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  • #315403
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Cali Chica:

    You said it very well, very well: “Suffering doesn’t allow us to become better people.. It is rehabilitation. in our cases, our healing is our rehabilitation. We don’t deserve to suffer… slowly we will lose that hostility towards the world. This will allow us to fill our hearts with space, peace and love. That is the true joy of living”-

    – yes, it is. This joy of living is what I referred to before as the wagging-of-the-tail. This is the joy of living! So well articulated- “A round of applause” back at you.

    anita

    #315505
    Cali Chica
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    Round of applause to us both.

    Baseline hostility towards ourselves, first and most importantly.  Which is often reflected onto the world.

    I know for myself, disengaging from anything frivolous will help, is helping.  I know that may not sound intuitive, but when I over bombard my head with more and more that is not needed – I can sense hostility and resentment build up.  An example I used is the text S was sending me yesterday.  Not worth my mental space to engage in.  So I didn’t.  It isn’t innate, but over time It will be second nature – as it is for many of the people around me that I deem mature and grounded – to have a good threshold to not engage in what is unnecessary.

    I wonder what is helping you with baseline hostility.  Not to say that I personally think you are this way, I likely do not know.  But you mentioned it so I was wondering.

    Enjoy your coffee this morning.  I enjoyed some Early Grey, extra milky!

    #315519
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Cali Chica:

    I drink almond milk with my coffee or tea, unsweetened with vanilla. Regarding my hostility baseline, I started to type away about it but am having difficulty. I’ll come back to it later. Maybe I will start with my thought about S and it will bring me to talk about it. (interesting how it is easier to talk about people and circumstances at a distance, and not about the people & circumstances at the center, less distress that way).

    S- you mentioned her texting you while you were working in a very busy hospital, and you took five minutes of a ten minute break, in a 10 hour shift if I remember correctly, she texted you about her relationship, with a boyfriend. You took your precious few moments break to attend to her non-life threatening issue, by far not an emergency whatsoever.

    Knowing the insides of your brain some, more true to say, she took your precious time away from you, as if she owned it. (She may not have been aware, didn’t really steal your time, but she tapped into pathways that where time was stolen from you).

    And this example is tapping into my childhood experience of time being stolen from me by my mother. Was she aware, don’t know. But she stole my time anyway because I didn’t have a choice. Back to you CC, you have a choice only when you are aware of what is happening. A child is not aware, cannot be aware because what is she to  do-tell her mother to shut the hell up?

    So I had no ownership of my time as a child, she talked to me whenever she felt like and she talked a whole lot, a whole loooooooooooooooooooooooooot. About people hurting her, using her, all her exchanges with those people, what they said, what she said, what she should have said, what she will say next time. It doesn’t matter what I was doing- she talked to me. And she talked in that distressed voice, high pitched or going up and down, never a calm voice. Fast forward decades later I need my alone time no  matter where or what. I look forward to  it. And silence is golden for me. Every noise, until lately, was magnified in my brain and disproportionally distressing.

    There is so much more- her humiliating me at length, making a project out of it- what words to choose and in what syntax so to deliver the biggest punch where it will hurt most. And then, when with other people, she flattered them, put them on a pedestal. This part here is related to the event of recent. I get hostile when I think or feel that others are treated better than I am. I am afraid that they will get what I am not getting, that they are a higher priority, I am jealous, envious. Angry. Enraged that they .. deserve good treatment and I don’t. It is enraging to be treated as an inferior, a less-than.

    anita

    #315539
    Cali Chica
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    Wow, your description of how your mother talked to you a whole looooot, no matter what you were doing, where you were, no regard for your peace, entitled to having your ear to listen to her – resonates with me entirely. How crazy, I sometimes am still astonished that 2 people from practically different worlds, different sides of the country, background – have so much in common in regards to this mother.

    Your point about S, I know that my baseline hostility does feel like such people rob my time, especially when it is about nonsensical stuff.  But as you said, “you have a choice only when you are aware of what is happening.”

    So now I am aware of what is happening.  Yes there are some people like S, who aren’t necessarily aware that others are not interested in chatting about such topics in the middle of the work day.  But S is not busy or stressed at work.  That is fine for her.  I am.  I don’t have to be hostile about this.  Just focus on ME.  What I need.  Inner circle of myself during the day and what creates peace, and what takes it away.

    No one is robbing my time, it is only up to me – in which way I give it away. 

    Next,

    I get hostile when I think or feel that others are treated better than I am. I am afraid that they will get what I am not getting, that they are a higher priority, I am jealous, envious. Angry.

