October 9, 1988

I was going through one of my closets recently, and I found this letter I sent to my mother twenty-three years ago:

<Street I used to live on>
<City I used to live in>, <State I used to live in>
October 9, 1988

Dear Mom;

When I was eleven years old, I took a copy of Haim Ginott's Between Parent and Teenager and Between Parent and Child, and I underlined and annotated the parts that I wanted you and Dad to read, and I gave them to you. I was frustrated and saddened, but not surprised that neither of you so much as mentioned a word to me about either of them. All my life all I have wanted is some connection with you, for you to see and hear who I really am, for you to love me and trust in me even when I was scared and angry. And all my life, you've either ignored or rejected me when I needed you most. I don't even know why I continue to try. I am enclosing a book called Perfect Women: Hidden Fears of Inadequacy and the Drive to Perform. As when I was eleven, I have underlined parts that I particularly want you to read. I am afraid that you are likely to take this as being an attack. It is not. As in the past, it is a desperate attempt to connect with you. And it's the last attempt. I'm not eleven any more, I'm thirty-one. If you can't put my needs first for once, if you can't see me for who I am, if you can't be an adult, I'll give up. I'll learn to be an orphan.

When I was ten, and broke down in <my pediatrician’s> office, and told him that I was miserable, that I couldn't talk to my parents, and that I needed to see a psychiatrist, <my pediatrician>  called you in, and I told you the same thing. And nothing ever happened.  You and Dad didn't so much as mention that to me ever again.  How much louder was I supposed to ask for what I needed?  You abandoned me as thoroughly as though you had left me by the side of the road.  What I learned from that and from the way that you had been treating me, was that in no way shape or form did my needs count at all, that if I was the slightest bit difficult, you'd ignore me so thoroughly it felt like I ceased to exist.  You have said that you didn't mean to hurt me, and on a certain level, I believe that you believe that that's true.  But what also comes through the few times that we have talked about this, is that you also think that that is the only important piece in this puzzle, and it's not.  You are behaving like a little kid who thinks that if she keeps her eyes closed, no one will see that she's naked.  The fact that you "didn't mean to" is almost irrelevant because you did do an enormous amount of damage to me.  Even the other day, when you said that you didn't regret any of the other stuff, but that you did regret talking to me too much about Dad, that wasn't about me.  It's still all about you, about your need not to feel guilty.

What I have come to realize is that it wasn't me.  It wasn't that I was somehow so unlovable, so difficult, or so unworthy that you found me so despicable or so easily ignored.  It's always been your problem, not mine.  God knows I thought I must have been doing something wrong for you to give me so little of what I needed.  I feel like I have been watching an endless parade of the Emperor's New Clothes, and that everyone has been calling me crazy when I said that they were all naked.  You and Dad don't have a friendship, not even now.  You've got an armed truce.  And that is not mv fault.  It was and is extremely inappropriate to expect me to fill that gap.  It is also extremely inappropriate to manipulate me into to doing something for you, so that you won't have to deal with Dad, or have to face your fears of inadequacy.  (Like getting me to go to Dad to get an extra copy of the <class description> flyer.  Like trying to manipulate me into picking you up at 3:30 in the morning after the <volunteer activity>, so that you don't have to confront Dad about the money for a second limousine, etc, etc.)  Taking care of you is not supposed to be my job in life.

I am also enclosing the completed <book-length typing for her volunteer group>.  I wish I could say that I was sorry about lying to you about it not being finished, but I'm not. I really tried to finish it, but every time I tried, I just sat at the computer and cried. I felt like once again here I am taking care of you and your volunteer work at my own expense. When I was growing up, you cared far more about your volunteer work than you did about me. You give a lot of lip service to "oh, that's not true", but look at what you did and didn't do, not the story or the guilt feelings you have about this. And consider this quote from Gaudv Night:

"But suppose one doesn't quite know which one wants to put first. Suppose," said Harriet, falling back on words which were not her own, "suppose one is cursed with both a heart and a brain?"

"You can usually tell," said Miss de Vine, "by seeing what kind of mistakes you make. I'm quite sure that one never makes fundamental mistakes about the thing one really wants to do. Fundamental mistakes arise out of lack of genuine interest. In my opinion, that is."...

"I made a very big mistake once," said Harriet, "as I expect you know. I don't think that arose out of lack of interest. It seemed at the time the most important thing in the world."

"And yet you made the mistake. Were you really giving your mind to it, do you think? Your mind? Were you really being as cautious and exacting about it as you would be about writing a passage of fine prose?”

