When your child has negative feelings about your, it’s helpful to let them know their feelings are valid and you will hear them out; let them express themselves.

My daughter is grown now and on her own and she and I have a close, warm bond. She just had to work through her feelings during that age period, I would say by 15, 16 she was over it. My daughter…is a very kind person so I feel it hurt her spirit to have to say those things to me, so I know she must have deeply needed to say it, to express her feelings so she could move forward. She needed to feel safe in telling me that. Now she’s proud of me as a mother, she tells me often she thinks I am a good mother and I’m a doing a good job with her brothers.

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Ok there is always some kind of drama happening with my family. If there isn’t any, then someone will start something at a party or gathering just because. I am doing my best to stay out of the drama fray, but of course that just means I’m now the bad one because I refuse to be involved with any craziness. For example one of my brothers is an alcholic who, before I put my foot down, would show up drunk at my house, took it upon himself to crash (without my permission) in my car and threw up in it, broke into our house, and stole money from us, among other things. Mercury Man and I finally had enough and told him he was no longer welcome in our home and I really don’t have much to say to him anymore until he gets himself together and pays me back. My mother was dismayed that I would actually defend and protect myself, my children, and my home from a manipulative, alcholic crazy man that she tried many times to get me to ‘reconsider’. Nothing to reconsider, I’m done.

Then there is my sister who is involved with an abusive man. Need I say more?

And then there is my second cousin, who has some type of attention/emotional disorder where he goes off and screams and shouts at the slightest provocation. He is a lovely boy when he is not going off whom I love very much, but I can no longer deal with his behavior. He is now taller than me and will soon weigh as much, and as he is entering puberty he is getting his man-strength I am sure. He has hit his mother, my first cousin, before…my cousin frightens me, he frightens my children, he frightens the other kids in the family. The other adults in the family, including his parents, seem used to his behavior or at least able to tolerate it, and when he goes off they just ‘talk him down’, which can take hours. I’m getting all anxious just thinking of him getting mad because some other kid looked at him a a little funny or didn’t laugh at one of his jokes or something innocuous like that. You just never know what’s going to set him off; it could be the smallest slight, and unintended at that, that he blows all out of proportion.

I don’t want any of this at my party. I have good friends coming who know somewhat what my family is like but only my best friend has been at a party with a lot of my family members before. One of the many reasons she is my best friend is that she was able to process them as people in their own right and not project any of their craziness or issues or whatever onto me. And she didn’t give me that pitying look I have gotten from other people who met some members of my family. That being said, she is still laughing about yet another sister who came to that party with sandals on, even though her feet looked just as nasty as this:

Why would you go to someone’s party, why would you go out the house with such grossness exposed to the world? Why wouldn’t you go to the doctor, and until then, put on some socks? Why would you go to your sister’s party, where you know there will be non-family members there who are not used to your craziness including the cultivation of sketchy foot-fungus, in sandals when your feet look like this? Why would you not realize/think that your sister would be embarrassed by this? have mercy.

and then there is the relative who refuses to brush her teeth/use mouthwash but will stand real close to you and breathe all in your face when she’s talking. How naseauting. and I myself have gum disease so I try to be sensitive that she probably has ultra-advanced gum disease (her breath smells like farts and old moldy cheese) When I say something to her and offer her a listerine breath strip, she just laughs and jokes about having ‘stank breath’.

and then there is the relative who cannot hold a conversation. He lectures at you but cannot engage in a back and forth exchange. When you try to actually talk with him, he gets upset. Ok, school me, I’m always interested in learning more. But he only has a limited amount of lectures on topics before 1970 which I have already heard before, many many times. Learn something new to bore people with, already!

and then there is the relative who SHOUTS. She shouts at all my parties. Ok my parties can get loud but not that loud. You can go up to her and ask her Hey how are you and she will respond I AM DOING OK!!! LET ME TELL YOU I AM SURE GLAD WINTER IS OVER!!! THIS SPRING PARTY WAS A GREAT IDEA TRULA!!! I TOO LOVE SPRING YOU KNOW THIS TRULA!!!!

there are not enough exclamation points to describe how loud she is. I asked her at a previous party why was she yelling at me, and she said I AM NOT YELLING, WHAT DO YOU MEAN??!! I said, um you are shouting when you talk; you’re talking really loud, like loud enough to hurt my ears. Are you ok? She said YES I AM FINE THIS IS JUST HOW I TALK, YOU KNOW THIS. Ok. I know it, and that’s why I don’t want you at my party screaming at me and my other guests.

and then there is…I could go on, believe me.

when t-bop was a toddler he would put his hands over his ears whenever he saw her approaching, ha!

In addtion to good friends I have total stangers (guests of friends) and aquaintences (parents of kids’ friends, people I’d like to know better) neighbors, and new friends coming…I don’t want any of these people to be scared off by my crazy family. While it is true I simply don’t want to be embarrassed by them, I also don’t want to be judged because of them…I want these people to get to know me, to see me in my home as I really am…not all anxious and pissed-off and/or upset by my family’s craziness. People judge you by your family and will project your family onto you. Because after all, that’s where you came from, right.

At any rate i-bop graduates from high school in June and we are having a big party for her, I have to invite my family to that. So I will see them then, my nerves just can’t take 2 parties so soon together…I might snap, LOL.

