Dear Cali Chica:

To the first part of your post, these are the words/ sentences that spoke to me most:

1. “You are constantly expected- and were- the perfect silent listener.. your job is to just sit, sit still and listen, and if she does want a response out of you- you better believe it is the ONE she was looking for, or else!”-

– being expected to be the perfect silent listener, never occurred to me, this particular thought. It moved me emotionally to read “silent” because as I listened there was so much noise inside of me, not only the sound of her noisy- voice, but inside, loud emotions, anger, the roar you mentioned, rage.

And her threats, “or else!” – makes me angry, to be threatened that way, doesn’t make me feel tender or empathy toward her, but rage, at being threatened, threatened for trying to help her, that makes it worse, more offensive.

2. “don’t you know the shame it would put on me!”- it is as if you heard her. You remember it.. better than I do- your words are closer to what she actually said!

“How could I not give, what kind of woman would that make me? Not at all concerned about the type of woman that uses and kicks her child around? Nope- not at all”- no. Not at all.

– what kind of woman kicks her child around- kicks her property.. why it is her property, hers. Her own, her possession, my child, mine to do with as I please. No one to report to, no rules and regulations, no .. social consequences to how you treat a possession that is hers to do as she pleases.

As to the second part of your post- I need time to digest this, maybe make the shift from my personal experience (firs part of this post) to yours.

I just thought about your stream of consciousness comment, maybe I should try it here, regarding your mother and Maria and that years long saga: she loves her- she hates her, just like my mother, every person had his turn, good and then bad. When I asked her how is it, her response was something like: it is not my doing, I react to how they are- it is they who are changing, not me!

She was always, in her mind, reacting, never acting, no initiative, no personal responsibility, never wrong.

Maria- she meant a whole lot to her because I figure she needed Maria to mean this or that to her. She was re-enacting a childhood dynamic from her childhood experience. That childhood she told you that was so beautiful, well, you witness some of its “beauty” in the re-enactment with Maria.

The way she raged at you, she raged at you because she … didn’t need or want your interference with her re-enactment. Brings me to the “silent perfect listener” comment you made in the first part- your mother wanted you to be that silent perfect listener. Not to interrupt her. Similar to my mother, not wanting me to interrupt her thinking, matters not if it is interrupting her seemingly self defeating, nonsensical thinking and behavior.

Being expected to be a silent perfect listener of a non-sensical person who we care for and want to help (and get away from at the same time) is crazy making, and it gives birth to that ROAR.

anita