I like to read advice columns and my favorite is Ask A Manager because I really like Alison, the woman who writes the column. She’s pragmatic, but also compassionate. And she’s a rabble-rouser who used to go to protests naked to protest animal abuse. She thinks unions are great, especially now when employees have more power than they have in a long time. The commentariat is thoughtful and erudite, looking at things from many different angles. In fact, I’d say it’s one of the best commentariats on the internet. That said, I can often tell who is saying a comment without even looking at the username if it’s a regular. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s not a good thing, either.
It’s just a thing. It makes sense, too, because most of us have pretty consistent beliefs that we express over and over again. Say something about family to me and you’ll hear three or four well-worn spiels about family dysfunction. Mention Dark Souls to me and get an earful about three or four topics–one being how magicks is NOT the easy way , no matter what the onebros say.
It makes sense, really, Most people has a core that doesn’t change easily. And online, especially, you want to give context for your points. That’s why people repeat their stories, me included. That’s why I get bored with–well, everything after some time. Websites, especially. Because the feel of them rarely change. I started following politics in 2008 because of Obama. It was also when I started using social media, also because of politics. I used to visit a few progressive websites, but I noticed that I got impatient with them after a year or so. It was because the content never changed nor did the commentary. Which is both the strong point and the weak point of the internet. It’s a great place to discuss issues, but it’s not a great place for changing hearts and minds. When I used to visit progressive websites, the point was to get moral support and to bolster my own beliefs. Granted, many organizations in real life are also like that, but at least when you have in-person discussions, there’s a give and take that doesn’t happen as easily online. I don’t think it’s outrageous to say that it’s better to have an in-depth discussion in person rather than online.
It does happen in general, too, though. We are creature of habits. We’re going to do/say/think the same thing on the regs. I mean, if I’m a staunch progressive, I’m not going to suddenly think guns, sexual restriction and gender binaries are great things, am I? That’s just not how we work.
All of this was underscored when my parents were here for three months. We are so different, it’s almost comical. My father has very set ideas about gender and race, let’s not even mention sexuality. So does my mother, although it took me longer to realize that about her. I’ve always known exactly what my father was, but it wasn’t until my recent medical trauma that the depth of my mother’s dysfunction became clear to me. I knew she put my father first. My brother and I have known that since we were kids. I knew that she and my father were enmeshed in a codependent, abusive relationship. What I didn’t know was just how warped my mother’s thinking about the situation was and how much she was invested in my father. It was disturbing, frankly, and more difficult to deal with than my medical trauma.
For most of my life, I’ve viewed my mother as well-meaning, but clueless. Now, however, I’m not so sure about the clueless part. Or rather….I have a more jaded view of her now. Let’s see if I can explain. My mother needs to be the martyr. That’s been true for as long as I’ve known her. That is the cornerstone of her personality–so much so that she can’t exist without it. That’s one of the reasons she’s so invested in my father. She knows he’s nothing without her. And she knows that he could not live without her. I, on the other hand, can. In the first weeks of my life after-hospital, I needed my mother to do a few specific things. Help me dry off after a shower, cook, and take care of my cat. That wasn’t much at all, and it all went away after a month or so. On the first or second day I was home, she admitted that she knew my father would not react well to not being the center of her focus, but she didn’t know how she could have left him in Taiwan on his own.
She knew, though. She said he was jealous of even the minimal amount of attention that she paid to me in my recovery. I can’t keep all the negative things she said and did out of my mind, and I keep replaying them. It’s not helpful, I know, but I can’t get past the bitterness. I nearly died–hell, I did die, twice–and yet, we always had to be so careful of my father’s delicate feelings.
One thing I really came to hate so much it’s now burnished in my brain–how both of them tried to use my father’ pending death to manipulate me. My father would throw it out that he might as well be dead because no one wanted him alive to my mother and she would all-too-eagerly tell me about it. Why? Supposedly to show what great distress he’s in. It’s supposed to evoke sympathy from me. I know this because my mother mentioned it more than once that she doesn’t think I’ll get to see my father again. This made her choke up, but I felt nothing but impatience and, yes, anger. How dare she try to use my father’s hypothetical death against me–someone who ACTUALLY DIED? I brought this point up to her and she had nothing to say about it. But it’s really repugnant to use it so frivolously and manipulatively. Also, the time she brought it up was when they had three more weeks before going home, which somehow aggravated me even more. We had three weeks left! Why moan and piss about what we weren’t going to do in three weeks (not that we were doing them anyway) instead of enjoying the time we had remaining?
I know it’s not doing me any good to continually ruminate on it, though. I can feel the grooves hardened in my brain the more I go over the same grievances. I need to find a therapist to help me deal with the family dysfunction that was laid to bare during my medical trauma. That’s more critical than dealing with the impact of the medical drama itself.