Mother Load - The Irony
Over the last few months I've been getting angrier and angrier at my mother for, among other things, her misguided attempts to be close with me, her inability to listen to me and respect my wishes, and her overall claustrophobic ways.
This was going on before she found out about my other blog. My anger was slipping through when I'd talk with her and I felt it wasn't fair to my mom. I know she's lonely and bored (though she'd never admit that). I understand she's got nothing better to do than tell me every single tiny bit of family news/gossip and listen to me tell her what's going on with my life in excruciating detail. But the thing is, she wants more than I can give her. And I can't take it anymore. It was because of how my anger was manifesting that I initially wanted to go to therapy. Because if there's anything I dislike about myself, it's when I'm out of control.
I already had an appointment for my free five therapy sessions when my family learned of the blog. I wound up using my therapy appointments to talk about the problems resulting from the blogging. I actually felt like I'd lost the right to be angry at my mother, since I'd hurt her so badly with what I'd said about her on the blog, and that I'd created one at all. I just shoved my anger aside and buried it. Know what happens when you do that? You explode eventually.
My limit for addressing situations is usually three. If I bitch about something three times to the same person (or once to three different people), it's time to either let it go or do something about it. Last week I was reaching my limit with my mother. She will not admit she reads, let alone comments on, my blog. But it is SO OBVIOUS that she is always leaving anonymous comments. She has been called out on a few occasions by other readers, and gone so far as to deny commenting in an e-mail to me. Lying was illegal in my house. I was given SUCH a hard time about any inconsistency in anything I ever said growing up. Last week my favorite color was red and this week it's purple? So, were you lying last week or are you lying now? It was a very black and white thing. For my mother to lie to me now infuriates me. A week ago, she realized that I know it's her commenting, and she took to e-mailing me directly any comments. The last such e-mail she sent was on 5/31 with "Hope you don't mind my comments on your blog list..." and then she proceeded to list her each and every thought. I forwarded that e-mail to my brother along with the response I desperately wanted to send back but ultimately didn't:
Dear Mom,
Actually, I do mind your comments on my blog. While I appreciate that you are interested in my life, quite frankly, I do not at this time want you INVOLVED in my life. Towards that end, please stop commenting on my blog. I don't really give a shit what you think of what I say on it. Please stop calling me once a day. Please take a hint when I don't call you back. For the love of all things holy, please stop sending me those stupid forwards from Aunt [name] and the other relatives who send them to you. You will be very hurt if I block your e-mail address. If I kept doing to you something that you'd asked me repeatedly to stop doing, you'd be furious and this would be discussed at length with [the shrink they forced me to go to for twelve years], and me, and it'd go in my IEP, etc. Please stop sending me things I don't want. I appreciate your thinking of me, but do not actually appreciate the white chocolate, the mug, or the Lillian Vernon or Red Envelope things. If you feel compelled to send anything at all, please send me the things I've asked for from Bagel Boss, and the duck sauce packets. I would be perfectly happy to pay for both the bagel stuff and the postage.
You are pushing yourself in where, quite frankly, you are not wanted. I keep trying to politely close the door in your face. You keep sticking your nose in and looking through the mail slot. I am at the point where I feel like I need to open the door, come out, and push you with all my might so you fall backwards off the porch steps so that I can rush back inside and slam the door closed, lock it, and shove a chair in front of it.
Just because you are better than Grandma was to you, does not mean you are good enough to me. I had to do things your way the whole time I was growing up, even when they weren't working for me, and until I moved out and could come up with different ways of doing things. Now I have, and they make me happier than I ever was when I lived with you. Sorry if they don't work for you, but you're the one who told me "you have to watch out for number one, nobody else will" and I'm just doing what you told me to. I am not trying to hurt you, but to help myself stop hurting, and you are hurting me with almost every interaction we have.
So, I love you, but at least for now, really need to love you from afar.
I know, I know. I'm such an ungrateful bitch, to not appreciate having a mother who wants to be involved in my life, and I'm lucky - at least she cares, and she tries. So. Very. Hard. I know, I know. And yet ... she's fucking suffocating me. While I appreciate how much she cares and wants to know what's going on with me (and what I was wearing each time anything happened), she wants more than I can give her. I can't articulate it any better than that, but I assure you, she fucking kills me. Ultimately I felt like the e-mail I drafted was too harsh, and I didn't send it. I was going to edit it when I'd calmed down after a couple of days, but I never got the chance (I always liked foreshadowing).
