I know! I know! Why be so public about matters considered private by many. Well, it’s the keeping it inside, pretending we all live prefect lives that’s stopping our hearts. Upfront, this post isn’t meant to defame. I’ve made my peace with how things are, which has given me the power I always had (but distracted myself from assuming) to control my own story.
What follows, I say, so, if your experience is similar, maybe you don’t feel as alone in the world.
Relationship with Parents
Understand that they’re not exclusively what I write about here. They’re also oftentimes the opposite. It’s been a process of coming to terms with my parents’ impact on determining who I am as a whole, but mostly the faulty parts, like my anxieties and the unhealthy ways I learned to cope with them. The formative years were so all encompassing that I still only get glimpses of who I might be free of the time I automatically spend ruminating about all I consider to have been wrong about our relationship.
While living with them, I’ve become able to understand that they are also only human beings whose personalities result from their particular histories, including how they learnt to cope with their own past traumas. However, knowing this doesn’t nullify the challenge to free myself from their well-established psychological influence, particularly that of my mother. The cliché doesn’t trump (sorry for cursing) the reality.
Emotionally Absent Father
My father’s relationship with his father was lacking (if at all existent) but, just like every horribly abused child doesn’t grow up to be a serial killer, decisions were made by a particular brain that led to how things are now. He has been emotionally absent since shortly before I graduated primary school at eleven.
I have faded memories of us fishing and kite flying together. As his career developed, he became increasingly detached from his children and is today a person who is incapable of having a conversation with us. My father must speak to us through our mother. It is not out of anger. I suspect it is out of convenience (it simply became easier), but it could be out of a modicum of shame for wilfully persisting in his absence.
He’s from a generation of now grey-haired people who laugh about the abuse they received as children while endorsing corporal punishment, but it is clear to me the damage it has done them, manifested particularly through their general inability to express emotions, other than anger, using words. After past attempts to build a relationship failed because my father seems unwilling to make the effort, it was easier to accept his lack of interest. For him to make the effort now would be awkward and uncomfortable for us all.
Controlling Mother
My mother, on the other hand, is extremely prone to negative bias and controlling, which may have been exacerbated by being a single parent (my father didn’t coparent) with an autistic child.
I’ve been resentful for allowing myself to be subject to this for as long as I have, even although blind to the dynamic until this year. Then there was shame and, initially, guilt because my struggle for independence was a rejection of her on a fundamental level that seemed hurtful to her.
Her response to my attempts to protect myself psychologically by withdrawing has usually been met with anger, however. Her style of parenting (perhaps learnt from her parents) was to rule through emotional coercion and fear, and, as an adult, I still have to talk myself out of cowering when faced with her explosive reactions. Although she wasn’t physically abusive (outside of what is considered normal in Barbados, as Biblical, “spare the rod and spoil the child”), I suffer some post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms as a result, especially the physical response associated with ‘fight or flight’, a reflex to avoid her and fear when she enters the room, especially after we’ve had a disagreement and her expression and manner indicates she’s upset. She can be very passive-aggressive.
It’s not me, it’s you
However, after reading this article which described my mother as I see her (she does not see herself this way), I felt empowered to stand up for myself. I’d always used avoidance with her – I even left the country and, in retrospect, see that our relationship was best with oceans between us. Otherwise, our association is exhausting, primarily because she seems to feel entitled to her access to me and I’d feel the need to justify my actions, to explain myself, which inevitably escalated arguments – a rule through fear demands acquiescence. Deciding that I’m determined to be who I am and seeing that our history has proven she is determined to be who she is, I was able to accept this reality instead of hoping I could somehow make a rational argument that would prompt her to change.
Examples
These are some examples of my interactions with my parents for which words like ‘gaslighting’ and ‘narcissism’ weren’t a part of my vocabulary until recently:
Saying she must be the worst mother when I would first address how I felt. She wasn’t extinguishing cigarettes on my skin or burning me with a hot iron, she would say.
When asked for help with something, it would immediately take priority over whatever I’d be doing. Saying I’d attend to it after I’m finished, in a huff she’d do it herself. This response had trained me to run do what I’d been asked.
As the older son, I think she’d learnt from her parents that I should be at her beck and call. My brother no longer resides with her and was clear early on that he doesn’t have the stomach for changing my autistic sister’s diapers.
