Strange Star

[Hope4Now]

I am feeling like a physical and emotional wreck today. Woke up in the middle of the night sick again and in a really anxious/fearful/needy/disorieted state again. I don't know why this is happening. I don't know if I just have a virus I can't kick, or if I am processing stuff unconsciously and it's just bubbling up to the surface as more physical and emotional symptoms with no grounding in anything that seems real. It's just a state-of-being kind of thing that I can't seem to connect to much. I was sick last weekend, then again on Thursday...both times with a fever which suggests a virus. But most nights I've been waking up multiple times through the night with these panic-attacky kinds of physical and emotional feelings. Then I had a visual migraine on Friday. That freaked me out, but I figured out what it was. I never knew there was such a thing. The images of what it looks like that I found online were strikingly similar to what I saw, so at least I know I'm not imagining that! I've also lost a bit more weight which I'm glad about, but it is odd too after all these years of trying, I am just not able to eat much without feeling sick.

Yesterday was a very, very strange day. I had a very quiet morning and was feeling good both emotionally and physically. In this past week, the pain has loosened up noticeably for long periods of time (hasn't happened like this since the very beginning of all of it), and I was feeling really hopeful and happy. It is becoming clear to me that at least some of it results from my existing in a permanent state of crisis.

I had agreed a while back to host a house party fundraiser for this great social action/social justice group that is doing really important work both on immigration rights and prison reform. I was excited, but nervous too because I've been trying so hard to slow way down and NOT do these kinds of things. I didn't realize when I scheduled the date that my husband would be gone all day on one of his insanely multi-tasking professional adventures, so I was on my own. But it was okay...I had nothing else planned really. Except that my mother had called on Friday to encourage me to bring my daughter over to where she lives because a bunch of 4H kids were bringing their pet rabbits to visit with the residents. She really wanted us to come. I thought it might be fun for my daughter who loves rabbits, but I said no because I am trying not to pack too many things in to a day.

Then in the morning, I realized my children have not seen my mother since Christmas, and she is getting quite insistent on seeing them. I started wondering whether I have been playing out some weird flashbacky-transference thing by avoiding having my kids have any contact with her. Well, not wondering actually--realizing that's what I have been doing. Especially with my daughter. I find it intolerable to be in the same space with my daughter and my mother. It becomes unbelievably toxic. So, what do I do yesterday? I decide that maybe going to see the rabbits would be a way to get my daughter and mother to see each other in a public kind of way that would diffuse some of the difficulty for me. Bad choice on my part.

I'm writing about it here because what happened over the course of an hour yesterday at this assisted living place was both informative to me of my own issues and totally confusing and upsetting to me too. This is really long, and boring, and detailed, so anybody reading this "diary" be forewarned :)

We arrived as the kids were bringing in the rabbits, and the community room was full of people. I told my daughter she could stay there and get a seat up front so she could see, but she was too nervous to stay there by herself. We went up to my mother's apartment to get her (she is never where she says she'll be, when she says she'll be). It took a lot of verbal maneuvering to get her down to the presentation in a timely way. By the time we got there, there were no seats together. I got my mother to sit down, finally, and encouraged my daughter to go to the seat in the front, away from my mother and closer to the rabbits, but she chose to sit in the seat behind my mother. Right away, I felt this was going to end badly. I took the seat in the front, 2 rows away.

Part of the key here in this weird scenario is that my mother heard me encourage my daughter to go up front. I don't know if any of this would have happened otherwise. As soon as I sat down, I heard my mother say to my daughter at least six times (and at pretty much full volume) over the next 5 or 6 minutes that she should go up front, and my daughter saying, with ever more insistency, "No, it's fine, Gram, I'm fine where I am. Let's just watch." I tried to ignore it, but quickly became afraid that if it continued, my daughter would blow up and stomp out in angry tears (she does that), or that my mother's repeated insistences would interfere with the program and bother the other people there. So I went back and invited my daughter to come sit up front with me, on the floor, or sharing the seat. My real goal at that point was to get my daughter away from my mother. I didn't realize, until later, that by doing this, I was just putting my daughter in between my mother and me in a perverse playing out of parts of myself. I made the seating suggestion; my mother picked up on it and, like a pit-bull, made it her own and used it to try to coerce my daughter; in an attempt to keep some sanity I then played right into it, making my daughter feel doubly-controlled. When she refused again, I went back to the front and just focused on the rabbits and breathing and trying to ground myself. No blow up occurred.

