mother who turns to infant for comfort

Mom said something once that shocked me into a revelation that I think had always lurked at the back of my mind, but never really wanted to face: "I love babies because a new baby is the only time I get unconditional love."

I was too flabbergasted to scream at her, though some part of me wanted to strangle her; and in the end? I realized it was pointless. I had my answer, my key, the missing piece of the puzzle, my Rosetta stone: My mother is totally, utterly, completely clueless as to the basic caretaking dynamic that *should* exist between mother and child, and never the twain shall meet (*her* concept and reality, that is).

I felt as if (in retrospect) I was some kind of oversized doll, that she would feed and diaper and cuddle, but all the messy stuff of a real baby, such as crying endlessly and projectile poop and so on were not part of her plan. I *think* (meaning, I of course don't know for sure, but it just feels true) that she would often abandon me, in the sense of walking away and leaving me when I was crying, or she would laugh at me, as if my terror was some kind of joke? (I still don't get this part) hoping whatever was wrong would just go away. I think my mother actually terrified me, sort of the way clowns terrify some children: The clown is in your face and you can't get away from him; and he's bigger than you; and: He's doing all these things that scare you and nobody seems to notice how frightened you are. It's all supposed to be this big funny joke, but it's not funny to you - and none of the adults around you seem to care. They're all busy trying to get you to act some particular way that fits their script of what should be happening; your reactions, feelings and needs are completely invisible to them, or possibly so inconvenient that they can't be bothered to deal with them.

***
I no longer feel angry about it; the impulse to anger is there, but my body/mind/psyche has experienced the futility of that particular path enough times now to seek an alternate course of action: Think about something else. Do something else. Find another path. Blood from stones, and all that - I think it just took me some time to recognize her as an ungiving 'stone'.

The odd thing is, she seems quite receptive, quite approachable, on the surface. Until you actually ask her for something, at which point she becomes the proverbial stubborn donkey, all four feet firmly planted in absolute opposition to whatever it is you're asking for, almost as if it's a reflex. There seems to be no cognition involved, no consideration, no rational thought. Just a pure, gut level, knee-jerk reaction. Almost as if she's still - three? or six? Or some such really frightening, terribly young and completely inappropriate age for someone to be in charge of very small children. Yikes.

And she took care of us well enough physically - clean clothes, well fed, hot baths every night, all that; it was in the mental and emotional arena that she just didn't seem to have any awareness whatsoever as to what was needed (and, in my case, still *is* needed, all these long years later.)

***
I think what I saw as 'receptiveness' was really her need to be seen herself, in the same ways *I'm* currently battling. In other words, that engaging gaze, the friendly smile, was really her way of trying to get me to take care of her. Yikes. I think I encounter (possibly draw?) a lot of people like this in my life. I'm like a magnet for them, a caretaking magnet?

It's not my fault, and I don't blame myself. I'm working on discouraging people from relying on me in these ways. I think I'm learning how to set boundaries here (yay grasshopper!)

The images that were trying to pop into my mind above were: Cobra, mesmerizing you while waiting for a chance to strike; and carnivorous plants, such as the giant venus fly-trap in Little Shop of Horrors. Once again, yikes.

***
Now for the REALLY hard part (as if the rest of it's all been a walk in the fricking park, right? :-):

I have to recognize the ways in which her behavior shapes/shaped my behavior; I have to look at how/if/whether I'm duplicating those same behaviors myself, and *if* in fact I am reproducing those same behaviors (and I suspect I am, to some degree, though I'm far more aware of same than my mother ever has been or ever will be [which is not to compete with her, just to cut myself some slack and not give into the little voices that try to say, "You're just as bad as she is!"])

So: I suspect that I'm 'needy' in ways that seem 'age-inappropriate'; and I'm ok with that.

I don't buy into the cultural bullshit that we all are (or should be) self-sufficient and/or responsible for everything that happens to us (nuke that 'Secret' bullshit and the fucking kamikaze elephant it rode in on).

I'm ok with asking for the help I need; I no longer take it personally when someone says, "No," but just move on and keep asking for what I need.

I don't buy into the 'co-dependence' bullshit; we're all interdependent - that's how humans evolved. We're a tribal species, and a whole huge portion of our brain (limbic) evolved specifically to deal with the bonding necessary for a largely hairless, somewhat slow, dull-toothed and clawless mammal to survive an otherwise scarier-than-shit environment: We co-operated with one another.