for herself. This happened at tournaments, in airports, at restaurants. A few winters ago, due to a powerful medication for Crohn's-related inflammation, I developed an extremely severe skin disease. I had to upload pictures of body to MyChart, which my mother knew about because as a modest person, I would complain. Since she was still connected to my account, at some point, again without my knowledge, she pulled pictures I had uploaded and screenshot them. A few days after my doctor's appointment, my mother brought my brother and me along to a lunch she scheduled with a long-time friend of hers. During the lunch I was talking with my brother, but noticed my mother and her friend had gotten quiet all of a sudden. I looked over, and my mother was showing the friend pictures on her phone and fake-crying. I asked her what she was doing, and she and her friend went wide-eyed. I looked at the phone screen and recognized a picture of myself that I had uploaded to MyChart. "I was just trying to show our friend why I haven't been available so much lately, how stressed I've been worrying about your health." I was both furious and devastated. I didn't feel safe anymore. The worst part of this is there are so many instances of her using my illness to get sympathy that I've stopped counting.

Every time she would use my illness to her advantage, she would say it was by my request. I used to be a lot more concerned with my reputation; I was worried people that I was the one milking my illness and asking for special favors. I was worried people that I was abusive toward my mother, and that she deserved better than me as a daughter. The way she talked about me even affected my well-being: in the text conversation above, I had a doctor call me into the ER after concerning symptoms. My mom drove me there, but started arguing with nurses and doctors that I was "faking it." She even convinced my father I was faking everything for attention and lying about symptoms. That night, I was admitted to the hospital for almost two weeks from Acute Kidney Failure, and if I had waited much longer to go to the hospital, it's likely I would have died.

But now that I've escaped, I don't feel as worried about what people think of me anymore. At the time, I didn't even think about the possibility that I could make my own, private life for myself in the future. I took control of my own reputation. And while my mother still tries to communicate with my college friends, they know better. And while my mother tries to convince my father I'm a liar and abusive, he knows better now, too. I've won.