Yesterday, I was talking about my parents and love. It’s taken for granted that parents love their children, but it’s always been obvious to me that this was not necessarily true. When I was in my mid-to-late twenties and fended off questions about me procreating, one of the things I heard was, “It’s different when it’s your children” when I said that I didn’t like children. (I want to note that I don’t dislike children, either. I just don’t like them particluarly.)
The implication was that I would love my own children because, well, they’re your children! Of course you will love them. I looked at them, but said nothing. I wanted to tell them that it was clearly not true. Millions of parents neglected and/or abused their children. It was such an ignorant statement, I had to struggle not to tell them off.
I just assumed my mother loved me throughout my twenties and thirties.
Side note: I was messaging with an online friend about this, saying I got so much push back from people when I said my parents didn’t love me. She wrote, “It doesn’t matter if they do love you; they are harming you, anyway.”
That really resonated within me. I get caught up in trynig to convince people of my point of view, and she reminded me that intent is not magic. Whether my parents love me or not, their behavior is harmful. That’s the important thing.
Yes, it sounds trite. Actions matter more than words. Intent is not magic. And it’s something I should have thought of myself, but I was focusing on the fact that my parents don’t love me instead.
My friend is right in that it doesn’t matter if they love me or not (as a feeling). Love is a verb. It’s very easy to bleat out that you love someone–it’s much harder to show it in a way that the receiever actually feels it.
That’s the point I’m trying to make, by the way.
In my twenties, I knew my father didn’t love me. I would have asid my mother did, but that would have been an automatic response. I was so angry at my parents for reasons I could not understand or articulate. Liek, incandescently angry. Like anything they said would set me off angry.
I will fully admit that I was not at my best during that time. I wasprobably at my worst, to be honest. Quick to take offense and always on the look out for the slightest thing that would set me off.
Side note to the side note: One thing that rarely gets talked about with abuse is that abuse warps you. Badly. If you’re in an abusive situation, you have to adapt to it in ways that won’t serve you well once you’re out.
In my thirties, I started Taiji–and to realize that my family was seriously messed up. I mean, I knew in my twenties that we weren’t like other American families, but I figured it was because we were Taiwanese. That was part of it, but it was also because my parents were individually messed up. Then they married and double the dysfunction. Which they then passed onto my brother and me.
Taiji really helped me ground myself and become more comfortable in my body. Still I would have said that I was not happy to be alive. I would not have minded to die. I have rarely been actively suicidal in my life, but passively so? Yeah, that’s me.
It’s funny. My 53rd birthday is coming up. I have never cared about my birthday. In fact, I hated it for the first thirty years of my life. It only reminded me of yet another year I’ve bene an abject failure. I felt keenly that I had done nothing with my life, and I felt paralyzed to do anything about it. It was so bad, I refused to tell anyone when my brithday was. In the days when you had to put down your birthday on Facebook and could not hide it, I simply made up a date in January. Then, I would be completely surprised when I got wishes of happy birthday on that day.
It amused me and kept my birthday a secret.
Then, there was a time in my life when I was studiously neutral about it (much like my weighht). Meaning, I still hated it, but not as much as Iused to. And while I didn’t share it voluntarily, I would reveal it if someone wanted to know.
Now, I truly don’t care. I don’t feel positively about it, but I also don’t feel negatively about it, either. It does irk me, however, that my mother makes a big deal about it. And my father asks me every year what I did for it. When I used to tell my mother that I didn’t care about my birthday, she would get really upset and cry. She said it was such an important day and would just go on and on about it.
See what’s wrong with that scene? Her feelings about it were more important than mine. Since it was an important day to her, that should trump the fact that it was a day I rather ignore. This is the way of my family, by the way. What my father wants is the most important. Then my mother. Then there’s a wide gap before my brother took up the third spot. What I wanted did not even exist.
I dreaded my birthday for this reason. I did not want to deal with the drama, but I also did not want to pretend that my birthday meant anything to me. Now, I just don’t care. I will cheerfully tell them whatever they want to hear about it–much like everything else in my life. It’s all about getting through the conversation with as little stress as possible.
My father has severe dementia. Weirdly, that makes it easier for me to talk to him because I know that nothing I say to him matters. My mother has not learned this yet. She will try to argue with him and then get upset when he gets upset. She can’t quite grasp that dementia is not something he can control.
Me, I believe people when they show me who they are. Except my mother. As I said, it’s easy with my father. Just agree with everything he says. Yes, health is the most important thing. Yes, I am feeding myself. Yes, I’ll try to go see him in the summer. Yes, I am used to the snow. Yes, family is important.
It’s harder with my mother because she doesn’t have dementia. But I am realizing more and more that she is broken as well, and she will never change. This is who she is, and she. will. never. change. She is 81 years old. She is still basically the same person she’s been all my life 9if not worse). She is going to die pretty much as she lived.
I thought I had made my peace with it, but I’ve been struggling the last month-and-a-half. For a very obvious reason that I don’t want to talk about yet. but it’s sobering to realize that I can slip so much in such a relatively short amount of time.
I have told my friends that I have to think of her as a sad old woman who is not related to me in order to not let the negative emotions overwhelm me.