Author Topic: rambling realizations  (Read 3708 times)

English

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rambling realizations
« on: January 09, 2010, 07:16:49 AM »
I'm slowly coming to many realizations after reading all your wonderful posts since September.  I discovered that month that NM was an N.  I've been watching her and thinking about me.  My DH talks about his childhood in such happy terms, happy memories.  If I remember my childhood at all it is with a great sadness.  I always thought it was normal to be sad about your childhood, but then I think about my son's childhood.  Those memories of him growing up make me very happy; they make me feel good. 

NF sent me a calendar with family photos on it for Christmas.  I looked through it once and there is no way I am going to hang it up.  Every picture brought back sad/bad memories.and/or feelings.    Except the front cover which is a photo of my Grandmother's house.  That gives me a warm feeling, but the photos inside--nope.  Almost all photos taken by NP's are of the family lined up in a row, maybe one a year.  There very few pictures of when we were kids.  No baby pictures. 

I was reading a magazine at the dentist's office yesterday and it showed ideas of things parents can do with their kids, encourage their playing, their imaginations, do things with them.  The ONLY thing I remember doing with parents is playing board games.  We never did anything creative or playful.  No art was encouraged.  Nothing creative.  NP's did praise us for good school work, so of course, I was good in school.  That's the only praise.  There are so many ways they weren't there for me.  I'm very sad on all that I lost out.

Regarding NM, I am starting to see all the ways she made herself feel good through me or at my expense.  She always invalidates my feelings.  I told her that I can't sing (anyone can tell you that--can't hold a tune, not even happy birthday),  she took my head in her hands and said "Don't ever say that, of course you can sing."  That was a really weird moment.  Now I understand that what I said was a put-down of HER.    I understand now why my feelings are "wrong".  Why my not liking plays or musicals is "wrong."  She said, "Where did I go wrong?" when I said that I didn't like live shows.  My opinion was wrong.  Anytime my opinions were not the same as NP's they were wrong.  That's probably why I don't have or at least voice my opinions, I don't know what other people think the correct opinion is.  My feelings aren't valid.

I am also very hypercritical of people, but at the same time I know this and that it is my mother's opinions coming through me, so I don't say anything to people or let them know the critical things I am thinking in any way.  It's like I have two brains:  That idiot is screwing things up; no he's not, he's just doing it differently than the way you would do them, but it will still work.  I am extremely aware of my prejudices.  I have them, but do not act on them as far as I can tell. 

I feel bad for NM; I know she is unhappy and very fragile, but so am I.  It is my LIFE now that I need to be lliving, not hers. 

Total proof of her lack of empathy:  One of her very old dogs died this week.  It had been very ill with heart worms and suffering tremendously.  Did she try to ease its suffering or put it to sleep.  Did she spend time with it?  No she kept it in the backyard, never played with it, never took care of it other than food and water.  So she called my hysterically crying that her 11 year old dog died.  She wasn't crying for the dog; she was crying for attention.  My cat was dying from kidney failure this summer; we had to put her to sleep; she was suffering too much.  I shed a couple of tears and was sad.  I do miss her 16 year old sweet self.  But I didn't start bawling for attention. 

I'm noticing my adult memories good or bad I think back with pleasant thoughts.  Some are of sad moments, but I also remember happy times.  I remember fond memories of my cat for instance.  But thinking back to before college, it's sad, it's feelings of loss, unhappiness, sadness, longing for a childhood I didn't have.  Sorry about the rambling, just needed to write.  Thanks for listening. :)

BonesMS

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Re: rambling realizations
« Reply #1 on: January 09, 2010, 07:43:45 AM »
(((((((((((((((((((((((English))))))))))))))))))))))))))

You're not alone in this!

Bones
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English

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Re: rambling realizations
« Reply #2 on: January 09, 2010, 08:12:36 AM »
Thanks Bones

Portia

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Re: rambling realizations
« Reply #3 on: January 09, 2010, 01:11:12 PM »
Hi English
I identify with almost all you've said. I'm finding the sadness does recede with ongoing acceptance. As for your own views, prejudiced or not, maybe you can accept them too, and in accepting yourself, perhaps not taking it too seriously and changing in the process. I find I have to be very serious to be hypercritical, and being that serious is such an effort...I can't keep it up for long.

