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helblingI'm struggling through some stuff at the moment. It's odd, because the way I'd normally work through stuff like this is to talk about it, or write it out and post it, because it's always easier to dissect such things through print. But this is stuff I, for the most part, can't talk about, can't write down. So I'm a little stuck.
I have no idea what else to say there.
But I can tell it's screwing up other things in my head, because I find myself getting angry with my mother a lot. My mother and I don't have the world's best relationship, but the anger isn't exactly something that's explainable, because I haven't spoken to her in 2 weeks. No arguments, that's just how it is.
But the anger is there, and blah. Ok, that is something we can talk about. Part of the new job (which is going ok) is we got a personality assessment done, and mine came back saying that I treat everything as an intellectual exercise, right down to my interactions with people. I'm fairly good at faking being a well rounded person in public, to the point I start scoring on axises that don't show up in any other part of it, but the subconscious analysis shows that left to my own devices, I'm hyper focused on data, everything is taken in and analysed before I act. On anything. Apparently this level of hyperfocus is rare - only about 3% of participants show it, and a far smaller proportion of those have hyperfocus that's based on information in the same way mine is. Basically, I'm just as awkward and not-normal as I ever thought I was, I just now have numbers to back it up.
Other things it says? For best results, don't rush me, don't be excitable around me, give me space and don't force socialising on me, and in terms of what to expect, expect I will have a love of routine, quiet, and interrogating any information I get my hands on until it screams for mercy. Oh, and if you want to argue with me, bring evidence, because I don't make decisions fast, but I do make them after considering all angles, so if you want to change my mind, you need to change the logic chain that brought me to that conclusion, not the conclusion itself.
It's relatively accurate. It's also relatively unflattering, because it makes me sound a lot like an unfeeling robot. My sister had one done when she started at her place, which summarises down to she's the exact opposite of me; very social, charismatic, hates details, very much intuitive as opposed to task based. She showed it to my parents and they actually had a very positive reaction to it, and incorporated some of the 'recommendations' into how they interacted with her and it went well.
So, with some trepidation, I sent them mine - I had mixed feelings about this from the start, because I felt some of the recommendations gave me validation on some very old conflicts; the dislike of small talk, for instance, is noted, and the need for quiet to recover after social time. This was something I worked out about myself when I was about 12, but was something my parents refused to make allowances for, stating that if I didn't have friends, or didn't like socialising, or couldn't chat to their friends when they held dinner parties, then there was something wrong with me; that it was my fault, I was lazy or not trying hard enough. I felt a lot of this was like someone reaching back in time and patting my younger self on the shoulder and telling her it wasn't her fault, really, it was just how I was wired and there was nothing wrong with me.
Old hurts, that were probably not best opened up. But I was willing to risk it if it meant maybe, just maybe, they'd understand how I operated in greater detail, or if not understand, they'd at least accept it, use it, and maybe I wouldn't come away from family gatherings feeling so wrung out that migraines were a worry.
My mother's response, however, was, literally verbatim 'Gosh, that's very complimentary! It doesn't sound like you at all though!'
...
And I'm just tired. I'm tired because every so often she'll whine about how we aren't closer, or she's worried I hate her, or she'll whine at my siblings and they'll pick up the banner.
And no, we aren't close, and the reason for that is her. Because her line has always, always been that if any of her children adopt a lifestyle that is anything other than heteronormative, she doesn't want to know. Which I've respected, but means I can't be honest about things that are going on in my life. I can't tell her the things that are important to me, or causing me hurt. I can't tell her about people in my life that are important, or half the time, that I even have a crush on, because she not only doesn't know about the poly thing, she doesn't know about the bi thing.
