I had a bad relationship with my mother, and it was very important for me to fully realize that it was her problem, not mine. Outside view: I can have good relationships with other people; she can't. It seems so obvious now, but it was difficult to realize while at home. Moving away from home helped me a lot; and now when I come for visit, I make sure I never stay more than a few hours at a time, once in a few weeks.
For her, the solution is to start anew, with a blank space. I can't do that; I spent my adolescence being hit by her and apologising to her for whatever she deemed my fault on a given day.
I could have written the same thing. And for a long time I have blamed myself for my inability to also start anew and pretend that nothing happened. Because everyone keeps telling me that forgiving people is important, not only for some religious reasons but also for your mental health, etc. (Also, admitting that I have this problem lowers my status.) But there is less advice about how specifically to do it, especially if almost anything that person does is triggering to you. It is supposed to just somehow magically happen, by making the right far-mode decision. And if you can't do that, that's probably your fault, too.
My solution was to reduce contact to a "plausibly deniable" level, where I don't have to openly admit that I am avoiding contact on purpose, and I can pretend that I am just too busy to visit more often. This reduces unnecessary drama, because the drama would again make me uncertain whether I am doing the right thing. And actually the visits are not so unplesant now, because I just try to remain polite, pretend that everything is okay, avoid anything emotional, and then leave.
It was difficult to accept, but I think the correct way is simply to not expect anything from my mother. No understanding, no apology, nothing at all. Anything I would expect from her would be just another thing she could hurt me by not doing it. Why would I create such opportunities? We can have a short polite conversation instead, I feel I have fulfilled my social duty, and then I go home. This is all I can realistically hope for; I am succeeding at it; mission accomplished. My real life, including all my emotional life, is somewhere else; that is where I should focus my thoughts and actions.
Put it into perspective. There are seven billion people on this planet. Stop wasting your time and attention on those few who have hurt you. There is nothing inherently special about them. They had their chance, they wasted it. Meet new people, make new friends. One important thing about being human is the ability to overcome familial bonds and find new allies. (And the more civilized societies seem better at this than the less civilized ones.)
In a way I have been doing the same past 10 years, but only superficially. I treated my withdrawing from any emotional contact as a shielding technique, not as the only way we can have any kind of social interaction without me being in very low mood the next day.
I recently saw some posts here about how LW helps with personal stuff and that it's a good idea to post here1. Plus, you are the most supportive people I've ever met. I still hesitate. Know my courage. Also, I pretty much always put needs and feeling of other people ahead of mine, because "mine are not as important" (more on that in note 3 and 5). Saying my feelings and needs out loud is really scary. Writing them down is almost unimaginable.
I recently parted ways with my psychologist, but don't yet want to find a new one. Between our last meetings I had a thought that (as usually) was not explored deep enough. And I think I need to go deeper in it. Maybe you can point me in
the right disome interesting directions?A bit of background information about me and my parents: as a child and adolescent I did not exist as a separate person. I lived by the side of perfection, always not good enough, or simply not good. The chant of that time was "why can't you ... like your sister?" (have good grades, keep the room tidy, have friends, be nice - insert almost anything you can imagine)2. There were also other problems, but let's not make this part too long.
When I grew up and discovered that this all was not normal nor right, I became bitter and angry3. I keep in touch with them, act as if almost everything is fine, but boil inside a lot.
On the surface I want to fix things. I want to be able to ask my mum to teach me something (I haven't been able to do this since I was a preschooler, partly because I feared being laughed at), I want to look at my dad and not remember him calling me a murderer3. In my country it's even unthinkable that I am trying to cut the contact with one of my grandmothers4.
So I invented that I want my mother to understand why what she did was hurting me and apologise. She knows that I think she wronged me, though I doubt she realizes how very bitter I am about it all. For her, the solution is to start anew, with a blank space. I can't do that; I spent my adolescence being hit by her and apologising to her for whatever she deemed my fault on a given day. The problem with my solution is that she's incapable of it. For the sake of simplification: she does not comprehend other people's emotions (but she does have emotions of her own and she mostly comprehends them)5.
My new thought to look at "my solution" from a different perspective. Maybe me wanting to make amends with them this particular way is a bit like looking for approval the same way I did as a child. Maybe my mother saying "I hurt you, I'm sorry" would be like her saying "you were right, you are a good girl". Since I never got approval as a child, I should not expect it as an adult. Does this look sensible?
Maybe the adult thing for me to do would be to stop looking for these pats-on-the-back. And also the tiny pats-on-the-back I get when I act around them as if almost everything is fine while boiling inside and they reciprocate niceties. And that might mean cutting the contact as much as I can (which is of course scary and unimaginable). Or am I just going in one direction, where more are possible?
Maybe I should stop trying to invent ways to fix things6. Maybe I should tell them how angry I am, and tell them in a way that prohibits them from interrupting me or reacting sooner than let's say a week later. But then again - would that do any good? Would they be able to understand me if they've never tried it before? Or is the question "would that do any good" just an example of my regular tendency to place other people ahead and diminute my needs?
1. Asking personal questions on LW, I don't remember the other ones now
2. She was more brilliant than me, managed to keep some friends even though we were the only kids in our class (yes, younger, but the same class - she went to school early and was always at the top) living outside the area etc. Another chant was "if you don't lose weight now, you'll be a cripple when you grow up", even though I had a perfectly normal figure. Everybody would routinely mix our names. The parents would routinely mix up our preferences about food, colours, favourite subjects etc. In a way: there was no me, there was just her and a faulty copy of her, who would keep being faulty on purpose, in order to enrage mother.
3. This last straw fell when my father (who was much more taciturn in scolding me, so back then I still had some sypathy for him) heard that my son and his (then) only grandchild suffered from a genetic disease that kills babies before they turn 2. After I explained the genetics of the disease, testing fetuses, chances, potential choices etc. he showed no sympathy, only asked "but you do know that you're commiting an infanticide?" His catholicism was more important to him than his daughter's grief over her dying child. Then it took me two weeks to stop feeling for him and decide that his reaction was inappropriate.
4. This last straw fell when she was playing with said dying child while I was away for a couple of hours. I got a letter regarding some testing in another country. She opened the letter, saw it was in English, took a dictionary, failed to make any sense of it and asked other people to help her. And when I came back and got angry at her reading my correspondece, she got outraged because she considered it her right. But I kept quiet for another year or two before I told her I don't want her near my children.
5. She thaught me empathy this way: I was always supposed to take into account how my actions would look from her point of view (given that she would not even try to reciprocate and always choose one of the worst interpretations). Empathy is my superpower now; I see a person and know what they feel about a situation, though I lack confidence in acting upon my insight.
6. At some point I was planning on employing someone to help her with the "understand why what she did was hurting me" part.