Later that day, my mother sent me yet ANOTHER stupid forwarded e-mail from the aunt not mentioned above. I sent her this response: Again. Please STOP sending me forwards. I don't know how to ask you differently so that you'll actually STOP doing it. If I kept doing something that you'd asked me repeatedly not to do, think of how you'd be feeling.
We have been having this SAME conversation for over three years. I almost NEVER forward people things. I forwarded something to someone on Friday, and I think it was the second time in 2006 that I'd done it. That same afternoon, when I got back from lunch, my mother had left me a voicemail at work, and I returned her phone call. We spoke for twenty minutes. Her point in calling had been to tell me about my dad getting laid off. I already knew (my brother had told me earlier). We hung up the phone. She called me back, claiming she'd forgotten to tell me something. So she told me. Then she tried to tell me something else. We'd clearly moved into the part of the conversation where she's just wanting to chat. So I waited. And waited. She'd forgotten. She was very slowly saying words. It reminded me of seventh grade when in answer to a question, Andrew Y. would say "What? Seven ...times eight? Oh! Seven times ... nine. Wellllllllll ... seven times nine ... is sixty three." Just filling airspace until she can think of what she really wants to get out of her mouth. I'm AT WORK. I may spend a hell of a lot of time screwing around online while I'm at work, but I am always aware of what my attorneys are doing, and am always ready to help them with anything they need. I do not have my own personal office. There is no door to close for personal telephone conversations. When my mother is calling me at work, she needs to respect that I may need to hang up very quickly. My brother and I do this all the time to each other. "I gotta go." "Okay, bye." Short and simple, nobody ever gets offended. If I say to my mother "I gotta go" what I get in response is something like this: "What? Oh, okay. Well, call me back tonight. But not too late because I'm going to watch... Oh! I meant to ask you, do you watch House? You know what I just read? The actor who plays House is from Australia. You know who's going to Australia? Lisa and Scott. You know she miscarried, right?" So that afternoon on the 31st, when THREE partners were all of a sudden congregating in front of my desk to chat, I felt that getting off the phone (from a personal call) was the right thing to do. When my mother started in with "Okay Zoe, well..." I just lost it, and my voice got louder as I said "MOM! I have to GOOOOO!" To be honest, the word "go" may have even been two syllables and there may have been a slight whine involved. We finally hung up. I calmed down, and sent her an apology.
sorry if I was a bit snappish with you before. You called me the second time because you said you'd forgotten to tell me something the first time we talked. Then you told me that, and then you were keeping me on the phone while you tried to think of something else. All, while I'm at work.
The response I got was bizarre and disproportionate.
hey, yourself!
1- Nice to say "sorry!"
2-"Sorry" doesn't walk the dog!
3-There are always nice,kind ways to say the same thing,mostly. Ranks you higher and is appreciated.
4- never did get to tell you the "something else," keeping you in the family loop.
5- Will try my best NEVER to disturb your life again! --at home or a work - anywhere!
6- won't bother you with any other thoughts,
comments, info. either through e-mail, cell, or @ work.
You lose for winning.
The next day, my brother forwarded me an e-mail he'd gotten from our mother, asking if I'd sent the draft e-mail I'd wanted to send her (but never had): I take it from her PS comments that you sent her the e-mail you sent to me to preview?
Mom wrote:
Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 13:36:35 -0400
From: Mom Mom@yahoo.com
Subject: re:call
To: "Boy, Golden" the_GoldenBoy@yahoo.com
Gold,
Thanks for calling last night. Was appreciated. Support had positive effect! More might be needed. So hard for him to go in and work now - a major test of will power!
Feel good!
I love you very much!
MOM
PS your sister isn't even on my list now. she's totally off my radar!
All my efforts totally rejected --and not so very nicely, sorry to say!
Again, but more than ever, I don't know where she grew up or how she was raised! :(
The irony of course, is that I wanted her to back off and leave me alone, and now of her own volition, my mother claims she's going to do that (though I know she'll never last through the month of June). The difference is that I was struggling so much with sending that drafted e-mail because I didn't want to hurt my mother's feelings. I just wanted space from her.
Let's review: my mother considers her efforts (efforts to do WHAT exactly, is not clear) to be "totally rejected" because I don't want stupid forwards, that really, NOBODY wants (except, apparently my mother), and because I can't always have personal conversations on the phone while at work and I let her know that I get frustrated with her continued inability to respect that. Last year while I spent three weeks in New York and my mother was treating me like shit, it came out that it was because she was stressed about my dad's open heart surgery. I can't help but wonder if now she's taking out her stress about him being laid off on me. When did I become her personal punching bag?
