Posted by kara lynne on March 13, 2003, at 0:20:19
Hi anyone. I just got back from a family dinner which was supposed to be in honor of my finishing school and getting licensed. Invariably, any gesture like a celebratory dinner for me is really all about and for them. It was pure stress hell. They 'surprised' me by having my brother show up who they KNOW I have horrible conflict with and makes me feel like crap. I felt totally ambushed. When I stopped shaking I had to recover quickly and act like I was grateful and be kind, rather than having my initial responses which were not very nice. Those honest reactions only make me look like the one with the problem, and give my family fodder to villainize me. I wasn't feeling good to begin with; I was feeling like I wore the wrong clothes, I got a bad haircut (a bad day in itself) and I wasn't comfortable in my skin, not to mention I was trying to adjust to some medication which made me feel like I was morphing into a fish or something. I come away feeling so ugly and inadequate and wrong. Guilty for pretending not to see my mother trying to hug me and giving my brother an ice cold stare when we walked in and I saw him there, although I tried to make up for it later. My mother's displays of affection are pretty much only to look good for people, we have absolutely no relationship, except that I am supposed to take care of her emotional needs. My mother is like Mary Tyler Moore in Ordinary People, and just as long as it looks good to other people, it doesn't matter if your children are hiding in the bathroom cutting themselves with razor blades. Oh well, I wish I could transcend this by now, I STILL don't like to feel I'm the cause of hurting anyone-- but funny, they don't seem to give a damn about how anything might be affecting me.
poster:kara lynne
thread:208635
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030308/msgs/208635.html