November 13, 2001
a travel agent for guilt trips okay, so it's been a week, and i still haven't talked to my mother. i still don't feel ready...i feel like i need to talk to my therapist first, and she is still trying to fit me into her schedule. i also don't want to say anything that i don't want to say...anything that i can't take back, but that i'm still feeling and still liable to say at this point.
meanwhile, my mother has left 3 messages on my answering machine:
1) the first was almost a week ago...saying that she was sorry for causing such grief in her daughters' lives and that she wanted to talk, but understood if i wasn't ready. okay...i was cool with that.
2) a few days later, in her second message, she said that she is forgiven...by god...and she hopes that i can forgive her too. but see..."god" didn't learn about all this 32+ years after the fact. and then there's her assumption that because god has forgiven her, all is well, and there is no need for her to "make it right" with the people she hurt by doing the things she did (cheating, lying, etc.). to give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe that's what she's trying to do with all these phone calls...but she's laying a simultaneous guilt trip on me...so how exactly is that "making it right" with me? this burns me up.
3) in her third message, yesterday, she said that with everything going on with the war, she "can't handle" being at war with her children.
*sigh*
which means, in her eyes, it's still all about HER...what SHE can or cannot handle. it's (presumably) less important to her what her children may or may not be able to handle (e.g., the fact that i "can't handle" talking to her right now). but it's been all about what SHE couldn't handle (e.g., revealing the truth) for the last 32+ years. i think it's our turn.
as my sweetheart (very wisely) said to me yesterday, no one can send you on a guilt trip unless you let them. and i know this...i really do. but my problem is, refusing to allow my mother send me on a guilt trip (for not returning her calls, for responding to the revelation about my sister in a way that she apparently "can't handle) means, for me, the negation of more than 30 years of learned behavior. she has used guilt tripping against me almost my entire life. she's good at it, and she knows it. to her, it's perfectly normal, acceptable behavior, and I'M the bad one for not succumbing.
right now...?? i just can't give in to her.
i also had to talk to my father last night, without being able to talk about this...because he doesn't know that i know. i really believe that my sister needs to talk to him. maybe they have a chance at a decent relationship if they eliminate the LIE from it...if they let all the artificiality of that relationship fall away, and just appreciate each other for the people they are. i hope so. whatever the case, i'm going to encourage my sister to talk to him. i feel like i need to talk to him, too, and i can't until she does.
2:13 PM
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