Thanks Hops and CB. There's a lot of times I really think I bit off more than I can handle. I'm really sort of glad I'm NC with my family because to have to deal with their attitudes and opinions while trying to sort everything else out would probably cause me to have a nervous breakdown. There's a lot of times that I sit around and I can't believe it's all real. I have a hard time believing that I'm as wonderful as H seems to think when I have all of this stuff I'm trying to sort out. I don't have the self image where I can really accept her compliments and believe them, and that bothers her. She tells me I'm beautiful, and I don't believe her. Then she gets upset because I don't believe her.
CB, a lot of times I just don't want to talk about it. H wants me to talk and sort of worms things out of me, even if I'm not ready to talk. And she's often hurt because she doesn't like what I tell her. She doesn't like that I take some of her jokes personally, and she doesn't understand that similar jokes have been used to hurt me. So then she's upset when I take things the wrong way. Then I'm upset because she gets mad and I don't know why.
I have a bad habit of blaming myself for everything that goes wrong. If M is being particularly snotty, I feel like it's my fault. When H started watching a few other kids to make some extra money, she complained about M's poor social skills. I felt like it was my fault that he had such poor skills because I didn't get him away from my mother sooner. My mom never allowed M to do things normal kids would do. He's never been allowed to just "be a kid," and H doesn't really understand what that's like. She's often stunned when she finds out that I've never done things most kids do, or that my family never went on vacations. M tends to think of himself as an adult, rather than a kid, and that bothers H. She doesn't feel that M respects me like he should, and that's what we've been working on together is teaching him to be more respectful and listen to what he's told to do rather than just arguing and bargaining. It's had a very positive effect overall, but sometimes it makes me a little uncomfortable.
I have a hard time handling things when I don't know what H is thinking and I think she's upset with me. She always wants me to talk when I'm upset, but she often doesn't reciprocate. There's times when I don't really want to play around and that upsets her. I tend to be a very serious person and I think that bothers her. I can never quite tell if she's being quiet because she's tired, or if I've done something to upset her. I usually assume that I've upset her because my mom always stopped talking to me when she was mad. H has a habit of going off alone when she's mad at me, and that is a defnite trigger for me. I never quite know what I've done, and then when she doesn't want to talk to me, I assume that I'll have days of silence. She actually got mad when I told her I'd rather her yell and scream at me. I'd rather have that than silence though, at least I'd know what I did. She gets mad because I assume things with her, like I assumed she would yell at me for dropping a box of nails.
There are little things that are so like my mom that they really set me on edge. She has a habit of redoing things after I do them because she doesn't like the way I do them. If I say something then I'm being crabby. I often feel like she's correcting what I do. I'll put things away, only to find them totally reorganized the next day. It drives me nuts. Or I'll put something in the dishwasher and she'll redo it. There's nothing malicious in it. It's just two people doing things differently. It's just that I have a hard time letting her do things her way. She complains that I have to have everything my way, and she doesn't understand that half the time I'm biting my tongue because I'm letting her do things her way.
Hops, when I say discipline, it's more a way of letting M know when he's out of line. I have a habit of letting people walk all over me, M included. She doesn't spank or put him in time out. Mostly she complains about his sometimes bratty behavior, which tends to make me feel guilty because he's being bratty. She lets me be mom, but she's helping me be a better mom, I guess is what I should have said. She's really good with kids. I'm not.
I'm just venting. Maybe it's all in my head. Still, I cringe at times when I say or do something that I know would have gotten a negative reaction from my mom. I don't always know how H will react, and that scares me.