Then, the 4H kids started to bring the rabbits around so people could pet them. I felt so happy watching the people around me interact with the rabbits and the children. Watched one tired-looking woman come to life--a sparkle in her eye and a beaming smile on her face as she stroked the Dutch Lops with the back of her gnarled hand. And the crumpled man sitting behind me sat up straight and held out both his hands as a 7-year old offered her pet to him to hold. Big smile. I loved it. It was magic.

I turned to watch as my mother petted a rabbit, then my daughter. Both were smiling. Then my mother started ordering the child (about the same age as my daughter) to let my daughter hold the rabbit. It's hard to even explain the next ten minutes or so. My mother was completely focused on telling my daughter how much she "should" enjoy holding the rabbits, and other things she "should" do and feel. My daughter's face was bright red. I could tell how hard she was trying not to be rude to her grandmother--she was just going further and further into herself--crouched over the rabbit, stroking it, looking only at it. But her body was totally tense. I went over and took my mother's hand in such a way that she had to turn around in her seat, away from my daughter. I said, "Mom, why don't you just let S do what she's doing and you focus on enjoying the bunnies!" I directed her attention to another rabbit. She absentmindedly petted it, and started in on me: "I just want S to enjoy the rabbits. I thought she would enjoy the rabbits. Why is she acting this way? What's wrong with her? Why isn't she excited? You should get her a rabbit...etc."

This went round a few more times with me trying to redirect, and my mother going back and forth between me and my daughter. I became increasingly direct with her. "Mom, she isn't enjoying the rabbits because you will not stop telling her what to do. Please stop talking to her. Just focus on your own experience, okay! You love animals!" She just could not stop. Then she shifted her attention to the other kids and said something nice to one that was completely insensitive to the other (I saw the other child's reaction). Then, I felt like I had to get out of there fast. Felt like I was trapped. But I couldn't just leave my mother and daughter there...couldn't leave my daughter to fend for herself (not sure why, as she is 12, but she knows I would be upset if she went stalking out...) Very emotionally confusing moment for me, and I could tell my mother was getting angry and winding up, so I had to diffuse it. It took me another 10 minutes to get them out of the room.

I took them to the sun room. My daughter sat on the other side of the room. My mother kept trying to engage her about the friggin' rabbits and I kept trying to change the subject. Then she got on to sports and asked S about her new athletics sweatshirt with the soccer ball on it. S perked up a little (very proud). Then my mother twisted it again and started telling Sarah that she really should play tennis and why doesn't she play tennis instead of soccer because it is so much better (my mother was a tennis player). And it went on and on from there until S was almost in tears again. S wouldn't look at my mother and talked to the floor. She kept catching my eye and mouthing "Can't we leave now?"

Then my mother asked me how I was feeling (she knew I had been sick twice this week). I told her better but still a bit under the weather. Then she started telling me about what I had done that made me sick. That I should have taken time off after last weekend and then I wouldn't have gotten sick again. I told her I had taken Monday off. She said I had not. (I DID, but still she made me second guess myself!) This is an old story--I am always at fault for being sick...it is always something I have done that brought it onto me. We had the same argument on the phone on Thursday night. I called her on it: "It is NOT MY FAULT that I got sick. Stop saying that!" and when she wouldn't, I said, "I'm hanging up now," and I did. I think what's under this argument is that I have not been able to take her out because I have been sick and busy.

Finally, it seemed like time to go. We hugged each other and said, "I love you," and "Goodbye," and all that, with the understanding we would be getting together on Tuesday for my mother's birthday.

The whole thing, which felt like an ordeal, took less than an hour and left me totally stressed and overwhelmed and feeling this odd sense of unreality. And felt the pain returning...more tense than screaming pain, but back. Managed to suck it all up, and get home. Processed a bit with my daughter about what had happened. There was much to do to get ready for the party and I had 30 minutes before people were coming to set up the presentation for the social action group. I made an unusual decision to lie down and rest for 15 minutes before I dove into cleanup and setup. That was one good thing I did.

The party was fine, and I actually met a very cool person who I felt immediately connected to. He is a UU minister (there were a bunch of them there). We were talking about spiritual paths. He suggested a spirituality group that meets twice per month and sounds like it's exactly what I'm looking for. I am really excited.

