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Oct. 26th, 2009
You can divorce an abusive spouse. You can call it quits if your lover mistreats you. But what can you do if the source of your misery is your own parent?
Granted, no parent is perfect. And whining about parental failure, real or not, is practically an American pastime that keeps the therapeutic community dutifully employed.
But just as there are ordinary good-enough parents who mysteriously produce a difficult child, there are some decent people who have the misfortune of having a truly toxic parent.
A patient of mine, a lovely woman in her 60s whom I treated for depression, recently asked my advice about how to deal with her aging mother.
“She’s always been extremely abusive of me and my siblings,” she said, as I recall. “Once, on my birthday, she left me a message wishing that I get a disease. Can you believe it?”
Over the years, she had tried to have a relationship with her mother, but the encounters were always painful and upsetting; her mother remained harshly critical and demeaning.
Full article here.
I read this early last week and then I got slammed with a migraine and forgot to make note of it. This article, for me at least, ties into the question posed yesterday:
If a friend or relative makes a racist or homophobic remark, do you tend to confront them or let it slide? Are you more likely to confront them if it offends you directly or someone else who seems reluctant to speak up?
My mother is highly toxic. It has taken me years to learn the self defense of not letting her toxic emotional acid spill all over me, corroding and eating away at my very soul and sense of self identity. She is cruel, spiteful, racist, homophobic, arrogant and proud in that way of false pride--she can only lift herself up in her own eyes by utterly destroying those whom she decides are less worthy than she is. Anyone and everyone is entitled to her opinion at any time, in any place regardless of whether or not the time and place is appropriate.
I do not tolerate this. At. All. It's taken me years. It's taken me a decade of therapy to draw this line in the dirt. My mother has no boundaries and I cannot expect her to suddenly, magically find some. I draw my own boundaries. I draw them firmly and I guard them against her toxic encroachment. I try do to so first with humor, then with caution, then a clear worded warning. After that I do not engage. I hang up. I get up and leave the breakfast table and I walk out the door. I leave the restaurant and I call a cab. I have done this time and time again. I do not tolerate racist and homophobic or any hateful behavior from total strangers. I will not tolerate it from her either. She does not get a 'get-out-of-jail' card for being my mother, or for being a 70 year old woman. "That's just how I was raised," is not an excuse I except from any one for any reason, no matter who they are.
In two and a half weeks, I go to Texas and into the family hornets nest once again. In an attempt to please my father, who has his own issues, but who generally is not spiteful, hateful, and viscous, I am going down to spend our birthdays together. My mother claims her joy in my coming to visit and has been pestering me about what do I want for my birthday. I told her all I want is peace. I want no discussion on any thing but the weather and food. If she turns on Fox News, or starts in on politics, race or sexual preference I will change my ticket and fly out on the next plane.
She hasn't responded. I'm sure she doesn't know how to respond. She still can't recognize a boundary when drawn for her. I used to measure my success or failure in drawing boundaries on whether or not my Mother modified her behavior. I can remember sitting in my Therapist's office working on that last chapter of "Understanding the Borderline Mother"
(It is still the single most important tool for my own recovery.) I remember almost yelling in frustration "I TRIED that, it didn't WORK!" Claudia let me get all of that out of my system and then asked me: "why do you say it didn't work? Did it not work because your mother's actions and reactions didn't change? They're not going to. What changes is your safety and security, your sense of control in drawing your own boundary."
*blink*
To say this was a turning point in my life is a complete understatement.
The only reason I maintain any contact with my Mother is because she is the gatekeeper to my father. Once he is gone, I have no reason to maintain any facade. She will get attention or notice from me only for good behavior, not bad behavior. She won't like it. She doesn't like it now, but that is not my problem--it's hers.