STEAM ROOM FOR ANGER
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Mom is now in Nebraska but still will be far enough away from me when I get to Wisconsin to maintain a boundary.
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Mommyof3, boundaries aren’t just physical as in distance. Other kinds of boundaries include mental and emotional ones. Here are several pins I have on my Boundaries board on Pinterest.
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Mom sent me a couple of nasty texts pointed at my hubby. I read them, laughed at them because they were way off base about him and deleted them. I was right in the middle of prepping an assignment that is due next week for one of my classes before hubby and I were going to see a friend of ours in the hospital. I am going back to calling her once a week or two. Got so much stuff going on I need to concentrate on the important stuff first.
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I ended up moving to another state and wrote letters to my mother, rather than having phone conversations, cos I knew that we would only get into an argument. It is easier to ignore, or not respond to nasty comments in letters than in a phone conversation. I was with her when she died and I don't regret that, I do regret that we got on much better when we were apart than together. But at least we maintained contact - as you are doing @m0mmyof3 .
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DivineMrsM: Thank you for posting those boundary responses. I did stand my ground with my mother and there were certain topics that were clearly off the table. I drove 60 minutes to take her out to lunch for her birthday and she brought up one of the forbidden topics. I stated that we had agreed not to discuss this (it was a worm in her head (not literally) and that she needed to stop now. We had discussed this topic many times and it wasn't the truth but her skewed perception. I did not need to hear it yet again and there was no way to break the cycle.
Her response was to tell me to "get the hell out of her house" and when I asked if she was willing to sacrifice her birthday lunch at Red Lobster for this, she said "yes". So I climbed back in my car and drove home. I did leave her birthday card which I later learned she tossed unread. So her decision and I honored it.
The letter idea sounds good but in essence it wouldn't have worked for us. She needed to verbally abuse me and hurt me. I later learned not to let her do this. Sad because I still loved her but to this day I do not miss her.
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betrayal, I think it’s healthy to accept that a relationship isn’t worth the heartache and trouble to try and maintain, even if it is with our mom (or dad). My own parents were extremely dysfunctional and two of my sisters became what is called “parentified” meaning they took on the responsibilities of raising the younger kids. Yet even as we all grew into adults, the two sisters still acted like they were the heads of the family (both my parents passed in the 1990s). The sisters bonded together and bullied, criticized and ridiculed me. They enjoyed treating me that way. It is with them that I’ve had to work diligently to create firm boundaries. I also had to stop seeing them as parental figures and would continually remind myself they were my sisters and I didn’ have to answer to them about anything. I was shocked how difficult it was to make these relationship changes. It took me well over a year to stop feeling so guilty and fearful about it. I could not believe what a total push over I truly had been!
These days I visit far less frequently with them, and I no longer do anything with just those two; I always make sure dh is with me or we’re in a larger family gathering. What surprised me in my quest to change the dynamics between them and me is that I began creating better boundaries in all my relationships, even the good ones, and have benefitted from that as well.
My only regret about all of this is not practicing better boundaries a long, long time ago!1 -
Tired of trying to be nice to people who keep recommending their latest magical diets to cure cancer. This week it's one recommending some diet with no meat, no dairy, no eggs. The other recommends keto with all protein but no carbs, no fruit, no sugar. Then there's one that says she read on the internet this guy was stage 4 who cured it with eating 250 calories a day to "starve the cancer." so apparently not eating at all.
When I express skepticism about this nonsense, I get the inevitable well the doctors don't know anything and are hiding the cure and if I had cancer I'd be trying everything I could, blah blah.
Now I'm going to be put on Afinitor which apparently can cause mouth sores and make you lose your taste. Just great. Cancer is sucking every last drop of joy out of our lives. I am going to eat what the blank blank blank blank blank I want. The end.
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mkestrel,
I say go for it! Do what makes you happy and if your doctors don’t see a problem with you eating what you want, so be it, and ignore the people who think they are know-it-alls!2 -
mkestrel, I had to bite my tongue about the one who said if she had cancer she would do all she can, I probably would have asked her what she would do? Ignorance is bliss and she is a candidate for being the poster child. Eat what you want, eat what you can tolerate, eat what you like and eat what doesn't cause issues. You need to enjoy life and if food choices is part of it, go for it.
