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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 6 of 6. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Dinah on July 2, 2009, at 0:51:07
My therapist refuses to relax the rules in some ways. For example, he's willing to talk to me to help me to complete the assignment, but he's not willing to talk to me in place of doing the assignment. And I might not do it at all, since he hasn't given me a compelling reason to do the oval. I keep saying that I feel no need to do it since my small humiliations are safely tucked away and not hurting anything, and he keeps saying that if that was true, I wouldn't mind listing them.
Which seems like a circular disagreement that is not likely to be solved.
I came up with some very contradictory descriptions of my mom. But he said contradictory was fine. People are complex. Scary. Wonderful. Selfish. Generous. Explosive. Patient.
My father was harder. He was Daddy, and that explains everything. Brooding perhaps. Intense. Loyal. Loud. Funny. Smart. Tall. But those really don't give a very good picture of him. Except brooding maybe.
My family role is easy. Mediator. Entertainer. Princess. The person who was my parents reason for staying together. I'd say good girl, except that might have been a self appointed role. My brother and his friends thought princess was the most accurate. :)
Unspoken family rules is still hard. I did realize that this was likely very true. I remembered that my mother very seldom said (or acted out) "Because I said so!" My therapist asked if that meant she explained when I asked why a rule was there, and I replied that I didn't need to ask. She never said "Give me your hand." She'd say "We're in a busy street and it's not entirely safe. Could you give me your hand please?" Everything was spelled out, with reasons. My therapist laughed and said that sounded very much like how I parented my son. And it was. My father was a blurter. Not that he couldn't be private about some things. He refused to talk about his parents at all. But whatever he was thinking or feeling he'd likely blurt out.
So my therapist said that I could include spoken rules. I've come up with:
Nobody wants to know how you feel. It's how you act that's important.
If you want something done, and you have the ability, you have the responsibility to do it yourself. Because if no one feels strongly about it, it just won't be done.
My mother used to quote two things to me that shaped my expectations of myself and my behavior.
"I am the captain of my fate." and "You have to live with yourself and so, you must be fit for yourself to know." So....
You are responsible for your choices and actions.
The most important thing in life is personal honor and integrity.
That's only four. I'm supposed to have five. I suppose I can include a lesson learned.
Anger is dangerous.
I don't know what mission statement my family gave me. I'll have to check in with him about that.
The mission statement I have now is easy. It is my mission now to leave the world at least a slightly better place to be than if I had not lived, and to be God's hands in this world to the extent he's able to use me.
But at this point, I am still unwilling to list the humiliations of my life.
Posted by Dinah on July 2, 2009, at 0:58:16
In reply to About my assignment, posted by Dinah on July 2, 2009, at 0:51:07
Hmmm... I wonder if there is some way to include what my husband and I call the tyranny of high expectations. We were both disciplined in that way.
Our parents trusted us to do what was right. We didn't have curfews. They saw us as good and decent people with the ability to do well at school and behave well towards others. They thought we were way too wise to get involved in drugs or get pregnant.
It was a terrible burden. And we joke about it all the time. Yet I think we raise our son with that same tyranny.
Posted by Daisym on July 2, 2009, at 22:28:35
In reply to Re: About my assignment, posted by Dinah on July 2, 2009, at 0:58:16
I agree about that being a burden. Linus (Charlie Brown) said, "Great potential is a heavy burden."
When your write about your parents, on the surface these seem to be wise parent education concepts and a good way to raise children. But I think when you look deeper, like with my mom, the expectation has an echo, which is "don't need too much from me - take care of it yourself." I was trained to believe that I could and should do everthing...so I did. But I now find myself railing against the idea that I have to self-soothe, that I have to save myself, self-correct, self-contain, etc. etc. I'm tired of doing it myself and it is lonely. But it IS what grown ups do. And I DO it - even as I wish I had someone to do it for me.
As far as your assignment goes, it reminds me of when I was a kid and went to confession. I was a very good girl and the things I thought I needed to confess, I didn't dare tell anyone. So I would make stuff up - and then confess the next time about telling a lie. Or I would repeat stuff my mom yelled at me, as if it were true.
I don't know why the battle - I'd be dying to ask him what it is about this that he feels so strongly about? Feels like a power struggle instead of a productive assignment.
I still hope you finish it in one way or another.
Posted by Dinah on July 3, 2009, at 6:38:40
In reply to Re: About my assignment » Dinah, posted by Daisym on July 2, 2009, at 22:28:35
It does seem a bit like a power struggle, doesn't it? If I could be his shrink for a while I'd love to explore it.
On the other hand, he does think I'm stubborn sometimes, and this might be his attempt to work on that.
I used to make up stuff for confession too! Or, not precisely make it up but use the same general sins that I was pretty sure I always committed, but really wasn't sorry enough to confess since I wasn't really planning to stop sinning. Things like being mean to my brother or disrespectful to my parents. In any given confessional period, I figured I had been less than kind at least once. It was just too frequent confession for a child whose sins were generally not the overt kind to be easily recalled. I wasn't old enough to understand my more abstract sins.
When I was very young, my mother was the best sort of mother a kid could have on a day to day basis. She was not only a teacher, but she always taught along the same lines of personal responsibility and self efficacy as I associate now with Montessori. Looking back, I can see things she did that weren't fair to me or my father, and signs of the same things that led to my future conflict with her. But from a little kid point of view she was wonderful except when she was angry. But that wasn't all that often.
She was great at wise parenting and loved children.
I suppose all parenting techniques leave their own sort of scars though, as they interact with the individual personality of the child.
When I look back, I really don't have much to complain of in my parents' treatment of me when I was little. Whatever complaints I have had more to do with the environment they created, and their personal problems.
Posted by Daisym on July 3, 2009, at 12:57:28
In reply to Re: About my assignment » Daisym, posted by Dinah on July 3, 2009, at 6:38:40
When I think about my mother, I am so conflicted. But what I know about children and adolescents is that the environment they were raised in is a powerful influencer, despite a parent's best efforts. So your parents own issues contributed to the environment and since your were so sensitive, you took it all in.
I think, perhaps, we were better off when we raised children within clans - so that there were lots of matches to be made and modifications could happen more naturally.
And yeah - I so want to be my therapist's therapist for a session. Maybe I'll ask him if I can do that. :)
Posted by Dinah on July 3, 2009, at 14:15:08
In reply to Re: About my assignment » Dinah, posted by Daisym on July 3, 2009, at 12:57:28
> So your parents own issues contributed to the environment and since your were so sensitive, you took it all in.
Yes, absolutely. My parents did their best possible by me, and my mother had the training so that her best really was pretty darn good. But actions really aren't the only thing that matter, no matter what my parents thought. My father's mood disorder influenced us, no matter how much he did what he ought. And my mother's instability in mood and thought had an impact, because how she perceived the world influenced how we saw it, at least for a very long time.
And of course the fact that they really disliked each other and ought never have been together had a huge impact. They never particularly tried to cover it. Daddy blamed Mother. Mother blamed Daddy. And of course nothing had to do entirely with my brother or me.
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