BriarRose wrote:
I wil try to describe my mother. I hope you don't mind me using this thread as an outlet. Also I apologize in advance for the language. English is not my native. Here goes.
My mother is determined to do everything right. She will not spare herself in the attempt to be perfect in any way. Unfortunately she doesn't seem to have any inner concept of what is right and wrong, good and bad. She tends to take over opinions and views from others a lot. Often verbatim, with matching voicing. She will even copy other peoples memories.
I have heard her for example discussing a movie with someone, using the exact same words and opinions that I used when I discussed the same movie with her the day before.
I have had her tell me about something she remembered from her childhood, with apparently no recollection that it was actually my childhood memory that I had told her a few days earlier.
A couple of years ago I coincidently watched an old seventies movie about some women who were in hospital giving birth. It was then I realized that the story that my mother has been telling me every year on my birthday about her recollection of my birth is actually something she copied from a movie.
It seems she is floating in and out of different roles and opinions, and it can be very confusing. She can easily hold conflicting opinions, apparently she doesn't feel any need of being consistent. There is an unwritten rule not to confront her on this. If for example she promised something, then the next day she might have forgotten all about it. If then I reminded her, she would berate me for not realizing on my own, that this promise off course did not count anymore. Or she would just flatly deny ever having made such a promise. I used a lot of energy as a child on trying to make sense of it, and sometimes it almost drove me mad. For my mother there is a great difference between saying she will do this or that and then actually doing it.
My mother has never voluntarily touched me when I was a child. I remember her pushing me away when I tried to hug her. Recently it seems to have occured to her, that hugging her children when meeting and parting is quite normal, and so she dutyfully does this.
The only times my mother have been proud of me are the times when other people have praised me to her. I got very good grades in school, but my mother thought nothing of it. I remember coming home from exams with top grades, and she didn't ask me how it went, cause she had forgotten. Only after talking to other parents and realizing that these exams were a big deal to them she showed interest. One thing I can say about my mother is that she has never paced me. Other kids in school were afraid what their parents would say if they got a bad grade. Some of them would be rewarded if they got a good grade. Their parents turned op on graduating day, mothers wearing hats and fathers in blazers. They had to be home at certain hours. The contrast to my mother was enormous, and I didn't know how to explain it to them. Sometimes I made up that I wasn't allowed to do this or that, just because I didn't want to be the only kid who could do whatever she wanted, stay away as long as I wanted to without even being missed. I walked around in my mothers old clothes that she wore for gardening, while the other girls in my class complained about being forced by their mothers to go shopping. I lived in a completely different world than them, I couldn't explain it, and I was considered odd. If I asked my mother for new clothes she would give her money-don't-grow-on-trees speach which ended like this: "why don't you ask your father, don't you think it is time he contributes?" Well knowing that my father had forgotten all about me, and besides I was not allowed to call him because of the phone bill.
The ironic thing is, that the last couple of years I have been helping my mother with her financial accounting, so now I know that our family was probably one of the wealthiest in the school. My mother drove a car the price of a small house, she still does. Still we lived like we were dirt poor, we always tried to save anywhere we could, and I always felt terribly guilty of the expenses I caused her.
My mother has never comforted me when I was sad or scared or having problems. Most of the time she wouldn't notice that something was even wrong. If she noticed, she would berate me until I stopped showing signs of any negative feelings. The fact that I was still feeling the same way inside did not bother her in the least. To her there does not seem to be any difference between appearing happy and actually being happy. And it was very important to her that her children appeared happy so she could be a perfect mother. She would concider negative feelings on my side a criticism of her as a mother and berate me for being ungrateful. She would recite her speech on how she was providing me with food and clothes and a place to live, and what more could anyone demand of her, she was working night and day etc.etc.
She bought a horse for me, and this was to her the ultimate proof that I had everything I could ever wish for, that I was spoiled, and that she was the best mother anyone could ever imagine. She told me this often. Every time she was dissatisfied with me, she would threaten to give the horse away to a girl who was the daughter of one of her acquaintances and would probably be much more grateful than me.
When I was about 13 years old my father almost died when he tried to kill himself. He was in the intensive unit for a week, and after that my mother found out that she could make me act any way she wanted by implying that she contemplated suicide or claiming that she was very ill and probably had cancer. She often did this at christmas to keep me and my sister from arguing.
