Actual boundary setting phrases and conduct?

[dedo]

This has the ring of truth, and it’s probably exactly what’s going on, here.

It’s going to be a process, to deal with it as time goes on, but for better or for worse, things can’t continue in this way.

You also pointed out that maybe she’s feeling at loose ends now that she is no longer a home-schooling Mom with busy things to do for you, and now that you have recovered from your illness, she is also no longer the mother of a sick child, again with many useful busy things to do for you.

She needs to rediscover herself, and find something to do with her time apart from finding ways to make you miserable. And that’s not your problem; nor is it your challenge. This is something she needs to do for herself.

I don’t like to post too much on any given thread; however, I am going to respectfully disagree with the idea that the OP has been mistreated by her mother based on what is presented here. What I have seen written is that the mother commented on black clothes. The OP told her that topic was off limits. Then an argument ensued. The idea that this is some sort of “abuse” or “gaslight” is just nonsense.

One way to handle this is for the OP to actually read one of the books recommended, from cover to cover, and then read another one – instead of scanning a synopsis on Amazon.

Sometimes in life, a difficult situation occurs where we can choose to blame, or to grow. Now there are some people that should absolutely be avoided because they are dangerous. And part of “growing” is learning to identify the signals those people send off.

However, sometimes you can’t avoid these types of people, and you need to learn the skills to neutralize the attack. So sometimes, God lets you be in a “training situation” where there is minimal risk, so you can develop skills to handle a situation down the road where there is real risk.

All of us deal with difficult people from time to time. However, once in a while we are faced with someone who really tries to go after you. This happened to me once in my 20’s and once in my 30’s .

In both situations, “coincidentally” the assailant suddenly developed a personal problem and I was the closest available person that could help him / her. In both cases, the attack was neutralized with a simple act of kindness. One case involved a supervisor while I was in training that just did not like me. Then her car broke down and I just happened to be the one coming out of the workplace. Helping her get her car started changed this lady from my worst nightmare, to my big sister over night.

So, in this situation, the OP can choose to look for validation of her idea that this is all about her mom’s issues, and play the victim card.

Or she can choose to learn something that might help her with her mom, and also give her the skills to handle a real malevolent person who may appear a few years down the road.

Good luck.

 

[Xantippe]

I don’t like to post too much on any given thread; however, I am going to respectfully disagree with the idea that the OP has been mistreated by her mother based on what is presented here. What I have seen written is that the mother commented on black clothes. The OP told her that topic was off limits. Then an argument ensued. The idea that this is some sort of “abuse” or “gaslight” is just nonsense.

One way to handle this is for the OP to actually read one of the books recommended, from cover to cover, and then read another one – instead of scanning a synopsis on Amazon.

Sometimes in life, a difficult situation occurs where we can choose to blame, or to grow. Now there are some people that should absolutely be avoided because they are dangerous. And part of “growing” is learning to identify the signals those people send off.

However, sometimes you can’t avoid these types of people, and you need to learn the skills to neutralize the attack. So sometimes, God lets you be in a “training situation” where there is minimal risk, so you can develop skills to handle a situation down the road where there is real risk.

All of us deal with difficult people from time to time. However, once in a while we are faced with someone who really tries to go after you. This happened to me once in my 20’s and once in my 30’s .

In both situations, “coincidentally” the assailant suddenly developed a personal problem and I was the closest available person that could help him / her. In both cases, the attack was neutralized with a simple act of kindness. One case involved a supervisor while I was in training that just did not like me. Then her car broke down and I just happened to be the one coming out of the workplace. Helping her get her car started changed this lady from my worst nightmare, to my big sister over night.

So, in this situation, the OP can choose to look for validation of her idea that this is all about her mom’s issues, and play the victim card.

Or she can choose to learn something that might help her with her mom, and also give her the skills to handle a real malevolent person who may appear a few years down the road.

Good luck.

I’m pretty sure that the OP’s mom is the most malevolent person she’s going to meet anytime soon (or at least the most damaging).

The OP has psychological issues that make her mom not a safe person to be around for her.

I don’t think the OP currently has the emotional wherewithal to deal with her mom for any length of time. That may change in the future, but for the moment, limiting her interactions with her mom is a really good idea.

 

[Xantippe]

As a mom, I think to myself, “If I had an adult daughter that struggled for years with mental illness, would it be a good idea to pick-pick-pick-pick at her until I’m told to stop, and then pick-pick-pick-pick at her some more and just keep doing that? Would that be helpful?”

That’s a terrible idea.