    That makes sense.  And I am assuming that perhaps, this quality or neuropathway gets activated even when the reality may not really be that way – in that it is PERCEIVED that someone is getting treatment in that moment, by the neurons – in which some cases it may not be that way.

    I can relate to this in the way that my mother taught me that other people are lucky, and I am not.  So I would find myself flustered and enraged when hearing about someone else’s good “luck.” Imagine 25 year old me learning about someone’s engagement, to a man I don’t have any interest in, but all of a sudden I am convinced this girl has it much better than me – and I am unlucky she is not.  Bam done, conclusion made.  Looking back 99% of those times were false delusions on my end.  Sure some of those stories panned out to be happy, and that is great – but the point is that there was no need for that comparison – it caused self harm. And – how bad do I have it after all?! Not bad at all – when it comes to that “luck outcome.”

    The bad luck being of course the mother.

    How often do you think that your perception of someone getting “better treatment” than you, is actually correct? I wonder.  Sometimes of course it is correct – and people do get better treatment, some of whom deserve it, some maybe not.  Their life circumstances varying.

    I know in my case, it was most often a delusion – and the self harm I created was far greater than the actual “worse luck or treatment” I was receiving.  I wonder if your scenario is similar.

    #315545
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Cali Chica;

    My mother did the bad-luck thing too, very much so, going on and on about what bad luck she had- that was a  lot of her lots and lots of talking. She made a big deal about how those good-luck people are using her, taking away from her and I was very angry at those good luck people (people who visited, people in the neighborhood and such) because they had good luck, didn’t help her,  and they were using her. Problem is she insisted that those people with good luck take from her: take! take! she insisted and then, when alone with me she complained about how they use her. I told her: stop giving them things and she would say: no, it is not nice, what would they say, something like that. So I told her: I will tell them, I will tell them to stop taking from you! She said: I will kill you if you do that. Next those people were over and she gave them (expensive foods, gifts, whatnot) generously, insisted if they refused, they took, left, and she told me that they shouldn’t have taken, what users they are, daring to take from an unlucky woman who works so hard. Even though they are lucky and have so much, not even working for it.

    As I type this, at this point, I am feeling, was feeling the rage a moment ago and forgot all about the content of your recent post, what it is there that you asked and I  wonder if what I wrote was even related to  what you asked. The rage, the hostility toward the lucky people who use her on one hand, and the anger at the mother for complaining to me so much, and not taking my offered help, going as far as threatening to kill me for trying to help her, help us.

    I am under the influence of emotion right now. Will you let me know if I am off topic?

    anita

    #315551
    Cali Chica
    Participant

    Dearest Anita,

    You are not off topic at all, in fact you are exactly on topic. Oh my gosh what you have written has conjured up so many memories in me as well, so much to relate on, excellent timing. I have to be away from the computer for about two hours right now, but rest assured that as soon as I return I have so much to say about this. It makes entire sense why you are so emotional or triggered about this, and I have felt the same exact thing many times before. In fact – You just pinpointed another root of the baseline hostility! Likely for both of us. I  forward to elaborating further this afternoon.

    #315553
    Cali Chica
    Participant

    Didn’t reflect under topics above

    #315557
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Will wait for you, Cali Chica, later.

    anita

    #315601
    Cali Chica
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    I am back.  I re-read your post, and this part I have highlighted:

     Problem is she insisted that those people with good luck take from her… when alone with me she complained about how they use her. I told her: stop giving them things and she would say: no, it is not nice, what would they say, something like that.

    So I told her: I will tell them, I will tell them to stop taking from you! She said: I will kill you if you do that.

    Next those people were over and she gave them (expensive foods, gifts, whatnot) generously, insisted if they refused, they took, left, and she told me that they shouldn’t have taken, what users they are, daring to take from an unlucky woman who works so hard.

     

    I have highlighted the key points of this.  It appears you wrote how I often do, a stream of consciousness based on emotion.  I want to point out how important that is often for remembering the reality, of how we were treated by these mothers.  These anecdotes are so telling.

    1- Those people with good luck take from her.

    —Assuming these people at baseline have good luck, mostly as a result of not being HER – they are luckier.

    —Assuming these people with good luck, already have good luck – and now want MORE

    2-Complain about how they use her

    —It is the saga of her life to constantly use you as a punching bag, a therapist, a sounding board, and a kick toy.  You are constantly expected – and were- the perfect silent listener.

