I mentioned in Narcissists Are Like Cockroaches that I happen to have a narcissistic neighbor. Between dealing with her, my mother, and Samantha, and reading the blogs in our community here I have come to believe there is one thing narcissists can't stand above all else.
It's not being called out for their behavior, it's not being proven wrong. What they seem to hate the most, what eats them up from the inside, I think, is being silenced. This is why No Contact drives them to extremes and they constantly try to find ways around it. They feel that people have to listen to them, that they are entitled above all else to have their say. Everyone is apparently entitled to the narcissist's opinion whether they want it or not. It's why my NM has gotten so pissed on the few occasions I hung up on her or that time I didn't answer and she called my DH. It's why Samantha refused to answer if I was still in the wedding party or not; she desperately needed something to use to keep the communications opened. Of course, that didn't work. I just assumed I was out and didn't keep asking her to verify.
Which brings me to my neighbor. After DH and I have finally gotten management to resolve an ongoing issue she was causing, my neighbor has taken to being hostile toward us on the rare occasions our paths cross. Before that she had always been polite, although annoying. But last night she arrived at our door swearing and complaining we make noise every night. This is of course absurd, especially given we spent most of last week at the hospital caring for DH's mother after a routine surgery. I would stay there from morning to evening, and then DH would take over until around 10 PM. He'd come home and we'd go straight to bed, exhausted.
Anyway, just before 11 PM last night she came knocking on our door and DH answered and I was nearby. The hostile way she was acting and talking to him caused him shut down, as it reminded him of his mother and his childhood. His mother wasn't a narcissist, but was abusive when he was growing up. But I digress.
I've put up with a lot of crap in my life and I can still tolerate a lot of shit. But I have my limits and I have things that set me off. One of those is when you target my loved ones. Do it to me? Sure, fine, whatever, I can take it. But when you go after somebody I love, well, that's a different story. Coming to my door and swearing at us while making exaggerated accusations is something I won't stand for these days. In the past I would have stood there waiting for her to finish and go away, then been angry afterward. Today though I am much better and enforcing my boundaries. I feel pretty proud of how I handled things. Often a ruminate over these things and think of what I could have done differently, or done better. Not this time!
What happened is a deathly calm came over me. There was anger, ridiculously calm. I slipped in from the side, placing an arm on the open door between her and DH and started closing it slowly and quietly as she went on and I told her politely to call management, nodding as she was making threats to do so. She really should have done that in the first place if she had a problem instead of trying to bully and pretend like sparing us from management was some kind of magnanimous favor she was giving us in spite of our horrible transgressions against her. Anyway, I was calm, cool, collected. It was smooth, I was smooth. I heard her storm away down the hall and I knew she was pissed. How dare I, at least two or three decades younger than her no less, deprive her of her divine right to tell everyone what for! To be silenced is a fate worse than death to the narcissist. As they have no true sense of self, when you take away their access to you as their mirror it's like you have literally destroyed a part of them.
Of course then my blood pressure spiked afterwards as it really sank in what an audacious boundary violation the whole thing was and just how distressed she had made my DH. That's the anger I'm more familiar with. The deathly calm, extremely productive anger isn't yet something I can call upon at will. Still, anger is a warning something isn't right and also energy to act on or change the wrong if you can just tap into it the right way. And that's exactly what I did. I protected my loved one without becoming aggressive- I was able to be assertive and enforce my boundaries in the face of a narcissistic rage.
I have already spoken to management this morning and in my
book this issue is resolved. However, in the event my neighbor refuses to cease coming to our door and/or being vulgar to us as per management's instruction, I've already looked up the paperwork I need to file for a restraining order. My bite is way worse than my bark.
Showing posts with label rage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rage. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Kitchen Knives and Classical Conditioning
Very early in my adolescence I developed a phobia of very sharp things. If I were to create a scale, the least fear inducing sharp object was scissors, box cutters would be in the middle, and the most fear inducing objects would be my NM's very expensive, very sharp kitchen knives. The biggest ones were the scariest, and without a doubt these were the sharpest objects in the house.
