What stage is compassion

I feel really, truly bad for my mother. I've understood the extent to which most things she says to me, about me, are actually about her... and I wonder whether on some level, she understands that, too. She wants more love in her life, but she repels it. She's lonely, but she chases away most people who come near her.

Not for the first time, I visited with every intention of taking the high road, of knowing that she would be a pain and so upping my determination to work with her, accepting her for who she is. And not for the first time, the more determined I was, the harder she pushed. And I just can't bring myself to respond to persistent nastiness with anything other than withdrawal or anger.

It's not that mom hits a raw nerve; it's that she rubs the nerve raw. Years ago, when I should have been celebrating a job offer, I was, instead, explaining to her that, no, really, I wasn't chased out of the old job because I'd alienated everyone by telling them how to live their lives. I was hurt not because the truth hurt--her assumptions about my career change were not true--but because she was making a good situation, bad. She had the audacity and the self-centeredness to turn a cause for celebration into an attack on my personality.

That was then; this time, she made a bad situation worse. Again, the source of the pain was not that the truth hurt, but the reality of break-ups, which is that they suck no matter whether they're for the best or whoever's fault they are. But mom feels the need to keep bringing up mine. It's not the first time; years ago, I'd ended another serious, by-then dysfunctional relationship with someone she'd never met, but she nonetheless took it upon herself to lecture me about how it was my fault and how he must have been a wonderful person. And again, mom has opted to blame me, thinking that it'll hurt because it's true. But it's not the suggestion that the relationship's implosion was my fault that hurts; as I've told you more than enough times, I'm human, and I was neither angel nor devil toward the end of the relationship. I did the best that I could under the circumstances.

Nonetheless, I do not need to be constantly reminded about the doomed relationship, nor my role in its demise. It's not a sore spot, but what mom does is takes things (weight, decor, hair) that are not sore spots and makes them so by irritating them. If you take perfectly intact skin and irritate it enough, it will bleed and tell you to f* off. And no, it's not bleeding because it was sensitive to begin with; it's bleeding because you grated the shit out of it. You can do that and then to feign outrage when the person on the receiving end has had enough--and then to say, "well, clearly I hit a nerve so I'm right," but you're not convincing anyone else; you're only pissing them off.

And then, acting shocked that they can't show you more affection.