Some of the imagery on this thread is really useful. One of the pictures was of our families living in a kind of soap opera, where we used to be an actor too, but somehow we found out that it is all make believe, and yet there they are, acting the part they have on their script, and expecting us to believe it too.
I think the thing to remember is that they have chosen to believe that the soap opera is real. They have just as much evidence as we have that their thinking is not good, and that they are missing the plot. My own dad used to say to me when I was a child that if ever it came to a choice between backing up me and my brother, or backing my mum, he would always choose to back her up, even if he knew she was wrong. And he did. And still does.
That is his choice. He chose to allow her to abuse all three of us in any way she liked. He still allows her to abuse the grandchildren any way she likes.
The one consolation in all this appalling scenario, is that of all the people who suffer, I honestly believe she suffers most. Her behaviour comes from her very deep insecurity, and self loathing. That is so deep she would never be able to see the bottom of it if ever she tried. And so she spreads it around onto other people instead. We once had a really bad row, several years ago, when she complained about my behaviour towards her. She said; 'I am supposed to be your mother!' (Interesting choice of words, don't you think?) My reply was, 'Well, why don't you act like it, then!' But she can't do it. She wants the credit for being the Holy Mother, but she cannot begin to do the compassion, the empathy, the caring, the putting others before herself. And she doesn't even know that there is a whole raft of things that mothers do that she doesn't even know exist.
In her eyes I am heartless, cold, selfish, callous and unable to appreciate the martyr that she is. Fine. If that is what she chooses to think, then it is her loss. My friends say I am compassionate, caring, generous, sensitive, spiritual, kind, funny. My mother will never ever know who I am. Who loses most by this?
I think what I am trying to say is that it is wrong to say these people get off scot free. They have lost more than they can ever imagine.
I would rather be on the outside of the soap opera and able to see my own daughter as a growing and changing human being, with her own desires and ambitions, her own ideas which are not the same as mine, than to have her as a kind of extension of my own personality, to manipulate as I wish, and to feed my own need for attention and adulation.
Just one last thing on the 'we did the best we could' line. My dad uses this one too. He says they did their best for me. This is nonsense. They did the minimum they could get away with, and they know it. But by saying now that it was their best, what they are actually saying is that if they had it all to do again they would not change a thing. It is a denial of the very worst kind. Not only, we made mistakes, but we would do it again.
I have tried to do my best for my daughter since the day she was born. But looking back, there are things I would change. This is not to beat myself up, but to say, yes, there are things I got wrong, and that I would now, with hindsight, not do. I did the best I could, but I did not get it all right. Most of it. But not all. I made mistakes, but I would not do it again.
That is the difference between those living to a fantasy script, and those who have broken free. We can - with hard work - learn from our mistakes. they can only make them, over and over and over.
