After I followed my morning routine, I had a telephone appointment with my therapist in Ohio. I worked on my mixed feelings about having my work being seen and valued versus not being seen and valued. Images of being attacked came up. My mother used me, and my sister, as whipping boys for release of her own anxiety. She also believed that being seen by others was to put ourselves in danger. My mother did suffer from PSTD; unfortunately, she never questioned her own perceptions of the world and passed on her distorted view to her children, leaving me afraid of making my own ideas too visible to the larger world. While my mother’s world view was tilted, it is also true that when new ideas or just ideas that contradict someone else’s ideas are presented in a professional context, attacks are unleashed. The worlds of science and education are rife with legendary conflicts. They’re not called the ‘reading wars’ for no reason. I have presented benign ideas in conferences, had most of the audience appreciative, and had someone stand up and attack my ideas and me- verbally, fortunately. I think people have a rough time having their own concepts challenge, and this goes for all of us, including me.
To heal my own wounding, I did what I affectionately call ‘posthumous’ family therapy. Do I believe I am really talking with my deceased relatives? I don’t give that much thought. I know that doing the work this way helps me to be a calmer and better person. That is the goal of my therapy. If it also helps a deceased relative, great.
Instead of arguing with my mother to get her to stop attacking me, which was my usual response, I focused on the pain I felt in response to her scathing comments, spit at me like hate. It felt like a cat was clawing at my insides. I allowed myself to suffer her attack without making any effort to defend myself. In my imagination, my body deflated like a balloon. My deflated appearance alarmed my mom. She didn’t understand what was wrong.
My mother held on to the cherished belief that she could do no harm if she didn’t mean to. I think she knew she was talking to me in ways she would not want to be talked to, but she also believed that she was just doing it to relieve her tension and not to hurt me. However, she did believe that if she was hurt, that was the other person’s intent. She had a very simple-minded theory: good people can do no harm because they don’t mean to, but if she was harmed, that meant the other person wasn’t a good person. However, now she saw me deflated, and she understood that I was hurt. I turned to walk away so I could heal. She could not compute that she was responsible for the damage. She stood there in a state of complete confusion; the situation was beyond her comprehension.
I called in Mike, who loved her and understood her as I did. He sat with her as she screamed for me not to abandon her. He restrained her and comforted her. He assured her that I would come back once I had healed myself. At the final moment, she was distraught with confusion. She could not, would not, grasp that she did harm to her own children with her behavior. My mom wasn’t narcissistic. Her emotional development was too arrested for qualify for that category. She was like a young child.
I didn’t make notes on the rest of the day, but I do know I had a nap after the session. It was a lot to process.
I’m sure at the end of the day, I walked Elsa, had dinner while I read, and then went into Mike’s study/library to watch some tv and catalog books.
I walked Elsa at the end of the evening. When we got home, I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. Good night, Elsa, Goodnight, Mike.
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Musings: I’m putting this separately so those who are not interested can choose not to read it.
I’ve been reading Brooks’s thoughts on marriage. I don’t get it; he sees personal growth as contradictory to a deep commitment to marriage. He sees personal growth as ego-driven. Huh? I don’t know who he has been reading and who he’s been talking to, but he works with very different premises than I do.
To begin with: his implicit definition of ego. Yes, ego has Something to do with the individual, but it does not necessarily mean individualism. (But that’s another who topic.) People in collective societies see themselves as part of the whole have egos. In these cases, they see themselves as a member of this group versus that group. Ego just answers the question: who am I? and what am I? Now, some people resist any form of change.
While I can see why groups calcify with each individual in the group bolstering the rigid thinking in each other, that is a group ego, ethnocentricity. But in today’s world, I have no idea why individual egos calcify when they don’t have the pressure to remain constant, and become smaller and smaller people in defense of Something or another. These people can be wholly devoted to a cause. They can be self-sacrificing. But that is all part of their self-image; the ‘who I am’ that they will fight to the death to preserve.
Some people study and learn but only memorize what they have been taught. They remain untouched by what they learn, except in some small neurological way that the cells change with every new experience.