    3-You tell her…well, stop

    —She has an inflammatory response: how dare you stupid child say that! What do you know! Insinuating 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! Or else she will find the biggest scariest way to keep you down.  It worked.

    4-Her response at not continuing her behavior

    —You, like any sane person, think: well if what you are doing is not working, then stop! Almost comical it seems.

    Not comical at all! She is absurdly taken back by this.  What a foolish thing to think of Anita, don’t you know the shame it would put on me!! 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.

    We can discuss the above comments if you like

    ——-

    Next I will write my own anecdote, not very well organized in my head today – but I will write it out..

    So we had a cleaning lady growing up, Maria.  When I say cleaning lady it was by no means this lavish thing.  It was someone that came maybe once every other week to help my mother “clean” the house.  Now, without getting into too much detail.  My mother’s entire world revolved around this lady coming.  She became so obsessed with her, they became like high school gossiping best friends.  Maria would often stay for hours after chatting with my mother. My mother would offer her food and drink and presents like a best friend or a family member.  Maria then started bringing her daughter Diane over to play with my sister, and the two of them would play together, they were about 7 or so.

    Well low and behold, and my sister will do a good job explaining as well I am sure if it ever came up – that literally my mother’s entire obsession was comparing my sister to Diane – and her life to Maria’s. So to circle it back to the highlights of your story.

    1- My mother gave and gave to Maria, desperate for a friend.  Feeling so glad the world finally gave her a good friend.  Slowly, Maria would stop cleaning as well, as per my mother, arrive late, leave early – make excuses.  My mother would be angered, enraged, constantly call my father or myself and go on and on about this hysterical.  How all she does is give to others, and they use her.  How dare they! I dare her to show up at my house and try again.

    So let’s say Maria then shows up.  Now my mother is in tears- hysterical, sad she was hurt by this friend.  So then the saga continues, she goes to Marias house, sets up play dates for my sister and Diane.  Pushes my sister to get closer and closer to Diane so that they can maintain a friendship.  Puts Maria down for acting like she big and almighty – but at the same time giving her the credibility of a real life amazing best friend.

    She would talk about how lucky Maria is to not have to work that hard, and live a good life.  And it is far worse to be her, my mother, who has finances  – but is so alone.  And how after befriending Maria, and making her work fun and easy, Maria slaps her in the face over and over.  What a misery.  She would then go back and forth with her for years.  Maria inviting her to an event, then flaking, and it take over my mother’s entire day, week, month.  Then my mother wanting to do the same back -revenge. Back and forth for years, even planning vacations together – so much so much.

    Of course my sister and I both, especially I being older – would start saying to my mother: enough! enough with this.  One day you love Maria, one day you hate her.  One day you hate that you ever treated her more than a cleaning lady, the next day thanking the lord that your best friend has arisen. Ridiculous.

    She would scream at us curse us.  Say things  with translations like you ungrateful b*** you wouldn’t know, your life and world is so easy – look how alone your mother is, if it wasn’t for Maria who would she have?!

    And on another day, let’s say she would be in tears on the floor: oh my daughters you are so right and wise beyond your years, I need to stop this I must stop – talking about as though it was like an addition or a drug issue.  Running to the phone and shoving it in my face, call her – call Maria now! Call her CC and tell her FU don’t treat my mother like that, cmon help your mother.

    And another day, something else.

    There is so much more to that whole saga I will leave out for now.  But the concept of it remains the same.

    Another scenario that comes to mind is how she continued to give and be kind to my in laws at FIRST, enamored with them, obsessed, just to kick me down later figuratively and  tell me that they are dirty, money hungry losers that are trying to steal their daughter away.  And that I might as well be a whore giving myself to this family.  But a week earlier at a family event showing off how their daughter is marrying into a nice doctor family.  If I ever said, well mom you can keep your distance.  I could not imagine her wrath, she would cackle and say – only a stupid bigot like you would think that – you know nothing about the world, good luck being married an finding happiness, no matter how hard you try – you will never find it..

    That’s enough for now – I will wait for your response.

    • This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by Cali Chica.
    #315607
    Anonymous
    Guest

    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

     

     

    #315611
    Cali Chica
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    I wasn’t sure if I should bring in my personal anecdote up – as I don’t want to take away from the main themes, but I had a feeling it may help.

    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.

    Yes, the ROAR.

    My mother said the SAME exact thing:  “it is not my doing, I react to how they are- it is they who are changing, not me!”

    Uncanny.  I believed this for so long, so did you.  So see – increased hostility at others.  Not only are other people so unpredictable changing this way and that.  They are also making poor mother sad and upset by doing this.  Double anger. Double roar.

