Lowlights From the Parental Visit - Day Two

Here's the short version: Day Two was worlds worse than Day One. I feel like I'm getting sick, and I'm sure it's from all the stress.

Much longer version in bullet format:

• Yesterday I decided to take my parents to my brother's favorite italian restaurant in North Beach, but since they were running late and we were meeting cousins later in the afternoon, we ultimately didn't have enough time. That meant that for the second day in a row, my dad and I wound up having (very high quality, but nonetheless) hamburgers and french fries for lunch.
• We then zoomed to meet our relatives, who wanted to get drinks. Have you met me? Hi, I'm Me, and I don't drink alcohol. At all. Ever. I don't go to bars, I don't drink. So these cousins who are very into wine-tasting and drinking did not know what to do with me. So I spent two hours sitting in a bar drinking ice water before therapy. Lovely.
• Then we went to therapy. We sat around making lame small talk before the therapist had us come in. I know we're all kind of having doubts as to how good she is, but I will say this: the woman gave us 65 minutes BOTH nights. It was both parents that came in last night, as opposed to Monday night that was just my dad and me.
• I had a very hard time starting. How do you tell your mother that the mere thought of her makes you want to run screaming these days? How do you tell your mother that you're scared that if she dropped dead tomorrow, you think you might be relieved and not sad? How do you tell your mother you didn't even really want to do therapy with her, because you don't believe it'll help anything?
• I give my mother a LOT of credit. She admitted some REALLY hard things last night. We could see her struggling to be open to listening. I watched her want to be defensive and try to shove that urge down. Sometimes it slipped through.
• Because my mother and I have so many problems it was very hard for us to stay focused on one or two things, which it seemed was what the therapist wanted. We mostly concentrated on my feeling that my mother doesn't listen to me (see Monday night's bus issue). I used the example of her constantly sending me e-mail forwards. It seems so simple to me - if someone sent it to you, DON'T send it to me. The end. Apparently not that simple for my mother. She'll even reference that she knows I don't want forwards, but then claim the joke was very "Zoe." Or that she knows I wouldn't want her to have bad luck. Just LISTEN to me! Why is that so hard?
• We also discussed (pay attention to this one) that I don't like talking to her on the phone because when I say I have to go, she will not let me get off the phone, but keep talking for another twenty minutes. The therapist told me I'm an adult, and I need to take control and it's okay to say "Mom, I told you I have to go. We can talk another time. Good bye." I'm not good at hanging up on people, but I will try. She then turned to my mother and told HER that she is also an adult, and needs to respect me as an adult and let me go. This is when my mother started blubbering. Therapist asks my mother what she's feeling in that moment. My mother says she knows she has abandonment issues (her mother died when she was six years old; that'd be exactly 50 years ago). The therapist says something to my mother about that it won't kill her to get off the phone with me, right? AND MY MOTHER SAYS SHE DOESN'T KNOW. That's right. My hanging up with my mother might kill her.
• At this point I yell at my mother. Something like, "Are you fucking kidding me?" I was beyond furious. My mother has said for years that in 1994, when I went away to college her blood pressure went down. So my being away was good for her health. But now my needing to get off the phone may be bad for her health? Way to make someone never want anything to do with you at ALL. This is what I'm dealing with here. She yaps on and on about physiologic responses and blah blah blah. I tuned her out at this point - MY blood pressure was surely going to rise if I listened to her.
• My father and the therapist tried to make my mother see the insanity in saying that my needing to get off the phone would not kill anyone.
• We left therapy and after standing in the office lobby arguing about what to do next before deciding to go back to the hotel and order pizza. So from 8:30 p.m. until about 12:30 a.m., we sat and talked. I did a lot of crying.
• Because yesterday I mentioned to my father how his raging upsets and scares me, I think he really tried to hold back from yelling at me through the night.
• I told my mother that I feel she failed me. I asked why somewhere around year four or six of the shrink they forced me to see for TWELVE years, she never said, "You know, Zoe's not getting any better. Perhaps another shrink is in order here." She told me she tried to find one and couldn't. In TWELVE years she's trying to tell me she couldn't find someone else? Sorry, not buying it.
• One of the good things is that my father agreed to research how well biofeedback can help with my learning disabilities. I can't research this because the reading is over my head, but this is something my dad's actually worked on, though it was 35 years ago, and will understand.
• I told my mother she suffocates me. She doesn't understand how, and my father kept inserting himself into that statement, and I had to keep telling them that I don't feel suffocated by him, just her.
• At one point, my father admitted that he doesn't have friends, and hasn't for a long time, and my mother said, "Ditto" and it was the first time she ever admitted it. I told my mother I think she suffocates me because she wants to make me play the role of her friend, and it's too much for me. I truly feel that my mother still has no understanding of what she does to suffocate me. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to better articulate myself, except to tell her again, not to send me forwards. Fuck.
• I told my mother I wish she was more honest. That she wouldn't tell family when I'm in New York that "Zoe is barely home. The phone rings off the hook when she's here, and she's constantly in and out of the house, always running off to get together with friends." That's not true. I don't have any friends in New York. Stop lying about me. Sorry I'm not the popular daughter you wanted, but don't lie about me.
• I cleared up the love issues with my father. He never says "I love you." Except that now he does, and it just started. I didn't understand. Did you love me when I was growing up? Yes. You love me now? Yes. Why didn't you tell me growing up? I don't know.
• He asked if I trust him. I told him it was hard to trust. That love is a big deal and it seems to me like he flipped a switch.
• I told my mother how much it bothers me when she can't take a joke. My father is the most loyal man you could ever meet, but if a joke is made about him having an affair, she can't let it go. That she is so mean to my dad. Last time I was in NY I told my dad that every time a certain thing happens I think of him, and my mother said to him, "Is that what you want to be remembered for?"
• The last thing is that around midnight my mother cried, saying she has been so worried about me for the last few months. Because I haven't been talking to her, and then wanted to talk with her when they came to SF, but only with a therapist because whatever I had to say was so huge that I needed help saying it. She claimed she was scared I would say I was dying. OH BULLFUCKINGSHIT. I asked my brother today if my mother ever said anything about being worried that I was sick or dying. Of course not. So I think I was making her feel bad, and this was her attempt to make me feel guilty.

My parents tried to say that the ball is in my court, and get me to answer their question of what will happen in the future. I don't know, and that's what I kept telling them. That didn't seem to be good enough and they kept asking. HELLO! Did we not just discuss how it bothers me that I don't get listened to?

I am exhausted. The truth is that right now, I DON'T really have any desire to talk with my parents, my mother mostly. That I don't trust that she will change (I doubt my father can control his rage either).

So that's how yesterday went. Sorry this is so long.