Posted by Racer on February 15, 2004, at 20:44:36
In reply to Re: Ditto » Racer, posted by pegasus on February 15, 2004, at 18:01:09
Thank you. It really helps to be able to express some of those things to people who won't back away in disgust or terror. A girlfriend of mine just admitted to me on the telephone that she wasn't leaving her house at all, and then told me how good it felt to her to tell someone who would try to understand. It is a good feeling.
My mother. Yep, she's also the one who, when I sewed two blouses in one day to wear on a trip abroad, held one up and told me, "When you get back, I'll show you your mistakes and how to do it right." (My ex-bf, who always picked out my clothes when we traveled together, liked the blouses. They couldn't have been too bad.) Oh, and let's not forget some of her other gems: "You just wanted to live with your father, you thought that would have been better" (<<scariest thought of my young life: having to live with my father. Maybe some projection going on?)
Then again, the day that Mother was stomping around her kitchen complaining about everything that could ever go wrong in her life while eating a grapefruit: "... and I just swallowed a grapefruit seed and it'll sprout in my stomach -- will it sprout in my stomach?" When I said, "Only if you eat dirt, Mom," she almost fell down laughing. She's also the one who gave me the sex ed talk starting with, "Don't believe that sex ed class in school when they tell you you can't get VD from a toilet seat or a doorknob. You *can* get VD from a doorknob. You just have to be pretty acrobatic, it can't be comfortable, and all things considered it's probably best to get it from a man..."
There's good and bad in all of us. At peak form, my mother can reduce me to tears in a fraction of a second. Whether they're tears of anguish or laughter really does depend on her mood and her topic.
Oh, and there's the other side of it, too. You know that old saw, "Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you?" With the Mother-Daughter Dance, it's hard to separate the stimulus from the response. Yes, my mother can say things that cut me to the quick, but that doesn't mean that I'm not already hyper-sensitised to her behavior or words. I think it's a little like an allergy: You have to be exposed to the allergen before you'll react to it.
(No, I *will not* tell my mother that our relationship is like an allergy. No. Absolutely not. But it is a good analogy, ain't it?)
poster:Racer
thread:312615
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040211/msgs/313814.html