Before I continue, let me explain a little about how phobias usually form and work. Phobias tend to be the result of classical conditioning. One of the most well known experiments with humans in this area is the Little Albert experiment. To summarize, classical conditioning is when a Neutral Stimulus is paired with an Unconditioned Stimulus that elicits an Unconditioned Response, such as fear. After one or more pairings, the previously Neutral Stimulus will elicit the same response as the Unconditioned Stimulus without the presence of the Unconditioned Stimulus. Thus, they become the Conditioned Stimulus and Conditioned Response.
Poor Little Albert was exposed to a sudden loud noise and became fearful. This was an Unconditioned Stimulus and Unconditioned Response. When he had recovered he was introduced a white rat. Little infants have no natural fear response to little white rats like they do to sudden loud noises, white rats are a Neutral Stimulus. But then, as Little Albert approached the white rat, BAM, the horrible loud noise! Fear! After repeated exposure, Little Albert would become fearful whenever the white rat was introduced, even without the loud noise. The white rat was now a Conditioned Stimulus and he had a Conditioned Response to white rats. Not only that, it generalized to similar things fuzzy things like rabbits.
The most common phobias are for things that could be dangerous to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Water (drowning!), heights (falling!) , poisonous snakes (generalized to all snakes), poisonous spiders/insects (generalized to all bugs), small spaces (trapped!), and so on. But we can become phobic of anything with the right conditioning. So how did I become afraid of sharp things, you wonder? Were they paired with an Unconditioned Stimulus and fear response in my adolescence? Yes and no.
The stimuli were all in my head, they never happened in reality. I had a strong urge to cut myself, although I never acted on it. And if I was going to kill myself, I was fairly certain I would do so by slitting my wrists. Usually I thought of using the kitchen knives to do so since as I mentioned earlier they were the sharpest objects in the house. Not only that, they were easily accessible, sitting on the counter in their knife block. Never acted on the urge to slit my wrists, either, but all these thoughts created anxiety for me, and they happened often enough that I developed a phobia of sharp things. These self destructive urges and suicidal thoughts, along with benignly putting away knives as a child were my only experiences with knives as NM had no interest in teaching me to cook, so I had no view of them as useful tools for cooking. They were simply sharp, dangerous things in my world once my self destructive thoughts crystallized into urges to cut and/or slit my wrists. I think the phobia was in weird way a kind of self defense mechanism against those self destructive and suicidal urges I experienced (especially when I was angry or upset), so I can't say it was a bad phobia to have. It simply became less useful and more of a hindrance as I got older. To this day I still experience the urge cut myself when I'm experiencing strong negative emotions, but I have since overcome my phobia through years of self imposed gradual exposure. I can handle the biggest kitchen knives now and even own a decorative sword! The only thing I don't do is hand wash our kitchen knives; DH takes care of that. Recently I did wash one myself, though, so that's another step forward.
Moving along! Now that I've established this background, their are two knife stories involving my NM, one of which involves the aforementioned phobia.
When I was about eight years old, and before NM had bought the really expensive kitchen knives, I was putting away clean dishes. Presumably my sister had loaded the dishwasher as that was usually how we operated. One loaded, the other unloaded, then we switched. Unsupervised, as always. The cheapo knives did not merit the care of hand washing and were always loaded into the silverware rack. A paring knife had put loaded with the blade sticking up. I picked it up very carefully with my thumb and index finger, but ended up cutting the tip of my thumb. First and only time I've ever injured myself with a knife. It wasn't deep, it didn't traumatize me, though it sure bled a lot. What did I do? Did I go to my mother? No. I was afraid, terrified even, that she would think I had been playing with the knife and I would be in trouble! I remember it so clearly. I bandaged up my thumb myself and pretended I had a paper cut when she asked about the bandage. She never asked to see underneath. I feel it speaks volumes that a wounded child was afraid to let her mother know she was hurt. You know what else tries to hide injuries from others? Wounded animals. I was like a wounded animal trying to conceal my injury from a dangerous predator! I realize now how NOT normal this whole situation was. Children are supposed to be able to go to their mothers for comfort and aid when they are hurt!
