all over the map, brain dump

salt in the wound



insensitive parents.

parents who dismiss your feelings as unimportant.

self help generation vs. bootstrap generation.

parents who don’t know how to help their children have hope for the future.

Takes everything for granted; can’t see how she was *lucky*.

I’m not denigrating her hard work, or suggesting she did anything wrong, or that she’s a ‘bad’ person. I’m merely saying: Can’t you see how our life circumstances are *different*? Can’t you *see* why I’m struggling? How is it that you can’t see this?

parents uninterested in child’s emotional needs

parets who won’t listen to or hear child’s side of story

emotionally cold, cruel, unfeeling parents

parents indifferent to child’s emotional needs

when a parent won’t let you tell your side (or version) of the story – where things always have to be painted in a pleasant light, in pretty colors.

You must never make your mother uncomfortable (emotionally). If you do, you are a BAD person. Even though your MOTHER, this saint, this paragon, makes YOU uncomfortable ALL THE TIME: She embarrasses you with her stupidity
her endless need to call attention to herself
the ongoing self-pity party

This is the part that is hard to break: She never got attention as a child, so she passes that along to *you* by not paying attention to *your* needs. So you, in your turn, become ‘needy’ – because your NEEDS have never been properly met by the people who were in the best position to meet them, namely, your parents.

Your mother makes it an ‘either/or’ situation by denying that *your* feelings and hers can co-exist.

When you express your *feelings*, your mother behaves as if you’ve HURT her by saying she did something WRONG.

Instead of simply HEARING you, no matter how careful you are not to phrase something in a non-judgmental, non-critical way, it’s as if she’s LOOKING for criticism, she’s ready and primed to be hurt.

Which, of course, she *is*. But: This is NOT your JOB, not your RESPONSIBILITY, to take care of her. Just because you *can*, and you know *how*, and you understand *her*, does not make you *responsible* to TAKE CARE OF HER.

She takes it for granted, because that’s what you did for so many years. Which is why she’s gone out of her way to spend time with you these last few weeks: You understand her like no one else does.

But it is NOT a two-way street. She does not now, nor has she ever, understood you the way you understand *her*. It’s a power differential, which she REFUSES to accept.

She had a POWER to SHAPE your life in ways you could never SHAPE hers.

Mother who REFUSES to acknowledge the power differential between her and her daughter.


She is trying to SHAME you for BRINGING UP YOUR EMOTIONS and
MAKING HER UNCOMFORTABLE – she thinks you are a
BAD, MEAN child.

She cannot SEE your NEEDS
Your feelings.

To her, only HER needs and feelings are important. YOURS are not.

Her generation doesn’t understand the importance of feelings, even though she TALKS about them all the time. Denial.

Hang on to the good. Let GO of the bad. You don’t have to IGNORE it – take note of it so that you can AVOID people who treat you like this. Including your mother.

She started sniping and snipping and carping and generally being nasty and mean to all around her, a stream of vile bile continually escaping, nasty little comments.

A woman at the second hand shop getting into her car, mom said, “I’ll know I’m too fat when I have to actually *lift* my legs into my car.” Jesus, mom, what’s with *that*?

She has all these emotional needs, but they’re couched in – bizarre? hidden, passive aggressive behaviors.

Because she can’t ask directly. But has been LUCKY enough to have people who understand her in her life, such as dad.

So she got ‘taken care of’ in the unconscious way of small children.

But she’s NOT a small child. And she has never become CONSCIOUS of her needs, or learned to ask for them to be met directly.

Do NOT take care of her. It is not your JOB.

***
When your parents can’t hear you.

People who won’t admit to wrongdoing, who won’t admit that *their* behavior contributed to a situation.

emotional EXTREMISM

***

Awash in a SEA of parental negativity – carping, criticizing, judging, sniping. On and on. You feel WEIGHED DOWN by it, as if she is dumping her burdens on you with no awareness.

You point them out to her, and she acts shocked. She seems to believe that she can say anything she wants and you’ll still ‘spin’ a positive vision of her.

“You’re so critical, so negative all the time,” you want to say. But you know it’s not *all* the time – or, - it’s as if she’s got this endless running STREAM of negativity in her head and occasionally it gets the better of her and starts running out her MOUTH, when she can’t hold it in any longer.

***

Parents who dismiss your need to be heard and understood.

I feel like I have to push back.

KEEP PUSHING. Get it OUT of your system as QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. DE-TOX.

***
People who work in nuclear power stations wear badges to tell them how much radiation they’ve been exposed to.

I need a little indicator to tell me when I’ve been exposed to too much emotional negativity so that I can GET OUT.

It’s all on the surface. As long as you make the surface LOOK fine, it must BE fine, right? Pretend. As hard as you can.

***
Unconscious parental negativity.

It was my *job* in my family to protect my mother, to help her maintain her self-illusions. To NEVER, under ANY circumstances, pop the bubble my father so carefully constructed so that *he* wouldn’t have to deal with her insecurities. Easier to simply pretend everything was fine.

Of course, when she went from the superficially sweet to the vile stream of (not profanities, but *emotionally* so) invective against those around her, he was shocked. So he vowed (in his head) to do whatever was necessary so that he didn’t have to experience this stuff.


***
Parents who deny your need for reassurance.

Parets who dismiss your

fears
insecurities
worries
concerns

Who fail to reassure you, or show concern for your mental and emotional health and well-being.


Cootchy-coo, little demon! Come here to mama!

PLAY with your demons?


The myth of parental love for children

**
When your mother sees you as ‘the enemy’.

Unfair assessments of me – she can’t see *ME* past the trees in her head.

When parents don’t behave like adults.

***
Her* emotional smokescreen.

She goes through life with one hand stretched protectively in front of her, or perhaps her hands in front of her face, to ward off potential/perceived ‘blows’.

Which may never come.

And because she’s always got her hands in front of her face, protecting her?

She can’t SEE what’s REALLY THERE.

All she can see are her FEARS.

So she (RE)ACTS out of her FEARS

instead of RESPONDING to what’s REALLY THERE.



***
Parents who FEED child’s fears and insecurities instead of SOOTHING them and HELPING them deal with fears

Parents who ACCUSE YOU of BAD INTENT, of INTENDING to HURT them, while being TOTALLY oblivious and in complete denial of the ways in which THEY hurt YOU.

BATTING DEMONS OUT OF THE PARK TODAY!!!!! Ka – POW!!!

***
Not my job.

***
What happens if I do *this*??? :-)