Seperation (was Re: Feedback, please)

[Guest guest]

I think you've hit the nail on the head when you say that she

can't respect that you're two different personalities. I think

the inability to separate themselves from others is one of the

root causes of so much of their misbehavior. In my opinion, the

lack of separation is what causes them to think that everyone

else should think and act the way they do and that in turn

causes them to feel personally insulted when we don't think and

act the way they would. It also results in the inappropriate

sharing of personal information and their desire to have others

share inappropriately with them, as you describe. Attributing

their own motives to other people is another result of this lack

of separation. If they'd do something for a certain reason, than

other people must feel the same way.

These are some examples of things that seem to be caused by an

inability to see others as separate.

My nada once yelled and screamed at me because she'd asked me

whether I thought the mostly blue or the mostly green rug would

look better in her living room and I didn't choose the one she

liked most. She just couldn't accept the fact that we could have

different opinions on something like that.

She makes comments fairly regularly about people who make

different choices when voting. She can't understand how they

could possibly make the choices they make because she thinks

everyone's priorities should be like hers.

She ends up breaking up with men she's dating because their

suggestions on what activities to do on dates don't suit her

well enough but at the same time she complains if they don't

take the lead in making the choices. My impression is that she

thinks they should have the same idea of what is fun as she

does, so they should be able to make choices she likes without

her having to voice an opinion. When they fail to do so, that's

somehow disrespecting her.

At 08:53 AM 01/27/2010 hermitsdaughter wrote:

>Patinage, I totally agree with you. This has been my lifelong

>issue with my mother--her utter, total, absolute need to know

>EVERYTHING: what I'm thinking, writing, saying, doing.

>

>A while back she said to me, " You never tell me anything. I

>tell you EVERYTHING, every fart I do, but you don't tell me

>anything. " And that, right there, is the problem. This is what

>closeness means to her, complete disclosure of every detail to

>her.

>

>I was telling my husband the other day that I recall one of my

>earliest thoughts about her, it really saddens me when I think

>of it, but it is of me looking at my mother and thinking, " I

>really don't like her. " I've never liked her. We are just 2

>very different personalities and she cannot respect that.

--

Katrina