The bitch of this all is that my mother will eventually get over herself, apologize to me, and I of course, in typical Zoe-being-a-good-daughter-fashion, will forgive her because I really DO feel badly for her. Then my mother will think everything is just peachy and within a month I will be boiling with rage at her. Is it any wonder I fantasize of moving and not giving her my new contact information?
This was going on before she found out about my other blog. My anger was slipping through when I'd talk with her and I felt it wasn't fair to my mom. I know she's lonely and bored (though she'd never admit that). I understand she's got nothing better to do than tell me every single tiny bit of family news/gossip and listen to me tell her what's going on with my life in excruciating detail. But the thing is, she wants more than I can give her. And I can't take it anymore. It was because of how my anger was manifesting that I initially wanted to go to therapy. Because if there's anything I dislike about myself, it's when I'm out of control.
I already had an appointment for my free five therapy sessions when my family learned of the blog. I wound up using my therapy appointments to talk about the problems resulting from the blogging. I actually felt like I'd lost the right to be angry at my mother, since I'd hurt her so badly with what I'd said about her on the blog, and that I'd created one at all. I just shoved my anger aside and buried it. Know what happens when you do that? You explode eventually.
My limit for addressing situations is usually three. If I bitch about something three times to the same person (or once to three different people), it's time to either let it go or do something about it. Last week I was reaching my limit with my mother. She will not admit she reads, let alone comments on, my blog. But it is SO OBVIOUS that she is always leaving anonymous comments. She has been called out on a few occasions by other readers, and gone so far as to deny commenting in an e-mail to me. Lying was illegal in my house. I was given SUCH a hard time about any inconsistency in anything I ever said growing up. Last week my favorite color was red and this week it's purple? So, were you lying last week or are you lying now? It was a very black and white thing. For my mother to lie to me now infuriates me. A week ago, she realized that I know it's her commenting, and she took to e-mailing me directly any comments. The last such e-mail she sent was on 5/31 with "Hope you don't mind my comments on your blog list..." and then she proceeded to list her each and every thought. I forwarded that e-mail to my brother along with the response I desperately wanted to send back but ultimately didn't:
Dear Mom,
Actually, I do mind your comments on my blog. While I appreciate that you are interested in my life, quite frankly, I do not at this time want you INVOLVED in my life. Towards that end, please stop commenting on my blog. I don't really give a shit what you think of what I say on it. Please stop calling me once a day. Please take a hint when I don't call you back. For the love of all things holy, please stop sending me those stupid forwards from Aunt [name] and the other relatives who send them to you. You will be very hurt if I block your e-mail address. If I kept doing to you something that you'd asked me repeatedly to stop doing, you'd be furious and this would be discussed at length with [the shrink they forced me to go to for twelve years], and me, and it'd go in my IEP, etc. Please stop sending me things I don't want. I appreciate your thinking of me, but do not actually appreciate the white chocolate, the mug, or the Lillian Vernon or Red Envelope things. If you feel compelled to send anything at all, please send me the things I've asked for from Bagel Boss, and the duck sauce packets. I would be perfectly happy to pay for both the bagel stuff and the postage.
You are pushing yourself in where, quite frankly, you are not wanted. I keep trying to politely close the door in your face. You keep sticking your nose in and looking through the mail slot. I am at the point where I feel like I need to open the door, come out, and push you with all my might so you fall backwards off the porch steps so that I can rush back inside and slam the door closed, lock it, and shove a chair in front of it.
Just because you are better than Grandma was to you, does not mean you are good enough to me. I had to do things your way the whole time I was growing up, even when they weren't working for me, and until I moved out and could come up with different ways of doing things. Now I have, and they make me happier than I ever was when I lived with you. Sorry if they don't work for you, but you're the one who told me "you have to watch out for number one, nobody else will" and I'm just doing what you told me to. I am not trying to hurt you, but to help myself stop hurting, and you are hurting me with almost every interaction we have.
So, I love you, but at least for now, really need to love you from afar.
I know, I know. I'm such an ungrateful bitch, to not appreciate having a mother who wants to be involved in my life, and I'm lucky - at least she cares, and she tries. So. Very. Hard. I know, I know. And yet ... she's fucking suffocating me. While I appreciate how much she cares and wants to know what's going on with me (and what I was wearing each time anything happened), she wants more than I can give her. I can't articulate it any better than that, but I assure you, she fucking kills me. Ultimately I felt like the e-mail I drafted was too harsh, and I didn't send it. I was going to edit it when I'd calmed down after a couple of days, but I never got the chance (I always liked foreshadowing).
Later that day, my mother sent me yet ANOTHER stupid forwarded e-mail from the aunt not mentioned above. I sent her this response: Again. Please STOP sending me forwards. I don't know how to ask you differently so that you'll actually STOP doing it. If I kept doing something that you'd asked me repeatedly not to do, think of how you'd be feeling.
