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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 25 of 50. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by ClearSkies on December 15, 2014, at 16:16:34
In reply to Re: wrecked the bar » alexandra_k, posted by Twinleaf on December 11, 2014, at 16:41:56
Dr Bob: please merge this post in with others of the thread.
Thanks.
(Sorry, it is only my sense of order typing.)> She sounds really, really terrible. - like someone with NPD who will never be able to grow or change. If this is so, would it be best to establish a "no contact rule", so that you will be able to gradually detach and put her behind you? That might giveyou the best chance to develop a good and satisfying life for yourself. I know it sounds extreme, but the situation with her really does sound so unhealthy.
Posted by alexandra_k on December 15, 2014, at 17:16:30
In reply to Re: wrecked the bar REDIRECT, posted by ClearSkies on December 15, 2014, at 16:16:34
Hey. I don't know what happened with the redirect... But maybe we could have a thread on toxic family, or something. Instead of it getting drowned in all my other sh*t.
I have had significant periods of no contact with my Mother. She would phone my Father for updates.
I saw her a bit before moving to Australia. Mostly because... I thought I would never see her again.
Also... Yes... I feel bad for this... I had start up costs in moving to Australia, and I needed to ask for help.
Money is a thing. She uses it as such. I feel awful about it. I feel squeamish about that generally. I've been determined never to be financially dependent on anyone... But I still... My Mother helps me out, at times, and I need that help.
'Need'... Tis relative, huh. Hence more squeamishness... Hence guilt. Beating myself up. That is something she would love to magnify. 'You are only seeing me / being nice to me / using me because you want something from me'. Aw, you phoned me! Have $200!
Her eldest has only just gotten back in touch with her after... More than 10 years of no contact. Mother said something about how she wanted to help her with x and y and money. But that she decided to hold off... Just to see wheat eldest wants...
Mother has been frantically saving over all these years in order to buy... People not abandoning her. I suppose. And that makes me feel... Squeamish, indeed.
And it gets me feeling panicked about myself... About my future... About getting stuck not in an old folks home where people neglect me... But about being stuck in an old folks home with heavy handed intrusive clumsy and emotionally insensitive dolts who will do what they think best where that involves me being forced to spend all my time around people people people sticking their faces and noses right up close to me persistently always forever...
Anyway...
Yes. It would be best for me if I have no contact. Mother rightly sees... That all of us would do that if we didn't specifically need something from her. I hope to get a hardship scholarship this year... $2,000 for each year over the next 3. It would enable me to replace my holy wardrobe and actually get some stuff that might make it appropriate for me to be able to attend things like funerals and weddings. Perhaps even just to feel normal at something like dinner. To get my teeth looked at / fixed. To get some glasses that don't look horribly tacky. Otherwise... It is spending time with mother and $200 here and there... Mostly it is about making her feel that the money makes a difference so she better cough up.
I suppose the idea is: It is better to find a husband.
Yeah, right.
Posted by alexandra_k on December 15, 2014, at 17:17:42
In reply to Toxic family » ClearSkies, posted by alexandra_k on December 15, 2014, at 17:16:30
why do you stay in contact with your mother, PC?
Posted by alexandra_k on December 15, 2014, at 20:30:04
In reply to Toxic family » ClearSkies, posted by alexandra_k on December 15, 2014, at 17:16:30
it occurred to me that i wasn't allowed to get a part time job. around the time when lots of kids my age were taking up paper runs or after school jobs in supermarkets... where all you had to do was put your name down on a list and your name would come up 6 months later...
i wasn't allowed.
for whatever reason.
the main one, of course being: financial independence.
i remember stealing money from her. to buy cigarettes. and food. junk food, admittedly, but after staring at a plate of silver beet for a number of hours... this is when i'm 13, 14.
she would never give me money... how else was i supposed to buy such things? to buy anything?
around once a week i'd manage to steal up around $7. this was a time when most of the kids were being given $10 allowance from their parents. some of the better off ones $15 or $20. when they were transitioning over to their own part time jobs. when parents were teaching them about putting aside 1/3 to save and 1/3 to gift and 1/3 to spend now. or whatever...
and of course i lived with immense guilt that i was a horrible lying cheater who (only to make it worse) lay awake most of the night trying to convince herself to build up the courage to stab her f*ck*ng mother with the kitchen knife to put an end to it.
of course it is obvious to me that she must have known about the thefts. given how f*ck*ng stingy she is. every 5c accounted for. she would have known. and given her considerable pride and pleasure to be able to attend all these 'tough love' etc workshops that she had to go to to tell them about how hard it was loving such a horrible horrible child (oooooooh poor her).
anyone remember that movie 'mummy dearest'
?
resonates...
my mother was doing her compound interest thing... to save up for... precisely now. now that we can in fact get the hell away from her.
ugh.
and once again... i need a job. sigh.
Posted by alexandra_k on December 15, 2014, at 20:33:48
In reply to Re: Toxic family, posted by alexandra_k on December 15, 2014, at 20:30:04
only i can't function particularly outside academia... and they want to give the academic jobs to all the people for whom it is 'just a job'. you know, get your advisor to write it for you. take the easy classes. mind your GPA.
blah.
nonsense.
that i'd rather not have a bar of.
which is of course why... they will not have a bar of me.
oh joy
Posted by ClearSkies on December 17, 2014, at 12:34:23
In reply to Re: Toxic family, posted by alexandra_k on December 15, 2014, at 17:17:42
> why do you stay in contact with your mother, PC?
