Posted by All Done on December 9, 2004, at 1:10:34
Just recently, I believe you posted something about your mom creating her own history. Sorry if I don’t have the exact wording, but the whole concept caught my attention. My mom does the same thing and she does it all the time. It has to be single-handedly the most irritating thing about her, and trust me, she has quite a repertoire of irritating...umm...quirks.
Anyway, my question for you or anyone that would like to respond, is how do you deal with it? She makes it impossible to hold a rational conversation because I am constantly battling with myself between arguing with her, ignoring what she’s saying and just letting her believe it, or screaming at the top of my lungs. None of these feel like great options.
Not only does she recreate her own or "our" history, she does it with everything, whether she was involved or not. She constantly makes up new scenarios to suit her own immediate needs. Sometimes, she’ll even contradict herself if her own circumstances change and she needs to change the history.
There is no arguing with her. And honestly, how can there be with someone who makes things up as they go along? I do believe that she truly believes what she is saying. It’s just so hard when she makes things up even from conversations between the two of us. She will claim I said something when I have no doubt I said no such thing.
If she says it was 70 degrees yesterday when in fact it was only 45 degrees, what should I do or say? There seems to be only so much ignoring I can do before I burst.
I addressed this post to you, Dinah, because I think we may be dealing with some of the same issues in our moms. (I could go on about all of her debt incurred "for me", but I’ll save that for another day). But I would really appreciate anyone’s insight into my mom’s behavior and suggestions for dealing with her will be more than appreciated.
Thanks,
Laurie
poster:All Done
thread:426567
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/relate/20041207/msgs/426567.html