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Moronic mother in law's
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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 193899" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>It's not necessarily about parenting, either - so don't think that if you had easy child kids there would be no problem. And it's also not necessarily because they're in-laws. I think it's also a generational thing. I was just whingeing to easy child about it (she's visiting us tonight, yay!) about mother in law at the moment.</p><p></p><p>Now, I get on well with mother in law, but I DO work at it. The more time I spend with her, the more difficult child I see in her. And at the moment, I know she is feeling very unwell and in a lot of pain, fed up with her ageing body letting her down. I know she is almost pathologically afraid of getting old and frail. The worse she feels (physically and emotionally) the more difficult she is to get on with.</p><p></p><p>Now in the last few days, she and I have had to have various medical tests and see specialists about our assorted health problems. It's a long drive in the car, we have time to talk about all sorts of things. She will say to me, "What do you think the problem is?" and if I tell her what I think, she will immediately tell me the opposite and almost always is trying to either downplay any concern I might have, or seem to find a way to turn it back onto me having "done too much" or done something wrong in some way. For example, I'm currently in a lot of pain with my shoulders and my hips. After having multiple tests and finally seeing my neurologist (also her neurologist - we had back-to-back appointments) it's looking like some sort of inflammatory process is going on; if this is it, then it should be treatable and self-limiting, but it IS painful. The problem has been getting worse for several months and especially in the last two weeks.</p><p>So tonight, mother in law asked me, "How are you this evening?"</p><p>Now, from past experience I know she's not just asking to be polite, so I told her truthfully, "It was worse this morning and at midday, but this evening I'm not too bad at all."</p><p>I may as well have said, "I'm feeling awful tonight, much worse than this morning," because her response was, "I told you you've been doing too much driving over the last few days! What you need is some rest, take things easy. Nothing wrong with you that a good rest won't fix."</p><p>Now, this is unanswerable - if I try to talk about it at all then I'm either arguing, or I'm obsessing about my pain levels and this is also clearly unhealthy. But if I agree with her and later on the problem is clearly continuing, then I'm not being honest with her. No win.</p><p>I'm getting the usual platitudes (I've heard them over the years) such as, "You do realise, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." Which is meaning that because I have some medical knowledge, I am worrying myself sick literally. Which, of course, I don't do. In fact I have enough knowledge to NOT worry. And that time, I said so - "My pain does not change, if I get Label A or Label B. My pain is the same. But the label can help me understand why, and this can make it easier to accept and ignore."</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile - she will complain to us about being worried - her heart rate might have sped up and kept her awake through the night (which IS a worry, she's not making things up) but then when she worries about it, it actually makes her heart rate irregularities worse. Or she comes out of the doctors complaining that the doctor wants more tests organised and she (mother in law) doesn't want to do it. So I reassure her, tell her that the doctor only wants to make sure, she wouldn't put her through the hassle of tests unless there was a good reason, then I call and make the appointment for her. Over the next week or so, she complains about will she, won't she, go have the tests. Then at the last minute, with an air of defiance, she cancels. I make a point of not reacting (I sense she's just itching for me to argue with her, so I won't).</p><p>If eventually she has the tests (or procedure) and things aren't exactly perfect, then it was the worst decision in the world, we don't hear the end of it, everything is wrong, she KNEW it would be a disaster, didn't she say it over and over?</p><p></p><p>She is NOT competing with me. I'm fairly sure she is not. But I'm fairly sure she IS projecting - she knows she worries too much and seems to be working hard to stop ME from worrying about myself (which is what she would do, if she were me).</p><p></p><p>As for parenting - yes, she's said it all there, as well. So have other grandmotherly friends of ours. Of course there's nothing wrong with our boys, they're just boisterous, that's all. And maybe could do with a teensy bit of discipline now and then, it wouldn't hurt. </p><p>I really think they're NOT trying to say, "You're a bad parent," but in fact are trying (in their own hamfisted way) to desperately deny the ghastly possibility that our darling child might not be perfect. ANYTHING to make us (ie them, really) feel better, to reassure us that there is nothing wrong, especially the awful spectre that whatever is wrong is MENTAL. Because for their generation, anything even hinting at the possibility of mental illness is utterly anathema. mother in law, for all her medical training, has a very poor understanding of psychology and psychiatry. And an even worse opinion. Even taking one of the kids to see a psychologist to get IQ testing done would be enough to trigger a major tantrum in mother in law, because you NEVER admit to any need to see one of those charlatans. And again, it's not mother in law, it's her generation.