 "That's rather a difficult sort of comparison. One can't, surely, deal with emotional excitements in that detached spirit."

"Isn't the writing of good prose an emotional excitement?"

"Yes, of course it is. At least, when you get the thing dead right and know it's dead right, there's no excitement like it. It's marvelous. It makes you feel like God on the Seventh Day - for a bit, anyhow."

"Well, that's what I mean. You expend the trouble and you don't make any mistake- and then you experience the ecstasy. But if there's any subject in which you're content to be second-rate, then it really isn't your subject."

You're dead right," said Harriet, after a pause. "If one is genuinely interested one know how to be patient, and let time pass, as Queen Elizabeth said. Perhaps that's the meaning of the phrase about genius being eternal patience, which I always thought rather absurd. If you truly want a thing, you don't snatch; if you snatch you don't really want it. Do you suppose that, if you find yourself taking pains about a thing, it's proof of its importance to you?"

"I think it is, to a large extent. But the big proof is that the thing comes right, without those fundamental errors. One always makes surface errors, of course. But a fundamental error is a sure sign of not caring.”

Whatever noises you make about "of course I cared", or whatever story you tell about what happened, it still doesn't change the fact of your actions.  Your volunteer work came well before me the whole time that I was growing up.  You spent far more time on it than you did on me.  After the <pediatrician> incident, I had to work for five and a half years, and finally threaten to commit suicide in order to get you to pay attention. I had to cater to your needs, ignoring my own, hell, I had to lend you money just to get any positive attention from you.  If one of your volunteers had the slightest of hissy fits, you were there right away soothing his or her feathers.  Look where you spent your time and your attention, your real attention.  It certainly wasn't on me.  I was the subject in which you were willing to be second-rate.

What you also never seem to have understood, is that I don't have a problem now about the fact that you and Dad neglected me.  I have a real problem with the fact that it can never be discussed, that because of your guilt about it, you continue to lie about it.  I don't want you to feel guilty about it, I want you to acknowledge what you did and the devastating desperation that your actions caused me.  I am not interested in your guilty feelings about your mistakes, hell, I'm not interested in your feelings about it any more at all.  It's okay that you made mistakes.  It is OKAY.  I love you anyway.  In fact I would love you no matter what you did.  This is not about love, it is about truth.  The fact that you weren't there for me has nothing to do with the fact that you do love me.  I know that. But I need truth and I need to be heard and seen for who I really am.  And I cannot lie and say that you came through for me when you so palpably did not.  Whenever we have tried to talk about this, I have felt like you do when trying to talk to Dad about anything.  You have your agenda, and your feelings, and that is the only thing that gets heard.  I am not interested in your guilt, I am not interested in your anxiety.  It is not my job in life to make you feel better at my own expense.  When you say that you didn't mean to do any harm, you aren't looking to help me.  That has nothing to do with mv needs;  it's all about you, not me.  Once again, you are bringing your uncomfortable feelings to me and asking me to make it all better.  And you aren't willing to even acknowledge mine.  Look at what you have decided to feel sorry about.  You have decided that it was wrong to talk to me about Dad, but that the rest of the things you did don't matter.  This has nothing to do with me, with what I needed and still need.  This is all about you, about your needs.

A good, although minor, example of this is the fact that I now have a subscription to <organization my mom supported>  instead of <something I actually liked>. Mom, you don't seem to listen to anything I say. That was a test to see if you could ever hear what I was saying, even in relatively unimportant areas. I wrote down what I was going to say to you before I called you. What I said was: "Want me to make your day? I'm going to give you a present for my birthday. I'm going to let you get me a subscription to the <organization my mom supported>. I would rather have tickets to <something I actually liked>, but I know that you don't want to give me those, so I'll take the tickets to the <organization my mom supported> instead." You didn't even hear what I said. You went off delighted, making all these plans for the <organization my mom supported> tickets. It had nothing to do with what I really asked for. Anyone who really cared about me and who'd heard what I'd said, would have said: "Oh, would you really rather have <something I actually liked> tickets? Let me get you <something I actually liked> tickets instead." Giving me <organization my mom supported> tickets really had very little to do with me. You were the one who got the present, not me. I LOATHE <GENERAL CATEGORY OF THE ORGANIZATION MY MOM SUPPORTED>!!!!!!!

I am on the verge of giving up on you. I don't want to, but I am not going to suffer any more, because you can't grow up. If you can’t come through this time, then you have one daughter, not two.