    BUT – to add to the ROAR, now mother lashes out onto US. So here we are feeling angry at others, for her, and then sad for her experience, and then when we try to help – slap in the face.  So now a ROAR builds up, I want to escape from this bad feeling – run far away.

    But not so simple, it is simmering with guilt, and hatred.  Guilt for not fixing poor mother, and making those bad people suffer.  Hatred at the world.  Hatred at how you feel.  Oh so very complicated – and even beyond.

    The fact of the silent listener – is exactly that.

    Be silent when I say, and not when I don’t say.  I said nothing at all? Well read my mind – and nope, no matter what you do it will not help.  I will always be angry at the world and you.

    All your efforts are in vain. All our efforts.

    What a ROAR that is! All that work and effort and SUFFERING, and it amounted to nothing.  Imagine, it isn’t like we were even able to have some tangible benefit – let’s make one up, we went out there and fought some war for our mothers and now she is able to have some decent happiness.. nope  – or we suffered and dealt with so much anguish – but these days in her older age – she feels so much sorrow and empathy for us, and is forever grateful for our sacrifices – nope.

    It was all for nothing. Suffering, sacrifices, and having our neuropathways changed for good – all without any benefit to anyone whatsoever.

    That is a ROAR, for sure.

    #315615
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dearest Cali Chica:

    An excellent communication- I have trusted you enough to let you take the lead today, not feeling threatened that it will turn out badly, in humiliation of some sorts, humiliation of me, that is. I did well trusting you.

    “My mother said the SAME exact thing: ‘it is not my doing, I react to how they are- it is they who are changing, not me!”-

    – I remember a funny things perhaps, Obama was president, my mother was against him, then she changed her mind, suddenly he was a good guy (every person went that route.. and back to bad). So I asked her: what happened? She answered: he changed.

    When my mother/ your mother (decades and continents apart) had lots of vicious in them, lots of bad- and they point to the world as the cause, always others, then it is their vicious projected into the world. This is why the world is not as vicious as they claimed. If my mother took some of the responsibility for bad things happening, then the world/ others would be less responsible.

    No responsibility on her part-> all the responsibility is on others.

    She claims to have no hostility of her own-> all the hostility is out there and when she is hostile, it means- no, she isn’t. Someone else is hostile- she is only reacting.

    The child gets the impression that the world is way more hostile than it is, because Mother is hostile so often, it must be a whole lot of hostility out there that she is (allegedly) reacting to.

    People are changing- good->bad-> good, “making poor mother sad and upset.. Double anger. Double roar”.

    Mother roars at others, we join her roaring at others, she roars at us, we roar at ourselves, and at her, lots of roaring.

    Our roar at her “is simmering with guilt.. for not fixing poor mother”, “Hatred at the world”-

    – as children we made a mistake, thinking we are on the same team as mother, thinking she needs us to help her. We didn’t know that she didn’t see us on her side, only moments here and there. But like everyone else in her life, we turned bad, in her mind and heart, soon enough.

    “I will always be angry at the world and you”- we are the world for her, not on her side, but against her, sooner enough, if not in this short moment.

    “All your efforts are in vain. All  our efforts”- it is the saddest story of unrequited love. We loved her so much, tried so hard to help her and she never considered us on her side at all.

    “It was all for nothing… all without any benefit to anyone whatsoever”- correct.

    I will be going for a walk  soon, oh how different this day feels for me, how very different.

    anita

     

    #315721
    Cali Chica
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    I too felt different yesterday, and do today.  I hope you are having a good morning.  I am feeling quite pensive today

    #315731
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Cali Chica:

    Tell me about the pensive, will you?

    anita

    #315735
    Cali Chica
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    We made great progress yesterday.  We always do – but I think our focus on the roots of the roar, the roots of the baseline hostility, and one more thing…have me pensive.

    Pensive in a good way, not bad.

    There is a dichotomy present with our mothers:

    Stay silent, but give me the answer to my problem (makes no sense, dichotomy)

    Act how I want you to, but don’t you have your own personality?

    Punish those people for me, but don’t make me look bad.

    Make your mother happy, but why aren’t you happy you ungrateful child?!

    This last one is key – working our whole lives (in vain) to make our mothers “happy” – and of course only finding unhappiness our own selves..

    And then – getting put down for not being grateful for the life that this all sacrificing mother has given us – how dare we be anything but happy?

    So much dichotomy in our brain, dissonance —> Distress!

     

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