Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
A letter to my mother on the anniversary of dad's death.
Wildflower:
--- Quote ---It was a shock - to have your own mother DESPERATE for you. Desperate for you like a lover might be. It's creepy. Wanting you over and above your father. What can you do with that? Sorry, mum - if I had more than one life, I'd dedicate one of them to you but I've only got one and I've got work to do. Guilt, shame.
--- End quote ---
Just a knee-jerk response here (peeking in instead of working :roll: ). I stumbled upon a paragraph while reading Secunda last night, and it made me think about you. I was going to save it for later (you have enough on your plate), but since you brought it up....
It's on the bottom of page 74-ish (left side). Not sure. Secunda's talking about triangling, and in this one paragraph, she says that some parents triangle their children in and exploit them by making them fulfill what the marriage isn't fulfilling. Something like that...wish I had the book with me now. Made me think about how you leaving home may really have been about her husband leaving her in a weird way. And the way she reacted (bitched then whined and clung desparately) when your father died and you helped her out. Just an alternate reading on whether or not it's abandonment that sends her reeling.
Wildflower
Anonymous:
--- Quote ---It was a shock - to have your own mother DESPERATE for you. Desperate for you like a lover might be. It's creepy. Wanting you over and above your father. What can you do with that? Sorry, mum - if I had more than one life, I'd dedicate one of them to you but I've only got one and I've got work to do. Guilt, shame.
--- End quote ---
Gosh :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: , It's almost a case of seperating a set of siamese twins Rosencrantz. There you are with 2 heads and bodies, but only one set of lungs and heart. One has to go. The surgeons have to decide???? Which twin has the greatest prospect of survival.????? The greatest prospects fo a future????????
Then another thought hit me. Bang. When you talked about her surprising silence now, since your dad died. How scary and unpredictable. Is she going to eventually going to say it???? Are you waiting for the blame. Will she try to blame you for it? "It's because you cut off, you never contacted us, he'd probably still be here today if..." you know what I'm saying? :cry:
CG
Anonymous:
Yeah Portia, and have one for me too while you're there. Gosh, I've been off the fags for a month now. Gee I think I could really enoy one about now. But I'll resist the urge to.
Portia, I think you're right about the Emotional Incest thing. Wish I could remember the name of the book I read.????? The thing I remember reading about parent/child E.I is how the child/survivor of E.I finds it nigh impossible in the future to ever experience the type of depth and intimacy in any other type of relationship. Because they took on early responsibility for the parents happiness and needs, and were never free to be 'child', they were always busy 'substitute partnering' the parent, they missed out on normal childhood. They tuned in so deeply and intimately to the parent wants, needs, amd dreams, and sadly at great cost 'tuned out' of their own. The reltionship is telepathic, or telepathetic, and all future relationships seem almost 'lacking in depth' in comparison. Which is actually just a very powerful illusion. What they are really lacking is the 'sickness'.
How are you going Rosencrantz???? Not getting too much for you, is it? Just sing out when you want me to shut-up :D :D :D :D :D
((((HUG))))
CG
rosencrantz:
I can't stop - I'm hurtling down this helter-skelter. I'm worried about you all out there but I just can't stop. Son is happy on his own computer. H learning to leave me to my tears.
CG - you're right that paranoia isn't the right word - I'm sure it isn't. But nothing's ever 'right' in her life. It's not that SHE isn't right. The world isn't right. The social worker says she's having a 'great' time at the Day Centre, 'holding court'. They said that when she 'flounced' off to hospital, too. Holding court, slagging off all the nurses, getting everybody else involved in her fantasies of neglect and cruelty.
Honestly, she's in a fantasy of her childhood. But maybe how she felt in her childhood was a fantasy, too. How 'cruel' her sisters were. Then one of them dies and suddenly she was her best friend. But no-one is ever good enough. Her demands are 'outrageous', unrealistic, inappropriate. But then, the demands she used to put on herself were outrageous, too. And then she feels so badly unappreciated when the world doesn't stop to admire.
The purpose of the funeral was so that she could be Queen for a day. We discern by contrast : Her first thought was new shoes, I hadn't even thought about what to wear - what did I care what I wore? Finally realised I'd better look the part to meet the expectations of others.
"You should look after your mother - you've only got one mother, you know." What would you know about MY mother. You deal with your own!!!
