Why Is It So Hard For Others To Understand?

[missd84]

I've mentioned in another thread entitled "Emotional Neglect" that I have felt emotionally abandoned by my mother. I have been the scapegoat, even the black sheep, of my family. My mother and I do not see eye to eye and in the last couple years I have realized I only love her out of obligation (I would feel guilty if I had to admit to not loving my mother).

I have been at my parent's house the last couple days because my daughter likes to visit with them and I am very close with my dad so I like visiting him. It's usually very awkward with my mom and we barely talk. If we do, it's her nagging me and me getting upset for being treated like a child. Anyway to the point here, one of the things that she gets on me about is my sleep schedule. I don't sleep at night anymore. I try very hard and have taken the advice of many people but nothing has seemed to help. Ironically, I am actually more productive at night and I sleep better during the day than I ever have at night. I don't get as startled during the day in my apartment like I do at every little sound in the night and I don't get panic attacks going to sleep during the day like I have during the night. So, I suppose this schedule is in part due to my increased sense of safety during the day and maybe just wanting to avoid the everyday stresses of life.

The downside of this sleep schedule is that during the morning and early afternoon, my daughter tends to fend for herself. She is almost 9. She understands that I have sleep problems and really, I have raised her to be very independent. She knows though that if something was urgent or say she wanted to cook in the oven, I need to be awake. Soon she will be starting school though and much of this won't even be a problem anymore. My mom, on the other hand, is constantly telling me to try harder to not sleep during the day and get my sleeping schedule in order. I understand that it's probably not good that I'm sleeping till 2pm but the hours I am awake, my daughter and I are constantly doing stuff together (reading, drawing, journaling, baking, etc.) \

The thing I get upset about with my mom in regards to this is that she thinks I don't try to fix it. I have tried. I have tried so many things and quite frankly, it just gets exhausting, to keep trying to fall asleep before 6am, that I'd just rather accept it. Maybe that's me giving up, I don't know....

I've also tried to explain to her what PTSD is like and why I blow up at her. She usually says nothing or asks a "devil's advocate" type of question. Almost feels like she is questioning me. All I want from her is to understand, just even a little bit. I know that she's not gonna completely get it, hell, I don't either sometimes, but if she could just say "you know wow, I never thought of it that way" or :"well that makes sense." In fact, today, she said "so rape caused this? that's all it took?" really, thanks Mom for once again, making me feel weak. Thanks for feeding into the stereotype that we are just people who can't cope. Then, she told me not to be mad at her, invalidating my feelings.

I don't know why I thought she would understand just a little bit. This is just another sad example of why I can't talk to her. She undermines everything and she made it about her. Don't be mad at her. For once, I'd like her to care about someone besides herself...ugh!

 

[ronin47]

I wish there was another way I could put it, but you need to give it up. It's not up to her to decide who you are and what you should think or feel, stop giving her that power. She's not a mental health professional (at least I hope she isn't) and neither are you, so your/her understanding of the clinical aspects of it can only go so far unless she is willing to formally educate herself which apparently she isn't. Stop working on trying to get validation from her and start working on accepting the fact that you never will. I don't know the future of course, but I can say beyond any reasonable doubt that you will be sparing yourself so much grief no matter which way you look at it if you come to terms with the fact your mother will never acknowledge your trauma the way you want her too, whether that does somehow end up happening or not.

 

[missd84]

Thanks ronin47! I guess it's more than just her acknowledging my trauma and trying to understand it. I feel this way in many aspects of my life with her. She questions me constantly in virtually every part of my life-my education, my mothering style, my decision-making skills. I suppose I've always sought her validation because I've never gotten it. I've also felt like the "alien child"--the one who is the complete opposite of everyone else--and I've never felt like she respected me as a person. So when this whole conversation about my trauma (which she only knows about my most recent one and not the rest) and how it's affecting me mentally came up, it was so disappointing that she didn't care about trying to understand or even asking real questions. I think deep down I knew she would react that way but was hoping for a different result :(

 

[Jacquie]

Its the hoping for a different result (one we approve of) that keeps us in there. I agree with Ronin. We can choose for us, but not for others.

I am wondering if you are trying to change a 'wrongness' that you feel has always existed, or trying to get her to love you? Sorry but neither seem very probable. Trouble is, in trying to get someone to love you who maybe doesnt, it reinforces that you are not loved. Or at worst, not worth loving.

Go hang out with people who do. The ask yourself why the difference? You ARE worth loving, but she doesnt love you. Ok so she doesnt love you. See it, accept that SHE doesnt love you but others do. So its not about you right?

Someone else on here said it best. DNA does not a good parent make. Cant change which parents we were born to, but we can make choices about our 'family' once we are adults. In my own case, my family.....arent blood relatives. They are people I love like sisters, brothers and aunts, and they love me the same way. The others are.....toxic and soul destroying.

I bashed my head against that same wall for 40 years. I felt an obligation to them (family right?) but finally woke up that it never had, and never would be that way for them.

If you're the black sheep, celebrate it. It mean some freak of nature means you came out different to them. And from what you have said, you dont really 'like' how they are. Give yourself a hug. You're not like them.