We have been having this SAME conversation for over three years. I almost NEVER forward people things. I forwarded something to someone on Friday, and I think it was the second time in 2006 that I'd done it. That same afternoon, when I got back from lunch, my mother had left me a voicemail at work, and I returned her phone call. We spoke for twenty minutes. Her point in calling had been to tell me about my dad getting laid off. I already knew (my brother had told me earlier). We hung up the phone. She called me back, claiming she'd forgotten to tell me something. So she told me. Then she tried to tell me something else. We'd clearly moved into the part of the conversation where she's just wanting to chat. So I waited. And waited. She'd forgotten. She was very slowly saying words. It reminded me of seventh grade when in answer to a question, Andrew Y. would say "What? Seven ...times eight? Oh! Seven times ... nine. Wellllllllll ... seven times nine ... is sixty three." Just filling airspace until she can think of what she really wants to get out of her mouth. I'm AT WORK. I may spend a hell of a lot of time screwing around online while I'm at work, but I am always aware of what my attorneys are doing, and am always ready to help them with anything they need. I do not have my own personal office. There is no door to close for personal telephone conversations. When my mother is calling me at work, she needs to respect that I may need to hang up very quickly. My brother and I do this all the time to each other. "I gotta go." "Okay, bye." Short and simple, nobody ever gets offended. If I say to my mother "I gotta go" what I get in response is something like this: "What? Oh, okay. Well, call me back tonight. But not too late because I'm going to watch... Oh! I meant to ask you, do you watch House? You know what I just read? The actor who plays House is from Australia. You know who's going to Australia? Lisa and Scott. You know she miscarried, right?" So that afternoon on the 31st, when THREE partners were all of a sudden congregating in front of my desk to chat, I felt that getting off the phone (from a personal call) was the right thing to do. When my mother started in with "Okay Zoe, well..." I just lost it, and my voice got louder as I said "MOM! I have to GOOOOO!" To be honest, the word "go" may have even been two syllables and there may have been a slight whine involved. We finally hung up. I calmed down, and sent her an apology.
sorry if I was a bit snappish with you before. You called me the second time because you said you'd forgotten to tell me something the first time we talked. Then you told me that, and then you were keeping me on the phone while you tried to think of something else. All, while I'm at work.
The response I got was bizarre and disproportionate.
hey, yourself!
1- Nice to say "sorry!"
2-"Sorry" doesn't walk the dog!
3-There are always nice,kind ways to say the same thing,mostly. Ranks you higher and is appreciated.
4- never did get to tell you the "something else," keeping you in the family loop.
5- Will try my best NEVER to disturb your life again! --at home or a work - anywhere!
6- won't bother you with any other thoughts,
comments, info. either through e-mail, cell, or @ work.
You lose for winning.
The next day, my brother forwarded me an e-mail he'd gotten from our mother, asking if I'd sent the draft e-mail I'd wanted to send her (but never had): I take it from her PS comments that you sent her the e-mail you sent to me to preview?
Mom
Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 13:36:35 -0400
From: Mom Mom@yahoo.com
Subject: re:call
To: "Boy, Golden" the_GoldenBoy@yahoo.com
Gold,
Thanks for calling last night. Was appreciated. Support had positive effect! More might be needed. So hard for him to go in and work now - a major test of will power!
Feel good!
I love you very much!
MOM
PS your sister isn't even on my list now. she's totally off my radar!
All my efforts totally rejected --and not so very nicely, sorry to say!
Again, but more than ever, I don't know where she grew up or how she was raised! :(
The irony of course, is that I wanted her to back off and leave me alone, and now of her own volition, my mother claims she's going to do that (though I know she'll never last through the month of June). The difference is that I was struggling so much with sending that drafted e-mail because I didn't want to hurt my mother's feelings. I just wanted space from her.
Let's review: my mother considers her efforts (efforts to do WHAT exactly, is not clear) to be "totally rejected" because I don't want stupid forwards, that really, NOBODY wants (except, apparently my mother), and because I can't always have personal conversations on the phone while at work and I let her know that I get frustrated with her continued inability to respect that. Last year while I spent three weeks in New York and my mother was treating me like shit, it came out that it was because she was stressed about my dad's open heart surgery. I can't help but wonder if now she's taking out her stress about him being laid off on me. When did I become her personal punching bag?