 

[DarkLight]

I don’t like to post too much on any given thread; however, I am going to respectfully disagree with the idea that the OP has been mistreated by her mother based on what is presented here. What I have seen written is that the mother commented on black clothes. The OP told her that topic was off limits. Then an argument ensued. The idea that this is some sort of “abuse” or “gaslight” is just nonsense.

One way to handle this is for the OP to actually read one of the books recommended, from cover to cover, and then read another one – instead of scanning a synopsis on Amazon.

Sometimes in life, a difficult situation occurs where we can choose to blame, or to grow. Now there are some people that should absolutely be avoided because they are dangerous. And part of “growing” is learning to identify the signals those people send off.

However, sometimes you can’t avoid these types of people, and you need to learn the skills to neutralize the attack. So sometimes, God lets you be in a “training situation” where there is minimal risk, so you can develop skills to handle a situation down the road where there is real risk.

All of us deal with difficult people from time to time. However, once in a while we are faced with someone who really tries to go after you. This happened to me once in my 20’s and once in my 30’s .

In both situations, “coincidentally” the assailant suddenly developed a personal problem and I was the closest available person that could help him / her. In both cases, the attack was neutralized with a simple act of kindness. One case involved a supervisor while I was in training that just did not like me. Then her car broke down and I just happened to be the one coming out of the workplace. Helping her get her car started changed this lady from my worst nightmare, to my big sister over night.

So, in this situation, the OP can choose to look for validation of her idea that this is all about her mom’s issues, and play the victim card.

Or she can choose to learn something that might help her with her mom, and also give her the skills to handle a real malevolent person who may appear a few years down the road.

Good luck.

One thing you have to remember in a case like this, is that a person like my mother has almost certainly convinced themselves that they’re acting with kindness already. They’d say they’re just trying to help you out, and they don’t understand why you’re just so ungrateful. After all, they think, your life would be great if you’d just do everything their way - you’re just too stubborn or immature or whatever to see it. So people like that aren’t going to be won over by being nice, because they already think they’re doing what’s best. In fact they’re quite liable to take you being nice as their due, after all they’ve done for you (whether or not you wanted it done).

Read the character of Mrs. Fidget from The Four Loves. That’s a good bit of what I’m dealing with. C.S. Lewis is right that there is genuine love involved, it’s just gotten all mixed up with a human desire to be right and not change anything.

 

[Xantippe]

One thing you have to remember in a case like this, is that a person like my mother has almost certainly convinced themselves that they’re acting with kindness already. They’d say they’re just trying to help you out, and they don’t understand why you’re just so ungrateful. After all, they think, your life would be great if you’d just do everything their way - you’re just too stubborn or immature or whatever to see it. So people like that aren’t going to be won over by being nice, because they already think they’re doing what’s best. In fact they’re quite liable to take you being nice as their due, after all they’ve done for you (whether or not you wanted it done).

Read the character of Mrs. Fidget from The Four Loves. That’s a good bit of what I’m dealing with. C.S. Lewis is right that there is genuine love involved, it’s just gotten all mixed up with a human desire to be right and not change anything.

I was just reading a post and comments over at Captain Awkward’s place that you may find helpful:

captainawkward.com/2015/02/24/671-planning-a-family-and-already-anticipating-difficulties-with-grandma/

The issue at hand (intrusive future grandma) is very unlike your concerns, but you may recognize the personality type, which is one of Captain Awkward’s specialties.

Captain Awkward is my current go-to for the fine art of “no.” And her commenters are very good, too.

 

[DarkLight]

I was just reading a post and comments over at Captain Awkward’s place that you may find helpful:

captainawkward.com/2015/02/24/671-planning-a-family-and-already-anticipating-difficulties-with-grandma/

The issue at hand (intrusive future grandma) is very unlike your concerns, but you may recognize the personality type, which is one of Captain Awkward’s specialties.

Captain Awkward is my current go-to for the fine art of “no.” And her commenters are very good, too.

She won’t understand the general principles of what you’re doing and why and she won’t understand them or agree to them ahead of time. She won’t accept the logical case for why things have to be the way they are, especially if it means acknowledging past bad behavior on her part.

This. This is what I’m battling with - the fact is that in her mind she’s done nothing wrong, and I’m being impertinent by suggesting the need for different boundaries. Often the lines I draw don’t even seem to make sense, because of course she never does what I asked her to not do.

At least I managed to limit my next visit to 4 days including travel days. They were pushing for like 10. 4 is a lot closer to where I don’t go nuts.

 

[Xantippe]

This. This is what I’m battling with - the fact is that in her mind she’s done nothing wrong, and I’m being impertinent by suggesting the need for different boundaries. Often the lines I draw don’t even seem to make sense, because of course she never does what I asked her to not do.