Flash forward to sometime in my teens, probably around 15 years of age. By now I had a full phobia of sharp things, especially those expensive, sharp kitchen knives, which required hand washing. Although my NM didn't know the extent of my fear, she knew that I was afraid of the knives. I would usually leave them for somebody else to wash or put away and nobody ever made a fuss about it. One day though, for some reason, my NM decided to make a big deal about my not doing the knives. It happened in the kitchen, by the sink, probably when I was by the sink, which was in a corner. I don't remember what was said. I only remember her being angry. I remember being cornered, counter to my left and at my back was the sink, extending to the right behind me. Next to the sink were the knives, and I remember my NM holding one of the large ones with her left hand. She wasn't holding it like she was going to stab me or anything (besides, she's right handed so if she was going to stab me she'd have put it in her right hand), just holding it, her wrist resting on the counter as she held it, while her other hand rested on the counter to my left, trapping me in the corner. There was no way around her and she had a knife. I don't remember anything that was said, I don't remember when she let me go, only that eventually she did, but it seemed like forever to me.
I was terrified. Utterly, horribly, absolutely, terrified.
And I was in therapy at the time.
I never told my therapist about what happened. Crazy, right? That's how messed up I was. And I've never mentioned the incident to my NM since it happened. I doubt she would me believe me, either she'd say it didn't happen at all, or that she wasn't holding the knife. Or maybe she'd try to justify it by saying she wasn't pointing it at me. I don't know. It doesn't matter what she has to say about it. I know it was real, I know it happened. I will never forget the fear.
Before I continue, let me explain a little about how phobias usually form and work. Phobias tend to be the result of classical conditioning. One of the most well known experiments with humans in this area is the Little Albert experiment. To summarize, classical conditioning is when a Neutral Stimulus is paired with an Unconditioned Stimulus that elicits an Unconditioned Response, such as fear. After one or more pairings, the previously Neutral Stimulus will elicit the same response as the Unconditioned Stimulus without the presence of the Unconditioned Stimulus. Thus, they become the Conditioned Stimulus and Conditioned Response.
Poor Little Albert was exposed to a sudden loud noise and became fearful. This was an Unconditioned Stimulus and Unconditioned Response. When he had recovered he was introduced a white rat. Little infants have no natural fear response to little white rats like they do to sudden loud noises, white rats are a Neutral Stimulus. But then, as Little Albert approached the white rat, BAM, the horrible loud noise! Fear! After repeated exposure, Little Albert would become fearful whenever the white rat was introduced, even without the loud noise. The white rat was now a Conditioned Stimulus and he had a Conditioned Response to white rats. Not only that, it generalized to similar things fuzzy things like rabbits.
The most common phobias are for things that could be dangerous to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Water (drowning!), heights (falling!) , poisonous snakes (generalized to all snakes), poisonous spiders/insects (generalized to all bugs), small spaces (trapped!), and so on. But we can become phobic of anything with the right conditioning. So how did I become afraid of sharp things, you wonder? Were they paired with an Unconditioned Stimulus and fear response in my adolescence? Yes and no.
The stimuli were all in my head, they never happened in reality. I had a strong urge to cut myself, although I never acted on it. And if I was going to kill myself, I was fairly certain I would do so by slitting my wrists. Usually I thought of using the kitchen knives to do so since as I mentioned earlier they were the sharpest objects in the house. Not only that, they were easily accessible, sitting on the counter in their knife block. Never acted on the urge to slit my wrists, either, but all these thoughts created anxiety for me, and they happened often enough that I developed a phobia of sharp things. These self destructive urges and suicidal thoughts, along with benignly putting away knives as a child were my only experiences with knives as NM had no interest in teaching me to cook, so I had no view of them as useful tools for cooking. They were simply sharp, dangerous things in my world once my self destructive thoughts crystallized into urges to cut and/or slit my wrists. I think the phobia was in weird way a kind of self defense mechanism against those self destructive and suicidal urges I experienced (especially when I was angry or upset), so I can't say it was a bad phobia to have. It simply became less useful and more of a hindrance as I got older. To this day I still experience the urge cut myself when I'm experiencing strong negative emotions, but I have since overcome my phobia through years of self imposed gradual exposure. I can handle the biggest kitchen knives now and even own a decorative sword! The only thing I don't do is hand wash our kitchen knives; DH takes care of that. Recently I did wash one myself, though, so that's another step forward.
