Posted by Dinah on May 24, 2006, at 15:38:42
It's funny. I spent a lot of time with my mother this weekend, and I had forgotten that when there's no monetary or decision making discussions, and there aren't any other people around so that I don't feel embarassed about her, she can actually be fun to talk to.
She went out of her way to make sure I knew Daddy loved me and was proud of me even though he never said so. She said he just didn't like making a fuss over me, because he said that he didn't like it when his mother and aunts made a fuss over him. Of course I did know that. He had many ways of showing what he never said.
But the funny thing was that she swears she only remembers being physical with me twice. Once when I was little and playing in the toilet (yuck) and once when I was running from her and she reached out and grabbed me and got my hair. She said she felt really bad when she found out a chunk of my hair had come out in my hand. That's not how I remember it (except that a chunk of my hair did come out and I spent hours brushing loose hair from my head), but ok, maybe that's how it seemed to her.
But she doesn't remember other times that I recall quite clearly. She didn't deny it. She just said she was stunned that she had forgotten these things. Even when I gave her the details, she couldn't recall it. But she said it was at a time she was under a lot of stress.
She never hurt me more than a handful of times, I'll admit. And she never hurt me when she was in control. She was always totally out of control with rage when she did it. But she did hurt me.
The funny thing was that she had just told me about a time when she had gotten physical with someone else very recently. So she can't think she's incapable of it.
Admittedly though, she didn't believe in corporal punishment for children. She believed in disciplining with high expectations and reasoning.
My mother has always had an amazing ability to create her own reality, twisting things to remember or to think what she wanted things to be rather than what they really were.
I just wonder if maybe she really doesn't remember. When someone's that out of control, is it possible that they really do forget?
poster:Dinah
thread:647919
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060517/msgs/647919.html