I entered my relationship with Mike as an adventure, wondering how it would change me. That it would change me was never a question. I had specific parameters in mind for a partner. I wouldn’t have engaged in this experience with just anyone. He had to have a robust ethical framework, and he had to have the necessary intelligence to cope with mine without feeling diminished; that was a must. He had to be someone who had a respect for me just not as a woman but as a person. He couldn’t have one criterion for a man and a totally different one for a woman when it came to respect my point of view. That was out!!!! I had spent my childhood defending myself from a mother that couldn’t tolerate a point of view that differed from hers. No more! I had done my tour of duty, thank you anyway.
You’re not to think that Mike always saw it my way. No, no. I wouldn’t expect any human being to see everything my way. I think that’s Something we all want, but being able to cope with it not being on life’s menu is what separates the men from the boys. I often had to stand up for my point of view. What he offered me was a commitment to consider my point of view, even if it was difficult for him. He was somewhat more rigid in his thinking that I am but committed to considering what he heard. He wanted a worthy opponent; I was that for him, and he welcomed that. There were moments in our marriage where he stubbornly stuck to his point of view. However, when a third person spoke up to defend mine, and he saw that he had wiped me out, he was devasted by his own behavior.
We both saw each other as someone who would help the other grow. We accepted the other as a teacher, as in the way life is a teacher. I would be worn down and expanded in ways that only Mike could affect me. We both thought we would become bigger, better people. We both wanted to be good people. That was our priority. We both realized that if we failed to meet that goal, the other would help us get better, larger. We both became bigger people because of our marriage. Sometimes it took some energetic work to iron things out.
I think Mike was more willing just to accept things about me he didn’t like than I was to accept Something about him. He was less likely to think I would respond to his requests; I think because in his history, he found his family of origin was unwilling to respond to the needs of others except under pain of Something. But I have faith that people are willing to change to accommodate the needs of others – as best they can. This does not mean that I say I see someone else’s point of view and make an immediate change, or expect the other person to do so in response to me. Real change takes time and effort and loving reminders. Also, it is everyone’s job to discern what changes to be open to. If it is always one person who is making the changes and accommodations, Something is very rotten in Denmark. Unless someone married the second coming of Christ, both parties in a marriage are flawed. Discerning which one has to make the changes or if both have to make changes on a particular issue is vital.
If there is one party in a marriage who believes or has been convinced that they are always the one in the wrong, boy oh boy, Something is terribly wrong. Well, if it is both, jumping up to accommodate someone’s’ s stated need is not always the most loving thing to do. I think we’re in the area of codependency now. Brooks described a couple who agreed that they would always respond to the other’s request no matter how outrageous. As with all agreements, it requires faith that it will not be abused.
Mike and I had an agreement. Ours was created out of our needs to control our boundaries. We had been raised in families where our boundaries were not respected. I suggested a signal which would tell the other person to stop whatever they’re doing on a dime unless there was some life-threatening situation in play.
I had taken a course in Life Saving. We learned ‘the life-saving tap,’ which students use when they are practicing saving someone who is ‘drowning.’ Since the ‘drowning’ person has to struggle against the ‘lifesaver,’ there has to be a signal which clearly communicates that one of the practice partners is indeed in trouble and needs to come up for air. They tap twice on the other person’s body. Mike and I used that for years until it became needless. Again, this, too could have been abused. One party could have used to limit the other from just about any activity, speaking, breathing, coming within 10 feet. If someone’s priority is control versus connection, anything can and will be abused.
Mike and I both became more of the people we always wanted to be in this marriage. I can’t think of a better evaluation of a marriage. And we both became better people for ourselves and for others. We didn’t just become better at skills that were only related to the relationship or the larger community. I became more tolerant and less reactive. This does not mean that I don’t reject people for their behavior. Believe me, I do. Tolerance is never total. That is victimhood and codependency.
What we adapt to has to be subjected to serious appraisal. Actions that are bad for ourselves and bad for others should not be accommodated. That is doing harm to self or/and to others. We have also to stand up and set our boundaries. Again, I refer to the narrow way: the way that is perfect for both the self and others, where perfect does not mean giving people what they want in all cases. Never that. Saying no can be the most loving and healing thing a person can do. We must set our boundaries. If we don’t, we turn the other into the villain while we suffer nobly. If we allow people to victimize us, when there is an alternative available, we are as guilty of doing harm as the ostensible villain.
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