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I am hearing you @mkestrel. It irritates me beyond belief about how everyone - most of whom have not got bc - has an opinion on what you should be doing. Some days I tell myself that I should be nice cos they are just trying to help in their own misguided way and other times I am afraid I tell them that I am happy to follow their advice as soon as they can tell me which medical school they graduated from. I am also very tired of being told what i should and should not be doing with my life. This is my stage iv cancer - i will do what feels good and right for me - not what makes others feel good. Rant over.😎
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Amen to the above comments. Eat and drink what you want. What’s the worst that could happen? We die a week sooner? Even my MO said if I enjoy something, then why not? There’s a doctor’s opinion for you!
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And the hits keep coming!
I haven’t spoken to my mom since earlier this week and had no plan to as I was putting boundary in place! She called a little after seven my time this morning and berated me over the card she got for Mother’s Day! Meanwhile, my hubby started his mouth going from another room. I hung up on her tirade and blew up at him for the petty crap the two of them are pulling and always putting me in the middle! She continued to call the house while I refused to answer the phone. Hubby picks up and tries to hand me the phone! I refused to take it and yelled loud enough that they both can stop their petty war as I am done dealing with it! I was so furious with both of them that I texted both and told them to leave me alone! I’m so stressed out I’m either going to have a nervous breakdown or a heart attack. She texted back and said some pretty nasty things about my hubby which I told her was unacceptable to me and left it at that. The final time Mom called, I made the stupid mistake of picking up the phone thinking it was a friend of ours calling. She continued the attack on me so I fired back with, “Gee Mom, it must be nice that I send you cards or call for important days like your birthday, etc. But when it comes to me or my husband, we don’t get anything, not even a card for our anniversary!” I hung up as she was trying to claim that she doesn’t know when our anniversary is. She should darn well remember when my wedding anniversary is, as she tried to make the day of my wedding all about her as she was there! The only thing that changed it was my late older sister stepping in and steering it back in my direction!0 -
mommyof3, your husband’s actions were wrong. Because he’s your husband, in a calm moment, remind him that even tho he may mean well and think he’s helping somehow, it’s you and he who are a team, you’re partners. Let him know you need his support and it isn’t his place to get between you and your mother. When my dh and I encounter similar issues, I say something like, “I know you love me and want to help and the best way to do that is let me work this out on my own and just be by my side quietly supporting me.” That’s a boundary I’ve learned to place in my relationship with dh in more recent years. Basically I’m telling him to “stay out of it” but in a nice, wifely way. Your husband can listen and offer you advice privately, but he should steer clear of any more involvement than that.
It felt like when I got serious about boundaries, those who were taking advantage of me sensed a power shift in our relationship, and it’s as if they doubled down on their attempts to gain the upper hand. My sisters found more excuses to try to get us together, and I kept coming up with all kinds of wonderful excuses to turn them down. They tried to guilt me and I would envision myself wearing gold hand cuffs like Wonder Woman and mentally pictured myself using them to deflect their guilt and any other garbage they tried to sling my way.1 -
I just finished a book by Steve Leder called, "The Beauty of What Remains." He made a comment in there about making peace with people before we die—EXCEPT WITH NARSICISTS and other abusive people. He says to cut them out of your life as their only intent is to hurt. I've bookmarked the page in my Kindle, and I need to go back and find the quote. I think he's spot on!
I highly recommend this book. He's a Jewish rabbi who has spent time with many dying people. I bought two hard copies so that my DH can read it and I can have a copy to bookmark and highlight.
Wishing all of you a peaceful day.
Carol
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Here's the quote:
“Feel for others. People behave badly because they are damaged. Let your first impulse be one of empathy. That being said, there will be a handful of people in your life who demand too much—who are mean, narcissistic, negative—causing you to feel terrible about yourself. Cut those people out of your life. You cannot fix them.”The Beauty of What Remains, page 186
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sunshine, thank you for the book recommendation! I went right to my library web page and placed a hold on it. Eleven people ahead of me. It is one of my more favorite types of subject matter I like to read. And I see it was published in 2021; I tend to gravitate towards newer books like this.