Love,
Cassandra

What happened next:

Unbeknownst to me, my mother was seeing a therapist at the time.  As it turned out, a very good therapist, one who had been a founding member of a very well-respected family therapy institute associated with a major university nearby.  She gave the letter to her therapist to read.  He asked her to ask me if I'd be willing to come in and have a joint session with him and her.  I agreed. 

I'd love to say that the outcome of this session was that my mother listened to what I had to say, acknowledged responsibility for her actions, and that our relationship was forever changed.

Yeah, right. 

And I am Marie of Romania. 

There were two interesting and unexpected things which did come out of it:

First was one of the things which Dr. X said to my mother during the session, which has stuck with me all these years. He said to her something along the lines of , "NM, you've said that you felt like you'd gotten squished into a box by your parents, and that you were very, very angry at Cassandra because she refused to be squished into a box."

hmmnn...

Second, Dr. X suggested that, if it was okay with both of us, that it would be helpful if I could see him for some individual sessions.  We both agreed to this, and I started seeing him once a week for the next couple of months. 

It didn't strike me until many years later that this was kind of an unusual move. Why not just refer me to another therapist?  His wife was also a very good therapist, also a founding member of the family institute.   He certainly knew other competent family therapists associated with the institute. 

In hindsight, I suspect that he did this in order to be able to say this one sentence to me without violating any ethical boundaries.  A couple of sessions in, after I had been describing what went on be between my mother and me, and how it adversely affected me, he said:  "Has it occured to you that the behavior [of your mother's] you're describing could be construed as emotional child abuse?"

Why the title of this blog is "When the Ring Swings Forward..."

First off, while I am a big reader of fiction, I'm not a huge fan of "The Lord of the Rings" novels. 

My mother read us "The Hobbit" over the course of many dinners.  It was one of her favorites.  I preferred "The Curious Lobster" (also a dinner-time read). (One of the gifts from my mother I do truly value is her sharing her love of reading with me.)

Tried to read them again in my teens, at the behest of my first serious boyfriend.  While the phrase "What's it got in its pocketsessssss?" became quite memorable ;>, nothing else stuck. 

Tried to read them again before the first movie came out.  Still too many names too hard to pronounce and too much alike.

So, it was with a certain...lack of enthusiasm that I went along with my hard-core Tolkien fan friends to see The Fellowship of the Ring. 

And while it was a pretty movie, that lack of enthusiasm continued until 1:34:26 in to the movie, at which point I sat bolt upright, and said, "Oh my god, that's my mother!"

What everyone else sees when they look at my NM

What I get when I try to enforce a reasonable boundary

What I found interesting when I went back to the movie to pick up the stills for this post, was that it wasn't actually when the ring was swinging forward that Bilbo went bananas.  It was when Frodo became uncomfortable with Bilbo's initial avid greed for the ring, and he went to put it away...

Hmmnn....


Two things strike me about this scene:

1. The point at which narcissists are most likely to unleash the thermonuclear armageddon of narcissistic rage, is when you are taking their narcissistic supply away.
2. I hadn't remembered that Bilbo actually apologized to Frodo  right after this occurred -- a real apology, not a "I'm sorry you felt hurt by that" dodgeball apology.

This kind of hit and run has long been one of my mother's specialties. 

When I was ten, I went to a sleepaway riding camp.  I was the youngest camper.  I had to share a pony with a rather nasty girl, whose equally nasty sister was also attending the camp.  We were supposed to share the work of taking care of the pony, mucking out his stall, etc.  Unfortunately, I ended up doing most of the work, and they stole my prized riding crop.  When I complained about this to the counselors, the two sisters started bullying me. 

One of the things they did was to sneak into my room late one night, cover my face with shaving cream, and write a really nasty note on my pillowcase with eyeliner, saying that I was a liar and a lazy bitch, and that I was the one who wasn't doing the work, not the nasty sister.

Eyeliner makes a permanent stain.

I didn't have the sense to throw the pillowcase out before I had to go home.

My mother saw it.

A couple of weeks later, I forgot to take the folded towels on the loveseat in the front hall upstairs with me. 

Multiple choice question:  Was my mother's reaction:

A.  To say, "Hey, you forgot the towels.  Please come down and get them."

or

B.  To scream at me, "You're so lazy!!! I told you to take those towels upstairs!!! Everything those girls wrote on your pillowcase was right!!! You're lazy and you're never going to amount to anything!"

If you're a fellow ACON, I'll bet you knew which option to choose...

This is far from the only time something like this happened.

I never knew exactly when it would happen, or what would trigger it.

She never apologized for this.

Ever.