We don't have to be perfect or even near-perfect. Nobody else is. Living is taking actions, risks, making mistakes. And we aren't responsible for how our NMs choose to live their lives.

((((((English))))))

English

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Re: rambling realizations
« Reply #4 on: January 10, 2010, 04:34:58 AM »
Portia
When I say prejudiced, I don't mean racially.  I mean judging people on how they look, what they say, and what they do.  I'm channeling my NM.  Part of me judges them.  Part of me says whoa, you don't know anything about them.  And so what if they don't have an education, so what if they are dressed a certain way.  In my head I put them down then stop myself.  What's funny is NM prides herself as being nonjudgemental and free of prejudice.  So where did I get all these ideas?  Let me guess...hmmm...

You're right though. I am a VERY serious person and I hate it.  I rarely laugh.  God, how I wish I laughed more. Not even once a day.  I can go a week or more.  Anybody have any ideas on how to become less serious. 


nolongeraslave

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Re: rambling realizations
« Reply #5 on: January 10, 2010, 11:34:06 AM »
Story of my life, especially the part of "having two brains"..or more like "the old me" (NM's puppet) and the "new me"(free at last) arguing!

You can tell yourself that you will  change, but NM's thoughts and words are so ingrained. There were times when I fooled myself into thinking, "No, this is really my opinion" when it was NM's. I didn't want to deal with the fact that NM was controlling me.

Anyone else experience that? 

CB123

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Re: rambling realizations
« Reply #6 on: January 10, 2010, 02:02:41 PM »
English and NoLonger,

I think it helps a lot when you distinguish between who you are and what is just a random voice in your head.  We think that there is something wrong with us because odd, random stuff comes into our minds.

I am who remains AFTER I sift through the garbage that comes in and out, and choose what I want to keep.  I think this is part of refusing to continue being victimized.  The fact is whatever we have spoken to us will keep going round and round.  (have you ever had an obnoxious song repeat itself over and over and over in your head? That doesnt mean that you wrote the song, or that you even LIKE it!) 

I am careful about what I put in my brain ON PURPOSE....like, for me, I just plain dont ever watch slasher movies.  Why do I want that in my head competing with space????  I dont listen to music lyrics that degrade women or glorify drugs.  (I wont play it in my kitchens at work either). 

But some things you cant help--like your N person's screwy version of life.  So, you have to constantly say:  that's not me.  That's her.  She views people that way, but I dont.  I am "listening" to that thought, I am not generating it. 

Keep putting the thought OUTSIDE of who you are.  But dont fight the thought because then it gets clingy.  Just look at it like an interesting specimen, a foreign object:  Hmmmm.  That's the way judgmental people think.  But I think differently.  I think its like creating internal boundaries.

CB
When they are older and telling their own children about their grandmother, they will be able to say that she stood in the storm, and when the wind did not blow her way -- and it surely has not -- she adjusted her sails.  Elizabeth Edwards 2010

Portia

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Re: rambling realizations
« Reply #7 on: January 10, 2010, 02:53:29 PM »
English,
I think it's necessary and natural to judge people on appearance, words, actions. How else do we start navigating life? Many people we meet will conform to some stereotype, so it works to judge books by covers, especially if those people are quickly passing through our lives. Yes, note the person on the sidewalk who looks aggressively dressed and whose actions are suspicious, it might save your life.  On the other hand, true, covers do not make a person so if you're getting to know them, look beyond, but it's all a balance I guess. I have a problem of not expecting people in posiitons of some 'authority' or 'satus' to do dumb things (even though the evidence keeps mounting up to the contrary). Why am i so dumb there??!

CB: I like -  I am "listening" to that thought, I am not generating it.  -
sometimes you can hear other people doing it too, they're speaking, but the words are not 'theirs': you can hear the parent talking.

