RussellSue
Not Active
About a year and a half ago my grandfather died and it was like pulling teeth to get my mom to go see him while he was sick. Apparently this tiny factor never came up between her and her mother and they are now daily phone pals, again.
My grandmother is a major trauma survivor - raped by her brothers, cast out into the streets at 14. If she was never a prostitute, I'd be surprised.
She's also abusive and I have had to make very firm boundaries with her. My mother didn't speak to her much until her dad died for the same reason.
Now that they are chatty, again, however, it has created some tension between my mother and I, because naturally my mom wants to talk shit to me about the crappy things my grandmother says about me and it flips my switch.
The first time it happened, I remained calm and stated that I would rather not hear it.
The second time, I was not nearly as patient.
I remember going on a tirade kinda like this:
Who visited me when I was 13 and down in Southern California after I was dumped off with my father by my super stellar grandparents - you know, my father, that man they repeatedly called a burnout, incapable of raising kids - but he was good enough for me, right? Who came to see me when I graduated high school? Who gave a shit about my life? Yeah, nobody! That's right. No! Now that I am finally doing OK, I am supposed to feel guilt for not visiting this woman who made me out to be a monster to my whole family? I have a life, now. Sorry people change when you abandon them in other states but that's how it worked out this particular time.
Now, I feel guilty of course, even though I indicated that I should not because after all, it was as much negative information about my mother as it was about my grandmother and I was screaming it at my mother who already feels a lot of guilt.
I have talked to her a couple of times since and she either hasn't tried it again or she doesn't have anything negative to report.
I really wish I didn't do shit like this, either way. It just feeds my family image AND I really wasn't trying to hurt my mother's feelings - it just infuriates me what is expected of me in this family.
My grandmother is a major trauma survivor - raped by her brothers, cast out into the streets at 14. If she was never a prostitute, I'd be surprised.
She's also abusive and I have had to make very firm boundaries with her. My mother didn't speak to her much until her dad died for the same reason.
Now that they are chatty, again, however, it has created some tension between my mother and I, because naturally my mom wants to talk shit to me about the crappy things my grandmother says about me and it flips my switch.
The first time it happened, I remained calm and stated that I would rather not hear it.
The second time, I was not nearly as patient.
I remember going on a tirade kinda like this:
Who visited me when I was 13 and down in Southern California after I was dumped off with my father by my super stellar grandparents - you know, my father, that man they repeatedly called a burnout, incapable of raising kids - but he was good enough for me, right? Who came to see me when I graduated high school? Who gave a shit about my life? Yeah, nobody! That's right. No! Now that I am finally doing OK, I am supposed to feel guilt for not visiting this woman who made me out to be a monster to my whole family? I have a life, now. Sorry people change when you abandon them in other states but that's how it worked out this particular time.
Now, I feel guilty of course, even though I indicated that I should not because after all, it was as much negative information about my mother as it was about my grandmother and I was screaming it at my mother who already feels a lot of guilt.
I have talked to her a couple of times since and she either hasn't tried it again or she doesn't have anything negative to report.
I really wish I didn't do shit like this, either way. It just feeds my family image AND I really wasn't trying to hurt my mother's feelings - it just infuriates me what is expected of me in this family.
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