Moving along! Now that I've established this background, their are two knife stories involving my NM, one of which involves the aforementioned phobia.
When I was about eight years old, and before NM had bought the really expensive kitchen knives, I was putting away clean dishes. Presumably my sister had loaded the dishwasher as that was usually how we operated. One loaded, the other unloaded, then we switched. Unsupervised, as always. The cheapo knives did not merit the care of hand washing and were always loaded into the silverware rack. A paring knife had put loaded with the blade sticking up. I picked it up very carefully with my thumb and index finger, but ended up cutting the tip of my thumb. First and only time I've ever injured myself with a knife. It wasn't deep, it didn't traumatize me, though it sure bled a lot. What did I do? Did I go to my mother? No. I was afraid, terrified even, that she would think I had been playing with the knife and I would be in trouble! I remember it so clearly. I bandaged up my thumb myself and pretended I had a paper cut when she asked about the bandage. She never asked to see underneath. I feel it speaks volumes that a wounded child was afraid to let her mother know she was hurt. You know what else tries to hide injuries from others? Wounded animals. I was like a wounded animal trying to conceal my injury from a dangerous predator! I realize now how NOT normal this whole situation was. Children are supposed to be able to go to their mothers for comfort and aid when they are hurt!
Flash forward to sometime in my teens, probably around 15 years of age. By now I had a full phobia of sharp things, especially those expensive, sharp kitchen knives, which required hand washing. Although my NM didn't know the extent of my fear, she knew that I was afraid of the knives. I would usually leave them for somebody else to wash or put away and nobody ever made a fuss about it. One day though, for some reason, my NM decided to make a big deal about my not doing the knives. It happened in the kitchen, by the sink, probably when I was by the sink, which was in a corner. I don't remember what was said. I only remember her being angry. I remember being cornered, counter to my left and at my back was the sink, extending to the right behind me. Next to the sink were the knives, and I remember my NM holding one of the large ones with her left hand. She wasn't holding it like she was going to stab me or anything (besides, she's right handed so if she was going to stab me she'd have put it in her right hand), just holding it, her wrist resting on the counter as she held it, while her other hand rested on the counter to my left, trapping me in the corner. There was no way around her and she had a knife. I don't remember anything that was said, I don't remember when she let me go, only that eventually she did, but it seemed like forever to me.
I was terrified. Utterly, horribly, absolutely, terrified.
And I was in therapy at the time.
I never told my therapist about what happened. Crazy, right? That's how messed up I was. And I've never mentioned the incident to my NM since it happened. I doubt she would me believe me, either she'd say it didn't happen at all, or that she wasn't holding the knife. Or maybe she'd try to justify it by saying she wasn't pointing it at me. I don't know. It doesn't matter what she has to say about it. I know it was real, I know it happened. I will never forget the fear.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
The Dishwasher was Infallible, I was Not
I mentioned in the post Rage, Yelling, and Tears that the dishes were a special area of concern with my NM. Some of her most terrifying rages were about the dishes, sometimes she would rage and sometimes she would cry and rage. Two overlapping areas in particular were dishes that didn't come out clean (and sometimes got put away dirty), and her precious copper pots and pans.
