momentary lapse

I have been working on calling people out when they're being passive agressive or hurtful. Not engaging them, but bluntly saying, "that is not a nice thing to say" or "what is the purpose of saying that?". If I do that, at least there's a chance of them learning something from the exchange. I have been working on this with my husband's passive aggressive tendencies, but I can be baited into arguments so easily by my mom that I often forget all the great things therapy is teaching me.

She and I spent 3 hours alone in a car this weekend. She kept picking on me in the usual ways. The way I dress. My hair is too dark. My relationship with my husband. My relationship with her. She called me a bully, and related me to the most narcissistic person I know. I am not a pushover when it comes to my mother, and so I fought back all along the way.

After about 2 hours of arguing, it clicked. I need to disengage and call her out.

I said, "You know, you're hurtful today. For example, I know that you don't like my hair dark; if you had told me only once I would know that perfectly well, but you tell me repeatedly every time I talk to you. Telling me once MIGHT be okay, but telling me more the once can have only one purpose: to hurt my feelings."

Her: "You're my daughter, I should be able to say whatever I think. You're too sensitive."

Me: "I've been in therapy for two months, and I'm learning that I can be hurt most easily by my mother, because she is supposed to be supportive in all things."

Her: "...therapy? What does SHE say about this?"

Me: "That I'm not too sensitive. That its normal to have feelings. That it's not normal to be picked on relentlessly, and that it's even more painful if its by my mother."

She figured out quickly that the reason I'm in therapy is because of my alcoholism. She got immediately worried that I was trying to say that my alcoholism is her fault. I kept responding with versions of, "My therapy isn't about you. It's about me" until something magical happened.

She apologized.

Not a sarcastic apology, but a tearful "It's hard for me to understand that what I say can hurt your feelings, because this is the way I grew up. This is the relationship I have with my mother. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. I hope I've told you enough how proud I am of you."

She started telling me about her childhood and how she knows its affected the way she is as a parent. She said that she always remembers how jealous of her her mother was. She told me that one of my teachers told her a long time ago that I will require a lot of positive reinforcement, and she knows that she did not do that enough.

I wasn't surprised when she returned to her behavior of picking on me almost immediately, and with the oomph of knowing that it's actually hurting me. I knew that her apology wasn't a band-aid to our relationship. I knew that nothing would change. I know that, even though I begged her not to tell my gossipy Grandmother that I'm in therapy, it's only a matter of time before everybody knows. I know that she'll use it against me, as proof of her being right: she's not in therapy, so she's of more sound mind.

But at that moment, it was nice. It felt like I had found my mother. But it's heartbreaking to know that the person that she could be is almost certainly lost forever in the person that she is.