Saturday night

I snapped at mom last night and felt really, really bad about it (usually, I feel mostly justified). I've written about struggling to adjust my response to her from "stand your ground, reinforce your boundaries" to "she's old and sick, let it go." I've managed to make the adjustment in situations where I'm thinking about it, but my gut reactions have yet to adapt to the new reality.

At happy hour a week or so ago, the conversation turned to therapy, and how it matters because your past infiltrates your present. In other words, your familial history informs the way you interact with everyone else. In my case, I think I've done a pretty good job of clearing mom out of my interpersonal interactions with just about everyone, except mom (and--see my 'Gift of Fear' posts over the last couple of weeks--other people who bring it on themselves). As I said in those posts, it is the right thing to do, when someone continues to do something you have asked them not to do, to reproach them rather than thank them, even if that something was "nice." For a while, that was especially true with mom, but now it's not.



The thing is, when I snap at mom, I'm snapping at a lifetime of her crossing my boundaries rather than the isolated, probably low-stakes incidence of boundary-crossing that triggered the snap. When I snap in general, it's a gut reaction: I don't feel safe. When someone (eg. RM) does something I have clearly told him or her to stop doing, even when it is ostensibly benign, (s)he sends a message that my words are not to be taken seriously. It is legitimately scary. And if you're in doubt that, for example, a gifted box of chocolates in the face of a clear, repeated request for no gifts can be perceived as a safety issue, you haven't been paying attention; manipulators start small and incrementally test how far they can push.

I've snapped at dad, too, out of a sense of danger (for his safety). I needed him to back the f* away from the car I was parking in the snow, and he just kept moving closer. I tell you this not to justify my behavior, but to understand it. I read Emily Esfahani Smith's article in The Atlantic about how certain relationships put you in constant fight-or-flight mode: even when things seem to be going well, you're on edge and ready to go on defense. And that characterizes my relationship with mom, and she engages in a lot of "disaster" behavior.

 The problem was that the disasters showed all the signs of arousal—of being in fight-or-flight mode—in their relationships. Having a conversation sitting next to their spouse was, to their bodies, like facing off with a saber-toothed tiger. Even when they were talking about pleasant or mundane facets of their relationships, they were prepared to attack and be attacked. This sent their heart rates soaring and made them more aggressive toward each other.

Mom engaged in disaster behavior just the other night, on dad's birthday: "who cares about his birthday, let's tell everyone to stay home." Mom has engaged in disaster behavior over every major event in my life. Years ago, when I got the job offer I'd worked very hard for, mom turned it into an assault on my personality. I could go on and on with examples, but I don't need to.

With mom, I'm used to operating in a fight-or-flight environment and I'm used to telling her not to do something only to see her do it, and refusing to be sorry for not being sorry. She once drove a piece of furniture down to DC after I explicitly told her not to--that I didn't want it, didn't have room for it,, would not find room for it, etc.--and then ranted about how ungrateful I was after she drove it all the way down. She doesn't believe in knocking, never has, and I've never been able to let that go.

So last night, things were going well. In fact, this morning (after the snap), dad mused that he was surprised that we'd gotten through most of the day in relative peace, and then was almost reassured when he heard yelling upstairs. I made a point of engaging mom--eg., listening to her as she talked about her cub, and then as she talked about other things. I maintained my patience as she did what she does during movies, which is talk through them to ask what's happening and who's who, and to throw out digs by asking whether I watch this crap all the time at home. Then, mom followed me upstairs as I went to bed and insisted that I needed another blanket. It was late and I just wanted to go to sleep; it was cold, but, under the blankets I already had, it would be perfect and I assured her of that. And I asked her to just let me go to bed.

I was intensely focused on changing quickly out of my clothes and into my pajamas to minimize my exposure to the cold, and just as I got my clothes off, I hear the door open.

A.: Mom, get out!
Mom: You need this.
A.: I don't need anything! I need to go to bed. I asked you to let me go to bed.
Mom: You know what, fine! You don't exist for me anymore!
A.: Fine.

Was my reaction justified? Probably; when you're naked and tired, and someone breaks into the room you're in, you're in no position for a nuanced response. But I felt bad. Here was this woman coming after me with a blanket, and I snapped at her. I waited for her to get out of the shower and apologized. I think she took it well.