At least I managed to limit my next visit to 4 days including travel days. They were pushing for like 10. 4 is a lot closer to where I don’t go nuts.

Very good!

10 days would be CRAZY, under the circumstances.

 

[DarkLight]

2 more days…thankfully my father’s picking me up by himself, so we won’t be starting the vacation being trapped in a car for several hours!

 

[Xantippe]

2 more days…thankfully my father’s picking me up by himself, so we won’t be starting the vacation being trapped in a car for several hours!

Good luck!

 

[dedo]

One thing you have to remember in a case like this, is that a person like my mother has almost certainly convinced themselves that they’re acting with kindness already. They’d say they’re just trying to help you out, and they don’t understand why you’re just so ungrateful. After all, they think, your life would be great if you’d just do everything their way - you’re just too stubborn or immature or whatever to see it. So people like that aren’t going to be won over by being nice, because they already think they’re doing what’s best. In fact they’re quite liable to take you being nice as their due, after all they’ve done for you (whether or not you wanted it done).

Read the character of Mrs. Fidget from The Four Loves. That’s a good bit of what I’m dealing with. C.S. Lewis is right that there is genuine love involved, it’s just gotten all mixed up with a human desire to be right and not change anything.

I was not suggesting that the answer to your issue with your mom is “acts of kindness”. What I was suggesting is “read something”.

If you ever take home any Lighthouse media CD’s from Mathew Kelly, you will understand why. Kelly is a Catholic speaker who makes his living as a consultant to Fortune 500 companies.

In his CD’s, he admonishes his audience to use the same techniques that the best companies use to be successful. According to Kelly, these companies engage in:

1. Continous learning.
2. They search for best practice.

Kelly says that books change lives. So from Kelly’s perspective, we should be each reading some self improvement book as long as we are alive.

So, I concur with your and Xantippe’s idea to create space with your mom as a first step. However, I disagree with you guys’ second step: that your mom will come to see the world the way you see it. Good luck with that.

A better second step is to read something so you will be better equipped to handle your mom, and be better prepared to handle whatever comes down the road in the future.

We are each sensitive to different issues. For some people it is parents. I personally become vigilant if someone has “victim issues” or sends “mixed messages / is evasive”.

That is because I once had to defend a frivolous lawsuit. Although we won, I don’t want to go down that road again. Also, last summer, someone in a sport created a situation that almost got me killed. The only indication that I had before the event was one “evasive answer” a few days before the incident.

So you in particular hit two of my “sensitive buttons” with this thread. However, because you articulately answered almost every poster from your own point of view, it is clear you are just a normal young adult who has an issue with her mom, and not someone who is looking to be a victim here on CAF.

So for me, because I have a particular interest in learning how to spot threats before they become assailants and to discern real threats from my own personal issues, I am reading “The Left Bang”, that is the best book I have picked up on this subject.

When I finish that one, I will read something else.

Good luck.

 

[DarkLight]

The unfortunate counterpart to evasive answers, is that some people will pretty much refuse to understand perfectly clear instructions because they don’t want to. At this point I’m quite sure my mother’s in that category. The fact that somehow I manage to be clear with every other individual I know makes me think that it’s a case of not wanting to understand, or in some cases not wanting to admit what she’s doing.

It rather reminds me of some of the cases I dealt with working with children. In one case, I instructed a boy in the cafeteria I was monitoring to stop fooling around and sit down. The child proceeded to sit down on the floor right where he was, and then protest that he had merely done what he was told. Needless to say his “obedience” impressed no one.

It’s somewhat amusing in children. It’s tiring and rather ridiculous in adults.

 

[UbiCaritas]

DarkLight, I hope your visit is going well. If you want, update us when you get back.

 

[DarkLight]

At least their new pastor is friendly with Catholics. That’s a big plus for that conversation, that I won’t have to deal with the “Catholics are the devil” stuff.

 

[Xantippe]

At least their new pastor is friendly with Catholics. That’s a big plus for that conversation, that I won’t have to deal with the “Catholics are the devil” stuff.

Wow, that is a wonderful stroke of good luck!

 

[DarkLight]

So…we had a bit of a conversation about negativity. I’m not really sure how things are going…I think we’re hitting the same thing. Mom’s basically saying, she’s working through things and it’s not reasonable to really ask her to not talk about things.

I’m not sure. It sounds reasonable, but…I also feel like in practice it’s hitting where I’m really not getting anywhere. I’m sort of feeling like we’re back to where if I say no I’m being inconsiderate.

