Hi Beth what a nice response from your dad! Did something in your voice or the way you said it convey the idea that you thought it would be a problem? Maybe and he picked it up and reassured you? I think that’s great. On the other hand, maybe that’s the way he deals with your mom, day in day out. He presumes everything will be a problem for her and is used to placating that? Just been reading your back posts…and I’d say your mother is intensely jealous of you and pretty disturbed.
"Maybe you need to think about quitting your job." I think she gets vicarious kudos from your sister’s job. She can brag about it to others (“of course she’s a doctor…”). She hides her envy of your sister because she gets admiration-by-proxy through her. It’s a pay-off. Sick. She’s probably scared of your sister in some way too. Maybe she’s scared your sister will tell her straight that she’s an envious interfering old biddy with nothing to show for her life (in terms of job achievement)? So she sucks up to her.
She makes so many insinuations that I can't get my head straight over what is real and what I think she is inferring. What is real is your life. What she says is all garbage. Sorry Beth.
The one that pissed me off most lately was this... I was talking about the fact that my boss is nice here at my job (I usually have dificult bosses, so it's a nice change... plus he knows I work really hard.) She comes out with, "Is he married?" Yeah this would have had my anger right up there. Because if nothing else – it has nothing to do with what you’re talking about. It’s like running over your conversation, your story, your voice, with a steamroller. It’s like “oh you’re having such a good time are you? well I’m going to get the attention back here missy and say something that will bring the conversation right back to me”….kinda thing.
“Is he married?” bleurgh. Pass the sick bucket. In reading your posts I see loads of sexual projection acting-out on her part – accusing you of sexual behaviour when it’s a projection of herself. Nasty stuff. I suffered the same type of thing. It’s so confusing and so crazy-making. I’m sorry Beth. You’re mother’s a nutcase. I think “is he married?” relates directly to her own dreams and wishes and disappointments. She wants him for herself. If your Dad heard this, he probably thought it was an attack on him. She was (1) being jealous of you having a job (2) jealous of you having a nice boss (3) jealous of your nice boss actually being nice to you and probably goes into some manic overwhelm of “It’s not fair! I want all that for me!” and says……”is he married?”.
As usual there has to be something underhanded going on... I can't just be a nice person working for a nice person. So I do get to running the negative tape in my head... both my own and for her. I try to delete these thoughts, but sometimes it is hard. How do you all get rid of the bad thoughts? Realise that none of this stuff is about you. It’s all about her. It sounds like an attack on you and it looks like it….and it feels like it to you….but really, she can’t touch you.
Who’s saying you can’t just be a nice person? I know the feeling…still thinking that my mother’s view of me matters at all, or has some bearing on the reality of who I am. It doesn’t. She knows next to nothing about me and I guess the same applies to you and yours. You know that you’re a nice person or maybe you just need reminding of it a lot…
Beth is great!
You’re a caring, thoughtful, compassionate person who’s survived a dysfunctional family. You are not part of them: you’ve become your own separate person. Thank goodness.
One trick is to keep your own thoughts to yourself and know that you disagree. Remember, everything she says or does is directly about her, it’s not you. Even if it’s at your expense, say, trying to make you look foolish in front of others….it’s because at that moment she is feeling very very foolish and needs to pump herself up. She’s a sad person. Maybe if you can look through the attacks you’ll get a glimpse of just how sad (pitiful) she is and why she’s jealous of you?
That’s another trick - to concentrate on the other person and their motivations for doing what they do. When you can do that, they stop scaring or upsetting you so much. It works for me but it’s not easy when someone is trying to punch you because they hurt. Any help? Make any sense?
