Right, so my dad wants me to call him every Monday and talk about what I’m working on…. he made it very specific he wanted me calling at 1 PM… so that’s what I do, and who should answer but my mother
I love this woman, she’s got a cool job, and she really believes in what she’s doing… BUT, in 30 years of being chronically ill, apparently she still isn’t convinced that I’m struggling more than her or my dad ever have or will.
Lately, I’ve been trying to break it to them that 30 to 40 hours a week is the most I can work, depending on health. Both of them work a minimum of 45. It works great because after 35 years of work they can hire out any work they can’t do. Further, after all those years of practice they can get all of their self care done in a few hours a week. So I was trying to explain that I need self care, and she said, I kid you not “that’s what leisure time is for”….. WHAT?!
I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of why I push myself so hard, which makes me neglect self care, which leads to my current condition. It’s time to admit, it’s my mother.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to clear this obstacle. I’m realizing that for the past 20 years I’ve been waiting for this woman to die so I can start living my own life…. and that’s awful, and also she’s going to live another 30 years.
I’m craving outside input here. My “normal” is so dysfunctional I don’t know how to escape.
6 comments
Have you considered a “joint” therapy session? As in, inviting your parents to therapy with you so you can talk to them about these things? If talking to them about his by yourself isn’t getting the message across, then maybe adding some people to your side of the field would help. You do not have to do anything alone.
How much free time are you getting during the week? How do you spend your free time? What sort of self-care do you think you need that you aren’t getting?
I have more free time than I need, right now. The issue is that my parents, especially my mother, want me to go back to work, they want me to work and go to school at the same time. I don’t have it in me anymore. When I’m as busy as just holding down a job, often I have to go without things, like cooking, or time with my dogs. It’s going to the pantry and finding it bare, because there wasn’t time to plan meals. It’s watching my house get more and more decayed, falling apart around my ears because I “had to” be at work.
Yes, I probably could live with that, in exchange for certain economic benefits. That’s the issue, I go out and on good faith believe that I’ll make more than work costs me, and it’s never happened.
Okay, I’m being a bit absurd. When I was a full time college student and research assistant, then I was getting sufficient reward, admiration, and not falling behind.
But even then, I was operating under the assumption I could keep doing that level of work, that kind of balance, for a decade or so. That assumption, I now know, was entirely wrong. I was given a brief reprieve, a small glimpse of what a satisfying life might look like.
It’s also I know what she is trying to do, trying to encourage me, cheer me up…. it just doesn’t work. The things she says are things I’ve said to myself, and hearing them come out of someone else’s mouth hurts because I have to admit what a heartless bastard I’ve been to myself for the last 17 years. I know she wants the best for me. I also believe she has no idea what that is.
I find it odd that you don’t think you’ll have enough time to plan meals, clean, or spend time with your dogs if you take a job. Especially because you also said you have more free time than you need. I also find your reaction to your mother’s comment about leisure time & self-care odd. She isnt wrong–when youre working, freetime really *is* used for self-care.
My suspicion is that you’ve become “disconnected”, for lack of a better word. Your baseline is at a different starting point, mentally. Perhaps some skills–such as time management/scheduling–have atrophied due to a lack of use. I don’t say this to insult or belittle you, though (In fact, you’re one of the people I respect most on SP, and I value your presence here). I figure if I see something wrong and spare you knowledge of it then I do you a great disservice. We don’t always see ourselves as clearly as others do.
The good news is that, if this is the case, then it can be slowly reversed.
What about working only part-time to start? This could help you get your feet wet enough to build up upon, but it would also allow you to have more time than working full-time would. It’s not a bad place to start.
You know yourself, and you’re very intelligent. Moreso than me. I have faith that you can make it through.
Sorry–I just read through your post again. It seems I’ve missed some things. Maybe Im not understanding the situation.
I’m hoping/thinking that starting school in the fall, with an attached assistantship might work. Where I am right now, relief is possibly in sight, but I’ve got to get ready emotionally and physically if I want to succeed at this thing, and I do.
I’m pretty disillusioned with the whole employer/employee relationship, which I’ll admit is because of some of my trauma and history. I know that a university has to make it so you can succeed. If they make it impossible on you, there are steps to resolve the problem. Too often I’ve showed up at HR and they told me my options were to hire a lawyer or quit.
It’s almost been two years since I worked at a job for someone I respect. The whole electrician thing was a wash, I’m too old and tired to keep up. I know I can show up, and I know I can learn new skills. The trick is turning that into an income, and a job that is willing to stay just a job, and not try to consume my life.
I’ve referred to myself before as a recovering workaholic, and the more objective I get about the situation the more I see how that applies. My parents though, being a workaholic has worked out well for them. For whatever reasons they matched up with companies that appreciate their dedication.
So, sticking with that metaphor of addiction, how do you explain to a functioning addict that you lack their ability to function in spite of the pressures that come with it?
Darker still, I realize that if I had made it work, I’d be just like them, and it would be much less of a resentful rant and more of a floating along on the adulation of my superiors and peers. Maybe it is something wrong with me, but I don’t think it can be corrected. All I can do is make myself more and more valuable, harder and harder to fire or abuse into quitting…. even that is a stopgap.
Eventually, the cost will get too high. In bygone days that time was considered retirement, because it was common to have one employer for your whole life. The stress of job change was a rare thing, not a constant reality. I don’t fit, and the worst of it is that I’m starting to think that is less of a flaw in me, and more of a flaw in the people I have performed work for.
It’s another flavor of my ambition trying to kill me. I want to live up to my potential, so badly. With every year that passes, with each failure, I doubt potential to be anything other than a beloved family member.
If only that was enough, for me, or for my parents. My wife thinks my parents are abusive… and I’m not entirely sure she’s wrong. Maybe sometimes abusers aren’t aware of the damage they’re doing. Maybe I’m too sensitive.
back to basics, how I feel; all day, since I talked to my mom, I’ve felt this sensation like I’ve just been tossed into a sack…. and I’m just sitting in that sack, thinking on one hand how unpleasant it is, but also how I feel so blindsided by that status that I might just sit there, unmoving, waiting until it is safe to crawl back out.
Dissociation…. as a coping mechanism it’s highly underrated. I know that it is one of the most severe symptoms in the mental health world…. but at the same time it makes the pain go away, and if I can get that every now and then, I don’t know how to want it to stop.
I don’t have any good advice or input, only commiseration. When it comes to their children, parents can be the most myopic creatures on the planet. Doesn’t matter how old or accomplished you are, they will always see you as a child: a child who has no real problems because after all, *they* are the ones who did the real suffering so that they could give you a perfect life. And they’d never admit to anything less than that scenario.
So yeah man, I hear you. It sucks to have your worst pain dismissed as if it’s nothing, as if you just need to ‘snap out of it’, or as if you’re not allowed to talk because they have it so much worse. At least she stopped short of the walking-20-miles-through-the-snow-uphill-both-ways speech.
I’ve learned to never ask for help, never bring up any of my difficulties, never show my frailties to my parents, because all it ever accomplishes is that they drown me out with their own complaints.
Mine is a sucky solution, and it may not even be possible in your case since your father is forcing you to give daily updates on your life. So… unfortunately all I can offer is commiseration.