The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
This quote is attributed to Einstein even though there is no evidence that he said it. Regardless of origin and questionable wording, the message itself is true. It’s folly to keep doing something in the same way and expecting the end result to be different. Tangentially related, I had a friend once who said that he considered me an optimist, which offended me to my core. I was a cynical realist, jaded by what I’d seen of life. This was when I was in my early twenties and I thought I’d seen it all. He calmly pointed out that I expected the best out of people and was disappointed when they inevitably failed. I opened my mouth to protest, but then shut it again. He was right, damn it. Part of the reason I was so cynical was for that very reason.
Thirty years later, you’d think I’d know better. People–including me–are often not their best selves. In fact, we often do the very thing that makes a situation exponentially worse, fully aware of what we’re doing. Or maybe I’m giving people too much credit. I know when I am making a situation worse, even if I feel powerless to stop myself. Other people may or may not have that same insight–I just assume that they do. There’s my damn optimism again.
On a related note, there’s a reason that family therapists talk about family systems. The way people interact become enshrined over time and can be nigh impossible to change if you’re not willing to tackle the whole system. You can evoke some change by working on one piece, but it’s better to work on the system as a whole. The reason I’m saying this is because in my family, I’m the one who speaks out against the abuse and then get turned on by my mother and brother. Or rather, by my mother with my brother helplessly standing by. We all have a different way of dealing with the abuse. Mine is to fight back (after years of just taking it). My brother’s is to play up to my father or stay silent. My mother’s is to actively play into the system with brief bouts of rebelling. As a result, I’m the scapegoat. If I would just shut up and take the abuse, everything would be OK! My mom all but said that when she admitted last night that she just wanted peace. But that peace, like the cake, is a lie because one acquiescence is never enough. I apologized to my father a week or so ago for something and he acted like he didn’t even hear it while simultaneously acting as if it were just his due. It was infuriating when I already had to swallow my bile to apologize in the first place.
This time (she wants me to apologize for something that I don’t think I have to apologize for, again), I’m going to try a drastically different approach–I joked to Ian that I’m going to pretend I’m in a TV show in the role of dutiful daughter. But it’s not really a joke. I’m going to see if I can dredge up some pity for my father (compassion would be better, but I have a hunch that’s a step too far). My mom blathers on endlessly about how sad it must be to be him, which just irritates me more. She’s not wrong, but her laser-like focus on him is both pathetic and infuriating.
Here’s the thing, though. As much as she wants to keep the focus on him, she’s a big part of the problem. If she just put her foot down, there’s nothing he can do. I’m not saying it’d be easy because it wouldn’t be, but in the end, there’s not a damn thing he could do about it. His M.O. is to shout, threaten, and issue emotional blackmail. And it’s really unpleasant, I’ll add. He knows exactly where to hit so it’ll hurt the most. And he has the ability to drone on for hours. I would be so happy if he were hit with laryngitis, but then he’d probably just nonstop angrily scratch out his complaints, insults, and paranoid thoughts.
My point is that she’s complicit in his abuse because she always caves at some point. And as much as my father is who he is, so is my mother. She is who she is, I mean. Which is complicit. I’ve written before about my father and how it would be bad enough if he was just the way he is, but his insistence that you agree that he is the injured party pushes me beyond my limits. On my mother’s side, it would be bad enough if she just allowed the abuse to happen, but she actually chimes in eagerly to agree with his deluded viewpoint.
This after her sobbing because he was badgering her about something or the other and she was just so worn out. Of course, he came storming in to scream at her and then at me when I stood up for her. So her asking me to apologize to HIM when I had been defending her in the first goddamn place really takes the cake–which is a fucking lie as I might remind you once again.
I don’t like who I become when the abuse cycle starts. I become bitter and hateful, and while I think it’s understandable, it doesn’t really help me in the situation. And at this point, the only thing I want to do is survive until they leave. If that means lying through my teeth and gritting said teeth to stop myself from blurting out something awful, then so be it.
I think I have to drastically change how I look at the situation as much as I rail inside against doing that. There’s a heaviness in my heart that isn’t because of what I went through medically. I knew it was going to be hard to have to live with my parents for close to three months, but I didn’t realize how hard. If it weren’t for the quarantine situation they have to endure when they go back to Taiwan, I bet they would be long gone by now. My father hates it here and it would have been better for everyone if he hadn’t come. There was no way that would have happened, but it’s nice to dream about.
Bottom line: my mother will give into my father in the end. She wants peace, which means eventually doing what he wants. It’s that old adage about asking the reasonable person to bend because you know the unreasonable person won’t. It’s such classic abuse tactics, which my mother as a psychologist should be able to recognize. That’s why I get more frustrated with her sometimes than with my father–he’s consistent. I know what to expect from him, even if I don’t like it and it’s more egregious than I had expected. With my mother, I never know which way she’s going to go. I mean, at the end of the day, she’s going to cave, but I don’t know when it’s going to be. Also, I think she’s relieved when my father is mad at me because it takes the pressure off her. She gets to be the good person and his ally in his approbation of me. I get to be the scapegoat which takes the pressure off her. But, aside from all that, I am not a nice person in the abuse cycle. I could justify it, but the bottom line is that I can only change me.