By the end of the night. I was in screaming pain. Ugh. More later.

 

[Pietro]

An unbelievably toxic situation. No wonder the pain returned -- you're caught between a rock and a hard place, having to negotiate the interests and needs of multiple people -- except yourself, of course. This is much of my life, too. :) My mother is not quite so bad (although, give it a few more years, and I think she will be), but I find myself in similar situations.

I've had to ask my mother to refrain from saying things in front of my kids, on occasion. Usually, it goes OK, occasionally not. :rolleyes: I've gotten pretty good at not letting her direct my life, but, at the same time, I'm still tend to feel anxious when I don't do what she wants or requests -- that old fear of upsetting people, particularly the parents. It makes for a lot of stress and anxiety when I choose to push back. So, damned if you do, and damned if you don't, right? :D

Don't kick yourself for going. The idea you had, about getting your mom and daughter together, made sense. Your mother is the one who made things difficult. And, frankly, if your daughter blew-up when your mother pushed her too far, wouldn't that just be the natural consequences for your mother? (I know -- not necessarily realistic, but it would serve her right; my mother has gotten a dose of my daughter when she's pushed too far. ;) )

There's no easy way to deal with this, diplomatically or emotionally. In general, I have made one basic rule that trumps all other considerations if all hell brakes loose -- I will always choose on behalf of my children over adults.

 

[Echo]

@Hope4Now - I think your mother and mine must be sisters; definitely out of the same mould. It twists your brain. I am experiencing SUCH relief from all of these mind games by not being in contact for the foreseeable future. It has shown me so clearly, even in the shortest of time, how she and the divide-and-rule policy she operates within the family, has so preoccupied me for the whole of my life. It has robbed me of so much time, and has got me into the habit of second-guessing every relationship. I deal directly with people, but wow, don't they just love to manipulate every thing down to the last detail? And your poor body is twisting along with your mind. My motto in respect of my mother: damned if you do, damned if you don't. You just can't win; you are wrong whatever you do. My therapist thinks my mother is mentally ill (and she does not consider PTSD to be a mental illness) - I have yet to ask her what she might diagnose, though I expect she wouldn't say. But your mother is just not well, though that doesn't take away from any of the struggles you have with her.

 

[Hope4Now]

Now I'm distressed because I was supposed to go to a cool concert with my husband today, but this illness thing got in the way. I didn't think I could make it through a concert because I am weak and shaky and dizzy and still have symptoms of this gastrointestinal thing, so I had to stay home (You just can't get up and leave in the middle of a classical music performance, and I was afraid I would have to). I just bought some OTC medicine and Gatorade to see if it will help. I rarely take meds, but three days of this is pretty awful. So, here I am, back in bed again. Ugh. And cursing my body for preventing me from doing yet one more thing I enjoy.

I cannot stop thinking about what happened yesterday with my mother and my daughter, and why it has upset me so much. On the surface, it just seems like a big nothing. Everyone loves my mother. 99% of the time, she couldn't care less what people think of her (except when she gets blatantly rejected from something she wants to do...like play in a bridge group...but that's a whole different saga). This is what a lot of people find charming about her--she says whatever she wants, as loud as she wants, and with little regard to how it makes people feel. She is ever the innocent one. She told me the other day that somebody at her lunch table threw something at her (she was really upset). Although the person's behavior was wildly inappropriate, and I actually was sympathetic to my mother as the victim of it, I got the details of what led up to it. It was my mother's trying to tell this woman what to do. The lady just lost her temper, and I completely understood. (Maybe I should have thrown things at my mother when I was a kid. I wonder if that would have changed anything?) I keep trying to coach my mother to stay out of other people's business, but she seems completely incapable of doing so. I need her to stay at this place, and I am getting nervous that somebody is going to figure out that it is my mother's issues that are causing some of these people to lose their tempers. The weirdest thing is, much of the time she is very well-intentioned. It's just that she needs the rest of the world to conform to what she thinks is right. She is really like a pit-bull when she gets onto something. Perseveration is the word.

When I or someone else calls her on her behavior, she says, "Oh, you're so serious," or "I was just kidding," or "Why do you have to be so sensitive?" and just laughs it off. My all-time favorite (can you hear the dripping sarcasm?) was when I pulled her aside after a direct insult she made to me at a luncheon in front of a number of people I know. I asked her to please stop saying things like that. She said: "Oh, don't be ridiculous, nobody cares." I said, "I care. What you said isn't true and it hurt my feelings." And SHE got mad at ME. Argh. It makes me feel completely crazy. And when I try to use these as examples to point out to her how hurtful her ongoing behavior is, she denies that anything like that ever happened. Argh.

