Posted by Dinah on June 25, 2009, at 18:02:27
In reply to Re: Need help reframing, posted by pegasus on June 24, 2009, at 12:20:10
> But then it's curious that this came up at a time when you're not feeling particularly plagued by excruciating memories of past humiliations. This definitely seems like it warrants further explanation from your T.
That's what bothers me about it. The issues aren't troubling me at the moment, so why dig them up? If he could give me a good explanation, perhaps. But I suspect he just suggested it because I put him on the spot about where to go from here in therapy.
> As for family rules, maybe it's difficult to identify them because when they're unspoken they tend to be unconscious. And when they're unconscious, it's hard to recognize them, obviously.
I think I might be getting hung up on the term "rules". So many things seem unlikely to be rules to me, because someone or another always broke them. I can think of conditions, or expectations, or consequences, but rules just doesn't seem right.
> Here's some rules from my family, for what it's worth (maybe it'll help you get started):
>
> 1. Your status in the family is directly related to how intelligent you are.>
> 2. Girls clean and cook. Boys don't have to.
>
> 3. Money is evil, but if you don't have it then you're a failure. (This one still messes me up.)
>
> 4. We all follow the rules of the Catholic church. If we don't, we pretend that we do.
>
> 5. It's not OK to impose your own personal issues on other people. (For example, I was expected to cook our Thanksgiving turkey, because I'm the girl, even though I'm a vegetarian.)
>
> 6. Dad is the nominal/official head of the household, but in practice mom is in charge.
>
> I find that family rules become apparent when you imagine things that you could do that would invoke an emotional or surprised reaction from your family. E.g., if I refused to cook a turkey at Thanksgiving, I'm sure I'd get a lot of flack from my family.They would get emotional over a lot of things. Surprised? I don't know. I suppose if I did something that they didn't expect of me.
I think...
My mother and father did not like each other. So they rarely would work together on rules. (When my son was a preschooler, I told him it was grandma and grandpa's anniversary. He asked if an anniversary was what two people had if they didn't like each other.) I guess I did feel that it was my job to be peacemaker, and to reframe each's behavior so that the other would find it less annoying. They allowed me to fill that role, and led me to believe I had that power. So maybe that was a rule? I don't think so though. I think I just chose to do it to make my own life easier.
Cooking, cleaning, etc. was done by whoever cared the most. When we were little, my father cared more about meals so he generally cooked. When I got older, I earned extra money by doing household jobs like cooking and mowing the lawn. But mother cared more about the gardens, so she did that. If no one cared about something, it didn't get done. So I guess I got the message that if you cared enough to want something done, and nobody else did it, you needed to do it yourself. And possibly that if there was something that needed to be done, and no one else did it, it was your responsibility. Is that a rule?
Mother quoted over and over to me "I am the captain of my fate. I am the master of my soul." and "I have to live with myself and so, I must be fit for myself to know." That was spoken, not unspoken.
They emoted plenty, and it was ok for us to do it too. Or not. My mother generally reacted the way teachers react, as she was one. My father found it terribly amusing when I was angry.
There were expectations that it was our jobs to do well in school and go to college. But my brother did neither and nothing happened to him.
They loved us no matter what, in that dutiful parental way. But they liked being with us a heck of a lot better when we were pleasant to be around. That doesn't seem like a rule so much as common sense. My father despised at times both my mother and my brother. And I knew if I'd acted like them he'd have despised me too. I don't see a rule in that...
Both were volatile. My father didn't yell at people so much as things. Throwing shoes or cursing at his work, something like that. He brooded a lot. My mother was wonderful a lot of the time, but had a terrible and unpredictable temper. She'd also storm out of the house when she was angry, and come back hours or in one case a couple of days later, and start screaming about the mess in the house or something as soon as she walked in. I always wondered why she did that, since it made us rather wish she'd kept going. But rules? I don't know.
All those things seem more like observations than rules to me.
poster:Dinah
thread:902818
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090614/msgs/903170.html