Posted by alexandra_k on November 19, 2018, at 19:53:41
In reply to Re: I feel kinda bad... » alexandra_k, posted by SLS on November 19, 2018, at 8:40:02
> I think any negative reaction by your mother to what you said was predictable.
Yes. That's true. And I guess that is why I feel guilty / bad about having done it.
Do I regret having done it? I'm not sure...
> I hope that you two can reconnect to have a relationship that is good for both of you. Right now, your mother might not want a reconciliation under any circumstances. Maybe she does. I hope she does.
I am not sure how I feel about her. I enjoy her company sometimes. When we have not had any contact for a while and so she is on her 'best behaviour' (as she would say). I suppose I haven't been enjoying her company in recent times because she uses money as a bribe in her interaction with people.
For example, if I'm talking to her she will be, like 'I put some money into x and y and z's bank account for Christmas and I only got a thankyou letter / phone call from x and y naughty naughty z'. Her attitude seems to be that money buys people. She gives someone some money and now she has brought them interacting with her in a way where they suck it up while she is not on her 'best behavior' for a while (her way of seeing it).
So I feel... Resentful? Yeah.
Like with my motorcycle registration. She said she would pay for that. She could pay the yearly amount in one go (she has the funds to do that) but instead she pays it monthly. That means she gets an interaction with me at least monthly, you see. When she doesn't have to be on her 'best behavior'.
I just...
Why do I take her money?
Yeah. That's right. There was a time... Between 14 and about... Oh... I think I was in my early to mid-twenties where I cut all contact / ties. Completely.
It is hard for me to convey to people the depth of her abuses... I'm a very sensitive person. There wasn't anybody else in the household who I could talk to about anything at all. I had only limited time with friends and most of my school friends it was hard to be proper friends with them because I wasn't really allowed to do much of anything outside school.
The number of nights I was forced to stay seated at the kitchen table until well after midnight because she presented me with a plate full of silver-beet and a segment of cooked pan fried liver. This was 'good food' you see. 'Good healthy food'. I remember I would try and squash it up into a ball around the size of a small orange and force it down my throat to be done with it. if there was any evidence of it in the toilet bowl that was grounds for a beating.
Just persistent sh*t like that.
And now I'm supposed to just forget that stuff happened and be at her beck and call for these little bits of money she throws at me?
I realise that is why she is happy when I'm poor. Because my poverty means she can basically buy me for cheap.
I feel it's a lack of... Honesty. Integrity. Who knows what on my part to actually have much of anything to do with her now.
> I can isolate the cause and effect for the development of my life-ruining depression to what my mother did to me when I was young. At some point, I decided that there was no advantage to confronting her with this fact.Yeah. I thought I decided that at some point.
I started to feel differently.I think it was because I realised that she isn't and won't be supportive of my doing Medicine. She won't be able to see it as something potentially good for her because I'll be in better position to help her... She will see it as something that will mean she will lose me because she won't be able to buy me so cheap anymore.
But if she wanted me to be free...
If you love something set it free... And see...
But she doesn't want to do that...
> Even though the things you said to your mother are probably true, you might want to apologize to her anyway. It is probably better to do this sooner than rather than later in order to prevent your mother from building up resentments that would make it more difficult for you to reconcile with her.I sort of did. I emailed her that I'm sure her life wasn't a bed of roses either. Grandmother seemed stern etc. She didn't have help raising me. There is no help in the country, I know.
> Maybe this is not the best thing for you to do. You know your mother best. Do you think that simply giving her time to process things will be sufficient for her to reach out to you or take your phone calls?
I don't know.
I suppose I wonder / worry whether she's okay. I mean... I hope she hasn't tried to overdose on her pills or something. She doesn't have a history of self-harm, at all, but I worry that she isn't answering her phone because I don't think she has caller ID.
But then historically she liked to think I was bad so she could phone all her friends and tell them how horrible I was... So I have this vision of her sort of frantically doing that over the last few days...
Only then she would likely have answered her phone.
I don't know.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1102115
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20181106/msgs/1102120.html