English

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Re: rambling realizations
« Reply #8 on: January 24, 2010, 07:37:15 AM »
I thought I had dodged a bullet when NM called and asked if I wanted to go with her and her H to my cousins baby shower 3 hours away.  I said no, "I wanted to take my own car because I wanted to do some shopping while I was there."  I didn't plan on doing shopping.  She said ok.  Yesterday she called and said that H wasn't going. Can she go with me?  I said that I have to also do some shopping.  She said what kind.  I said clothes.  "Oh, I'd love to do that." she replied.  I couldn't figure out how to get out of taking her so I told her yes.

She can't drive herself for some reason. She says she can't drive for over 30 minutes.  I have yet to figure out why she can't drive so far.  She can sit that far.  I think she just likes to be chauffered around everywhere. 

I felt that I had no choice.  She definitely needs to be at my cousins baby shower.  It's her first baby and NM thinks of herself as her grandmother.  She's really her aunt, but old enough to be a grandmother.  So I'm stuck.

Anyone have any suggestions about ground rules I should require if she's gonna come with me? 

1. "Mom, Im not going to talk about myself"
2.  I'm not going to talk about my son, or at least not why he won't talk to her.
3.  I won't listen to you putting people down, especially my uncle.

I'm going to get an audiobook by someone she likes and we'll listen to it on the way.  I don't want to be stuck talking to her.

WHY DOESN'T MY 'NO' BUTTON WORK? ALL I SAY TO HER IS 'YES'.  AGGHHHHH!!!!!! :?:

English

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Re: rambling realizations
« Reply #9 on: January 24, 2010, 10:06:05 AM »
I was surfing and went to a site with the DSM IV-TR and read through the personality disorders.  I started looking at npd.  Yeah, of course she fits all the criteria.  Then I looked at avoidant pd.  I fit it to a T.  It even mentioned truculance (which I had to lookl up :D- it means basically silent in social situations and conversations.)  It explains so much about me and the way I handle people and life.  I'm very reserved and meek.  If I'm in a group of two or more people.  I don't speak unless spoken to, and then I get very, very self-conscious.  I follow conversations, but I NEVER have anything to say.  I want to be around people, but I am afraid of shame and embarrassment.  I don't feel like I have social skills.  Even on this board, people write and write and write.  I don't want to 'burden' people so don't say much, but I WANT to.  I have one friend, and that took years before we became friends.  I still don't tell her much about me though.  I'm married and my H is very supportive, but I don't even trust him with my deepest thoughts. 
Or even with my less deep thoughts.

I mean I DON'T trust ANYBODY.  I hate that.  I don't know how to get passed it.  I'm always afraid of my inferiority showing.  The fear of shame is tremendous.

I wonder how my life would have gone had I not had NM or schizoid (or whatever is wrong with) F.  Would I be that great linguisitics professor and researcher, would I have been able to research apes and/or dolphins?  My whole life I've wanted to learn languages and travel.  Iin high school I studied 3 langauges, but when I had to start talking extemporaneously in French in class, I quit French--my favorite language of all.

If I could do it, I'd study all the languages I could, but the fear is more than too great.  Which leaves me with a life of misery, a llfe wished for, longed for, but unobtainable.  (I'm about to turn 50, so I'm running out of time to make changes.)

This APD also explains why I give in to NM.  I'm afraid to say no.  Although in some ways I can be firm with her.  Like I told her I do NOT WANT a birthday PARTY, just her and my H to come over and have cake--not tons of relatives and her friends coming.  We'll see what she does, she said she would do as I wished--I don't trust her. 

I am a teacher and do just fine with the students.  It's when I have to interact with adults.  Especially the principals when I get tounge-tied.  But I MUST answer them, so my heart races, my mind whirls, I say all I can and need to say, but it makes me panic.  I avoid these situations as much as possible.  I almost always email the principal. That way I can form my ideas and words and read over them, like I'm doing here. Even then I am still nervous.  I hate my fear,  I have SO much of it. 

Hopalong

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Re: rambling realizations
« Reply #10 on: January 24, 2010, 10:35:04 AM »
Hi English,

This may sound incredibly lame, corny, unmodern.
But it works for truculence and fear of adults.

Toastmasters.

You sweat bullets the first few times. They are kind and specific. You start to get it.

It can really change people who are afraid to speak.

hugs,
Hops
"That'll do, pig, that'll do."

