The most unfair thing my mother has done to me
She sees my dad in me.
Sitting at the dining table across from both of my parents, I see how mom is getting annoyed at the way my dad speaks.
I know she’s annoyed because of how she attacks me when I speak, and when I speak the way he speaks. Instead of addressing the issues mom has with dad she personifies his traits and make the traits wrong. My dad is a very rhetorical person. When he speaks, people listen. He also gets a little carried away when he is passionate about his topic. When he feels cornered or ignored in a discussion he’ll escalate his fierceness in the way he words his opinions and facts. Easily a discussion with my dad can get out of hand. Often my mother hates discussing things with my dad because they come from two opposite schools of life (they haven’t admitted to it yet, though).
When I get into a heated argument with my parents, I revert to the ways of holding an argument that I’ve been taught; I talk like my dad. I trigger my mom, just like my dad. But, opposite from dad, my mother actually comes at me. She projects the way I speak as my personality trait, that is simultaneously the main problem. Somehow, my problem.
She will come after my personality traits, that really aren’t mine, they are my dads, but she assumes I am my dad just because I argue like he does. Instead of seeing that they have created a dynamic where no-one gets to speak unless they are dad, they deflect the dysfunction on whomever currently is in the focus point. The only option for me to get heard was to enmesh with dad. The cost of that was my mothers rage. (And I was willing to pay that price, as long as I got heard.)
All the rage she had pent up towards my fathers emotional unavailability, suddenly had a scapegoat when I, unknowingly, adapted his way of speech.
I was to blame for every relationship going south within the family, because I didn’t know how to communicate properly. Because my temper was hot-headed, because I would never let anyone else but myself talk.
She finally had an outlet for venting all the aspects of dads personality that she couldn’t stand. And she could vent without getting into a conflict with him about it.
And I allowed her to. Simply because I didn’t know better. Because I actually believed that these traits were mine.
Only now, several decades later, do I finally understand. I’ve been mirroring my dad while speaking to my parents. Not to everyone else. Not to anyone else, actually.
I’d be insane if I were to speak to another human the way my dad speaks to me. Or the way I speak to my dad. It’s emotional manipulation, shaming and mind-games all wrapped into one, sprinkled with some ”survival of the fittest ” and ”who knows theology best”. It’s a hostile environment, spoken in three different languages. You’re either insane enough to not suffer from the dysfunction, or you’re a child that was forced to grow up in that environment. One of those two explanations count for reason why you’d even find yourself in an argument at my parents dining table. Most people don’t. Thankfully.
But I do. I find myself arguing at the dining table a lot. Less impulsive now, as an adult, but still. I am almost ashamed to admit it, but recently I’ve enjoyed the arguments with my dad. I guess it’s due to the familiarity of the abuse? Because it is abuse. But I like it. I know what to do with it. And I know how to drive my dad mad. Therefore I find it entertaining. I also acknowledge that my dad is a resource of heated arguments that I will never, ever, find in my life ever again. He is that intense. As am I. Sometimes a fire can only be met with a fire. And I have not met anyone who’d be able to withstand my fire, if I’d choose to unleash it. But dad is that fire, or at least he did create it.
There’s a freedom inherited in that level of expression, because I know; if I can stand my ground with my dad, no other opponent is a match. Also, no other opponent is needed because of the level of self-confidence I get from having an argument with dad.
But it wasn’t always like this. For most of my life, arguments with my parents were horrible. Traumatic, fragmenting, scary and plain horrible.
Then I learned and evolved and healed and manifested better for myself, and here we are today. But, that’s not the point of the blog today.
My point is that my mother didn’t see me, she saw my dad in me, but she didn’t admit to it (because admitting to it would start a conflict between her and dad) and because of it she shaped an overlay view of myself, that prevented me from seeing who I truly am. I thought dads traits were my personality, and I saw them as one thing. All that due to the way my mother would speak to me. The way she would shame me, the way she would make me feel guilty about showing certain personality traits.
She also made it an absolute nightmare for me to receive attention.
Because of the large amount of attention that my dad gets within the family-unit, my mom decided that attention was a bad thing. She decided that because, due to dads narcissistic tendencies, he didn’t take into account my mothers best interests when he’d make decisions that impacted her as well. All the attention of the relatives would fall on my dad, and he’d be the natural decider of how things would be done. Those decisions did not take into account my mothers best interests. Instead of starting a conflict by addressing the root-cause of my mothers distress, she blamed the trait. She scapegoated attention into being the problem. Simply because without attention, my father wouldn’t exhibit the behaviour that caused her pain.
The problem with attention is that some people simply command it. Sometimes it’s innate.
I doubt that people don’t notice when I walk in a room.
I’m sorry, I probably shouldn’t write stuff like that, right? Pretentious? Full of myself?
But that is the truth. I command attention.
And if you don’t notice me, you’re missing out, and you can feel it.
I bet people hate that about me. I bet people must have hated it even more when I tried to be someone else and not own up to the fact that I get noticed. I’m sorry people, I’m trying, I’m healing, I’m owing up to my flaws.
I can’t believe getting attention is a flaw. In a weird twisted way it is, to me. Because I haven’t done anything to get the attention, I just do. And it used to be the worst thing ever because my mother would shame me for it at all times of the day. I had to pretend to be quiet and timid and shy, to turn away from attention, but at the same time to perform in-front of others and put on a show whenever my mother requested it. Oh the dilemma, to get noticed, or not to get noticed? As if that was something that was ever in my control.
I command attention simply by being. That is the truth. Why has it happened? I don’t know. Why are some better at math than others? Is it wrong to compare the two’s? I do believe that it is a resource, and that I should use it to my advantage, instead of trying to hide it like I have up until now. A wild guess is that I’ve done a shitty job at hiding it anyways, and instead I’ve pissed people off with my inauthenticity. Again, if I’ve caused you pain, I am sorry.
My mother get’s noticed as well, she is beautiful, she is intelligent and she is tactful. But hers doesn’t come even close to the allure of my dad, or mine. And I think that I feel guilty about that. I know that I could outshine her, and it scares me. I know I could command others to make a decision without considering my mothers best interests. I know her words would not stand a chance against mine, would that be my wish. And I think that scares me a lot. Scares me that I’ll become like the people who hurt my mom. Scares me that I might hurt others if I let myself receive the attention. Scares me that the attention really is the problem.
Sitting at the dining table it really baffles me, how some things are inherently within me, and others are enmeshed without fully ever belonging to me. Some traits I’ve identified with, others I can’t seem to get rid of. All this chaos of traits and personalities lay bare before me like a buffet; pick all you want. There are so many resources available to me, yet so many of them I still fear.
It was unfair of my mother to project my dad onto me. I wonder who I would have become if she had decided to be more gentle with me. To not corner me into attack. Or perhaps, if she had taught me how to speak to her, how to get heard by her. In truth, when dad is heard dad is calm. He is quiet and soft. As am I.
And maybe I can’t know for certain, quite yet, if it’s really my trait or not, but I do know that learning about these traits within me have given me first hand information on these traits within my dad, and how to navigate them. Softness and calmness goes a long way, my mother would benefit from knowing that.
Finally, I can be at peace with the unfairness of this situation; somehow I still find my reality to be just.