So I thought I had let it all go, but I guess not. My relationship with my mother is polite and distant. She lives 1000 miles away which I am glad about. I have been lucky enough to find surrogate moms in my older sister and MIL, for which I am very thankful. The reason for the distance is ongoing (since childhood) excessive selfishness and carelessness with family. Thank goodness for therapy or I'd have never gotten myself together. I've heard that having your own children can help you give your parents a break once it's your turn. But that's not proving to be the case. It's actually going the other way for me - more into an "I can't believe she..." reaction to events, etc.
I've had a fear of becoming like her (especially lately when I can hear my voice sounding like hers sometimes), but just the other day I had an epiphany that clearly showed I wouldn't. My son was diagnosed on the autism spectrum (very high functioning) when he was 4 and we've been doing our best to make sure he has the support he needs to thrive. It was a diagnosed that I didn't want to hear, of course, but I dealt with it. Because that's what you're supposed to do as a parent - deal even when it's not comfortable and you might be wrong.
This is something my mother did not do for me, when she "thought something was wrong" because of how I was responding in a dating relationship, but "didn't want to bring it up in case she was wrong" EDIT: This was her response when I told her around age 21 that I had been molested for a brief period of time around age 11, and could not relax for the normal hugging/kissing as a 16 year old-poor guy, I though he was an "octopus" but he was totally normal in hindsight-quite nice actually).
This epiphany made me glad, but boy, did it make me angry as well. I thought I had let go of this, but it comes back. Does anyone have suggestions as to how to manage this? I'm thinking it's going to pop up as my son grows up, and I'll just have to deal. I'm just a bit bummed that these feelings still sit there, waiting to be stirred up. Sigh.
Very good advice from DOP (and I frequently disagree with him LOL). But that was excellent.
Hang in there!
When I find myself in that situation, I do a 4th step (I'm a recovering alcoholic)
I write down what that person did to upset me (often it is more than a single thing, so i make a list). Then I write down what my role was.
Did I encourage the behaviour?
Did I not set good boundaries?
Did I fail to realize they might be "sick" too? (sick is subjective here and can mean unable to deal with other people, selfish, etc)
Am I trying to control their behavior?
Have I done the same thing?
Once I determine what my role is - I can then go about addressing how to become a better person and fix it. Setting better boundaries. Letting their hurtful words roll off my back. Understanding more quickly that the other person may not be able cope in a healthy way....
But what you are talking about is commonly termed 'baggage'. It's up to you if you keep carrying it or not. Remember - you can only clean your side of the street - we can't control others or make them act in certain ways, so just focus on how to keep yourself healthy.
:)
If it wasn't for the fact that my mom died last year I would say with had the same mom. Well that and my mom pointed out her opinion regardless if she was right or not, most of the time I think she was wrong. :s
What I figure is they taught us what not to do. Perhaps not the best life for us but at least our children get the benefit.
You know, for emotional situations that simply haunt and hurt and don't improve my life, I've discovered a (free) process called The Work as taught by a savvy woman named Byron Katie. She asks four questions:
Is it true?
Can I absolutely know that it's true?
How do I react when I'm believing that thought?
Who would I be without that thought?
Then I move to creating my own list of "turnarounds," statements and observations that redirect the original thought in new directions, and I discover that many of them are as true, possibly truer, than the painful thought. And I almost invariably find myself feeling lighter, happier, and freer. If I don't, I repeat The Work later, maybe a few times, until I simply notice that the pain is not as fierce, my anger is not as deep.
Check out http://thework.com/thework-4questions.php for free resources. You can also watch a bunch of free videos at the website – many are enlightening, and have moments of humor.
It's reasonable to keep your mom at a distance if that's the best you can do. But holding all that anger hurts you far more than it can possible hurt her. So for your own emotional health, and to teach your children healthy ways to deal with anger and distress, I hope you'll give this a try. There are actually a whole bunch of wonderful processes that include prayer, meditation, and even healing modalities like EMDR for trauma, that help many people. I hope you find one that really works for you.
I am 51 and my mother is in hospice. I heard Oprah define forgiveness as "letting go of the hope that the past would ever be different." This helps me be with my mother as she is now.