English

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Re: rambling realizations
« Reply #11 on: January 24, 2010, 11:44:47 AM »
Hops
It doesn't sound lame.  It's a good idea. I don't know that I could go through with that though.  The fear is tremendous.  I am afraid when I answer the phone.  i am afraid when I go to the store. (But I'm not agoraphobic) I'm afraid when I go to the doctor.  I'm afraid when I go to work.  I'm afraid while I'm working that the principal will walk in.  It's like NM explained to me there is a proper way to do everything.  Everyone but me knows the correct way.  OK she only sometimes said that, but she showed it to me all the time. 

NM never taught me the right way to do things.  When I asked her to teach me to dance, she showed me the box step.  How many 8th graders in 1974 went to a school dance and did the Box Step?  I saw on TV all kinds of dances; she didn't teach me any of them.  I didn't learn until well into my adulthood that slow dancing was very basic and simple.  I skipped my senior prom because I didn't kknow how to dance.

I quit having friends in my late childhood-10 years old or so.  At puberty I had no friends because-- I don't know why.  It's been 40 years and I'm just now learning why I don't have friends.  I don't know how to get them or maintain them.  That's why I didn't ask any friends how to dance, how to put on make-up, or any other teenage stuff.

I grew up thinking that EVERYONE else know the correct way to do things and I did not.  I do not.  Unless it's something that I have done a lot, I don't do it because I don't know the "proper way."  Intellectually I kind of know that there is no correct way; emotionally I'm sure there is a correct way to de everything. 

I also learned never to ask for help.  I'm supposed to never need help.  I'm supposed to know everything already and because I don't, I am worthless.

That's my point I think.  I am worthless and incompetant. I do not trust the world.

Sorry about the rambling.

HeartofPilgrimage

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Re: rambling realizations
« Reply #12 on: January 24, 2010, 07:55:26 PM »
English, I am a fan of the Chronicles of Narnia ... and the one thing that I thought of when reading your post is, "Nobody is ever told 'what might have been.'" In some ways it stinks, but it forces us to live with what is, to learn to be our best inside what is.

About your mom ... I was going to say just to do the smile and nod thing with her (if possible) ... but it sounds like you do a lot of that and it's not working. By the "smile and nod thing" I mean just say uh huh or hmmmm, and be noncommittal. My mom seems to understand not feeling well, so I often can get off the hook by claiming to not feel well. Which is true, my feelings are not feeling well when she's in a mood! But she takes it as I am sick, and so sometimes I can get a reprieve ... in situations where I am stuck in a confined space with her.

Darn, I wish I could find something more helpful. I'm sure at least one or two people reading this will be able to help.

English

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Re: rambling realizations
« Reply #13 on: January 25, 2010, 03:29:19 AM »
Thanks Heart
Feeling sick is a good idea, of course she'd tell everyone at the shower that I don't feel well, but that's Ok.  I'm wondering how she'll make the shower about herself.  She made my aunt's wedding reception about her.

BonesMS

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Re: rambling realizations
« Reply #14 on: January 25, 2010, 07:41:54 AM »
Thanks Heart
Feeling sick is a good idea, of course she'd tell everyone at the shower that I don't feel well, but that's Ok.  I'm wondering how she'll make the shower about herself.  She made my aunt's wedding reception about her.

Hi, (((((((((((((((((((English)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

I can relate to your feelings about APD, along with the feelings of shame, incompetency, worthlessness, etc.  That fits my own childhood to a T!  Combine that with the possibility of Asperger's and it gets REALLY complicated!!!!!

About the car situation, this is what worked for me as I got fed up with being treated like the family slave, I gave the N's in the family specific ground rules such as (1) NO SMOKING IN MY CAR, (2) NO back seat driving, even if you are sitting in the "front" seat (aka passenger seat), (3) NO abusing me physically or verbally, (I have to think what other ground rules were specifically tailored to these N-IDIOTS), and if they persisted in their bullsh*t, I would pull over and tell them:  "My car, my rules.  You don't like the rules?  Get out and walk!"  I was surprised how well that worked for me!  I'm sure they b*tched like crazy to the other N-relatives about how I should be locked up in an insane asylum.  By this point, I no longer cared because I was SICK AND TIRED of being the NFamily's punching bag!

Bones
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