The bitch of this all is that my mother will eventually get over herself, apologize to me, and I of course, in typical Zoe-being-a-good-daughter-fashion, will forgive her because I really DO feel badly for her. Then my mother will think everything is just peachy and within a month I will be boiling with rage at her. Is it any wonder I fantasize of moving and not giving her my new contact information?
posted by Zoe @ 4:43 PM
5 Comments:
At 6/04/2006 7:41 PM,
Candy Noseisnumb said…
wow.
she really is understandng.
sorry, doesnt walk the dog?
wow.
wow, the fact that you wrote you were sorry was wonderful. please enjoy this time off from her. and maybe, just maybe, you will love it so much , you can act hurt she cut you out of her life and not let her come to visit.
At 6/04/2006 11:49 PM,
Plain(s)feminist said…
I never know with blogs if it's ok to just randomly give advice or not. But I'm going to, and of course, you can just ignore it, so...
First, I am selfishly kind of glad that someone else's mom is like this, because my mom is, and it's hard to explain to someone who has a different kind of mom. We had a couple of years where I felt like I couldn't talk to her at all because she was doing all the sorts of things you write about and she just recognized no boundaries.
One of the things that changed was that she got a life - she got her own interests, she got therapy, she started dealing. (And I had to tell her - and still have to remind her at times - "You have to deal with that on your own. I don't want to hear about Dad/Brother/etc. - that's going to eff up my relationship with them, so I can't be your confidant.")
Another thing is that I finally realized that the way she is isn't going to change, but also that I'm not responsible for how she or anyone else feels. If you tell your mom that she is doing something that hurts you, and she spins it so that she feels sad that you're ungrateful, then that's HER issue. You are not responsible for changing her mind, it is not your job to make her see it your way - you've done all you can by telling her honestly and respectfully how you feel.
And also, there are ways to deal with this stuff that do not involve getting the other person to see that they are wrong. Your mom won't. And she won't stop forwarding crap. So just delete unread anything with "fwd" in the subject line. What's bothering you is that she's not respecting or even acknowledging you - but this, too, is part of a power game that she can only play if you play, too.
You can forgive her. But you can also continue to not call her back, to not respond to stupid emails, to not take calls from her at work. And you don't have to justify that to her - don't even tell her. Just be all "oh, we all were told last week not to accept personal calls at work"; "oh, I never got that email for some reason"; "oh, I've been so busy that I haven't had a chance to call back."
At 6/05/2006 1:43 AM,
Christine said…
Your mother and mine, separated at birth.
As I raise my own kids, I am terrified that at some point I will turn into this boundary-ignoring kind of person. I have given my husband strict instructions to slap me, HARD, should he ever see it in me...
At 6/06/2006 7:03 PM,
Anonymous said…
yowza. there IS hope, i swear. you didn't mention if you're still going to therapy or not; you know i highly recommend that, even if things are "fine" at the moment, even if it's really your mom's problems and not yours, even if it makes you feel guilty, even if you have bad therapy-memories from when your parents forced you to go (now there's a recipe for disaster from the start), and even if it costs a lot of money. just go.
more immediate advice (not that advice was what you were seeking) - get caller ID at work? refuse to answer work calls from your mom. just refuse. ignore the forwards and ignore the gifts - it's more trouble than it's worth to fight over those, and i think it'll dilute the real issues at hand. keep acknowledging your mom's feelings, as you do, and then hold your ground.
and, besides all that, i'm just sorry that this is happening to you! what worked for me may not work for you, but i hope you find something that does work really well in helping you sort through both your anger and your mom's extremely trying behavior. good luck!!!!!
At 6/09/2006 6:49 AM,
Zoe said…
P(s)F: It's okay with me; it's actually what I want with blogs - other people's opinions.
Unfortunately I do not foresee my mother getting her own life any time in the future. In the last three years in fact, her world has gotten even smaller, culminating in my dad selling her car (health - mental and physical - reasons).
What you said about her not changing yet my not being responsible for her feelings is what my free therapist told me. It's REALLY hard to do, but I agree that it's a good idea and I need to try to do that even more.
Hi Karen_S! We have caller ID at work and I think if we didn't have such big health problems in the family (dad, brother, grandpa) I probably wouldn't answer her calls. I've let them go to voicemail a few times and she pulls the "I was worried something happened to you" crap. Even if I point out she got an e-mail from me so she KNOWS I'm alive, she'll claim to not be sure it was from me. The last time, she asked me if we could have some secret code so she'd know and I blew up and told her she was paranoid and I refused to be paranoid with her.
You and p(s)f are right - I should just accept she's not going to change and I should ignore the forwards.
I only did four of my five free sessions, electing to save the final one in case I have a catastrophe later on in the year and need emergency therapy.
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