Quote From: ritehere Well, they have an emote for embarrassed, but not for wincing. I really missed the mark with that "relaxed" conclusion didn't I? I guess it was more like exhausted huh?
May I ask you something? What would have happened if you, or nobody, went up those stairs to see what the noise was all about? I mean, you knew that's what she expected, you've got her behavior down cold. Does it eventually lead to violent outbursts if she is ignored?
Well, actually that is a VERY good question. The answer is complicated and involved. It’s about the FAMILY pathology and ENABLING, myself included!
The truth is if I hadn’t gone to her she would have resorted to ANY tactics necessary to acquire the attention she was seeking! And, I do mean ANY. Because she don’t stop at the top or the worst scenario imaginable, to most people. It’s kinda like being held hostage.
However, with my father there he would have responded whether I did or not. I was the one she was out for. My father has always insisted that my mother be managed in this way. He knows that giving her attention on demand will satisfy her for a period of time. What he consistently misses is that rewarding this wildly inappropriate behavior actually reinforces it! Thus, he/we provide her with a pay off for engaging in such extreme DRAMA. I have spent a great deal of my life trying to help him make different choices but he refuses because he has to be prepared to live with the consequences of denying her attention on demand. Since he has to live with her and is unwilling to do anything that will not produce INSTANT results, I have complied with his wishes. I have done this KNOWING that this is a sure fire way of keeping this the SAME, because my father simply WON’T stand for anything else!
The entire extended family share this thinking. They are ALL kind and wonderful, well-intentioned little country people who believe that her ‘condition’ is just far TOO mysterious to be understood. They view her and her situation as ‘pitiful’ and view MY take on her manipulation as just plain ‘mean’ and ‘cruel’!
That is why I call this, ‘That Whole Family Mess’! T.W.F.M. ( pronounced as ‘twiffum’.)
Thus, EVERY single time I do this there is a part of me screaming at myself saying, “YOU are NUTS!” and “Do YOU KNOW how crazy YOU are?!?!”
Yours Very Truly, Brenda - (The NUT poster child for 2005!)
