The Armageddon Phone Call

I have mentioned The Armageddon phone call in a few posts. It is very significant in the history of my relationship with my Narcissistic Personality Disordered Mother. Over all the years, in all the clashes we had had, I never truly lost my temper and challenged every word of poison she spat at me until that day.

Until that day my fear of her made it impossible for me to do. I would answer back over one point and she would return with a relentless volley of vitriol and I would quickly be unable to have any logical dialogue with her and she would render me defeated, I simply could not match her vicious ranting and raving. 
 I was still frightened of her on the day of the phone call. In a way, years after her death, I still am. But I am getting stronger everyday. During that conversation I actually said to her... "I`m not frightened of you anymore"...."Why YOU were never frightened of ME Amanda" she replied with savage indignation. We were both lying !!! I was still frightened of her, of course I was and she new damn well I was and that I always had been !! What a farce ! It makes me laugh now.
 I have no idea what is was that triggered the call. I don`t remember any events playing out that culminated in it. I think, as was often the case, it was just a minor tantrum she had and for the fist time ever I not only found my voice but I refused to let it be silenced. I was older now, turned 40. Being a Mom to my children had given me both confidence and strength but it was more than that. Motherhood gave me fresh insight into exactly what a terrible Mother my own had been. I could now equate her behaviour and reactions to how I would be in the same situation with my own children and thankfully they were incomparable. And so on that day I found my voice and would not be silenced, I also nearly blew my hoover up!!
 It was actually many phone calls rather than one, many over a two hour period. I had been giving the dining room `a good do` as they say. I was pulling furniture out and hoovering the skirting boards. I took a call, the call ended, I carried on cleaning, the process was repeated again and again with {I`m chuckling as I remember it !} my cleaning becoming more savage each time and at the end I realised I had left my hoover on for the last 2 or 3 calls and it was getting dangerously hot and beginning to smell. I on the other hand was getting more and more icy. At the end of it all the room was gleaming, I don`t think it has ever been as pristine since !  I so wish I could recall what was said, there was so very much said. Most of it had been said before but never challenged in the way I did that day. All I remember is that whatever she said I was saying NO, Not true, Liar, actually you said or did...this and that...she became absolutely wild, stumbling over her words trying to continue to rant and rave but the more she did the colder and harder I became. I let her get away with nothing. I called her out on every lie she spoke. I spoke my truth without fear and with cool conviction. She must of wondered who the hell was working me. Some remembered fragments were....

You would never av ad that house if it wasn`t for My money..THAT MONEY WAS EARNED BY SOMEONE ELSE AND IT WAS LEFT TO YOU, YOU DIDNT GIVE IT US TO HELP YOU GAVE IT TO GUILT TRIP, ENDLESSLY GUILT TRIP US...
 What about when ya ad that lad in our house behind our back AMANDA???..CONSIDERING YOU WERE OUT CONSTANTLY ITS A WONDER I DIDN`T GET UP TO WORSE...
 And that didn`t last for long did it, just like your OTHER boyfriends, why did they always LEAVE YOU AMANDA??? WHAT A PITY DAD NEVER LEFT YOU AND GAVE US BOTH A CHANCE AT HAPPINESS.
 You were always bloody trouble...I THINK WE BOTH KNOW WHO WAS TROUBLE AND IT WASNT ME....
 And what about all the bedsits you lived in eh ? You mean the ones I had to find because I made the house unhappy...even though you forget to mention that part to Dad?
  And how many times did you come running back home Amanda, asking for help eh ? How many times did you entice me back simply because you wanted my board money ? 

 There was more, much more, it was hard to keep up when it was going on let alone remember it all years later but here`s a classic...AND IF YOU WANT TO START DRAGGING THE PAST UP DON`T FORGET I HAD 12 NAPPIES ON ONE DAY IN THE FLAT WHEN I HAD A POORLY STOMACH.....Her voice changes to a sickly sweet tone, "Oh you`re quite wrong there Amanda, you didn`t have a poorly stomach you just kept doing so many wee`s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All I could do with that one was to hang up. And to think she had shamed me for a decade because when I was 2 years old I had 12 wee`s one day....WOW, what an evil, twisted Mother she was. But it was to get worse.

Her final call she brings my father into it, and somehow she ends up running him down as well {perhaps she`s annoyed that he`s rather inconveniently dead and unable to Enable her during this mammoth row} And I tell her to leave him out of it, she tells me that though he loved me, he never liked me {she`s told my Husband this in the past too} again I tell her to leave him out of it......and here it comes....the moment she crossed a line she could never uncross... Her voice goes low and she drawls the words out, savouring each syllable, softly snarling, full of spite, she delivers her fatal blow in this war of words.....
 You put your Father up on a pedestal didn`t you Amanda? But he didn`t care about you did he ?
 Why, he knew EXACTLY what Uncle X had done to you 
.AND....HE....NEVER....SAID....A...WORD....DID HE??
 Everything froze in that moment, I have probably re heard those words in my head a thousand times over the years. I put the phone down and unplugged it. I realised in that moment if I did not keep her at arms length then she would very probably take my sanity, what was left of it.