It's a reasonable question. We share a very odd connection, my mum and I. She always seems to know when I am doing particularly poorly. At that point she will call and see how I am doing. Sometimes I get an overwhelming urge to call her, and when she picks up the phone, it's to say that she was just that moment thinking of me.
So there's something there, healthy or not. None of the other siblings have the connection. And now, it seems that when I suffer, so does she. A migraine I experience will afflict her to the point of going to urgent care. And I am not willing to break this connection.
Posted by alexandra_k on December 18, 2014, at 18:15:18
In reply to Re: Toxic family, posted by ClearSkies on December 17, 2014, at 12:34:23
that is fair enough. i... feel badly that i really don't feel a sense of connection with my mother at all. actually... perhaps that isn't true. it is more that she needs to be in a very good place for us to be able to share a pleasant moment. and seems so rare... most of the time her mood is... mischievous... Machiavelli... i don't know... but i can't deal.
i went to a lunch at my old (undergrad) department yesterday. got a ride down with some people from here... it was really nice. nice people. all kinds of quirks and hangups. lots of infighting. lots of social anxieties. all round... but sensitive people... like me. family, yeah. they are my family.
of course it wasn't personal that i was taken off mailing lists at this end... there have been muck-ups... i just need to be clear that i want to be put back on them. they get a bit crazy with people asking for tax advice and all sorts... so they probably do feel a bit shy about who is subscribed or various things... but, of course, i'm family, yeah. even if i don't know how international grads are supposed to file their tax returns...
one of the people from here has cancer. terminal, i think. it does bring up some stuff about my dad... driving through... we missed the city by-pass on the way down. drove through a lot of my old neighbourhood where i've lived various places over the years... nothing to do with mother. that period where i had no contact with her. uni days. nicer houses. prettier part of the city. pleasant memories, yeah. and walking around campus.
:)
my molecular model kit arrived... just after we thought it lost and they shipped another... so i'll end up with 2 of them. i feel fairly badly that their customer support was so nice and they said they'd ship another at no charge if i paid for fed ex... fed ex was more expensive than the packet... anyway... i told them it arrived and said i can pay them for the other shipment. and i feel... my conscience feels happy. and things worked out well. because you can never have enough atoms... i mean... i want to work through step by step reactions between molecules... and while one kit is enough to make all the molecules i'll need for first year i want to work through reactions between two different molecules so having two kits will be great...
point being... chemistry is starting to play nice.
and... i got entry into LAW I. so... if the medicine people say i can substitute general ed for the other law paper (which, miracle of miracles, doesn't clash with anything)... then i could apply to both medicine and law at the end of next year. i need to keep my GPA up to have a chance at either... but medicine only really cares about the 3 science and the 1 pop health / applied statistics and the UMAT... whereas law cares doesn't care about those papers so much as the 2 law papers... and I think I'll do quite well in the social science-y health papers like health systems and social psychology, so I think my overall GPA will be okay... even if i don't manage to do any better in science next year (assuming I don't do a bunch worse)...
anyway...
life is good.
i thought i'd be exhausted after my people day yesterday... but i really wasn't... it felt... refreshing. i enjoyed it.
i am glad that i am enjoying people more. yeah. family is important. my old t said to me that i had to make my own. that's always freaked me out because of how i can't really do the intimate thing... but damos... pc... dinah... babble people feel like family to me... and departments... yeah. and i'm spending christmas with some of my family. and... life is good, yeah.
Posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:18:53
In reply to Re: Toxic family, posted by alexandra_k on December 18, 2014, at 18:15:18
Dr-Bob?
Where are you?
Posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:19:06
In reply to Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:18:53
Dr-Bob?
Where are you?
Posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:19:18
In reply to Re: Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:19:06
Dr-Bob?
Where are you?
Posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:19:30
In reply to Re: Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:19:18
Dr-Bob?
Where are you?
Posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:19:44
In reply to Re: Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:19:30
Dr-Bob?
Where are you?
Posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:19:57
In reply to Re: Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:19:44
Dr-Bob?
Where are you?
Posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:20:09
In reply to Re: Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:19:57
Dr-Bob?
Where are you?
Posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:20:22
In reply to Re: Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:20:09
Dr-Bob?
Where are you?
Posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:20:33
In reply to Re: Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:20:22
Dr-Bob?
Where are you?
Posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:20:44
In reply to Re: Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:20:33
Dr-Bob?
Where are you?
Posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:20:57
In reply to Re: Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:20:44
Dr-Bob?
Where are you?
Posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:21:09
In reply to Re: Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:20:57
Dr-Bob?
Where are you?
Posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:21:21
In reply to Re: Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:21:09
Dr-Bob?
Where are you?
Posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:21:34
In reply to Re: Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:21:21
Dr-Bob?
Where are you?
Posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:22:02
In reply to Re: Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:21:34
Dr-Bob?
Where are you?
Posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:22:15
In reply to Re: Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:22:02
Dr-Bob?
Where are you?
Posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:22:27
In reply to Re: Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:22:15
Dr-Bob?
Where are you?
Posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:23:00
In reply to Re: Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo (nm), posted by alexandra_k on February 13, 2015, at 16:22:41
Dr-Bob?
Where are you?
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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
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