She would feel very offended if I felt something that she had not intended me to feel. She can say horrible things without realizing, and if I told her that something she said was hurtful to me, she would consider it my mistake, because that was not her intention.
When she tries to explain something to someone, she is not able to take into account if they don't have the same knowledge that she has. Recently I read a letter she had written for her assurance company that would made absolutely no sense for someone not informed on the matter.
Once we were out walking the dog, when a couple with a baby in a stroller passed by, and the dog stuck its whole head down and licked the baby's face. The mother of the baby was horrified and they hurried away very upset. I tried to explain to my mother that she couldn't let the dog do that, but she failed to see the problem. She just kept on stating that the dog wasn't dangerous, it would never harm a baby. She couldn't understand that other people don't know this. She couldn't understand that scaring somebody is also a form of harm.
Money is very important to my mother. She measures everything in terms of money. For example last summer when I came to visit her, I saw that her dog had lost a lot of weight, and he was almost a skeleton. He was clearly sick, and when asked my mother did recall, that he had not been eating for a while. She did not see any significance in this though, she was sure it would fix itself, and thought it was probably nothing. My sister and I convinced her to take him to the vet. It turned out to be heartworms, and he was medicated and started to eat again. My mothers comment on this was, that for the money she had to pay the vet, she could have bought a whole new dog. She was sure that he would have gotten better on his own, and she blamed us for making her waste her money. Left to her own devices this dog would have died of hunger right in front of her eyes without her noticing anything wrong.
I remember once missing the bus on my way home from the horse center in the evening. There were several hours until the next bus, it was dark and there were nobody left except for me. There are about 10 km. to the town, mostly highroad. I was maybe 11 years old. I called my mother from the payphone asking if she would pick me up in the car. She lectured me on the cost of gas until my money ran out, then I waited for a couple of hours in the empty and dark cafeteria and went home by bus.
My mother likes the days to be alike. There are no special occasions, time just passes by and the same day repeats with as small variation as possible. She doesn't expect things to change, and when they do she has a hard time accepting it and adjusting to it. She likes to repeat conversations we have already had many times before. Changes in our lives always were initiated by someone else, often my father when he was with us for periods of time.
She often misinterpret peoples intentions. She either trust them completely or distrust them completely. And she is convinced her assessment is right even in the face of evidence. It is not possible to explain to her that people can have hidden motives for saying and doing things. For example that a salesperson hired to sell her something is not her friend. Or a lawyer hired by a former employee threatening to sue. On the other hand, if she gets the impression that someone is trying to use her or is after her money, she can be quite paranoid. She is often convinced that people's actions are aimed at her, even when it is unrealistic that they even know of her. And on the other hand she can totally overlook when people actually are purposely being offensive to her.
She also does not comprehend that when people are scared/sad/angry/chocked they will react differently than when they are calm.
Sometimes it is frightening how suggestible she can be. She would do anything if she thought is was normal and expected from her. She often does not catch irony. She has a "friend" she plays tennis with, and this woman is often openly sarcastic and quite rude to my mother, who is totally oblivious of it. It is painful to witness.
She has very few people in her life. I can count on one hand the occasions on which there were guests in my childhood home.
She has a strong sense of fairness which only applies to herself. She has fixed opinions about how things should be, and gets very upset when reality does not meet her expectations.
She brags a lot. She gives long speeches about situations in her life and how well she handled them and how well she has done for herself. It was as if my life and my experiences could never be as important or significant as the glorious tales my mother told about her life. I often fell that I didn't quite exist on the same level that my mother did, that things that happened in my life was not as real. Lately I have pointed out to her that we only ever talk about her. She will then say "then why don't you just talk some more about yourself". But the fact is that she doesn't listen, she doesn't react to what I say, just waits for me to be done until she can't restraint herself anymore and cuts me off mid sentence.
I feel terribly guilty for writing all this. I feel so so sorry for my mother, because she actually always have the best intentions. It's all quite tragic really.
Lot of it didn't sound like AS TBH. Just someone who was dysfunctional. Who knows what she had.
30 Nov 2011, 4:32 pm
