A short summary of the Rules:
- Rule 1: Mom is never wrong; she is always automagically 100% right about anything and everything. QED.
- Rule 2: When in doubt, refer to rule 1.
- Rule 3: No matter how selfish or misguided something Mom does, decides, or decrees is, that doesn't matter. Because it has been infallibly, carefully planned, calculated, and executed with 100% martyrdom to be For Me, and has been created by a master craftsman as the only thing that could possibly be the best action ever to do me the world's most good. (Refer to Rule 2).
- Rule 4: I exist in order to be told what to do, how to do it, and how to think about it. Difference of opinion over Things That Matter is not acceptable. (Refer to Rule 2).
- Rule 5: I must be in 100% enthusiastic agreement/compliance with all of the above rules at all times. Neutrality, Lukewarm Acceptance, or Qualified Agreement Is Not Good Enough. (Refer to Rule 2).
Of course, these play out in a variety of corollaries and adjunct laws, one of which is that nothing I have to say is important when she has something to say, no matter the content of either's statements, and another of which is that anything I attempt to do will be co-opted and redirected to suit her preferences (this is known as "supporting me,") and when I give up on it as a result, she will stop providing the "support" which was actually control, and she will feel that the failure was all because I was in gross indifferent violation of Rules 3 and 4.
This situation a serious problem and it is, I think, a main contributor to most of the problems I have with self-motivation, rebellion/self-sabotage, and lack of follow-through when things aren't my idea or aren't something I value as a priority, both at home, socially, and at work.
She tries. She really does. (I find her very trying, badumbumCHING.) But she will never be able to understand that I should be respected as an individual, and at this point after 42 years of codependency, I strongly doubt that things will ever change, or that I'll ever be able to put the more pernicious elements of her influence aside or behind me, even after her passing. I know it will dog me for the rest of my life; c.f. one of Stan Rice's better poem/epigraphs from The Vampire Lestat, in which he points out that the dead don't hand their hearts to you; they hand their heads-- the part that stares. She will always be watching, and she will always disapprove and try to control.
Codependency is vicious; we enable each other and our behaviors perpetuate the negative patterns ad infinitum.
I have to try to get through this with small achievable goals and not let her push me to the point of apathy and inaction. Today I used Dad's favorite passive/aggressive tactic of simply falling silent under the tirade and never even bringing up the important matters I have on my mind after she ignored signals that I needed to speak. It's not a good tactic, but I understand why he uses it. He uses it because it is the one way to obtain even a small fraction of victory and individuality-- she can't penetrate it and force compliance with Rule 5. No other tactics, such as reasoned discussion, work because of Rules 3 and 4. It's always that what she's done IS the only right choice and I just don't get it. And if I say "Please don't do/say this because it makes me feel..." her only response is "Well you're wrong to feel that way, so stop."
You can't make someone "get it."
You have to accept that sometimes you can be wrong, and that something that would be right for you might not be right for someone else.
Neither of these things is ever going to be something she can accept with regard to me.
Worst of all, I'm just like her-- I'm pretty confident most of the time that I'm right, and I don't trust anyone else to be right. But I do try to go and admit it to my friends if I learn I was wrong after we disagree. That's an important difference, and it's probably something I need to do a hell of a lot more, because I'm probably not right anywhere near as often as I think I am.
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