Quote From: blgspc
My mother has turned out to be not REALLY all that different from her own mother and my mothers mother was the Queen of Narcissists! That woman just LOVED watching the feathers fly when she set people up. She was power hungry and would try and damage relationships for her own personal amusement. My Maternal Grandmother would LIE even when there just didnt seem to be a really big gain in doing that. The most notable difference between my mother and her mother was that my grandmother was more overt, non-passive in her approach to acting out her pathology, she would never have feigned illness or made up excuses for her behavior-which my mother does.
Also, for a very long time the folks around my mother thought that helping her meant accommodating ANYTHING she insisted that they do for her and/or that she said she just HAD to do, that disrupted their lives. So for a VERY long time her behavior WORKED for her. (Of course, resentments grew among those who were enabling her.) No one ever asked, Why? They just met her often passive-unreasonable-demands without question, feeling that to question anything would upset her and that if they upset her in ANY way that they were personally responsible for the next group of her bad behaviors. My mother is a classic example of the way that Variable Reinforcement works. For example: When your computer doesnt do what it should do, you try things that have worked in the past even though it doesnt always work, you at least try it because it has worked before.
My mother encountered problems with her strategies when both my twin sister and I became involved in behavioral health! We had become regarded as troublemakers when, as adolescents, we began challenging her disruptive dramas. Things ONLY got worse when we actively began asking about the long held tradition of doing whatever placated my mother! Despite all of that we continued to challenge unreasonable, extreme and ridiculous demands. We even went on to identify specific behaviors and pointed out the payoffs to those who had never questioned her odd intrusive, inappropriate and disruptive actions.
Now, those surviving family members see with crystal clarity what they were missing before and no longer feel a need to blindly accept unacceptable behaviors from my mother.
To answer your question, I do not believe that showing her via video how she appears would be helpful, at all. My mother's concerns have never been about ACTUAL CHANGE but in changing the way she APPEARS. Thus, she would want the video edited to make her look better rather than making change to behave better. As Dr. Phil often asks folks on the show, "So are you sorry you did that or are you sorry you got caught?" Regardless of what she might say, she is just sorry she got caught! And, if allowed time she will find someone to blame for that!
Brenda
You don't think that she would see and hear just how phoney she appears and realize that everybody around her sees it too? (With the very possible exception of your father, who has a blind spot where she is concerned.)
The point is not to video her and then discuss it with her. The point is to let her watch it and do some self-examination on her own. If SHE mentions how insincere or manipulative she seems, THEN you can start a dialogue, but don't count on her to say anything. She is possibly so entrenched in her ways of thinking, like you said, that she will only work harder to be more convincing.
But there's always the chance that she will see herself and finally admit that she has become her mother, which hopefully would cause alarm and shame, and maybe a willingness to change.
