When would you step in with someone else's family?

[Roseeurekacross]

hey xantippe! you are back

dark light how is your relationship with them now.

 

[DarkLight]

Have you talk to them about it since you’ve gotten older? Or have they started to treat you like an independent adult yet?

If anything it’s gotten worse. Near as I can tell, “independent adult” seems to mean that I’m supposed to take on all the responsibilities of an adult, plus a good deal more that sure isn’t my responsibility, but still expected to be entirely obedient as though I was a child. Getting anywhere near the subject of anything my mother might have possibly not done right, either when I was a child or with how she interacts with me as an adult, results in a giant meltdown about how I’m a selfish, nasty, hateful child who seems to enjoy making up lies to hurt her.

I’ve also witnessed her treating my father in the very same way she treated me as a child - obviously not actually attempting a literal punishment, but the same sort of emotional tricks and out of control temper, combined with making any attempt to push back on her behavior out to be a manipulation tactic to control her. I’ve noticed she seems unable to make and maintain adult friendships; generally after a little bit of time she comes back complaining that someone was being horrible to her for no reason. Much of our current conflict was with me living closer she seems to want me to be simultaneously a friend that she can rely on to spend time with and talk about her problems, and a child who’s supposed to not talk back or contradict her mother.

Honestly the fact that the behavior continued as an adult made it clearer to me than anything. When I went back and stayed with them, I saw things differently - I saw a woman who seemed to be terrified of any imperfection in herself and convinced the world was out to get her, and desperately trying to protect herself by lashing out at everyone and everything that didn’t reflect her back that way.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

I’m getting a better idea of some of your mother’s personality traits. She sounds very sensitive, and puts up major defenses in order to deal with her sensitivity.

The “everyone is against me” trait is another one that I myself wasn’t familiar with until recently. IMO, there is a general lack of trust that goes along with that one, and a tendency to see everything in a negative light.

I’m sorry your mother is like that. A solution that has worked for my family is to keep our distance from people like that, and have firm boundaries with them when we have to see them.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

A lot of moms will basically yell and then claim that they never yell or that yelling didn’t happen.

A lot of parents have very convenient memories about past conflicts and when you try to talk to them or confront them, will say it didn’t happen, or have a completely different story about it.

I’m not sure what you hope to gain by trying to discuss past behavior with your mom, but it’s pretty clear she’s never going to admit to what you want her to, or discuss it with you the way you want her to. I would let it go, honestly. I know that sounds harsh, but if you keep trying to get her to admit this or that or respond the way you want her to, you will just end up constantly disappointed.

 

[DarkLight]

I’ve pretty much given up on discussing it with her. Most of that reaction I posted was to more current issues, or at least stuff that affects our relationship now. She has a tendency to combine fond reminiscence about my childhood with unfavorable complaints about my behavior now. I try to at least give her a chance every now and then to see if there’s a shot at a civil relationship.

I think a lot of my childhood is sort of a straw that broke the camel’s back deal - any one thing could have been normal, but all of them at once was just too much. The overall impression was that the central point was trying to be good enough to not make mom mad, but also kind of knowing that mom was going to be mad no matter what because you were never good enough. Along with some weirdness that almost certainly would have brought CPS in if I’d told someone, but I was too embarrassed and didn’t think anyone would believe me.

That is I think where I could have benefited most from other adults - the feedback I got pretty much universally reinforced the idea that if there were problems at home, it’s because I was causing problems. Thinking something was wrong at home meant, no question, that I was clearly still to immature to appreciate what was good for me, and I would only be mature and ready to be on my own when I accepted that my parents knew best. I really think that both made things a lot harder as a kid and contributed to me being entangled as long as I was as an adult, and contributed to me not saying anything about the worse parts (because if I must have somehow deserved the other bits, what must be wrong with me to deserve the worse?).

 

[Xantippe]

Did the people who were giving that response to you actually know your parents all that well?

 

[DarkLight]

As well as anyone did, I would think. I don’t think we really had family friends that I remember, just people we spent time with in church stuff or homeschool groups. I don’t remember mom ever really spending time on anything other than taking me to things.

 

[Xantippe]

In that case, I wouldn’t expect them to have a whole lot of insight into your family.

(Which can’t be that unusual–my parents only have a total of maybe one friend between the two of them who knows that much about them.)

 

[TheLittleLady]

didn’t think anyone would believe me

That is so sad, it breaks my heart.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

I mean, there’s a lot of stuff between “physical and sexual abuse” and “normal stressors”. In my case, I would say it was a case of extremely severe emotional stressors, beyond what even would be expected of an adult to bear.

I know exactly what you’re driving at.
Damage can be done, although no law was broken and no hand was raised and no body part was touched inappropriately.

I’ve pondered this, too. I think the answer just comes down to where our society places it’s boundaries in regards to stepping in and intervening. At what point is all privacy lost, and it’s really hard to prove mistreatment when there are no physical bruises to show.

ray:t2:ray:t2:ray:t2:

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

Upon further reflection, I think you hit on something when you said your folks don’t have any close friends of their own.

Socially isolated families can become pretty strange because there’s no outsiders around to apply social pressure to look right or act right.

 

[Xantippe]

Socially isolated families can become pretty strange because there’s no outsiders around to apply social pressure to look right or act right.

And acquaintances may not realize how odd they are.

 

[Xantippe]

Another thing I’d add is that when you’re a kid and even a young adult–you don’t really know what is and isn’t normal, because you haven’t necessarily had a lot of exposure to how other families live day-to-day.

 

[DarkLight]

As an adult I really suspect there’s something off about my mother. I’ve noticed that trend in general; she seems to have little to no consciousness of how her behavior comes across to other people, while having a persistent tendency to believe that anything that does not go her way is a deliberate action on the part of someone else. The end result is that either you do everything perfectly the way she expects, or else you are deliberately choosing to act with the intent to hurt her.

If you’re talking to her without knowing what’s going on, the stories are plausible. So for example, she might say “My daughter was refusing to follow instructions and lying to me, so I spanked her.” Whereas I might tell the same story as I didn’t understand what she wanted, got called a liar when I asked for clarification, and then got spanked when I couldn’t figure it out.

Another thing I’d add is that when you’re a kid and even a young adult–you don’t really know what is and isn’t normal, because you haven’t necessarily had a lot of exposure to how other families live day-to-day.

I think that’s definitely an issue. And to add on to that, there are many things where frequency and context really matter, and something that maybe happens on occasion even in good families becomes a major deal if it happens all the time. That’s going to confuse the issue because if you only have one or two incidents that you know about, it could just be a family that messed up once - but the child is likely to internalize the idea that this is normal.