And this adds insult to injury, because my sister will do things like fuck famous rugby players (names not to be mentioned) in the stairwells of hotels, can hook up with a guy who's still married, can party, drink, do drugs, get up to her eyes in debt to fucking stupid boyfriends, and tells her all of it, which she accepts, and will talk about. But because I sometimes romantically like people with the same gender as me, and can sustain more than one loving and stable relationship at a time, I'm the one hiding fundamental parts of myself when I go home, and getting 'but why aren't we closer?' subtext from every conversation. It's like she doesn't see me, she sees the person she'd really like me to be - she started encouraging me to make friends at new work, and there was just a moment of silence on the phone and then I ended the call, because I'm nearly 30 years old and she still hasn't twigged I don't befriend people I work with? Really?! (Cat, you don't count, we were friends first) - and I'm fed up with the disappointment I have to bear whenever I shatter her illusions yet again with what I'm like in reality. Disappointing your parent once is hard, knowing that you're going to do it over and over again in every interaction you have with them because they cannot fucking remember what you're actually like is, I'm finding, a short cut to wondering if seeing family members is really worth it.
And you can tell I'm tired and wrung out, because it's been this way for years, and I've always lived with it until now. As it is, I'm actually getting visibly upset about it about every 48 hours.
I don't know what to do about it. I don't want to talk about it on the phone, because then I cry, and crying and logic, or sustaining the ability to talk, don't go hand in hand for me. I'm considering emailing my Dad and just having it out and seeing what he'd think, because he'll be able to give me either a reasonably accurate read on her predicted reaction, or be in my corner in the event he's wrong. But I'm hesitant about that - Dad's memory is starting to get bust, which I shamefully make use of in in-person conversations, because if telling him something goes badly, I've learned if I change the subject drastically enough, he'll forget what I've just told him, so he's like a white board in that sense; write something on him, and if you don't like it, just wipe it off again before it gets permanent. But this would have to be written, and being written means that he will definitely remember it. And worse, could theoretically show it to someone else. So if he reacts badly, fire in the hole, but you've got your leg stuck in a bear trap; there is no getting away.
That also doesn't even touch what reactions my siblings would have, because the first thing Mum would do is tell them (or my sister, who would then blab to my brother, and the little one would eavesdrop on everything, because she's finally gotten savvy enough to learn information is survival in that house). And her sister, which means it makes it to my uncle, makes it to my cousins. So this really is an all or nothing deal.
I don't know. Something to consider when everything else calms down, I suspect. But that would be something I'd consider to be an ongoing minor issue with what's going on at the moment.
*sigh*
I have no idea what else to say there.
But I can tell it's screwing up other things in my head, because I find myself getting angry with my mother a lot. My mother and I don't have the world's best relationship, but the anger isn't exactly something that's explainable, because I haven't spoken to her in 2 weeks. No arguments, that's just how it is.
But the anger is there, and blah. Ok, that is something we can talk about. Part of the new job (which is going ok) is we got a personality assessment done, and mine came back saying that I treat everything as an intellectual exercise, right down to my interactions with people. I'm fairly good at faking being a well rounded person in public, to the point I start scoring on axises that don't show up in any other part of it, but the subconscious analysis shows that left to my own devices, I'm hyper focused on data, everything is taken in and analysed before I act. On anything. Apparently this level of hyperfocus is rare - only about 3% of participants show it, and a far smaller proportion of those have hyperfocus that's based on information in the same way mine is. Basically, I'm just as awkward and not-normal as I ever thought I was, I just now have numbers to back it up.
Other things it says? For best results, don't rush me, don't be excitable around me, give me space and don't force socialising on me, and in terms of what to expect, expect I will have a love of routine, quiet, and interrogating any information I get my hands on until it screams for mercy. Oh, and if you want to argue with me, bring evidence, because I don't make decisions fast, but I do make them after considering all angles, so if you want to change my mind, you need to change the logic chain that brought me to that conclusion, not the conclusion itself.
It's relatively accurate. It's also relatively unflattering, because it makes me sound a lot like an unfeeling robot. My sister had one done when she started at her place, which summarises down to she's the exact opposite of me; very social, charismatic, hates details, very much intuitive as opposed to task based. She showed it to my parents and they actually had a very positive reaction to it, and incorporated some of the 'recommendations' into how they interacted with her and it went well.