Yours in freakish black sheepedness ;)

 

[missd84]

Thank Jacquie, I really like your comment on the black sheep. I should like the fact that I am different from most of my family. My mom tells me she loves me but it just has never felt like it. Perhaps she feels obligated to love me since I am her child, much the same way, I feel obligated to love her because she's a mother. I am coming to terms wtih that being the only reason I do love her. At least I can say I truly love my dad and that he feels the same way for me. One loving parent is better than none.

 

[heidi]

I get mad even reading this. I think having close relatives and family members who act the way you've described helped the PTSD develop in the first place.

I think people have the tendency to think about their own experiences and then project that onto you. What they don't understand is this experience.

I'm seriously just so mad. Your mom needs sensitivity training on this issue. Her words have the power to further hurt you and she needs to understand that.

 

[Jacquie]

Heidi I tried everything to get my mother to 'be' love instead of saying love while weilding a knife. Half a century later, in a calm moment with nobody else around to witness it, so no need for her to bluff and bravado and make me out to be a liar, I calmly just asked "Why have you always hated me so much?" Because she always had, since I can remember.

I didnt get the usual blah blah blah its all your fault for ....(which surprised me). She sat, took a breath, sat again for a while, then as I waited out came this, and with more venom than I have ever experienced (and thats saying something). She said "BECAUSE YOU WERE ALWAYS GOOD AT EVERYTHING!!!!!!!"

Wow. Now that was the last thing I ever expected to hear because growing up I never thought I was good at anything despite working hard and giving a lot more effort to things I did. And here she is saying because I was good at things she hates me?

Wow. And in that moment I recognised that it was JEALOUSY, can you believe it? None of them are very...bright. And along comes a kid who at age 3 is smarter than they are going to be for the rest of their lives. And so her reaction to that is not to be proud of her child (what you would expect so I never even looked at this angle) but to CRUSH that child, and belittle any achievements, to stay ON TOP. Wow. Being the parent and spitting out a kid makes you a BOSS?

I had tried some 15 or 20 years before to come from that approach, praising her up and saying how good she is at some things etc. All it got was agro in return. So I dropped that one.

The truth of it is. No she doesnt love me, she never will love me, but as a child I was her 'victim' and not much I could do about it. You cant make anyone love someone they dont. But you can stay out the way of the bullets.

Many people go into situations (or stay there) in a place where they want or need the OTHER one to love THEM, but without even the vaguest possibility of any of that love being returned. The glue is NEED, not love. And I no longer need THAT person to love me. And I got so many dents in my head it looks like a golf ball.

This might sound bad but I said 30 years ago there will be no peace in that family until she's dead. Not meaning I want to kill her. Just an observation. And 30 years later its still true.

You can only teach someone something they want to learn, and you cannot teach 'anyone' to love someone else. If that woman wasnt a parent, just an ordinary person you met on the street, and she showed a lack of care and no love or just lip service, maybe you'd say liar, or phoney or shallow or.......

But for some reason when its a parent, people see it differently. And it isnt. They are human beings too. Trapped there as kids yes. But as an adult, do you sill need 'mommy love'? Or do you need other like minded woman to love you and be there for you?

The risk of reinforcing that are not worth loving, or that you cant hold relationships woman to woman, is real, as long as energy is put into trying to fix one that wont be fixed, instead of allowing others who do love you, into your life.

In my opinion only and based on my own experiences.

 

[missd84]

You're right on, Heidi. I've mentioned this to her before, only to have her say it's my problem, that I'm making mountains out of molehills. She clearly doesn't recognize the power words can have. I'd love to think that things could change but I don't think that they will so now it's just accepting it.

 

[BloomInWinter]

I don't care anymore if they 'understand'...only that their behavior shows me they accept.

We owe explanations to no one. All efforts towards 'being understood', I *think*, were attempts by me to heal the abandonment wound.

Which, as it turns out, is NOT shaped like 1,000 text-messages..or ranting angry 'discussions'....or vodka shots...or buckets of popcorn...or deeply unfulfilling 'relationships'....or busy-a-holism....or 'my friend/neighbor/stranger on the street needs me to rescue them' -itis....

It has a shape. It is painful. It just *is*....and as I fill it in as much as possible with self-care, comfort, asking for help...the drive to MAKE someone 'see' me is melting away.

Things change, when I do.

...and it begins with accepting myself and showing the hurt me just exactly what that acceptance looks like, feels like...so I can recognize it in other people, or turn away when it clearly isn't there.

 

[heidi]

I'm guessing you might be right. It sounds like she is a very dismissive person.
The willingness to understand probably isn't there. That's the problem in the first place.

 

[Nemone]

That is terrible. I don't hear any complaints from my parents, I think because they know they weren't always there for me as parents themselves. My in-laws however... My father in law made me cry a couple of times questioning how I raise my kids (and I didn't even get what he thought I was doing wrong) and my mother in law makes less obvious comments sometimes too. It really sets me off. After the time my father in law made me cry my husband told his parents that they couldn't visit ever again if they made any comments about how we raise the kids or about my habits. So they shut up and don't criticize when they visit now or they know they get the boot. My mother in law is good at letting out those innocent sounding comments that gradually get me down over the length of her visits but since I know I can refuse to let them come when they make me feel bad I can sort of handle it (kind of). My husband wanted to move closer to his family and I told him there was no way. The thought of it makes me shudder.

 

[missd84]

I'm sorry you have had to go through that Nemone. You must have a wonderful husband who understands and I am glad to hear your inlaws have since cooperated.