I so dearly wish somebody could teach me how to build a protective shield around my psyche when I am with her. She just seeps into the core of my being, and then I beat myself up for overreacting to her. Now that she's old, people just chalk her behavior up to age. It isn't age. She has always been like this.

I'm always trying to run interference--particularly with my children, but with my husband too. I managed to stand up to her hundreds of times regarding our choices on childrearing. I am glad of that, because our kids are really good kids (in spite of their varied adolescent crises) with--I think--a solid sense of themselves and our abiding love for them. But she still gets into people around the sides. I am constantly on watch when she is with my family, constantly trying to anticipate and redirect in order to protect them. Because things she says are often so "close to home" that you can't just shrug them off. Her comments are the kind that get under your skin and stay there. She has an uncanny ability to suss out the very things about which one might feel insecure, and then use them. Ugh. I don't know, it is so hard to explain.

Simply, she's relentless and she has no idea what effect she has on people. I truly do not believe she does this intentionally. That if she understood her effect, she would stop. Hmm. There's a core belief. Maybe this is where I am wrong. Maybe this is why I just keep slamming up against it and destroying myself in the process. It is just so impossible to believe that anybody could be this way. I mean, my father could be really nasty, but his nastiness was different. It was angry and mean, but also mostly conscious, I think.

I wish I understood all this better. I think some of this is deeply related to the problems I'm having in my life now. It is just nearly impossible to explain the situation to someone who might understand and be able to provide insight. It seems like nothing when I write about it...just run-of-the-mill annoyances that come up in relationships. But it isn't nothing. It is huge. And I need help sorting it all out.

 

[Hope4Now]

I can't believe you both read through that endless entry! Thank you for your responses.

my mother has gotten a dose of my daughter when she's pushed too far. ;) )

Yes, I have been tempted to let this happen. But then, I would deal with endless discussions of my daughter's behavior and what I should do about it. And I can't go there. My mother is able to twist me around so much (or I let her) that she makes me second guess my relationships with people all the time. I actually ended up not marrying a guy I was in love with because somehow I let her poison the relationship. She is sick. And I guess I'm sick right along with her because I'm still caught up in her s*&t all these years later.

I will always choose on behalf of my children over adults.

:) me too. I guess that's why it has been three months since anybody but me has seen my mother.

damned if you do, damned if you don't. You just can't win; you are wrong whatever you do

You've got it. Even my mother's brother says this about her when he is at wits' end. Nothing, nothing, nothing, is ever right or good enough. You are very wise and strong to separate yourself from your mother. I'm guessing this will speed your healing process, or at least make it less murky and complex if you get a little distance.

There's something in me that will not let me do this...I am all she has as far as someone to look out for her, and at 85, she deserves that much. In spite of all of it, she did raise me, and I feel a sense of responsibility for her. I don't even want to win or be right. I just want her to stop. I want to know how to protect myself (and kids...but that's easier) from any further damage, and learn how to flush 50 years of toxicity out of my system. I hope I can do this without cutting myself off from her completely.

I deal directly with people, but wow, don't they just love to manipulate every thing down to the last detail? And your poor body is twisting along with your mind.

Me too. I like to be direct if I can. I can't stand manipulation.
You're right about my body...maybe just trying to twist away from something that isn't even there as a physical threat.

 

[Pencil]

I can't help smiling and nodding as I read your tirades about your mother. It is not small, but people like that act innocent and they (I think consciously) keep 'it' at the level of the insignificant. Very clever and devious strategy.