Really, P., I think that just the fact that you're so cognizant about it is probably 95% of the battle. Keep up the self-awareness! You're doing great!
It's OK that your guage of "good mom decisions" is the opposite of what you now know to be poor ones from the past.
Hindsight is 20/20...
Even is she had said something, wrong or not, how would you have responded back then? You probably would've told her she was wrong, even if she wasn't, and had a fight. One that she obviously didn't want or care to have.
No one wants to hear certain things. That's why people are hesitant to bring things up. There is also a difference in how the conversation is approached. Having a chat one on one over cookies and milk is different than walking into your bedroom while you're on the phone with a friend, (or the problem person), and having the conversation blindsided with the person listening.
While no parent wants to receive the ASD diagnosis, kudos to you for listening. Embracing it. You are putting your child's best interest first. Not what society will think. Not what they will feel or say, but what YOUR child needs to be the best functioning person he can be. I have 2 family members in your shoes. One is embracing it. One is in denial. I can't wait to see how strong the first one grows. I am leary of how the 2nd is and will be.
So as for your memories and your mom's responses, when they pop up, and they will, take that anger and learn from it. If and when I feel this about my kid, I promise to do x,y,z.
I grew up in a home where feelings seemed to be embarrassing. No one shared their feelings so we were all left to assume someone felt a certain way. I have awful anxiety because I get myself all worked up thinking someone thinks something and later find out I was wrong. This is something I am working on very hard.
Our family was close (but as you can probably tell from my first paragraph) it was not intimate - I mean, we were together a lot and played a lot of games but none of us really talked about how we felt about things or if something was on our minds.
So, I think for the most part we had a good relationship but it seemed between the 4 of us my mother and I were kind of strained. I kind of always got the feeling she HAD to try to like me - I know she didn't like a number of things I did (who likes everything a teen does). I come from a judgemental house as well - in our extended family there is a 'joke' that you "Don't leave before anyone else or they'll talk about you." It's all said in a funny way - but......it's true.
My son, too, was diagnosed on the spectrum......
when my son was 3 I heard "You need to do something about your son or no one will want to be around him"; "You need to be a stricter parent."; "you need to see a doctor about medication."
As hurtful as all of this is I noticed something...........MY judgement and the way I respond to things is different........and guess what IN A POSITIVE WAY!!!!!!
Sometimes I guess we have to hurt in order to break a pattern.
I'm a work in progress - a couple of years ago I'd stew at the things said, etc. Now, after a lot of practice I focus on how I no longer judge like that.
Not quite the same thing, as my mother and I have a mostly good relationship, but I have my moments where I'm incredibly pissed off with her for not having left my father, for not having physically and emotionally protecting me when he was being abusive. She never once called the police when he beat us. She never once shielded us with her own body. Probably because he hit her too, but that's when you take your children and leave and file a restraining order.
Having children and a husband who treats me well (even given every typical married couple issues) I can't give her a break. I just don't understand how she could do that. I didn't understand it then and I don't understand it now.
All that to say, "I get it. I understand how you feel." I also understand the feelings you've had about having a child diagnosed with ASD. My middle daughter is also autistic.
Look at things from you mother's perspective. Do you know what she had to deal with while growing up? I had a similar situation to yoursexcept it was that my mother was always in my business no matter how old I got. My mother was dianosed with lung cancer at age 65 and survived for 5 years after that. A couple of months before she passed, she actually apologized to me for expecting too much of me. I was so shocked and humbled that I didn't know what to say. I was with her when she died. It was sad but very peaceful. Don't wait until your mother is deathly ill to staighten out your relationship with her. After all, she is your mother, and she did the best she could raising you under her own circumstances. Best of luck to you!
Its hard to answer without knowing what about you that your mother "thought was wrong" but did not bring up? So without knowing this I will say that I have had to cut my own parents some slack for not intervening on some personality traits I know that I would have as a mom. The reason that I don't hold it against them is because they grew up in a much different time. Issues and problems were not openly discussed or made a big deal of. Psycologists were truly thought of as quacks and there was a very real stigma attached to seeing one.
It is not fair to judge our parents in retrospect with a 2012 point of view in my opinion.
