Last time, I spoke of controlling parents simply making up imaginary troubles (“the vampire in your basement”) for their “troubled” children to have, when the only real trouble is the false accusations. That led me to reconsider some personal events. Yes, my mother spotted multiple basement vampires when I first got away, and used them to hoover me back in, and tried similar manipulative tactics later. There was one incident which led to my finally putting her on LC, and that was when she tried to use my then-infant son.
It turns out that a really dedicated basement vampire hunter can spot the vampires clear across the country. She started by pretending that I was feeding some unspecified substance called “that spicy food” to my son, who was just beginning to eat solids. This was a lie, and I repeatedly told her the truth that I did not, but she stuck to the script by ignoring that and continuing to complain loudly and often about “That spicy food! That spicy food!”
For the next step, she went to some Indian doctor local to her (I’d long since fled the area) and asked if people in India fed spicy food to babies. She then called me to boast of what she’d done. “He said no, they don’t,” she proudly and happily told me.
Right through the phone, I ripped off her head and rammed it down her throat and out the other end.
I still hadn’t fully realized how delusional she was, but I did know that she was not dragging my son into her crap. No matter what I had to do to prevent it, there was no chance at all that she would engulf my son in that. Without even thinking about it, I drew a verbal sword and beheaded the real vampire. When I looked back during my thirties and forties, I concluded that it’s much easier to stand up for our children than to stand up for ourselves.
Today, as I look back again from age 50, I finally realize … that I was her child. So why did she do that in the first place?
I’ll never know. Since she never admits the existence of anything which doesn’t flatter her, there’s no way to get to a discussion of motives.
At the time, when she revealed she was planting stories that I abused my son, I ended the dutiful weekly phone calls and annual visits. She tried mightily to hoover me back, but I stood firm for both myself and my son. I’ve paid only a couple of duty visits, with my son always directly supervised either by me or by his father, and phone calls are limited to catching up every month or so.
I have been vampire-free ever since.