A dish that didn't get clean was never the dishwasher's fault, it was always the fault of the person who had last loaded the dishwasher. Of course that person wither either my sister, me, or both of us together. Sometimes she would check the dishes before running the dishwasher, and we would either be summoned to again clean a dish she didn't think was clean enough for the dishwasher, or she would angrily redo it herself. If a dish was put away dirty, there would be yelling about it when it was found. Or we hadn't loaded it "right" she would redo it herself and there would be lots of banging of dishes around while she went at it in anger.
By far though, the most common rages involved her precious copper pots and pans. Even when we got them clean she criticized us for using too much of her pot polish, she could get it done with far less, after all. Heaven forbid she find a one of those put away "dirty"! In fact I realize now what she often thought of as not clean enough was really water spots, or that it wasn't polished shiny enough... Anyway, she would start slamming things around and yelling and sometimes she would make my sister or me stand their and wash it again, criticizing us for using too much polish all the while.
The most loud slamming and banging of things typically occurred the pots and their lids were put away "dirty" or weren't put away "right", whichever way that was. Hell if I know. All I know is the smaller pans stacked inside the larger ones, but she had so many pots and different large ones and there was so little space where she stored them that it was difficult to do it "right"! Things would be clanging angrily as she rearranged them, she'd slam the cabinets shut, and yell or cry or both. This is where I feel the word "terrifying" is truly an appropriate description of my experience as a child with this. Her reaction was so out of proportion to the problem it was insane. And of course I felt it was my fault she was so mad, which then made me feel both terrified and like a horrible person. I just can't seem to convey the experience and how terrifying she was to me clearly in writing...
So I learned to hate doing dishes, although when I was a teenager I got better at doing them and when the dishwasher broke and we switched to hand washing them I usually got them clean. The truth is it wasn't the dishes I hated, but the association of them with my NM and her rages. I dislike folding laundry too, for similar reasons. How angry she would get when little five year old Adela was found to have shoved her clean clothes in her drawers instead of folding them! But of course my NM couldn't be bothered to help and make sure I did it. Ugh. Ridiculous to expect a five year old to learn to clean and fold laundry on their own, unsupervised, out of intrinsic motivation, but I digress, see Spanking and Learned Helplessness for more on my NM, cleaning, and developmentally inappropriate expectations of children.
Anyway, I realize I don't like loud noises not just because I have sensitive hearing, but also for the same reason I don't like angry voices and yelling. It triggers emotional flashbacks to when I was a child suffering my NM's rages. And I still don't like doing dirty dishes. Often I let the dishes build up and get overwhelmed by them, but I'm getting a little better and my DH is a huge help. Also we own nice non-stick pots and pans with tempered glass lids. And since I can't stack them inside each other, I hang them from a pot rack on the ceiling. The glass lids make less racket than metal ones. No clanging and banging and no need to polish them. I greatly prefer this.
I used to get irritated with DH when a dish came out of our dishwasher (once we got one) and it was dirty but have since realized I'm repeating my NM's irrational behavior and learned that a stupid dirty dish is nothing to get worked up about. Who cares if or why a dish comes out of the dishwasher dirty, it'll get clean the next time around!
Next time, more on dishes. Specifically my old phobia, kitchen knives, and my NM.
A dish that didn't get clean was never the dishwasher's fault, it was always the fault of the person who had last loaded the dishwasher. Of course that person wither either my sister, me, or both of us together. Sometimes she would check the dishes before running the dishwasher, and we would either be summoned to again clean a dish she didn't think was clean enough for the dishwasher, or she would angrily redo it herself. If a dish was put away dirty, there would be yelling about it when it was found. Or we hadn't loaded it "right" she would redo it herself and there would be lots of banging of dishes around while she went at it in anger.
By far though, the most common rages involved her precious copper pots and pans. Even when we got them clean she criticized us for using too much of her pot polish, she could get it done with far less, after all. Heaven forbid she find a one of those put away "dirty"! In fact I realize now what she often thought of as not clean enough was really water spots, or that it wasn't polished shiny enough... Anyway, she would start slamming things around and yelling and sometimes she would make my sister or me stand their and wash it again, criticizing us for using too much polish all the while.
