I M Perfect lady

Tag: manipulations

  • Wishing is a train out of Reality.

    Forceful kindness is a phrase I had used to describe how some may take your power, how they keep pushing kindness to make you believe or feel something…it isn't just kindness, it is kindness with an agenda.

    Kindness that is trying to change your mind.

    Kindness that runs over your feelings.

    Kindness that sounds one way but feels completely different.

    Kindness that wants something.

    Kindness with an abusive attitude, for it is trying too hard to convince you…it is kind.

    I have been given many aspects of my mother appearing and reappearing time and time again, showing me OR rather allowing me to see that which I thought was one thing, was literally the opposite, and I am getting wiser and catching the lessons, grabbing on to the falsehood and forced kindness in order for me to 'do something'.

    The manipulation and delivery sounds so nice, empathetic, understanding, with a 'reason' behind it.

    My latest delivery came in the form of "I am going to help you"…which actually boiled down to….I am helping myself.

    My boss said she was bringing in 'help' for me after a long Monday, by the time I was ready to bundle the mail and head out on Tuesday the help turned into a person who was there to make sure I didn't go into overtime for the week.  And since it appeared that my hours would balance out, all help was removed.

    The daily struggle on very heavy package days don't matter, unless it happens to be a Friday, and it looks like I am on the verge of overtime.

    What I told her is that don't pretend to 'help' me, when all you really are focused on is your spread sheet of hours.  I understand and I get it.  Your main job is to see that we don't go over hours.  You can't be empathetic or helpful, you have to manage hours.  Just say it.  Just be forthright and say it.  Don't call it 'helping me' when you are actually helping your self.

    I truly get it and accept, that the Post Office can't offer help, it has to watch its bottom line.  I am not upset about that.

    I am upset with the way my boss tried to sell me help, when it was really for herself.

    If someone is going to help you, it will feel like help.  It didn't feel like she was helping me, but helping herself and I told her so.

    She wanted to appear, helpful and empathetic, when the Post Office doesn't allow for it.  I wasn't going to appear helped when it didn't help me.

    I believed the first night she indeed could help me.  I was relieved.  I was disappointed on the second day, when she changed the type of help she could give me.  And in the passing hours felt the help totally disappear…and felt it, and expressed it quite expressively.

    Some may challenge me and say it was being insubordinate, but what I was actually doing was calling her on her false delivery.

    I told her, "For me, please don't say you are going to do something and then not do it, make promises you can't deliver or are even capable of doing.  Don't make it seem like you are going to help me, when you can't.  I would prefer you say Nothing UNTIL you can.  If it isn't possible, I get it.  Just call it saving overtime and not help."

    I am way okay with the reality of how things are.  I am way not okay with someone playing in front of them trying to make me believe that which isn't possible.

    I understood that I too wanted to believe in help that wasn't possible.

    I own my part, my believing and wanting it…so I grabbed on.

    We both took a day and a half ride on Make Belief….and in the end I was disappointed.

    I was disappointed I believed in that which wasn't possible…a train ride out of reality and I was let down.  Let down right where I started, overwhelmed with the work at hand….wishing for help.

    Wishing is a place that isn't reality…

    Wishing is what comprised my whole childhood.

    Wishing things were different…

    It took me a whole day to get back to acceptance.

    Accepting what is…accepting that I will be overwhelmed for the next two weeks, and that no help will be coming.  I am okay, once I get back to reality and let the wishing go…

    Wishing is a train out of reality.

     

     

     

     

  • All or None Religion.

    My mothering skills have huge pockets of All or Nothing options, accented with control and responsibility that is overly dramatic and leaves me with little options to manuver through issues that I find are out of my control. 

     

    While talking to my brother I was trying to figure out how this ‘all-or-none” works within dysfunction, like what how is it applied and why?

     

    How was I taught this and why do I still use that as my “go to tool” in conflict resolutions.

     

    Charles Whitfield in his book, “Healing the Child Within”, writes.

     

    “This is the ego defense that therapists call splitting. When we think or act this way, we do so at either one extreme or the other. For example, either we love something or we hate them.  There is no middle ground. We see the people around us either good or bad, and not the composite they really are.  We judge ourselves equally as harshly.  The more we use the all-or-nothing thinking, the more it opens us up to behaving in an all or nothing fashion.  Both of the actions tend to get us into trouble and to cause us to suffer unnecessarily.

     

    We may be attracted to others who think and behave in an all-or-none fashion.  But being around this kind of person tends to result in more trouble and suffering for us.

     

    Table 3 lists types of parental conditions associated with dynamics of AcoA’s, and adult children from other dysfunctional families.  While all-or-none thinking can occur in any of these parental conditions, it occurs especially often among fundamentalist religious parents. They are often rigid, punitive, judgmental, and perfectionists.  They are often in a shame-based system, which attempts to cover over and even destroy the True Self.

     

    All-or-nothing thinking is similar to active alcoholism, other chemical dependency, co-dependency or other active addictions and attachments, in that it sharply and unrealistically limits our possibilities and choices.  To be so limited makes us feel constricted and we are unable to be creative and to grow in our day-to-day lives. 

     

    In recovery, we begin to learn that most things in our life, including our recovery, are not all-or-none, not either-or.  Rather, they are both-and.  They have shades of gray, they are somewhere in the middle of a 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 and not either a 0 or a 10.” 

    Charles Whitfield.

     

    I am beginning to see how it is applied and why.

     

    It limits the possibilities and choices and covers up our true self. 

     

    That feels right. 

     

    Yet it feels dreadful that is what I am doing to my children, when I offer the all-or-none attitude.

     

    While all-or-none seems to be easy and cut and dried, it actually reduces the choices so small, it leaves little room for both-and.

     

    I than fail to see my child as good and bad, or energetic and lazy, that they swing and sway to both sides, depending upon what needs to be done.

     

    I write them off quickly, too quickly when my reality becomes overwhelming to me, when my fears rush in that I am being abused again by their lack of caring for my home, their dishes etc.

     

    This ideology is the corner stone of my being a huge foundation that I leaned upon and lived from.

     

    It is so much easier to manipulate others from there.  Manipulating others is a scary premise to raise children.  Manipulating them for my benefit…Instead of finding solutions with multiple choices. 

     

    I lived by the hard and fast rule, do it my way or leave.

     

    Or its cousin, do it my way or I leave.

     

    Each and every time I feel overwhelmed or out of control, I want to bring this dogma back into my world, to wield the cumbersome sword and dictate to clear my world of riff raff and true selves begging to be heard.

     

    It is so hard to wrestle yourself free from the ties that bind this to my way of thinking, to be open to others ideas and solutions, to bring them in and see if this is just my problem or a family problem.

     

    I will ride the mower with this thought, “attempts to cover up or even destroy the true self.”  And sadly we both suffer, no true self remains standing in the all-or-none religion.