Mercury Man’s family is so different from mine…I can have them over no problem, they just don’t show any craziness like my family.

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This. Book. Is. AWESOME.

It’s by Patricia Evans who wrote the also awesome book The Verbally Abusive Relationship. I initially got this book for a close friend of mine who is trying to come to terms with being in a physically abusive relationship. I have been there, and she knows this, but she does not think her relationship is ‘nearly as bad’ as what I went through. After all, the man who abused me threw me down a flight of stairs and caused me to miscarry a baby; chased me down in the street and slammed/banged my head on the sidewalk repeatedly leaving me with multiple fractures to my skull and permanent brain injury, and threatened me with a hatchet in front of our child. Among other things. All her abuser has done is give her a black eye or two. Oh yeah, he yells at her almost every day, spits on her, and threatens her often.

What strikes me most is how he tries to control her every move. The last time I was over her house (over a year ago, and the abuse has since become physical), he came in and refused to speak to me after I said hello. The phone rang, she answered it, and he flew into a rage, yelling Who is it, who is it! Why are you always on the phone! It was their pediatrician, calling back about tests results for their baby. Man. It is almost textbook, and he is following the pattern that my abuser did. It reminded me so much of how my abuser was…he was very mad or fearful of me being on the phone, and it got to the point where he just took the phone with him when he left the house.

So I got her this book, and we are reading it together. I know some of you out there are currently being verbally and/or physically abused. If at all possible, get this book as soon as possible. I found it to be an eye-opener, because not only does she talk about why some people try to control others, she talks about why some people allow themselves to be controlled. This was very helpful for me to read because I did not understand why this happened to me. Why did I allow it, why did I allow someone else to control me?

Another thing this book answered for me was the Big Why. Not only why did he abuse me, but why did the man who claimed to love me want to kill me when I left him? No one could ever explain this to me, other than saying he was crazy. Ok, he was crazy, I was crazy to take it, but what was the logic in/for his craziness?

You have to read the book to get a fuller understanding of it, but basically she is saying that controlling people feel very disconnected from themselves and the world, and so invest all their connection to reality and humanity into one person. They have built up a fantasy person, often subconsciously, who knows them intimately and who is their entire world and reason for living. When they meet someone and fall in love, they project this fantasy person into them. Often they don’t even know they are doing this and certainly the beloved one doesn’t know. The control and abuse starts when the actual real person behaves in any way different than the fantasy person. The controller/abuser panics, because independent thought, words, and actions means the beloved can leave at any time.

If the beloved does leave, it truly feels like life-and-death to the abuser because then they feel they have no connection to anything or anybody. When someones stalks someone else, it is not the actual real person they want back…they want the body back that is hosting their fantasy person!!! When controllers/abusers say that they cannot live without you or will kill themselves if you leave, they often actually feel this way because they are so disconnected from not only reality, but from themselves. They do not even have a connection with themselves. So controllers/abusers will stalk and even kill someone to prevent them leaving with their fantasy person, to prevent feeling profoundly lost and disconnected and alone in the world. Once they have killed the host body for their fantasy person, they realize that their most horrible nightmare has come true, they are alone and disconnected, so they kill themselves.

She gives great advice with how to deal with controllers. Number one best advice: do not give them credence to their wacky beliefs. This was a big eye-opener to me because I am quick to try to correct anyone’s mistaken belief about me. This is a no-no, because by doing so you give them credence to support their belief. If you come across anyone who says something erroneous about you, dont try to correct them. This never works with controllers…NEVER. I remember my young 19-year old self trying in vain to tell/explain/show this man that I was not stupid, I was not lazy, I was not dumb, I was not ugly, etc. I felt that if I could only say or show to him that I was not all the things he said I was, he would stop saying them and start being nice to me. Uh uh. It doesn’t work that way, because a controller/abuser cannot even hear you…they are not relating to you as an actual person, but as their fantasy person.

Ok, I will stop because I could go on forever about this book. My friend is still with her husband, still being abused, but she is taking a big step just by seeking to understand why this is happening to her. I hope and pray that she realizes she has the power to leave her abuser. I hope and pray that all of you out there realize that you do too.

I was 20 1/2 when I left. I just turned 34. I have had almost 14 years, 14 years! of freedom and happiness and self-direction. When I was 20 I could not even imagine the life I lead today. No one yelling at me or slapping me around or throwing things at me or spitting on me. I can go where I want, I can dress how I like. I can talk on the phone with my friends and family, shoot I can have friends, I can see my family. I can make plans for my future, I can use my talents in my career. Best of all, my children do not live in fear. It has not always been easy and I would be lying if I said I didn’t have moments of confusion and backsliding. But I did it, and you can too. You don’t have to live this way.

http://www.patriciaevans.com/

Controlling People: How to Recognize, Understand, and Deal With People Who Try to Control You

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!!!!

So I said Fine, I won’t talk to you then and I pulled up my headphones and turned my ipod on (I can’t stand those ear buds it came with). She then walks on ahead of me and we go home. Inside, I was seething, I felt so hurt. This is my baby girl who used to hang onto my every word and love hanging out with me. I know she is 16, I know this is a phase, but still, it hurt my feelings.

Later when we were home she came asking me something, and I said I would tell you but I don’t think it’s important, ha ha ha. This must have happened 5 times before she said Ok mom I get it! I’m sorry, sheesh!

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