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Dear Anita,
To add: when I was in medical school and my mother put me down called me a cry baby, that I’ve been crying since I was born – it goes with the previous post. That I cried more than the average child, and tormented her because of it – it was so burdensome for her as a young mother, a mother who didnt have a great husband, and a family that was terrible to her – what a tragedy.
it also goes along with the “lion and lamb” comment. from a young age I remember hearing this – oh shes so disruptive at home, and she goes out in the real world – she doesn’t fight back like she does at home, what a coward!
warrior angry fighter at home, coward out there – how foolish this child is. what a coward, not smart like others
Dear Anita,
I arose in the middle of the night today – thirsty and full of thoughts. I decided to come here and jot some of them down. Since we have been doing hard work – my thoughts are not a frenzy but pensive, from the exercise perhaps.
You wrote above:
“…having an alleged crying, loud baby on top of her tragedy of being married to a medical doctor who does not help her clean the house and take care of her alleged difficult child”
I read this again and thought wow. Her medical doctor husband who doesn’t help her clean the house. Sounds so foolish and absurd! Yet here I am having believed that my whole life. In the sense that this monologue was reality. It was never questioned – the mother voice was never questioned was it.
Why is this important? It’s not because I want to run back and say you were wrong! Or say to my father it’s okay you didn’t do the housework! No. It is important because this small example – or a large one in fact is an indication of how many lies I was fed. The word alleged is correct. And she painted me as a difficult child. Perhaps I was. Perhaps I wasn’t. But nonetheless I was a child. I see children now. All the time. Some unruly some well behaved. Some with great parents some with not. Some of it is personality some of it is parenting.
Anyway I read this about my father and think – what a mess. My mother had resentment for my father. He used to hit her when they first moved to the US. Prior to my birth and perhaps while I was a young child – I have perhaps vague personal memories of this from stories, but know it is real. It is very real.
Now I don’t believe anyone should be abused. And I do know that sometimes the abused becomes the abuser. I spent a lot of time in my life – especially adolescent life believing that since my mother was treated poorly – by her own siblings and my father, she became enraged and “retaliated” and became the angry spiteful person she is.
I now know it is not a linear development as such. I know most importantly that the root of how and why she is who she is – is simply no longer important.
If the child of an alcoholic grows up to be an abusive alcoholic father – he is still to be held accountable. That’s it.
My mom spent her whole life trying to get empathy for the abuse she suffered. Every one of her actions became okay and validated because of it.
She had an affair, psychological or who knows, with a landscaper while I was in medical school. My father was aware of it and in a nutshell – it was “okay” since he was never a good husband to her and never gave her the love she ever needed
in a way this made sense, abused wife, never given appropriate love from her husband – looks elsewhere. She used to say “it is my right”. Sure – it is every humans right to find love, or not to be faulted if such happens.
The thing is though, she wasn’t capable of this. She is not a functional human being. Of course this affair or whatever you want to call it was short lived , and she fell into a tragic depression. It was up to us (my father and I mostly) to help her out of it. I’ll never forget the day they called me after my first year medical school exam. I recall walking to my white car, and it being hot. It was my father and mother on the phone – and they were heading to meet the “man” N. Pretty much they were heading to have an intervention with this man and tell him to no longer contact my mother as it was harming her too much. She couldn’t take the emotional ups and downs. So here they are calling their “levelheaded eldest” for advice – “we are heading there what should we say?”
Oh so Tragic tragic. Woman is abused and can not be loved appropriately by her husband. Woman also unable to find love elsewhere.
Perhaps woman is unlovable.
Now – let’s jump to this woman being a mother! 2 kids.
I am seeing this from afar from the view of a television show. In fact one we are watching about a classically dysfunctional family. The focus of the show are the children, this family has six children, The entire focus is the children. What has this lack of parenting done to the children, how are these children now fending for themselves, how are these children approaching the world, education, relationships. People watch these sort of shows all the time. Even I am watching it!! But in my own life – unlike this show, I didn’t see things from the perspective of the child (the daughters). It was only ever the perspective of the mother. Even when I type about the affair, you notice that I write about how it affected my mother, and my father. It is only an afterthought on how it may have affected us, her children.
this is because We were told that what she does or does not do is none of our business. That she had a bad life, and now she deserves to enjoy. That she has dedicated her whole life to us, blood sweat and tears, and we are not allowed any judgement. How dare we- she has a right to love like anyone else. And that we wouldn’t understand.
And so we didn’t judge really. And to be quite honest this little affair of hers or whatever it is didn’t really affect us, it’s not like this person was in our life, and it’s not like it changed the relationship between her and my father. I hadn’t lived at home for years I was at school. But when the kids become involved, when your affair tragically fails, go figure, then it does affect us. So like on the show, when the dysfunctional mother comes home, with another tragedy, who is jumping to her Side. The children. Interesting.
I see something here as we talk about the concept of hardness. I think about how there is another term involved, one that does not appear so malignant. The concept of distraction. In the example above I visualize myself walking to my white car on a hot day after an arduous exam. I think about how I likely have the natural feelings of any medical student, tiredness, fatigue, brain spinning. Common after such exams. But I have to push those feelings out-of-the-way, and power through, pick up the phone to speak to my parents about something quite absurd. Shift gears. Without even realizing. So what happens when I return to my apartment. Do those natural feelings return? Of course not, now they are nowhere to be found. And this is key. The natural needs float away. The gears were shifted. So now I am in my apartment, I probably think OK will what to do, I’ll drink some coffee and go out with friends. See it, right there, I wasn’t able to authentically feel any relief after an exam, I was not able to feel anything at all. Which is always the case!
I had to power through, I had to push through. This example is just one of many. But very important. I have told you many times that I often feel like I am not able to enjoy something right in front of me as my brain is elsewhere. Well of course it is, I have been trying to power through, being distracted is not a result of some inability of myself to focus. It is a pattern that was developed from early on. Shift gears, away from innate needs .
back to the example again as I find it very pivotal. I leave the exam, my head feels heavy, I feel tired. Inside my subconscious I want to rest. But my outward brain doesn’t have this thought as it is not a natural way for me to proceed. My eyes need rest, my brain needs rest, my body needs rest. None of those innate feelings come to fruition. The innate needs never come to fruition. As a result I learn to avoid, and ignore these Innate feelings for pretty much the rest of my life. I have talked to you about coffee before. The fact that it ever came up even in conversation, something like coffee —for a reason. In the example above I go home drink some coffee and power through. Coffee has been a vehicle of mine to power through, instead of taking that nap, drink coffee and go socialize. Instead of sitting with my own thoughts on the couch for 20 minutes, drink coffee and go do something productive. Instead of napping after that exam, I am now wired from that phone call – well if I can’t nap drink coffee and onto the next. Caffeine or not it is the concept. The concept of ignoring what I am feeling and moving forward. Running – not just the body but the mind.
So today right now in the middle of the night I turn on the light in the kitchen, I see a bag that we used yesterday evening, for a small picnic. I feel a small flicker of joy. But it is a microsecond, it is not lasting. I am not telling this to complain that it is not lasting, but more to tell you that my innate feeling doesn’t last long ever, my brain quickly jumps to the next thing. I looked at this bag had a microsecond of some good feeling, and quickly my brain will forward. It was not able to stop, it was not able to pause, I was unable to sink and savor. Even in the middle of the night when there is no other task at hand. See this, this is programming. It is programming from my parents who distracted me from my own personal needs/thoughts very early on.
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 