Posted by LlurpsieBlossom on December 5, 2006, at 23:57:17
In reply to Re: I talked to my parents » LlurpsieBlossom, posted by happykat on December 4, 2006, at 21:18:12
I talked to her again a little while ago.
She called me earlier. She wanted to bring up something.
Dad once took a medicine that made him act funny (for a week) older bro took different meds, some of which had strange side effects.
Was I taking any meds that are making me feel bad right now? Maybe if I stop that, then I'll feel better.
Um, NO MOM. this is not as simple as reducing my problems to a set of drug side effects. Although that is a very comforting idea, I don't think it can account for the fact that (insert various episodes of neglect and ill-treatment)
I tried to be nice at first, only bringing up some of the milder offenses.
She told me I needed to put this into a context of what generation she was, etc etc. (I told her my T was of her generation, if not older, and still thought this stuff was wrong)
She told me that she did the best job she could at holding the family together. I told her that she should be able to acknowledge that she could have done more to
1) protect her daughter from abuse
2) cultivate a culture where women are not abused
3) discipline my brothers for hitting me (and her)
4) cultivate a culture where the little sister is respected and protectedShe had ready excuses for all of this... blaming my Dad, her dad, my brother.
I told her that it wasn't helping me to hear her excuses. That there was NO way that she could understand things from my point of view. That sometimes I was very young, and that the way that these events made me feel as a child will be very different from how an equivalent event would make an adult feel (she conceded, and then followed up with another excuse/rationalization/etc...)
At one point she even started telling me about all the horrible things HER dad did to her. Grandpa, whom I love. Great. Um MOM! this is YOUR SH*T. I calmly explained to her that she might consider getting a psychotherapist and learning to understand this stuff and how it affects her.
She had at least a dozen excuses for avoiding psychotherapy. My favorite was this: when she was 13, she signed up to work with a therapist-in-training for free therapy, thinking it would be cool. She went three times, and the therapist was repeating back the things she was telling him/her? and she didn't like how it made her feel. That it made those ideas seem REAL somehow (um Mom? they were YOUR thoughts, the therapist did not put new thoughts in your head, only helped you make the implicit/unconscious memories more explicit and accessible. Bummer)
How freakin' ridiculous is THAT!?! a bad experience 40 years ago, with 3 sessions?
She kept on telling me all this heavy stuff. I had to remind her every 2 minutes- this is YOUR STUFF, *I* cannot help you with this. I am not healthy enough to hear this stuff right now. If you want to help me (ostensibly the reason for her call?) please either think HARD about your own role in this stuff, or get your own therapist, who you can talk to, who will help you see how every sentence you say contradicts itself, and how distorted your ideas are. She's positively delusional. Truly.
I told her I knew why she was resisting. It's because it's really comforting to think of our family as having been healthy and happy and such. It's hard to go back in the past and work on this stuff. She promised me that she would do whatever it took to help me get better. I told her that I don't know what the next step is, but that it almost certainly has to involve you MOM acknowledging your failures. Until you are able to do so, all your excuses, rationalizations, memory lapses, etc... feel like you are invalidating my experience, like you are invalidating my feelings, like you are telling me that this never happened, that I'm making all this stuff up.
I had 3 trump cards. what I told her:
1) My T says that you were "checked out, tuned out" during much of my childhood. (Oh no! I was very involved I did ....etc). Oh? What would you tell me if I told you that I didn't take a shower for a WHOLE MONTH when I was in seventh grade. (silence... well? would YOU want your mother to know what you were doing in the bathroom?) MOM! I'm yelling at her- I walked around for a month without washing my hair. How could you not NOTICE? (more rationalizations... but she's coming round...) MOM! what if I were the neighbor's kid, and I was in 7th grade and I had greasy hair? What would you SAY?
2. My next trump card when she started getting too wrapped up in her own delusions: Mom, you had a younger son who was suicidal, an older son who could not stop trying to kill himself and you thought that your [middle] daughter was somehow experiencing an idyllic childhood? How could you NOT assume that all this was affecting me too?
and finally la piece de resistance
3. Mom, you want to blame all of this stuff on Dad and my older brother's illness (he had a serious childhood illness). But the truth is that older bro was SICK before he had the illness. He was carving up his arm, he was really screwed up. I remember, mom. (she concedes... he was depressed for a while before he got the serious illness) Mom, how can you pretend that our family was not sick? Mom, how can you pretend that I [lurpsie] was immune to all of this?
etc etc...I think I may have motivated her to see a T. She's more deluded that I thought. Fortunately, she's not defending them with anger, but rather by alluding to some new delusion. slippery. slimy. no grasp on reality, human nature or common sense.
this woman who is my mother.
poster:LlurpsieBlossom
thread:710023
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20061123/msgs/710756.html