Let me tell you two stories. In the mid-1990s (yes, THAT long ago!!) I had a girlfriend whose mother was the sweetest, nicest, most innocent little old lady in her 80s. She lived with her eldest daughter's family. The family had an obese dog. There was an endless struggle to get the dog to lose weight - it was on special very expensive diet food, they took it for exercise - they did everything they and the vet could think of for they really loved the dog and took really good care of it. So there we were, having tea and cake, and I noticed the mother feeding the dog cake when no-one was looking. When we were alone she did it again, and I commented. The old witch, her eyes wide with innocence, said in funereal little voice: 'I feel so sorry for the poor thing'. The other thing she did repeatedly was this. We were often invited for dinner. So, after the meal, when we all sat back with coffee and a cigarette, and the conversation was pleasant, everybody was at ease, the ambience perfect, the poor little old lady would start clearing the dishes. Everybody went 'Oh, no, Mommy, please don't, we'll do it, you relax, blah blah'. And poor little Mommy, in a little voice I can still hear, would go: 'Oh, don't worry, I'll just quickly wash up these few things', pointing to a small mountain of pots, pans, crockery and cutlery. That got everybody to jump up to her rescue, and the nice after dinner atmosphere was completely destroyed.

I'm not saying your mother does these things, but she is doing things that are similar in some ways. The point I'm trying to make is this: She was not my mother, I saw her ten times in my life, all of this happened twenty years ago, and I STILL experience anger whenever I remember it. These things are violations, they are sticky, and the 'perpetrator' is always aware, on some level, of what it is they are doing. I don't buy the 'innocence' trip. Living with this is very difficult. Don't let the 'smallness' of the incidents hoodwink you - it's part of the strategy.

 

[Pencil]

My motto in respect of my mother: damned if you do, damned if you don't. You just can't win; you are wrong whatever you do.

I've read more than one article / book / argument that a double bind causes enormous anxiety / suffering whatever for children. Don't underestimate the damage of the double bind - especially coming from a mother.

 

[Hope4Now]

@Pencil ...LOL x10. Your descriptions of the old lady sound EXACTLY like my mother. Even the dog example! Thanks.

 

[Echo]

@Pencil - the washing-up example is my mother to a tee. She did this at a funeral of a dear great aunt, in order to break up a cosy chat between a bunch of female relatives, including me, that she was not part of and couldn't join because of the size of the room. Cue everyone exclaiming what an angel she is, how 'we' must all help her, everyone rushes out of room (except me) - conversation kaibosched. The guise of kind, sweet martyr (cough!) over and over again.

 

[Pencil]

kind, sweet martyr

And how I just f*cking hate them! Martyrs are good for one thing only: to suffer. So, let them suffer! I always thought that my friends should have ignored the mother, and let her get on with it, and bloody-well suffer through the mountain of dishes. I always thought that ONE incident would cure her. But that was when I was still naive. I know now that she would then have cut herself 'accidentally', or fainted, or slipped, or something. They will do anything to control a situation. My sympathies to you, @Echo and @Hope4Now. My mother died many years ago - she was also a Master Martyr and a Master of the Double Bind.

 

[Echo]

@Pencil - but they don't suffer, do they? They make sure of that. One thing I have noticed though over the last ten years or so, is that my mother is more frequently shooting herself in the foot with these tactics. Her behaviour towards me is being more evident to the family. I feel that has been achieved in part by me refusing, as much as possible, to enter the psychodrama. She will be intensely annoyed at me since I announced that I have PTSD due to rape and am in therapy. I have asked for space to heal and said I need to draw back from the family to do so. I haven't accused her or my father of the child abuse they perpetrated on me or for not helping me at all when I was raped, despite having heard it happen. She will be really struggling to find the ammunition she needs to blame me for all of this, but I'm pretty sure, it will end up being about her either way, and I will be the bad one (as ever) for some reason yet to be conveyed to me. I know she'll never, ever change - her psychological need is so great - so all I can do is look after myself. I will probably only be able to have to do with her again (if ever), when I have got to the point that I can stand to have her blame me for being raped and not get hurt by that.

I'm sorry you've been through this as well. It marks just about every other relationship. I cannot stand to be manipulated and much prefer to be direct and to have to do with people who are also direct. And I over-react, I think, when I'm misunderstood (or my actions are) and I get blamed unjustly for things I didn't do or intend. I get far too hurt and terrified, which I am only now relating back to my mother's anger at all traumatic moments of my life (always hidden, it has to be said from everyone else - got to keep up the sweetie pie act...).

 

[Pencil]

I know she'll never, ever change

You're absolutely right, they won't change, they only change their tactics. And it is always useless to try and change another person - I learned that the hard way - repeatedly, stupidly. I love the way you are looking at it, and dealing with it, and I hope to be around the day you can listen to / experience your mother and have no emotional reaction.re ri

And you're right - they don't suffer. Perhaps that is what makes me so mad :D