The most loud slamming and banging of things typically occurred the pots and their lids were put away "dirty" or weren't put away "right", whichever way that was. Hell if I know. All I know is the smaller pans stacked inside the larger ones, but she had so many pots and different large ones and there was so little space where she stored them that it was difficult to do it "right"! Things would be clanging angrily as she rearranged them, she'd slam the cabinets shut, and yell or cry or both. This is where I feel the word "terrifying" is truly an appropriate description of my experience as a child with this. Her reaction was so out of proportion to the problem it was insane. And of course I felt it was my fault she was so mad, which then made me feel both terrified and like a horrible person. I just can't seem to convey the experience and how terrifying she was to me clearly in writing...
So I learned to hate doing dishes, although when I was a teenager I got better at doing them and when the dishwasher broke and we switched to hand washing them I usually got them clean. The truth is it wasn't the dishes I hated, but the association of them with my NM and her rages. I dislike folding laundry too, for similar reasons. How angry she would get when little five year old Adela was found to have shoved her clean clothes in her drawers instead of folding them! But of course my NM couldn't be bothered to help and make sure I did it. Ugh. Ridiculous to expect a five year old to learn to clean and fold laundry on their own, unsupervised, out of intrinsic motivation, but I digress, see Spanking and Learned Helplessness for more on my NM, cleaning, and developmentally inappropriate expectations of children.
Anyway, I realize I don't like loud noises not just because I have sensitive hearing, but also for the same reason I don't like angry voices and yelling. It triggers emotional flashbacks to when I was a child suffering my NM's rages. And I still don't like doing dirty dishes. Often I let the dishes build up and get overwhelmed by them, but I'm getting a little better and my DH is a huge help. Also we own nice non-stick pots and pans with tempered glass lids. And since I can't stack them inside each other, I hang them from a pot rack on the ceiling. The glass lids make less racket than metal ones. No clanging and banging and no need to polish them. I greatly prefer this.
I used to get irritated with DH when a dish came out of our dishwasher (once we got one) and it was dirty but have since realized I'm repeating my NM's irrational behavior and learned that a stupid dirty dish is nothing to get worked up about. Who cares if or why a dish comes out of the dishwasher dirty, it'll get clean the next time around!
Next time, more on dishes. Specifically my old phobia, kitchen knives, and my NM.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Slapping and Braces
The first time my NM ever slapped my face was when I had a mouthful of metal in adolescence. We had been in her bedroom, I had been complaining about a teacher who had some kind of problem with me in junior high (a.k.a middle school). Usually my NM is very protective against outside forces, you see, so I think I wanted her to do something, try and get me into a different class or something. Pull her impressive PTA clout with the principle or something. I don't know how the situation deteriorated. I don't know how I ended up getting slapped or what I did that she felt merited slapping my face.
There's nothing repressed or forgotten. It's just not there. The memory was never processed and encoded. I assume this was because the process was interrupted by the unexpected blow she struck.
What I remember next is being slapped, but we weren't in the bedroom anymore, we were in the hallway. I don't know how we ended up there. I went down on my knees, face numb. I didn't taste the blood yet.
NM freaked out and raged. Oh she had never wanted to hit me, to be like her mother (she'd been slapped a few times for the things that came out of her mouth growing up), I had "made her" do it. She started hitting the wall, crying and ranting. She might have started banging her head against it, too. Mostly I just remember the noise and being terrified. Then I realized my mouth was cut up inside from my metal braces and that I was bleeding. I said nothing.
She didn't ask if I was okay, didn't apologize. She went to get her purse and go run errands, demanding I come with her. I didn't move from where I had dropped. I was swallowing my own blood because of that woman. I sure as hell wasn't going to get in a car with her and go places I didn't even need to go to just so she could have me trapped with her and lay into me more. I can think of no other reason for having wanted to drag me along other than so she could punish me further.
