I want to talk about my family today because I’m so tired. I’ve been talking about what I want to do with my life, and I derailed myself by talking about my family in my last post. More specifically, about my father slipping further and further into dementia, and how my mother is dealing with it.
Or not. I mentioned that she is pinning her hopes on him returning to normal, whatever that means. She knows that dementia is irreversible, and yet. She has confided to me that she does things expecting him to return to himself.
I’m doing my best not to snap at her, but it’s hard. She is very rigid in her expectations about what is and isn’t acceptable. when I was in my twenties, I told her several important things about myself that she vigorously rejected. She didn’t just not like what I had to say; she hated it. She hated that I got a tattoo (I have four now); she hated that I was bisexual; she hated that I chose not to get married and have children; she hated that I decided to study Taiji. Those were all heresy in her eyes, but there was one that was even worse–I think.
When I told her that I did not believe in her god any longer. I told her I no longer believed, and true to her wont, she simply let it fly over her head. That’s her way of dealing with unpleasantry–not accepting it it all. A few years after I told her I was bi, I said something casually about liking women, and she said dismissively, “Oh, are you still like that? I thought you were over it.”
So, yes, she did not accept that I had left Christianity. She had people from her mother church (LA branch) praying at me as they circled me, their hands near my face. They asked if they could touch me, and it was a hell no to that. I was so freaked out, especially when some of them started speaking in tongues. NOT a way to try to convince someone to return to the fold, I’ll tell you that much.
But when you’re that deep in, you just can’t see it. Just like people say, “I’ll pray for you,” thinking it’s a positive thing. They don’t realize if you’re not part of their group/cult/denomination, it’s at best, neutral, and at worst, repulsive/scary/offensive.
That’s not completely fair. I’m sure for some people, the positive intent is there even if the receiver of the prayer is not part of the group. Some people can think of it as the equivalent of warm wishes and be at peace with that.
When I was in my mid-to-late twenties, I was at the height of my anti-Christianity. I hated it (and God, capital G intended) for what they had done to me. I was so angry, I could barely keep it to myself. My mother, on the other hand, was even more into her Christianity than before. Every other word out of her mouth was God this and God that, and I could not stand it.
We were driving somewhere (she was at the wheel), and she would not shut up about God. I tried to deflect gracefully, but she had a one-track mind. I was getting more and more frustrated, and after one too many ‘God this’ or ‘God that’, I blurted out, “I don’t give a damn about your god!”
She slammed on the brakes and shouted at me to get out. Thankfully, there was no one behind us because it was instinctual and immediate. We were only a mile or so from home, so the walk wasn’t bad. Plus, it gave me the chance to cool down, which I needed. By the time I got home, I had my anger contained.
It wasn’t all on me, though. My mother’s MO is to keep on nagging someone until that person gives in. She has the ability not to hear or see anything she doesn’t want to hear or see, and she will spin anything to her advantage. Does she do it on purpose? I don’t know. But she does it relentlessly. My brother and I have each come up with a way to deal with her constant badgering. He’s better at fobbing her off, whereas I am more broken down and I listen to her.
The problem is that now, she’s focused on me going there to visit my father. My father asks me every time we talk when I’m going to visit them. He doesn’t understand that I’m in America, thousands of miles away, and that I can’t just pop in to see him.
Here’s where the difficluty enters the picture. The last time I went to Taiwan, the visit went horribly. I was depressed, miserable, and suicidal. Again, I am not using that word lightly. I had to stop myself from walking into the ocean on a daily basis.
This was twenty years ago, I think. I was even more of a hot mess then than I am now, and I was very bad at setting boundaries. I was a doormat in part because that’s what I was raised to be. I was taught that what I wanted didn’t matter at all, and that I was selfish if I ever so much as whispered wish out loud.
This is a little thing, but it’s very indicative of how little I mattered in my family. Why? Because I was a girl child. That’s it. That’s the whole reason. During the visit, there was only one thing I wanted to do–go to the National Palace Museum. I love museums, and that’s always first on my list of places to visit whenever I’m in a new country. My mother dismissed it out of hand, and I had to beg and plead in order to be allowed to go. I even said I would go on my own, but for whatever reason, that was not permissible.
It was the same when I visited New York with my parents and my then-boyfriend. I had to beg to be able to go to The Met, and my mother begrudgingly gave me an hour. When I begged harder, she extended it by an hour. Two hours for The Met! For whatever reason, my mother really hates museums. Anyway, my brother had four or five places he wanted to visit, and my mother eagerly agreed to all of them. Went to them without a murmur. That adedd to my sense of shittiness and low self-esteem.
That’s all for now. More tomorrow.