I took my father’s place regarding my autistic sister’s care – I would feed, bathe and dress her. So, I became the one to turn to if my mother was unable to because she had a doctor’s appointment, for example, outside of the working hours of a caretaker who has since retired. I got in the habit of canceling my activities to accommodate this because I felt it was too much for my mother to manage on her own. (This was never asked of me). My father behaves as if he thinks the responsibility is solely my mother’s and she stopped insisting he play his role which has long been reduced to someone who drinks rum with other social alcoholics twice a week, and reclines all day listening to a call-in program. He’s the type of man who sees fatherhood solely as being financially supportive. He does not cancel his events to babysit my sister. He lies to avoid attending to my sister’s needs, saying he didn’t know she was awake or that she just got up. (I’ve, within the last two years, stopped being my sister’s father, suggesting they hire a new helper).
Once, as a child, I was made to join the library, then told to go on my own to withdraw books. Insecure, I didn’t, but afraid to tell my mother, I got caught in a lie and she beat me until my father asked if she was planning to kill me. She has no recollection of this or of any other incidents I found traumatic now that she’s preparing to die and go to Heaven. I forgot my lines on stage in a Harvest play and, humiliated, looking for comfort, she said she pretended not to know me when the woman next to her commented, “And when them outside, you can’t hear your ears for them.” My mother will say she was only joking after making comments I find hurtful.
I’ve stopped sharing about what I consider my successes. She will often not respond when I do or change the subject.
When I was young, I ran away from home and slept on the beach for two nights. I needed to get away from her constant rage: “You can’t say nothing to you because you think you’s a man!” she would say and I’d feel judged, not for being myself, but for being who her parents, and many from their generation, might interpret self-defence – the defence of one’s right to be oneself – to be rude. How do you get angry at someone when they tell you something you’ve done injures them? Where is the compassion?
How I’ve become less Reactive and more Responsive
I’ve become better at preparing myself for our interactions by being present, that is, focusing my attention on what is presently occurring, and reminding myself that my father just needs a “good morning” and my mother will probably criticise me. I don’t even need to comment, but answering a question, my responses are short and I quickly escape because I won’t stoke the fire or subject myself to unconstructive criticism. It also helps to generally limit the time I spend with them which requires saying no to “Can you do me a favour…” and I even use WhatsApp to communicate more.
These changes gained traction after I started to separate how I am from how I see myself through the way my mother treats me – her tendency to rely heavily on me (although she has a husband and another son) while simultaneously being highly critical. I set the above boundaries and ignore her generalisations and tone which accuse me of being unwilling to help when my unwillingness is to be mistreated. I reframe the story so it is based on fact, not her feelings. I stopped needing to convince her of anything and made myself priority – not an easy thing to do as it’s a fight against a lifetime of well-ingrained programming.
Self-worth
This video was a turning point:
While having a gratitude list reminds me of what I consider to be my successes, it’s important to understand that we all have unconditional self-worth. We don’t need to earn it.
We live in challenging times, with the economic impact of COVID-related lockdowns and job loss, I’m taking advantage of the privileges afforded me to survive, and have calculated the cost, choosing freedom of time afforded me by living a simpler non-wage slave life and of becoming more me in the face of challenges accompanying my personal experience.
The above video mentions the following ways of cultivating unconditional self-worth:
Forgive yourself – acknowledge and accept past mistakes (stop wishing the past was different).
Practice self-acceptance – you are enough as you are.
Be there for yourself.
Connect to supportive people.
Having a highly critical parent can undermine your sense of self-worth, but it can also motivate you to re-frame the story child-you learnt to tell yourself by examining the truth with adult eyes and developing a strong conviction about who you really are. For example, I have many friends who don’t think I’m too soft. They appreciate that I’m empathetic and compassionate while my mother has been telling me I am “too soft” for years, and it was wounding in so far as it was her way of saying I’m weak and not what I should be in keeping with how she came to think because of a stern father whose actions she often references in admiration.
I subsequently started to do guided meditations on the theme of self-worth and there was one in particular that was amazing, walking you through triggering situations you may have experienced, and having you revaluate your response.
What excites me is understanding that, while my parents may not have had the tools to break these generational curses, their sacrifices have allowed me a greater possibility of doing so. Now, I’ll overhear my father on the phone complaining about some unreliable person he doesn’t know how to say no to, while my autistic sister, in one of her moods, cries mournfully for a reason no one can identify and my mother bursts into a drony Anglican hymn, and I’ll think, Not my circus….
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