Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Mother's Day??
Wildflower:
--- Quote ---This is the new Michelle and I like her alot better than the old one!
--- End quote ---
WAHOOOOO!!! :D :D :D
Wildflower
Wildflower:
Hi Caroline,
Yeah, I figured it was about the pregnancy, but yuck. How awful to have to hear criticisms like that when you're pregnant. Even after reading and remembering all the stories and reading all the literature, it still boggles my mind how they can be so insensitive and weird about someone else, um, having needs.
I'm glad you and your sister are becoming closer though. It's really good to have someone to compare notes with and can help sort out so much confusion. Not to mention the bright part about gaining a sister. :D
Take care,
Wildflower
SY1T:
This is my first post. . . but I just had to write about Mother's Day. My sister & I are struggling with what to do for this. We've decided to just send flowers, as when she starts counting up cards and gifts, flowers seem to be the most important count.
At this point, my dad is in a nursing home and in no great hurry to get out. Mom has decided she needs to move (they were told this several years ago), but decided to insulted about being told what to do. Now that dad is somewhere else, we get phone calls (that last for hours). If we don't get the phone calls, then she will call other friends and family and speak against us.
Also, she has said, she wouldn't be in this mess if we lived nearby. In one breath she tells us she can handle things by herself, and in the next breath she asks for advice. Any advice given is taken as being bossy. A friend once told me to consider, when on the phone, to act as if you're a trash can. She doesn't want any advice, all she wants to do is dump on you - so - don't put any effort into giving the advice, once you've given it once.
My sister & I have started timing the amount of time before we utter one word on the phone with my mom. My personal length of time that's gone by before saying "uh - huh" has been 25 minutes. My sister's has been 20 minutes.
For awhile dad used email. Mom never used it - and dad was the one filter that was in place to keep email away from her that might upset her. Now however, that filter is gone. For years we have asked her to quit speaking against us. We told her it would be nice to be able to trust our own mother. She apologized and said she always does the wrong thing. Unfortunately, somehow the computer got infected with a virus. For about 3 days, every email she sent out, my sister & I were copied. We found out what we being written about us, not only to family, but to financial advisors.
This Mother's Day is a little more complicated, as their 50th anniversary is coming up. She doesn't want anything, and yet if we don't do something, we will hear about it for the next 5 years. So we've decided to fly out, camp in a National Park, and go and come as we want (but take them out to dinner for their anniversary).
So the struggle right now is to do what is right for both my Dad and Mom and to deal with all the guilty feelings.
Anonymous:
Hi SY1T,
And as one newcomer to another, Welcome. I still can't get over how much of what you said sounds just like what I've experienced. Or more precisely, how similar the behavior of NMothers can be. It's quite a relief in a way, not to feel like such a Lone Ranger anymore.
--- Quote ---So the struggle right now is to do what is right for both my Dad and Mom and to deal with all the guilty feelings.
--- End quote ---
I've spent quite a bit of time trying to do what I thought was right for my mother. And for my father while he was alive. I now truly think that my efforts were not only wasted, but might have been counter productive. Here I was with grown daughters and still wanting Mom to say I was a good girl. It wasn't gonna happen. But, the point is I HAD to try. If I had walked away from them earlier I think the guilt would have destroyed me in many ways. So even though I sustained quite a bit of damage, it's all been part of the process of healing. Now I CAN turn away when I need to, although it still makes me sad. I know I gave it my best shot. And if my best shot wasn't good enough, well so be it. At least I tried.
My point is, that you've gotta do what you've gotta do and only you will know when you've done all that you can.
--- Quote ---She doesn't want anything, and yet if we don't do something, we will hear about it for the next 5 years.
--- End quote ---
Very likely you will hear about it anyway. My brother took my mother and father on a vacation once and to this day my mother takes great pleasure in recounting in painstaking detail everything that was not to her liking. And the whole trip was not to her liking. It ended with my father becoming ill with chest pains and my mother demanding to be taken to the airport in the middle of the night. Poor Dad often got chest pains when Mom was being a pain in the a**. :)
Singer
Singer:
--- Quote from: Michelle ---I will send a card and have already decided just to get a "general" one. NOt one of those mushy ones that she LOVES, but doesn't deserve.
--- End quote ---
Michelle,
Sad, but funny. I have to make sure I have time to hit two or three stores when shopping for cards so that I can find one that doesn't contain the words "loving" or "caring", or worst of all ...what an INSPIRATION you've been to me." :roll:
I wish they'd put in a "Mother - from emotionally abused offspring" section. Sure would save time.
Singer
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