Dear Anita,

First of all I want to say thank you for taking the time to write this well thought out post.

Second of all,  I am curious as to what this all brought up in your own self – about your own life.

You wrote:

A piece that is very relevant to my personal life experience, but I will focus at this point on your life experience.

I would love for you to share if you feel it will be helpful to you,  I will enjoy reading and listening to this.

I will continue…

This is everything:

..your mother being the “peanut sized brain” leader of the two, trained you to view people as enemies and then she sent you to form and maintain friendships with enemies.

You are right.  My mother said (so to speak) – and by the way in certain computers at work the parentheses key is broken, so I am not always able to add these in!

She said: “go on and make friends with these people, it is important, you don’t want to end up alone and lonely do you! But people are the enemies and they are bad, look at how bad they act, but go be friends.”

Mixed signals – beyond mixed signals.  People are the enemy, but we NEED them, so we must must befriend them.

In fact, my sister has brought this up recently in her own words, I will speak to her about this topic as well.  She mentioned something about how our mother went on and on about how terrible certain people were in her dance class let’s say, but then in the next breath berated my sister for not making friends with them.  It created a great deal of anxiety for her starting at a very young age until now.

So back to your post, the greatest enemy of all is in fact my mother.

Recently, my sister was dealing with an issue with this group of friends she has in NYC, she wouldn’t mind me sharing with you so I will tell you in general.  Long story short, the girls wanted to have an intervention with one of the girls B, who doesn’t seem to be all there.  She has major mood swings, reacts poorly to alcohol, and can lash out and leave places immediately – causing concern for the group.  There is more to the story.  One of the girls asked my sister to confront her with her, given that they are the most vocal out of the group.  They wanted to do this before they want on this group trip.  Well when it came time to it, the girl backed out entirely – and acted like she never even brought up the topic.  In a way she was acting selfish and inconsiderate and focusing on enjoying herself at the trip, and not doing the hard work of confronting someone.  My sister, was disappointed and flustered by this.

I was surprised at my advice to her (of course always easier to give advice than receive).  I spent some time thinking about the whole story before responding.  I thought mostly about what parrot would say – and how it would be inflammatory.  “Gosh see these people. Sister finally made good friends, and SEE look how bad they are.  What bad luck for her. ” “No matter where you go people are always going to be this bad.”

I thought about this, I heard Parrot’s voice in my head loud and clear, her gossiping about my sister’s friends to me like a high school girl at a pep rally.

And then I knew my response…

I said to my sister.  You have friends.  They are fun and entertaining.  You have people to laugh with and enjoy NYC with.  That is great.  In the grand scheme of things, the disappointment of that girl in flaking on the confrontation isn’t terrible.  Perhaps it says something about her, perhaps no.  WE are used to magnifying bad qualities in people.  Saying “ah ha SEE look I knew she was bad.” Almost a guilty satisfaction that our SUSPICION was correct.  Take her for what she is, and what she shows you  -but don’t let it take away from your good times with the group.

I was impressed with myself.

It was the first time I thought this way.  I had no idea of the conversation we are having today then, this was about 2 weeks ago – but I knew I was onto something.  I knew deep down inside my brain, and that of my sisters magnifies bad qualities of others.

We see them as the enemy, ready to pounce!

You are so incredibly right.  Oh wow! So right.

This is so incredibly harmful to the both of us.  I know personally, I have become worse at this over the last 2 years since that all happened with my parents.  More critical, more magnifying, and more sensitive to flaws in others.  Not because I think myself perfect, but I am quick to get disappointed and point out people’s lack of self awareness.  I think an added point is this self awareness.

I have a huge issues these days when people are not self aware.  It truly  bothers me.  And what does it do? It creates self harm.  But who was the least self aware, biggest enemy of all – mother!

—

Funny thing is this: while I am typing this I glance at my phone and there is a text from S (she just returned from a Miami girls weekend).  She is writing about how one of the girls spent the whole weekend taking selfies and it was annoying.

My first thought: grow up

My second thought: that is the place in life you are in, and people you are around. Ok.  I don’t have to jump to answer this, and it isn’t something I can relate to.  It isn’t worth my time and that is fine.

That’s it.  Seeing differences in others isn’t hard for me.  But putting pressure on myself to be involved, and feeling I have no power over this, and then slowly being resentful – well that’s harmful.

I can get my power back.

– you’ve been trying to be okay with this “human characteristic”, trying to adjust to it, to not be angry- but you are angry and it is a big part of your ROAR.

When people display selfishness or any amount of inconsideration, those displays get magnified in your brain, magnified by the pre-existing hostile attitude

Yes it does.  I have been trying to adjust to this, in first line.  But it isn’t working.  Instead I have to decrease my mental involvement with it.  Observe these characteristics, but do not envelop myself in them.  Disengaging will help.  I assure you, and myself it will.

The hostility is harmful to me, it is harmful to my husband.  He has mentioned many times how my view of people as generally “bad” has rubbed off on him these days, and it isn’t a good way to live.  He is right.  But I felt stuck then with that…

But now  I see.  That it is observation but not roaring at these qualities in people.  It is shrugging and saying okay interesting.  Not roaring and saying look SEE SEE I was Right!

You wrote about the first step to helping this, If I see someone doing something of that sort of Roar annoyance, think, it isn’t bad as the worst enemy of all.  Nope, it is not.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Cali Chica.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Cali Chica.