</p><p></p><p>If you could sit down and talk commonsense with these people, chances are they would admit to a huge fear that there could be something seriously wrong and not easily fixable. They can't admit to that fear, so instead they turn it into anger, usually at the person who is insisting that there is a problem needing to be assessed. Denial is the first stage of grief, which is what we have to go through when we deal with the loss of what we thought we had. Anger is also in there right at the beginning.</p><p></p><p>And because we are not family (other than having married in) then we are the most likely targets. If you have a choice to criticise the child of your womb, or the person who stole them from you, who would you go for?</p><p></p><p>I can generally handle mother in law, but at the moment, with her anxiety being worse than usual plus my pain levels being worse than usual, I'm not coping as well. Recognising this makes it easier to know that sometimes I just have to change the subject, or avoid talking about my own problems, if she isn't wanting to REALLY be supportive about it (because it's too much for her right now, too).</p><p></p><p>I get the "he was behaving just fine for me; it's only when you're around," stuff too. It's really annoying. And yes, that IS competition, plus it's a way the person is using to tell the world, "See? I still have what it takes to be a good parent, I was one of the best, I haven't lost my usefulness to society, give me more opportunities and let me show you just how useful I could be to you."</p><p></p><p>It's all about making her feel better about herself, rather than about making you feel inferior. Because as you get older, you begin to fear (and resent) the way you're discredited and left on the shelf. Phrases like "Youth is wasted on the young" and other platitudes get used a lot. And because WE aren't old enough to have that wisdom, we are powerless to defend ourselves from any implied criticism. "Oh, you will understand when you're older."</p><p></p><p>But remember - it's not about making us feel bad. it's about making her feel good. Or at least, better. It's probably not even intended to be at our expense. They would be horrified to realise that it IS at our expense, so you could never make that point either, because they've raised denial to an art form and would only react with more denial and self-justification.</p><p></p><p>This evening as we left mother in law, easy child had asked her to come with us tomorrow while she goes to try on more wedding dresses. mother in law said over and over, "Are you sure you want me along? Are you sure it's OK? Well, only if you're sure. I mean, I know YOU asked me,easy child, but it has to be OK with your parents as well. After all, they're the ones driving." husband & I were there and reassuring mother in law, "Yes, of course it's OK," but because WE hadn't been the ones to ask, she was desperately afraid she was going to be an intruder into our day. Her anxiety is bad at the moment (but she would never admit to it - that is a mind thing).</p><p></p><p>mother in law is a good person. But her insecurities can cause a lot of problems, for her as well as for us. We just acknowledge that is how she is, and we work with that as our baseline. We certainly can't change her - not now!</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 193899, member: 1991"] It's not necessarily about parenting, either - so don't think that if you had easy child kids there would be no problem. And it's also not necessarily because they're in-laws. I think it's also a generational thing. I was just whingeing to easy child about it (she's visiting us tonight, yay!) about mother in law at the moment. Now, I get on well with mother in law, but I DO work at it. The more time I spend with her, the more difficult child I see in her. And at the moment, I know she is feeling very unwell and in a lot of pain, fed up with her ageing body letting her down. I know she is almost pathologically afraid of getting old and frail. The worse she feels (physically and emotionally) the more difficult she is to get on with. Now in the last few days, she and I have had to have various medical tests and see specialists about our assorted health problems. It's a long drive in the car, we have time to talk about all sorts of things. She will say to me, "What do you think the problem is?" and if I tell her what I think, she will immediately tell me the opposite and almost always is trying to either downplay any concern I might have, or seem to find a way to turn it back onto me having "done too much" or done something wrong in some way. For example, I'm currently in a lot of pain with my shoulders and my hips. After having multiple tests and finally seeing my neurologist (also her neurologist - we had back-to-back appointments) it's looking like some sort of inflammatory process is going on; if this is it, then it should be treatable and self-limiting, but it IS painful. The problem has been getting worse for several months and especially in the last two weeks. So tonight, mother in law asked me, "How are you this evening?" Now, from past experience I know she's not just asking to be polite, so I told her truthfully, "It was worse this morning and at midday, but this evening I'm not too bad at all." I may as well have said, "I'm feeling awful tonight, much worse than this morning," because her response was, "I told you you've been doing too much driving over the last few days! What you need is some rest, take things easy. Nothing wrong with you that a good rest won't fix." Now, this is unanswerable - if I try to talk about it at all then I'm either arguing, or I'm obsessing about my pain levels and this is also clearly unhealthy. But if I agree with her and later on the problem is clearly continuing, then I'm not being honest with her. No win. I'm getting the usual platitudes (I've heard them over the years) such as, "You do realise, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." Which is meaning that because I have some medical knowledge, I am worrying myself sick literally. Which, of course, I