She persisted, angrily. Finally E-Sis stepped in. I don't know what she said, but NM left. I went into the bathroom to examine the damage. It was never spoken of again for years. She never asked if I was okay when she got home, she never apologized. Or if she did, I don't remember her apologizing. Knowing her though, it's not likely she did. It wasn't until much later I told her about the injury. I don't think she offered a real apology then, either.
PROTIP: Don't slap your children. Especially if they have any orthodontic work in their mouths.
There's nothing repressed or forgotten. It's just not there. The memory was never processed and encoded. I assume this was because the process was interrupted by the unexpected blow she struck.
What I remember next is being slapped, but we weren't in the bedroom anymore, we were in the hallway. I don't know how we ended up there. I went down on my knees, face numb. I didn't taste the blood yet.
NM freaked out and raged. Oh she had never wanted to hit me, to be like her mother (she'd been slapped a few times for the things that came out of her mouth growing up), I had "made her" do it. She started hitting the wall, crying and ranting. She might have started banging her head against it, too. Mostly I just remember the noise and being terrified. Then I realized my mouth was cut up inside from my metal braces and that I was bleeding. I said nothing.
She didn't ask if I was okay, didn't apologize. She went to get her purse and go run errands, demanding I come with her. I didn't move from where I had dropped. I was swallowing my own blood because of that woman. I sure as hell wasn't going to get in a car with her and go places I didn't even need to go to just so she could have me trapped with her and lay into me more. I can think of no other reason for having wanted to drag me along other than so she could punish me further.
She persisted, angrily. Finally E-Sis stepped in. I don't know what she said, but NM left. I went into the bathroom to examine the damage. It was never spoken of again for years. She never asked if I was okay when she got home, she never apologized. Or if she did, I don't remember her apologizing. Knowing her though, it's not likely she did. It wasn't until much later I told her about the injury. I don't think she offered a real apology then, either.
PROTIP: Don't slap your children. Especially if they have any orthodontic work in their mouths.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Rage, Yelling, and Tears
If we had lived in an apartment, or if the houses on our street weren't so well insulated and spaced apart, I suspect the police would have been called out to our home more than once. If not for the screaming fights NM had with my father when I was a child, for the yelling and slamming things NM did when she raged at E-sis and me.
It was as if every mess, every act of non-compliance, even a dirty spoon not put in the dishwasher, was a personal attack against her by us. Her rages over the dishes were the most terrifying and that drama merits its own series of posts later. In general, NM had two types of rages - the angry lecture and the pure rage. Sometimes one would lead to the other and the words were often the same for both, it was just a matter of what level of volume she spoke them at.
"How could you do this to me?"
"Do you like me when I'm angry?"
"Do you like making me angry?"
"Don't cry! I should be the one crying!"
"You made me angry!"
"Why can't you behave?"
"Why can't you do what I tell you?"
"I'm angry!"
"If you would just behave this wouldn't happen!"
"Why did you do X!?"
"Why would you do that!?"
"It's your own fault!"
"I'll give you a reason to cry!"
The list could go on and on. The specifics don't matter and I can't even recall them. It was all the same in the end, we were bad and we were responsible for her emotions. Heaven forbid I start to cry, as I often did, that just incited her more. Sometimes she would cry while she raged at us, because we had apparently hurt her so much by simply being children! Being around her was aversive and so whatever it was she wanted us to do was aversive by association. We just tried to avoid it and her and keep our heads down. But of course she would yell at us for not doing it then, yell at us for something bad we did, and so on. We would sit there or stand there, forbid from speaking, forbidden from fleeing while she lashed out at us. There was no escape, and when one cannot fight or flee, one freezes. That is when trauma typically occurs.
When people around me raise their voices, even if my friends are just debating a movie, I flashback emotionally. I become silent. I try to make myself physically smaller. For example, if I am sitting on the sofa next to DH, I curl my legs up and under my body, and press against him and hide my face. I feel unhappy and scared. I have returned to the way I felt in childhood, small and powerless, hoping it will stop soon and unable to leave the room, unable to speak up. Having learned this about myself though, I have started to get up and go to another room to do breathing exercises when I feel the flashback starting. I'm an adult now, I can leave an uncomfortable or unpleasant situation. It's slow, but I'm making progress.