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Who is the author since there are 2 books with this title start?
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betrayal, the author is Steve Leder:
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Thanks, Divine.
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That’s it. 😍
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I’m going to cross post this on a couple of threads.
I monitor the comments that people make on my blog. I haven’t deleted one until today. When it showed up again, I labeled it “Spam.” Here’s the kicker—it came from a former college roommate. It went something like this: “Carol and others traveling this cancer journey. I have a friend who was told to go home and get your affairs in order and chemo burned her skin, She wanted to try other treatment protocols. I sent her to xxx.com. Also look up xxx cancer protocol at xxx.com. My friend went from stage 4 pancreatic cancer to stage 1 in a matter of weeks… Please give it a try. Love you, Carol.”
I’ve debated responding by saying that that kind of information is NOT helpful and please do NOT post stuff like this. On the other hand, I’m not sure I even want to engage with her. I think I’ll just ignore it, call it spam and make sure it’s deleted.
Why do people do this??? Who asked her??? If I put out there that I was desperate to find a cure and would try anything, I’d welcome such responses. I didn’t, I’m not, so STOP with the bad advice.
I guess I just wanted to vent. Thanks for reading my ramblings.
Carol
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sunshine, unsolicited medical advice is a thorn in the side of cancer patients! Grrr! It’s beyond ridiculous that some people think treating cancer is so simple! I’m pretty sure this type of person thinks that all cancer is the same. In other words they think, cancer in the pancreas is the same as cancer of the lung, breast, thyroid, etc.; it just attacked a different part of the body. So they approach it as a “one size fits all” cure. And amazingly they believe it will work, even though they’ve never asked you one single medical question about your health whatsoever! They have no clue how complicated something like breast cancer is. They do not understand the differences in triple negative, hormone positive, Her2+, ductal or lobular carcinoma and so on. They act like curing cancer is as easy as googling a recipe for beef stroganoff and following the instructions!
Often, their advice reeks of toxic positivity. “Well, it’s so simple! Why make it so complicated? Follow steps one, two, three and voila! Bye bye cancer!” Some people erroneously believe that thinking happy thoughts will either prevent cancer or cure it.
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Divine,
that is exactly the point I made in a presentation I had to do last term for a class where we had to do a “Call to Action” campaign. I did mine on Breast Cancer and I said that the treatments that are available for this disease are not a “one size fits all” approach. I said that the team of doctors treating the person tailor the treatment to what they think is the best approach in the situation! After all, like our clothes, life and health is not “one size fits all”!0 -
mommyof3, I hope you aced your Call to Action presentation and I also hope that those in attendance were actively listening and walked away better informed about breast cancer treatments!
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I did good but the presentation was all online and the instructor was a little picky on things. At least I finished the class with an A
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Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah - I am so over windows and microsoft and the endless updates and update messages. I am a techno-fool so these messages stress me - silly, I know. When I was working there was an IT team to sort out any pc difficulties. They were regular visitors to my office. Standard request to me was - "step away from the computer, now - don't touch it - we will fix it" After years of dithering about apple I am going to take the leap. I just cannot deal with the other any more. Rant over.
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I hear you! Started out with Windows/Microsoft products but slowly moved over to Apple only devices. I live in Silicon Valley and my older dd works for Apple 😊. No technology is perfect, Apple products need updates too, but I am very happy with their products.
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Yes @exbrnxgrl, I shall transition over the next few months - one step at a time - but I am done with windows and microsoft.😎
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My son was drawn to Apple products from the get-go. I gradually transitioned to all Apple products; the way they all sync with each other simplifies my life.
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What is it with relatives that forget important things like anniversaries. So flipping mad at my own mother! Hubby and I celebrated 20 years of marriage yesterday. Mom couldn’t even send a card or even call us for it! At least most of my friends and some of my other family remembered! Even my younger brother texted me last night with congrats to me and hubby. I’m so hurt by my mom’s actions. My in-laws have never acknowledged anything that might be about hubby or I, including birthdays, so I know never to expect anything from them but snubs and tacky comments as they never wanted me in the family.
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