Oh dear, I've started to 'betray' her. I let people know by subtle and not to subtle means what she's really like. Hey, why should I let her slag me off to the world. I'm fed up with it. (Originally I felt I didn't want to interfere in her relationships with others - let it be - but this is MY integrity which is being called into account and I can't stand the guilt!!) They are dumbfounded when they realise they've been misled and perhaps I'm not quite as she's described!!! I know the sound now over the telephone. A sort of a small 'oh', a kind of deflation and a silence as it's digested. Then I know they know!!!
A couple of people suggested my mother's problems are as a result of low self-esteem. It was certainly difficult to see that behind the spite and the sarcasm and the irrationality she expressed towards me. (A defence? Please do bite the hand that feeds you!) But I see sparks of it - I pat her on the head and she's like a puppy, a beaming child. "You did well" but frankly, she didn't and she just screwed things up even more and caused even more havoc. "For God's sake, let ME do it" Do I say that? In action, if not in words. I'm not patient. I get too roughed up by her if I am. Can you see how impossible it all is. We're close to the R/P/V thing again.
Hell's teeth - I'm not even sure she DOES need me. Father asked me to pay money into the bank to pay the standing orders and I took over from there. Of course, Dad - you trust me. You know I'll look after things properly. And probably she felt a child again with parents, him and me. I strode in. I should have tip-toed in. I assumed she 'needed' me, that things were still as they had been where we left off 20/30 years ago!!! That ol' 'here I am - car crash' thing again, I suppose. (And anyway, I'm glad I did - it's one thing she can't manipulate me about although she manipulates everyone else - "poor me, me no understand, me no money, help me, pity prease". Gotcha - SMASH! It really is mpossible, isn't it. I'm getting there!!!).
And anyway, she was the one who went straight back to 30 years ago. :idea: It was because father asked 'what is it about your mother' (over the phone from hospital bed) in front of her and her neighbour and she felt shamed!! (I only just put that particular 2 and 2 together!) Dear, dear, dear. NOT because SHE cared!!!!! :roll: It's only taken me a year to work that one out!!! Grrrr!
I think she was very lonely when she was little but I don't really have evidence for that. She felt unwanted. Always being 'turfed off' somewhere. Hey, I was due to stay overnight with her mother one time when I was little and I hated it! Maybe they were pretty horrible. All of her neighbours are out to get her, too. I spend time with her and I begin to think so, too!!! But dad got on with them all OK - they liked him, thought he was a 'nice man'.
Ah - it's too easy to slip back into seeing the world through her eyes. My H has taught me much kinder ways of relating to self and others. Or he taught me it's OK to be more relaxed about people. It's OK to be generous just cos you feel like it!! It actually does make me feel good to 'give' (not if somebody feels 'obliged' back tho - just genuine 'give and take' not counting who owes who).
What's the title of that book about borderline PD? I hate you, don't leave me. That's my mother (or is it me?). Both...and? At least I chose a man who wouldn't force me to play that game. He may have taken me by surprise with something I was blinkered about - but he was a good choice considering all the messups/pain I could have hankered after!! I used to alternate between the unavailable ones and the ones with 'problems'. Oh, do I have time enough in this lifetime to get through ALL the different kinds of 'men with problems' that exist, I did once wonder!!!!! What 'life experience' they gave me. Give me the sick bag. Puke! Whatever problems we may have, I certainly respect my H.
Right - standing back a bit to take an overview. I know I'm being a headless chicken. I wonder if this is how Ulysses got written. LOL Portia - I just can't look. Ok, I will. But I need a break. Maybe what I've written here is sufficient mea culpa. I DID separate. But I can't NOW. Not since I've seen how much PAIN she's in. My poor H got used as a therapist this afternoon. I sobbed and sobbed and shouted all this stuff about wanting someone else to love my mother for me. It's real enough.
I'm glad you know what that means re the projective identification. But you must have good boundaries. I don't know about it happening until LONG after it's in me. I think that telling me to do it your way is like asking me to have a personality transplant. I can't SEE the ball, I can only feel it - later. And anyway I was always told I wasn't feeling what I was feeling so how should I know??! :wink:
Who decided voicelessness was to blame - what about feelinglessness :wink:
Much later...
Wildflower - that script is really giving me a resting place and helping me not fall into the abyss below!!!
You'll all be glad (bloody thankful probably :-)) to know that I said to my H a few minutes ago 'I'm coming home. I seem to have been away a long time, but I'm coming home now'. I guess that bit of channelling means a bit of peace for us all!!! Thank you!!!!!
R
rosencrantz:
I've missed some posts - coming back tomorrow - exhausted right now. I'll be replying!!!!!!!
Thanks for being there.
S/R
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