M mother called me out of the blue last night. We've been estranged for 4-ish years. She still shows up at my door or calls about 3 times a year. I often want to yell the question, what the * are you trying to accomplish by saying the same things to me over and over?
As usual, I feel doubt and guilt. I try to remember and analyze everything, so that I can pick out something obvious and outrageous that will finally form a proper justification. It's an endless, non-productive, non-specific circling in my head (like the Tasmanian Devil's dust cloud, with dirt and claws flying out). Usually, I back away from it because it because it almost hurts. Sometimes intense, repetitive physical activity will make it easier to approach, but, honestly, I think that the best I get to is kind of tidying up the edges.
Last night, my mother started with inane trivialities, and when I said I wasn't interested in talking about trivial things with her, she went on to demand that I clarify whether I was going back on my previous statement that I would return to the family. I think that happens a lot, that she suggests my explanations are unclear, non-specific and inconsistent (which equals imaginary).
She also said that I'd said part of the problem was she hadn't "supported" me enough. Well, no. That's twisting it a bit, because I never wanted more of the same, I wanted different -- completely, f___ing opposite, in fact! I think the conversation she was refering to starting with me saying that I often felt worse when she got involved in a problem I was having. That's when she said that she'd done her best to support me in grade 6. What I remember from grade 6 is her saying "they're only doing it because they can tell you're the kind of person who would be upset by it," and that's victim blaming, not support!! And when, as an adult, i said "bullying", I got an outraged gasp of "you never used that word then."
The phone call went downhill from there.
- I said that I'd observed what looked like a horror of dysphoric emotion; she demanded specific instances, said that "your father" would shoot her down if she expressed an emotion, and that "your father" says she has too many feelings.
- I suggested counselling to learn new skills so that her life could be easier; she countered that she'd offered to go to counselling with me (heavy on the emphasis that she was willing to drive down and willing to pay).
- Somehow we arrived at her exclaiming that I'd told her it wouldn't suit me if she divorced "your father," so what was she supposed to do; I nearly yelled back "I was a child" and added that I had no memory of that conversation.
- She sniffled that "you and your father" have taken away all her power, control and autonomy, so that she doesn't know what she can do; I said I was sorry she felt that way and hung up (and immediately called a friend so I didn't have to worry that the phone might ring with her calling back).
I actually do know why she uses the same tactics again and again, always expecting that the 2nd or the 6th or the 19th time my response will be completely different and what she wants. In the past, that worked. If she kept banging on under the assumption that all my concerns were internally generated, that she only had to change me, not my environment or her own behaviour, then I would eventually give up. I would back away from that dust cloud because I couldn't get through it and it hurt too much to be near it.
Conflict with her always ends with complete submission: you can't just accept that you won't get your way, you have to admit that you shouldn't have wanted it, that the wanting is evidence of a fundamental defect to be fixed (and hidden until it's gone).
smg
