Thanks guys...
I'll take that time in the hammock...but working on something all the time is such a habit now, I'd have to bring four things to do with me!

Old habits die hard.
I know now, alot of it comes from mom being smart and not having opportunities -- her favorite quote was, "You should be grateful you have all these things to do. My high school was so limited I had to take typing twice." She still wants me to go to law school, even though I have the highest degree in my field (studio art) and am making a concerted effort to build my career in that field...
The thing that was really damaging was the overruling of my ability to say 'no' to things. Why do I have problems with boundaries? Was I ever taught to have them? Allowed to set them?
However I see plenty of parents now whose involvement ( overinvolvement ) in their children's lives is incredible, and I'm sure they'd be shocked to be told it's abusive, interfering and for their self-gratification not the benefit of the child.Stage mothers, I think, are Ns who live through their childrens achievement...There's a difference between showing up at your child's recital and hugging them afterwards and telling them how proud you are of them (my mostly-absent Dad) and picking apart your performance and making you cry, even though everyone clapped and your teacher told you it was your best performance ever (that would be Mom).
The thing that sucks about this set of experiences is that they are culturally rewarded.
This is a long slow waking-up process. Since none of it is 'overt abuse' like the completely horrifying stuff some of the other people on this board have suffered through...Didn't Tolstoy open Anna Karenina with the line,
Happy families are all the same. Unhappy families are each tortured in their own way. --?
Thanks for your encouragement...I'm hesitant to call my mom N and would like feedback on it. She was hypercritical, witholding, controlling, with me (not my brother), simply did not listen to my perspective or experience of things, my input would be politely ignored. Nothing I ever did was good enough for her...A funny telling moment was when I was in therapy at 19, I made a 'feelings drawing' as part of an exercize...the first time I'd been asked really to express my feelings. Three weeks later I went looking for it at home and she had thrown it away.
My house was emotionally very cold, my dad worked 60+ hours a week as a doctor, was on call most of the time, didn't get alot of sleep and was VERY short-tempered as a result. Didn't have alot of time to himself and aggressively took it (leave me alone I'm stressed out). All of my sense of emotional affirmation came from my dad, however - he was the source of emotional warmth for me, read me bedtime stories etc.
Mom was just the iron hand under the velvet glove. I think I was more afraid of her than of my dad's outbursts, because at least he'd get it out in the open and he'd genuinely apologize later...Mom was sneaky and manipulative, and mean when nobody else was around, so nobody would believe me.
Good grief. Its Christmas Eve...I had to work today and the day after Christmas, so I'm not with the family this year (I live 1,000 miles away). Maybe thats why all the family stuff is on my mind. Its much less stressful dealing with christmas when you don't have to do Christmas...
Merry Christmas! A time of rebirth for all of us. Happy Happy!
Andromeda