Should I realize this tells me something about my mother?
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Join Date: Aug 2009
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Should I realize this tells me something about my mother?
I have long heard that what others think of you often says more about who they really are--ie, that they believe others are like them. I have recently come to see how true this is firsthand, as someone close to me has been accusing me of ridiculous things for years, things I never considered doing. Come to find out, this person himself had been doing those things, so he assumed I might be, too, and was quite suspicious.
It got me thinking about all the times my mother accused me of lying, while I was growing up. Partly because I know what was in my mind and heart all those years, I believe my children are pretty decent kids. Does this mean that, because my mother always assumed I was lying (and I was a very honest child), does that mean she did a lot of lying as a child herself, and so assumed her kids were doing the same to her?
Lately, as I've looked more deeply at her behaviors as an adult and over the years, I've thought more about what she has told me about her childhood, and I think she was jealous, bitter, and resentful as a child, too.
I don't know if it's really important. It's such a small part of the overall picture. But I have just recently started to realize that she believed I was a liar, as I've seen how many other ugly things she believes of me, and how many perfectly normal incidents she has twisted in her mind into proof of my character flaws.
It got me thinking about all the times my mother accused me of lying, while I was growing up. Partly because I know what was in my mind and heart all those years, I believe my children are pretty decent kids. Does this mean that, because my mother always assumed I was lying (and I was a very honest child), does that mean she did a lot of lying as a child herself, and so assumed her kids were doing the same to her?
Lately, as I've looked more deeply at her behaviors as an adult and over the years, I've thought more about what she has told me about her childhood, and I think she was jealous, bitter, and resentful as a child, too.
I don't know if it's really important. It's such a small part of the overall picture. But I have just recently started to realize that she believed I was a liar, as I've seen how many other ugly things she believes of me, and how many perfectly normal incidents she has twisted in her mind into proof of my character flaws.
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Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Bristol TN/VA
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maybe she did alot of lying at the time as an adult? has major trust issues?
you will probably never know in entirety.
I know that I have been accused of outrageous things and it has nothing to do with who I am, and I also puzzled about who would think of these things in the first place.
I can never figure out someone else's thinking..especially one so foreign to me
I can decide how I will respond to them.
And I xcan see my past through my adulat lens of compassion for myself.
you will probably never know in entirety.
I know that I have been accused of outrageous things and it has nothing to do with who I am, and I also puzzled about who would think of these things in the first place.
I can never figure out someone else's thinking..especially one so foreign to me
I can decide how I will respond to them.
And I xcan see my past through my adulat lens of compassion for myself.
Either way, how would that affect _your_ recovery today and how you live your life from now on?
One of the "rules" of ACoA recovery is that it is important if _you_ say it's important You get to direct your own life and your own recovery, without any "shoulds" from our past.
Mike
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: San Antonio, Tx.
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Recently I became aware of how (I) project my own issues onto others. We mirror what's going on inside us to our relationships in life. So no wonder things keep happening over and over again in work, friendships, families, this is part of me trying to make me pay attention to them so that they can heal. The take I got from this was that I need to be a LOT more patient with myself and the other person(s). At least this has been true for me.
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Join Date: Aug 2009
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Your mother is clearly toxic, so maybe she just accuses people as a normal kind of thing to do because she's a jealous, bitter and resentful _person_. Maybe her childhood had nothing to do with it, some people just grow up to be toxic adults for no good reason.
One of the issues I had to deal with in my own recovery was recognizing how many of those "twisted accusations" I came to believe over the years. As a child I had no way of discerning the insanity of my parents, never mind filter out the truth from the venom.
Mike
Boy, is it good for me to hear myself say that! Why could I never see before how horrible that is? I guess because I was so used to it, it was normal.
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Location: Bristol TN/VA
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That IS disgusting!
You didn't know any better and if you had, you were helpless and depdendent as a child so we need some protective gear to survive the wounds and pains. It's hat gets us through the day.
Then we turn into adults and have to review it all and change ourselves and it really isn't easy at all.
But worth it and ever so freeing.
You didn't know any better and if you had, you were helpless and depdendent as a child so we need some protective gear to survive the wounds and pains. It's hat gets us through the day.
Then we turn into adults and have to review it all and change ourselves and it really isn't easy at all.
But worth it and ever so freeing.
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 688
That IS disgusting!
You didn't know any better and if you had, you were helpless and depdendent as a child so we need some protective gear to survive the wounds and pains. It's hat gets us through the day.
Then we turn into adults and have to review it all and change ourselves and it really isn't easy at all.
But worth it and ever so freeing.
You didn't know any better and if you had, you were helpless and depdendent as a child so we need some protective gear to survive the wounds and pains. It's hat gets us through the day.
Then we turn into adults and have to review it all and change ourselves and it really isn't easy at all.
But worth it and ever so freeing.
My hope and prayer is that my own children see this for what it is much sooner than I did. I have told them a little bit, and they don't care for her constant monologues and complaining, but they still love her and want to spend time with my parents on occasion, and are hurt, torn, and upset that I won't go near my parents. I feel the more I say about why, the more danger I run of being just like my mother, who was forever working to turn us against our grandmother and cousins.
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