In spite of my attempts, I (thankfully) never learned how to stop myself from crying, how to control it. As an adult I frequently apologize when I cry. though Not if I cry over a movie or something like that, that's okay. But if I'm sad or angry and cry I apologize, because I was not allowed to be sad or angry and cry unless NM thought I had something to be that way about, which she never did. She might make a token effort to console me, but when it failed she would become irritated or mad. Over sensitive is probably her favorite description of me. Anyway, it's taken many years with DH to not feel like a bad person, an inconvenience to others, for crying.
In closing, it seems NM has a desperate need to yell and rage. She couldn't yell at us so much once we were adults in college as we weren't home much and usually did our chores, and by then my father had learned to avoid setting her off. So NM yells at politicians, pundits, and other idiots on the news. It would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic. Certainly I talk back to them myself sometimes, but I never yell. It's not like the people on the TV can hear me anyway.
It was as if every mess, every act of non-compliance, even a dirty spoon not put in the dishwasher, was a personal attack against her by us. Her rages over the dishes were the most terrifying and that drama merits its own series of posts later. In general, NM had two types of rages - the angry lecture and the pure rage. Sometimes one would lead to the other and the words were often the same for both, it was just a matter of what level of volume she spoke them at.
"How could you do this to me?"
"Do you like me when I'm angry?"
"Do you like making me angry?"
"Don't cry! I should be the one crying!"
"You made me angry!"
"Why can't you behave?"
"Why can't you do what I tell you?"
"I'm angry!"
"If you would just behave this wouldn't happen!"
"Why did you do X!?"
"Why would you do that!?"
"It's your own fault!"
"I'll give you a reason to cry!"
The list could go on and on. The specifics don't matter and I can't even recall them. It was all the same in the end, we were bad and we were responsible for her emotions. Heaven forbid I start to cry, as I often did, that just incited her more. Sometimes she would cry while she raged at us, because we had apparently hurt her so much by simply being children! Being around her was aversive and so whatever it was she wanted us to do was aversive by association. We just tried to avoid it and her and keep our heads down. But of course she would yell at us for not doing it then, yell at us for something bad we did, and so on. We would sit there or stand there, forbid from speaking, forbidden from fleeing while she lashed out at us. There was no escape, and when one cannot fight or flee, one freezes. That is when trauma typically occurs.
When people around me raise their voices, even if my friends are just debating a movie, I flashback emotionally. I become silent. I try to make myself physically smaller. For example, if I am sitting on the sofa next to DH, I curl my legs up and under my body, and press against him and hide my face. I feel unhappy and scared. I have returned to the way I felt in childhood, small and powerless, hoping it will stop soon and unable to leave the room, unable to speak up. Having learned this about myself though, I have started to get up and go to another room to do breathing exercises when I feel the flashback starting. I'm an adult now, I can leave an uncomfortable or unpleasant situation. It's slow, but I'm making progress.
In spite of my attempts, I (thankfully) never learned how to stop myself from crying, how to control it. As an adult I frequently apologize when I cry. though Not if I cry over a movie or something like that, that's okay. But if I'm sad or angry and cry I apologize, because I was not allowed to be sad or angry and cry unless NM thought I had something to be that way about, which she never did. She might make a token effort to console me, but when it failed she would become irritated or mad. Over sensitive is probably her favorite description of me. Anyway, it's taken many years with DH to not feel like a bad person, an inconvenience to others, for crying.
In closing, it seems NM has a desperate need to yell and rage. She couldn't yell at us so much once we were adults in college as we weren't home much and usually did our chores, and by then my father had learned to avoid setting her off. So NM yells at politicians, pundits, and other idiots on the news. It would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic. Certainly I talk back to them myself sometimes, but I never yell. It's not like the people on the TV can hear me anyway.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)