So, with some trepidation, I sent them mine - I had mixed feelings about this from the start, because I felt some of the recommendations gave me validation on some very old conflicts; the dislike of small talk, for instance, is noted, and the need for quiet to recover after social time. This was something I worked out about myself when I was about 12, but was something my parents refused to make allowances for, stating that if I didn't have friends, or didn't like socialising, or couldn't chat to their friends when they held dinner parties, then there was something wrong with me; that it was my fault, I was lazy or not trying hard enough. I felt a lot of this was like someone reaching back in time and patting my younger self on the shoulder and telling her it wasn't her fault, really, it was just how I was wired and there was nothing wrong with me.
Old hurts, that were probably not best opened up. But I was willing to risk it if it meant maybe, just maybe, they'd understand how I operated in greater detail, or if not understand, they'd at least accept it, use it, and maybe I wouldn't come away from family gatherings feeling so wrung out that migraines were a worry.
My mother's response, however, was, literally verbatim 'Gosh, that's very complimentary! It doesn't sound like you at all though!'
...
And I'm just tired. I'm tired because every so often she'll whine about how we aren't closer, or she's worried I hate her, or she'll whine at my siblings and they'll pick up the banner.
And no, we aren't close, and the reason for that is her. Because her line has always, always been that if any of her children adopt a lifestyle that is anything other than heteronormative, she doesn't want to know. Which I've respected, but means I can't be honest about things that are going on in my life. I can't tell her the things that are important to me, or causing me hurt. I can't tell her about people in my life that are important, or half the time, that I even have a crush on, because she not only doesn't know about the poly thing, she doesn't know about the bi thing.
And this adds insult to injury, because my sister will do things like fuck famous rugby players (names not to be mentioned) in the stairwells of hotels, can hook up with a guy who's still married, can party, drink, do drugs, get up to her eyes in debt to fucking stupid boyfriends, and tells her all of it, which she accepts, and will talk about. But because I sometimes romantically like people with the same gender as me, and can sustain more than one loving and stable relationship at a time, I'm the one hiding fundamental parts of myself when I go home, and getting 'but why aren't we closer?' subtext from every conversation. It's like she doesn't see me, she sees the person she'd really like me to be - she started encouraging me to make friends at new work, and there was just a moment of silence on the phone and then I ended the call, because I'm nearly 30 years old and she still hasn't twigged I don't befriend people I work with? Really?! (Cat, you don't count, we were friends first) - and I'm fed up with the disappointment I have to bear whenever I shatter her illusions yet again with what I'm like in reality. Disappointing your parent once is hard, knowing that you're going to do it over and over again in every interaction you have with them because they cannot fucking remember what you're actually like is, I'm finding, a short cut to wondering if seeing family members is really worth it.
And you can tell I'm tired and wrung out, because it's been this way for years, and I've always lived with it until now. As it is, I'm actually getting visibly upset about it about every 48 hours.
I don't know what to do about it. I don't want to talk about it on the phone, because then I cry, and crying and logic, or sustaining the ability to talk, don't go hand in hand for me. I'm considering emailing my Dad and just having it out and seeing what he'd think, because he'll be able to give me either a reasonably accurate read on her predicted reaction, or be in my corner in the event he's wrong. But I'm hesitant about that - Dad's memory is starting to get bust, which I shamefully make use of in in-person conversations, because if telling him something goes badly, I've learned if I change the subject drastically enough, he'll forget what I've just told him, so he's like a white board in that sense; write something on him, and if you don't like it, just wipe it off again before it gets permanent. But this would have to be written, and being written means that he will definitely remember it. And worse, could theoretically show it to someone else. So if he reacts badly, fire in the hole, but you've got your leg stuck in a bear trap; there is no getting away.
That also doesn't even touch what reactions my siblings would have, because the first thing Mum would do is tell them (or my sister, who would then blab to my brother, and the little one would eavesdrop on everything, because she's finally gotten savvy enough to learn information is survival in that house). And her sister, which means it makes it to my uncle, makes it to my cousins. So this really is an all or nothing deal.
I don't know. Something to consider when everything else calms down, I suspect. But that would be something I'd consider to be an ongoing minor issue with what's going on at the moment.
*sigh*
