|
Chasing Rainbows
Growing up I
thought I had a typical, possibly even idyllic, childhood until
my mother left my father for another man. Both parents pressured
me to be the woman of the house for my three younger siblings.
Rightly or wrongly, I made the choice to abandon it all and move
out. At 17 I was on my own.
Most people who
meet my mom love her, but she is a manipulative, self-involved
woman hiding behind the facade of perfection. Only those of us
who see past that facade understand how destructive she can be.
My mother was
raised in a strict Irish patriarchal household. While her family
was patriarchal, ours revolved around her, her needs and wants
and her requirements. She deludes herself into thinking she was
the perfect parent, though the evidence is right in front of
her face. One brother and I are distant from the family, our
sister is extremely angry, and our other brother, in his 40s,
still lives with her and has never married. |
|
Today is Mother's
Day. Our parents spend every holiday together as neither of them
remarried, and today our family went to dinner at a nearby restaurant.
Sitting next to my mother at dinner I had to restrain myself
from snapping at her for the simplest things.
I allowed her
to use my anger to manipulate me into saying things I am now
regretting. The things I said were true, but expressing them
to someone as sick as my mother was a bad choice. Still, I want
to make her listen to me and hear her validate me and my feelings.
In the three
years since I began counseling and started to see the path of
destruction my mother set me on, I have learned not to allow
her drama to impact my life. Instead of trying to change her
behavior I have chosen to change how I react to it. Until now.
I feel guilty.
I know from counseling that guilt is not an emotional response,
and I have looked at the emotion behind it and I am just plain
old angry with my mother. I'm a happy positive person with a
great many friends who love me and I love them. The only time
I feel like the angry resentful child I was at 17 is when I am
with my mother.
I need to let
this one go and let God handle it, but it's just not happening
this time. It goes to show that this working-on-myself thing
will be a lifelong battle, or at least as long as my mother is
on this earth, bless her soul.
~ Shannon
Shannon, there is a difference
between guilt and shame. Guilt is a red flag telling us to beware,
someone is trying to manipulate us. Shame is different. Shame
tells us we have done something
which dishonors us. Shame requires us to mend our ways.
When you are
with your mother, you are in the presence of someone who has
no shame, who tries to make you feel shame. She uses guilt to
manipulate you.
Many of us have
the idea that our emotions are irrational. They are not. Emotions
are a warning system like the smoke detector in our house. If
we ignore the warning and rush into the fire, we will be scorched.
It is as if you
are scouring the world over for a way to make your mother a good
mother. But the satisfaction you seek is unattainable, because
no matter what she does now she cannot undo your experience.
You really want to have had a different life, but that wish can
never be fulfilled.
Every time you
have contact with her, you reinforce who she thinks she is. Listen
to the smoke detector. Don’t spend the rest of your life
trying to make her into someone she is not.
~ Wayne &
Tamara
|
Authors and columnists
Wayne and Tamara Mitchell can be reached at www.WayneAndTamara.com.
Send letters
to: Direct Answers, PO Box 964, Springfield, MO 65801 or email:
DirectAnswers@WayneAndTamara.com.
Direct Answers
appears in newspapers in the United States, Canada, Australia,
the UK, Grenada, Guyana, Spain, Lesotho, South Africa, Antigua
& Barbuda, Papua New Guinea, and Kenya. |
|
|
 Direct
Answers Archive 2009 |
|
- ©
Copyright 1999 - 2009 Pioneer Thinking. All Rights Reserved.
- *
tm; the property of Pioneer Thinking Company.
|
|
|
Print
Forums
Refer Page
submit an article
