One of the hardest things about knowing people who are deeply flawed is that it’s difficult to convey the flaws without sounding unhinged. Because other people don’t have the proper context to absorb what you are telling them. For example, I had a horrible personal tragedy in February of last year. I told my friends and selected members of my family, but I most emphatically did not tell my parents. Why? Because I knew they would make it all about them and not about me. How did I know this? Because this is what they’ve done all my life.
I finally told them in July or August. That was enough time for me to gather the inner resources needed to deal with my parents. The next time my mother brought it up, I was able to tell her the news. I told her it had been several months, but she still reacted as if I had punched her in the face. She asked why I hadn’t told her earlier and sounded so hurt. That’s normal. I don’t blame her for that reaction. But, then, I told her she did not need to tell my father and probably shouldn’t because it would just upset him. And, selfishly, if he was upset, it would mean that he would pass the upset to me. We hung up and not five minutes later, she called back. She had told my father and he was extremely upset.
He dumped his upset all over me and then said that we should pray together. I can’t tell him I don’t pray because he would not understand it so I said that he could pray. He gave the phone to my mother and insisted that she pray right then and there on the phone. My brain disconnected as my mother prayed and I went to my safe place in my mind so I wouldn’t either explode at my mother or slam the phone down in rage.
Back story: I don’t pray. I am not a Christian and have not been one for decades. I don’t believe in prayer and I still have some bitterness over the whole thing. In general, if people don’t shove it in my face then I’m fine with it. This was shoving it in my face and it was for them, not me. My mother knows I don’t pray and yet, she did it anyway because my father wanted it.
Speculation: My mother told my father in part so she could pray at me. She knows I don’t pray, but she doesn’t like it. She has claimed that she could not lie to my father, but this wasn’t even lying. She simply had to keep her damn mouth shut–which she can’t/won’t do. As I was listening to my mother pray, I was completely numb. It’s not an ideal way of dealing with the situation, but it was the least-harmful.
I told K about it, and she could not believe it. She admitted that when I told her I had put off telling my mother about my tragedy, she (K) thought I was being…not hyperbolic, but exaggerating or overreacting. Not in a negative way, but more that she wanted to think my mother would be a reasonable human being about it. K added, “But you were right.”
Yeah, I was. Because I know my mother. In fact, her resoponse was actually more muted than I had expected. But, a few weeks later, my brother told me that my mother had called him and told him to check in on me because of the tragedy. My mother said I said it happened a month ago. Which, I did not. I didn’t tell her it was in February, but I did say several months. My mother hears what she wants to hear.
Side note: My mother is a meddler. I’m sure she would phrase it as her being concerned, but it’s more than that. She is incapable of not sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong because she has no concept of boundaries. My brother was sick a few days ago, and my mother called me to ask me to look in on him (metaphorically. I’m sure she would have liked me to actually go over, but she knew I would not do that).
She asks me how I feel when he’s away on a trip. Um. Fine? I don’t live with him so it’s not as if it makes a difference in my day-to-day. When my brother got divorced, my mother said I should go over and cook and clean for him. When I asked why (not being snarky, well, a little snarky, but not much), she snapped that he was getting divorced. (Her reaction to that was terrible, too, bat that’s a different post.) I pointed out that he was a grown-ass man who had two almost-adult sons in the house. In addition, he did all the housework for several years in the marriage. He was gonna be just fine.
And, yes, it was deeply sexist. In my mother’s mind, a woman’s job is it take care of a man, any man near her. And, no, she does not know that I don’t identify as a woman. I can tell you without hesitation that she would not have said anything if the situation had been reversed and I was the one divorcing my (presumable) husband. Let’s not talk about if I were married to someone who was not a man.
It’s really hard to convey how deflating and draining this is. Not to mention how irritating in the moment. And, yes, it’s difficult to talk about it with people who have never been around someone like that because each individual instance doesn’t sound like much. And people don’t want to believe that someone can be that fucked up. It’s only natural to want to believe that parents love their children and want to do what’s best for them. In my mother’s mind, I’m sure she tells herself that.
The cold hard fact, though, is that she cannot hear from either of her children what we actually want and need from her. My brother and I have learned how to manage her in the way that is least harmful to us. I’m not saying the way I deal with her is healthy, but it’s the best I can do right now.
Does that mean that I don’t tell her the important things in my life? Yep. Does that mean I wait until I’m emotionally able to deal before sharing tragic news? Yep. If I had told my mother what happened right after it happened and she reacted the way I knew she was going to react, I would have fallen completely apart. I probably would have either sobbed hysterically, cursed loudly, or slammed the phone down. In the raw immediacy of the tragedy, I would not have been able to detach.
I’m sad that this is the way it has to be, but it is.