don't do. In fact I have enough knowledge to NOT worry. And that time, I said so - "My pain does not change, if I get Label A or Label B. My pain is the same. But the label can help me understand why, and this can make it easier to accept and ignore." Meanwhile - she will complain to us about being worried - her heart rate might have sped up and kept her awake through the night (which IS a worry, she's not making things up) but then when she worries about it, it actually makes her heart rate irregularities worse. Or she comes out of the doctors complaining that the doctor wants more tests organised and she (mother in law) doesn't want to do it. So I reassure her, tell her that the doctor only wants to make sure, she wouldn't put her through the hassle of tests unless there was a good reason, then I call and make the appointment for her. Over the next week or so, she complains about will she, won't she, go have the tests. Then at the last minute, with an air of defiance, she cancels. I make a point of not reacting (I sense she's just itching for me to argue with her, so I won't). If eventually she has the tests (or procedure) and things aren't exactly perfect, then it was the worst decision in the world, we don't hear the end of it, everything is wrong, she KNEW it would be a disaster, didn't she say it over and over? She is NOT competing with me. I'm fairly sure she is not. But I'm fairly sure she IS projecting - she knows she worries too much and seems to be working hard to stop ME from worrying about myself (which is what she would do, if she were me). As for parenting - yes, she's said it all there, as well. So have other grandmotherly friends of ours. Of course there's nothing wrong with our boys, they're just boisterous, that's all. And maybe could do with a teensy bit of discipline now and then, it wouldn't hurt. I really think they're NOT trying to say, "You're a bad parent," but in fact are trying (in their own hamfisted way) to desperately deny the ghastly possibility that our darling child might not be perfect. ANYTHING to make us (ie them, really) feel better, to reassure us that there is nothing wrong, especially the awful spectre that whatever is wrong is MENTAL. Because for their generation, anything even hinting at the possibility of mental illness is utterly anathema. mother in law, for all her medical training, has a very poor understanding of psychology and psychiatry. And an even worse opinion. Even taking one of the kids to see a psychologist to get IQ testing done would be enough to trigger a major tantrum in mother in law, because you NEVER admit to any need to see one of those charlatans. And again, it's not mother in law, it's her generation. If you could sit down and talk commonsense with these people, chances are they would admit to a huge fear that there could be something seriously wrong and not easily fixable. They can't admit to that fear, so instead they turn it into anger, usually at the person who is insisting that there is a problem needing to be assessed. Denial is the first stage of grief, which is what we have to go through when we deal with the loss of what we thought we had. Anger is also in there right at the beginning. And because we are not family (other than having married in) then we are the most likely targets. If you have a choice to criticise the child of your womb, or the person who stole them from you, who would you go for? I can generally handle mother in law, but at the moment, with her anxiety being worse than usual plus my pain levels being worse than usual, I'm not coping as well. Recognising this makes it easier to know that sometimes I just have to change the subject, or avoid talking about my own problems, if she isn't wanting to REALLY be supportive about it (because it's too much for her right now, too). I get the "he was behaving just fine for me; it's only when you're around," stuff too. It's really annoying. And yes, that IS competition, plus it's a way the person is using to tell the world, "See? I still have what it takes to be a good parent, I was one of the best, I haven't lost my usefulness to society, give me more opportunities and let me show you just how useful I could be to you." It's all about making her feel better about herself, rather than about making you feel inferior. Because as you get older, you begin to fear (and resent) the way you're discredited and left on the shelf. Phrases like "Youth is wasted on the young" and other platitudes get used a lot. And because WE aren't old enough to have that wisdom, we are powerless to defend ourselves from any implied criticism. "Oh, you will understand when you're older." But remember - it's not about making us feel bad. it's about making her feel good. Or at least, better. It's probably not even intended to be at our expense. They would be horrified to realise that it IS at our expense, so you could never make that point either, because they've raised denial to an art form and would only react with more denial and self-justification. This evening as we left mother in law, easy child had asked her to come with us tomorrow while she goes to try on more wedding dresses. mother in law said over and over, "Are you sure you want me along? Are you sure it's OK? Well, only if you're sure. I mean, I know YOU asked me,easy child, but it has to be OK with your parents as well. After all, they're the ones driving." husband & I were there and reassuring mother in law, "Yes, of course it's OK," but because WE hadn't been the ones to ask, she was desperately afraid she was going to be an intruder into our day. Her anxiety is bad at the moment (but she would never admit to it - that is a mind thing). mother in law is a good person. But her insecurities can cause a lot of problems, for her as well as for us. We just acknowledge that is how she is, and we work with that as our baseline. We certainly can't change her - not now! Marg [/QUOTE]
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