Dear Girija:

“She essentially told me I was not normal” (Jan 23, your time) – “I want to be normal“, the title of your thread, Jan 5.

Question: What is her normal? Answer: (1) children being “mature and not trouble her… by being…  kids“, (2) children fighting their mother’s fights: “She’ll just step aside and have us fight her fights“,

(3) mother using the strategy of guilt, so to benefit from her children: “We had to be grateful to her for her sacrifices. I honestly don’t know what those are… What I really mean to her is I am her safety net… From a very young age both her and the extended family has instilled guilt in us“,

(4) mother using the strategy of divide and conquer so to benefit herself. To divide and conquer means to “gain or maintain power by generating tension among others, especially those less powerful, so that they cannot unite in opposition” (free dictionary). She told you, her daughters, how badly your father hurt her, dividing the family into two groups:  mother + daughters on one side (a “we”), and the enemy: the father, on the other side: “we used to hate our dad for causing us pain“.

This is an understandable division to make if indeed the father is evil and there is no way to get away from him. But if this was the case, why did she further divide the “we”, by repeatedly threatening her daughters to be expelled from the supposed good “we” to the other side, and join the evil father (“She used that to say don’t do this or that, you will turn out to be like him…  she used to tell me she was already tired of dealing with my father and just can’t deal with it if we turn out like him as well“).

She particularly focused on scaring you with expulsion, probably because you were more rebellious than your sister and she needed to further exert the divide-and-conquer power over you: “She used to project my father onto me… she used to tell me…“.

Having been in the supposed good “we” side of things and being threatened with expulsion to the bad side of things, naturally, you were scared: “I am really scared of turning into my father and she used that against me” – the intent of her threats was to generate fear in you and use it to benefit herself.

In her mind, she was indeed everyone’s victim (“She is the biggest victim“). She had a personal diary where “she filled pages with vitriol and her stresses ” – she filled pages with bitter, harsh and cruel criticism of the other side: her husband, her daughters, and… everyone else. In her mind, she was on one side alone and everyone else was on the enemy side.

“I have expressed to her before that I am worried about leaving her and getting married. She has never tried to assure me that they will be ok. I am expected to worry about her” – in her mind, she equates your fear and your misery as her benefit. It is instinctive to her.

“I don’t drive though, take her by cab” – this is good news because it means that it will be easier to replace you with responsible home care for her, no need for a caretaker to have a driver’s license.

In summary: every daughter wants to see her mother as a good person. So, even when we are aware- as you are- of lots of bad behaviors on her part, altogether- you still see her as a way better person than she really is. As a result, you see yourself as a bad. You have to rearrange the good/ bad dynamic, in your mind, so to free yourself from your undeserved guilt. Without the guilt, you will have an excellent start at… being normal!

anita