Posted by Emme on May 11, 2004, at 21:23:56
In reply to Sorry, I can't relate at all... » Emme, posted by Racer on May 11, 2004, at 13:36:14
> It is hard, and I'll see your parental tact with another: my mother is concerned with my weight, right? So, we're out one day looking at yarn, and she says in her whisper (heard in the next time zone), "That woman shouldn't be knitting, she should be at the gym." Says that sort of thing about 90% of the women we saw in our quest for The Perfect Yarn. Then, at lunch that day, she starts into a diatribe about how she's obviously never had a problem like that with self-indulgence and laziness, because she's never had a weight problem! Hello? Mom? On *this* planet, a day of those messages could almost be predicted to confirm my weight problems, you know? Maybe it's hearing those things all these years that leads to things that worry you about me, like eating one quarter of what's on my plate for lunch, instead of eating a normal amount? Maybe it wouldn't feel so much like the end of the world to gain a pound or two -- or even thirty -- if I didn't know that eating when you're hungry is the definition of self-indulgence and laziness and is an outward manifestation of all the bad character traits and dirtiness inside me?> The good news is that I recognize what's happening better now, but the bad news is that the messages were received pretty constantly most of my life -- along with comments about how fat I was -- and they're deeply embedded in my own psyche.
Wow. It sounds like you got loaded up with some *really* nasty baggage. It's tough to excavate, isn't it? I hope you've lost some of the feeling of bad character and dirtiness. I got some serious "men are bad" baggage during my upbringing. It took a little while to get those out, but not before some serious damage was done.
> You know why parents can push our buttons so well? They installed them.
LOL. Great way of putting it.
I hate to fall into the stereotype of "blame the parents". I feel guilty about it. I mean, they do the best they can. But sometimes they do and say wacky things. My therapist thinks that in addition to the encouragement and nurturing I got as a kid, I might have also gotten a lot of negative messages that pushed me into being relentlessly hard on myself. Thing is, I actually have relatively little recollection of my childhood. Less than other people do, probably. So what is left for me to deal with is the present. And she really does say wacky things.
My mom didn't invent societal stigma against mental illness and it's common among her generation. But her clinging to it with such vehemence prevents me from wanting to ever disclose my situation to her. She thinks therapy and counseling are good things, so it's great she has that openness. But she's totally opposed to medication and I do think she thinks of "mental illness" as something other people have - that her panic and anxiety problems do not fall under that category.
Well, I'm getting tired and rambling. 'Night.
poster:Emme
thread:345714
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20040507/msgs/345936.html