To Bela on Family approval, etc

[Guest guest]

Bela wrote:

 

>> ...I get along with my mom out of pure necessity at the moment. I am

married,

>> but separated, and they do help me out with watching the kids while I work

>> and such. I also don't want to create a situation where we sever most

ties,

>> but yet the kids are stuck in the middle. I'd never do that to them, as

my

>> parents are good to my kids. But it's the same as you said below, about

>> learning to censure yourself... One wrong thing said, and my mom blows up.

>> She regresses and will act just like a little kid...

 

Dear Bela ~ you said so much I could relate to in your post. In my

situation, it was my reversed with my father being blatant and my mother being

the

passive "victim." But she could find just the right way to drive the nail in a

bit harder. Even though my daughter is grown, I do as you mentioned above, try

to get along. My sister and my mom always line up together (usually to berate

or badmouth or ignore me), and my daughter loves them as she loves me. We

are all important to her, and she hates getting caught in the middle.

 

When my mother loses it, she can be really scary, like the day she through

me and Amy out. I had moved back in with my mom and stepdad, and Amy was

visiting for Christmas. Thank goodness this happened after Christmas. Mom and

stepdad were very angry with me one night; I don't remember why now, but I

became

very triggered and felt the need to get away, if only for awhile. I got in

my car and started driving to town. As I was driving, I realized I was

dissociated, feeling suicidal, and by that time, I was closer to the hospital

than

to my folks' place so I went to the hospital, even though they didn't have a

mental health unit.

I knew I would have to eventually go back "home." I felt like I needed

someone I knew to talk to so I called Debbie, who my mother has often referred

to

as her "other daughter." Debbie and I had become friends. So she came, and

then, after I was feeling better, Amy came in my mom's car to take me "home."

The next morning my stepdad came up to me and said, "I can help move you to the

trailer park tomorrow morning." I felt totally freaked out. Thank Amma, I

had the trailer.

 

The next morning as Joe was helping hitch the trailer up to the car, so he

could drive us to the trailer park, my mom came out on the front porch with her

hair literally standing on end. She started screaming like a banshie. She

kept screaming at Joe, "don't you help them." But he did, and we got out of

there. My daughter went home a few days later, and I moved to Albuquerque after

a few months. My mother and stepfather were, once again, not speaking to me.

 

Your mention of your mother and the Christmas cards and her behavior towards

her siblings really sounded so similar to this. They feel left out or

negated in some way, but rather than looking at their own behavior, they strike

out, rant and rave as you said, or shut out. In a way I think we should be

sorry

for them, but to be in a vulnerable relationship with someone like this as

an adult is very trying. Before I left, I asked Debbie if she knew why they had

thrown us out. She said it was because they were upset that I called her and

not them when I was at the hospital. I was shocked ... why would I call them

when they were the ones who had upset me so badly? Why weren't they

concerned that I had been feeling suicidal? Why didn't they care about me? (I

guess

that has been the mantra of my childhood, along with "what did I do that was

so wrong?") They have never owned this behavior, nor the fact that, in doing

it, they broke their promise, made before I moved to Oregon, that I'd "always

have a home with them." Oh, it's like the Tiger. Don't hug the Tiger.

 

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon?

 

All I can do is throw myself on the mercy of my true Mother. Jai Ma ~ Linda