 

[DarkLight]

On thinking about it…what’s frustrating me is the way it’s being set up, I feel like my mother is really presenting it as a conflict between her needs and my needs, and in a position where she’s the arbiter of what happens when they conflict, or at least what’s reasonable.

It’s so confusing so often. I end up feeling like I’m being selfish for saying I don’t want to go over the past, because she wants to know about it and figure things out, and I just…I don’t want to keep going over what I should have done. And she tells me she doesn’t mean to criticize and it’s on me that I feel like it is criticism.

I don’t know, everything’s clear until I talk to her and then everything I’ve decided just sounds wrong.

 

[jmcrae]

On thinking about it…what’s frustrating me is the way it’s being set up, I feel like my mother is really presenting it as a conflict between her needs and my needs, and in a position where she’s the arbiter of what happens when they conflict, or at least what’s reasonable.

It’s so confusing so often. I end up feeling like I’m being selfish for saying I don’t want to go over the past, because she wants to know about it and figure things out, and I just…I don’t want to keep going over what I should have done. And she tells me she doesn’t mean to criticize and it’s on me that I feel like it is criticism.

I don’t know, everything’s clear until I talk to her and then everything I’ve decided just sounds wrong.

I recently had an experience where I felt like I was being bullied into accepting a situation that I really couldn’t stand to be in. I’m an artist, and I work with a group of artists, and for whatever reason, the members of the group insist on attempting to work in spaces that have poor lighting, no accessible water, and a lot of loud noise.

I haven’t figured out the purpose of this exercise, and after quite some period of putting up with it, I’ve decided to do my work in my studio, and come to the meetings to have coffee with the other artists and talk about art, but I’m no longer going to attempt to make my artwork under these conditions - it’s simply a waste of time, in my case - in the time I’ve been doing this, I’ve produced nothing useful at these meetings.

When I point out to the other members of the group how unproductive this is, they regale me with stories of famous artists who produced fabulous work using their fingers and mud while being tortured to death, or something - I forget the details, because at this point what I’m thinking is, how wonderful for them, I need my studio, with my good lights, and my working sink with its endless supply of clean running water, and access to all of my supplies, my drawing table, and my easel.

How I’m handling it is I’m saying, “I realize I’m being incredibly selfish here [this relieves them of the need to point out that I am, from their point of view, being incredibly selfish] but I’m not going to be doing this any more. I find that I am far more productive at my studio because the lighting is good, and I have all my stuff there, and I have access to water. If anyone wants to come and work with me at my studio, they are more than welcome to come and join me there, but I’m not going to try to work like this any more.”

The response I got was to be told what great sacrifices the other artists in the group are making in order to work in these less than ideal conditions, and how I reacted was, “I sympathize with your difficulties - I really do, I totally get it - but I’m not understanding how my creating unnecessary difficulties for myself really helps you.”

I was met with startled silence, and so far (two weeks now), the arrangement seems to be working.

I’m just wondering if a similar approach might work for you,

First, make it about yourself; not about your mother, or any blame whatsoever.

Second, admit up front that you’re being whatever it is that she’s accusing you of being. Disarm her from the start by admitting that you are flawed in this way, and that’s just how it is - you don’t know how to change, and you’re not looking for advice at this time, because you have more important things to worry about.

 

[DarkLight]

And now we’ve started in on the “why don’t you respect your mother?”

I’m really not sure what to say to that. Dad’s acting like he didn’t teach me to respect her enough. My idea is that it seems like my existence is disrespectful.

 

[Xantippe]

And now we’ve started in on the “why don’t you respect your mother?”

I’m really not sure what to say to that. Dad’s acting like he didn’t teach me to respect her enough. My idea is that it seems like my existence is disrespectful.

So, how long is your next visit going to be?

 

[ThyKingdomCome]

And now we’ve started in on the “why don’t you respect your mother?”

I’m really not sure what to say to that.

“Mom, I love you and I respect you. I hope you respect me also. I am sorry that you and I don’t agree on what “respect” looks like. I guess we will have to agree to disagree about that and other things. Here’s the thing. I came to visit, hoping we would be able to have a nice time with each other, even though we have our differences. I was hoping you felt the same way. If you wanted me to visit just so we could argue, or so you could stage some sort of intervention, then I’m sorry to disappoint you but I’m not going to have more of these conversations. Nothing would make me happier than to have a pleasant visit where we talk about things that DON’T divide us. If that can’t happen, and if this is all you are willing to discuss, then it’s not worth visiting.” and leave the room. No more discussion. Give it a half hour minimum, and when ready return. Stay if there is silence or friendly conversation. At the first whiff of unfriendly conversation, make an attempt to change the topic, and if it doesn’t work, leave the room. Keep following this pattern.