Tetra

I have spent the afternoon with my Grandmother listening to her talk...she is getting better.

Do you know what really gets on my nerves? When she starts talking about my mom and what a great person mom is. "The best of all of you" she called her.

I really want to get sick. Most of you know the relationship between my mom and myself. No one knows what dad and I put up with. I would call her a street angel and house devil when she starts screaming and ranting at us.

I couldn't take any more and just smiled and said I was going out to buy a newspaper. I will hold my tongue but it's so hard!!

LBrain

just let grandma go with it. why burden her with 'your truth'?
I was in a similar situation. Doing my best to be nice and say, yeah mom, you are right about that. even when I knew she was from a different planet when it came to realizing the truth. Just smile to yourself and let her think what she wants. What does it hurt really? Letting this get to you is all that it does - it affects you and no one else. Try to overlook it and be glad you have your wits about you.

Olive1

Hi Tetra,

When I was in the hospital about to be released to rehab, the doctor told me that I was really going to need to come to terms with my relationship with my mother or else I would most likely relapse. It seems her house devil was sometimes apparent in the outside world. I had to change the way I reacted to her. It took work on my part, but I was able to eventually let it go and we have a decent relationship now.
A couple of years ago I was able to get her to give me the two boxes of old photos and papers from our childhood. I was doing a project for a Christmas gift.
Last month I was looking through them again and at the bottom I found some old papers. They didn’t hold a lot of information, but they did give me a deeper glimpse of the extremely dysfunctional upbringing that she had.
It shifted the way I think about my mom now.

Brain’s advice to overlook is sound.
Everyone has their own story, everyone has their own memories.