Weird limbo not-really post-Covid but unmasked sloppily vaxed times. Day-by-day.
I have some insight about my relationship with my Mother. I have been trying to reconnect with her, she is getting old, and she has finally lost the HUGE POWER over me. She pushes my buttons, and I understand what she is doing and why she is doing it and who she is, and I don’t go into a tailspin like I used to.
But the big reunion is not a given, and as I am reminded that just because your mother is a mother if she doesn’t act like a mother, the relationship may no longer be tortured, but it is hollow.
This is the formula that replays.
Mother gaslights or winds me up, or more charitably, she unknowingly blindsides me and puts me in an uncomfortable position in a situation I didn’t want anything to do with in the first place.
When I address the situation with her, she misrepresents, or more uncharitably, lies, about what happened.
Then she acts like she is the victim, (which she can do after doing #2 above, recreating reality, aka inventing bullshit). And there is high DRAMA. “OH, I DIDN’T KNOW”, “OH, DID I OFFEND YOU”, “OH, I HAD NO IDEA”.
And I can usually navigate these three steps. Her drama doesn’t have to become my drama.
We are now at the final step in the formula. I am frozen out. She doesn’t respond to emails or calls. I have been frozen out since I was a little girl. And I am not talking about the cooling off period all parents need. I mean for weeks or months. I am being punished for standing up to her.
It’s really quite brilliant, as it puts her in the driver’s seat, and gives her all the power and guarantees the relationship is on her terms.
My mother brings nothing positive or of consequence to my life. She doesn’t mean well, she doesn’t support me, she doesn’t support my kids (her grandkids). On the contrary, when she is around the kids I am on high-alert to protect them from her mind games. When she is finally gone, (if it’s before me - you never know), I will be relieved.
I don’t think I will regret not having tried to re-engage one last time. You know how everyone says you should divest yourself of toxic relationships? Sometimes the toxin can be your mother.
As I get older and have time to think about how my life has unfolded, I see the impact my childhood has had on my (in)ability to sustain relationships. I didn’t have any positive role modelling, I didn’t have siblings to contend with, I moved countries often enough to keep me permanently uprooted, and I am an extreme introvert.
I live alone, because that’s how I am happiest, but I am happiest alone because I am ill-equipped to find a happy zone when spending a lot of time with other people. I could have worked on this when I was younger, but when I was younger, I didn’t know that I needed to strengthen my interpersonal skills, my ability to face conflict, my responsibilities to build others up, my ability to take negative feedback constructively, my ability to stand in my own space and not simply accommodate and wrap my life around others at my own expense.
I really am an odd duck