So my mom is sitting down across from me, and were eating, and talking. I ask her if vovo (portuguese for grandmother) is coming over on New Years. She says no. She says tia (my aunt) is coming over, but not my grandmother. Originally, I am thinking about my grandmothers situation: if she isn't going to my aunts - the same tia - this year, than where is she going? But eventually, along my arguing, I switch over, unconsciously, into the wish for her to come so I can collect my christmas money....to buy more books. In any case, I press the point and ask my mom where Vovo is going. She says she's not coming. I ask her again, but with greater force, bass and pitch "How is Vovo not coming!??" And now, my mother is acting out. "Why does it matter to you? Tia doesn't want to sleep with her; she snores. And besides she doesn't want to come". She makes passing comments about me to my brother. There's an obvious rancor in it. A way to "get back at me" for irritating her.
She's irritated because she feels guilty. Her mother wont have anyone to be with on New Years - and knowing that her daughters are celebrating New Years together, with her not merely "not there", but deliberately uninvited - and it seems designed to hurt her. Yet, there's truth to my mothers resentment. She is the child of a woman who manipulated her, lied to her, enslaved (taking her wages to pay off the house, from 12 years on) her, and turned her head to the physical abuse and sexual abuse inflicted on her by her father and cousins.
That's a lot of stuff. That my mother has been so committed to her mother for this length of time is important. One wonders how she can "grow", as a person, when her mind is periodically subjected to the relational field that makes up her and her mom - as well as the emotions that underlie her borderline personality disorder.
Nevertheless, it was amusing to me how she had unconsciously 'transferred' her emotion and feeling from the interaction dealing with her decision not to invite vovo to new years, to the subsequent conversations we had about other subjects. The hostility was prodigious. She was speaking in a manner and pace that indicated profound autonomic arousal; her thoughts were darting in particularly spiteful directions, aiming for the 'weak spot' in the detested object (me).
Playing with this state - or at least attempting to - I come towards my mother and discuss what I'm perceiving. The process that we've been involved in, and which me and my sister have both contributed to creating, has led to a point where she can at least sit, and somewhat listen to me, while maintaining a bantering persona. I say to her "you're angry because I made you feel guilty about not inviting Vovo". And she listens, and begins to talk about her reasons for not inviting her. However much I disagree with this approach, for her, in her situation, it is probably necessary, albeit, it pains me knowing that my grandmother will experience this; however, the woman continues to manipulate and engage in spiteful behaviors. So what else can be expected of people like my mother, uncle or aunt?
I am not like this, because fortunately I have enough conceptual knowledge and an existential, or philosophical depth to my experience, that I can deal with the abuse/stupidity of my mother by "transforming" it into an opportunity for compassion - that is, understanding that her brain-mind has been conditioned by countless rounds of perception-action cycles. Since my mom has nothing comparable to my self-awareness and ability to sense the minutiae of experience, my relationship with her can be one of two things: constructive or destructive. I decided long ago that I had it within me to feel compassion for my mother, and to learn to tolerate and process my feelings when she falls into a negative self-state. Thankfully, for whatever good there exists in the world, I have indeed become proficient at regulating my emotions when my mother says stupid things, simply because I know that I am working with a very subtle glitch in the human condition: dissociation and idealization. Because I know how these processes work - and which I watch unfolding countless times in my self and others - how can I honestly hold a grudge against a person who has mindlessly - quite literally - done something that has caused me or others harm? To reprove of course is a necessity. To do what needs to be done, to help build up their capacity for correct awareness, should also be sought. But a punishing attitude, it seems to me, is fundamentally destructive and is done more because we are social primates who love the thought of revenge - and the restoration of social status that it implies - than for the reasons of righteousness that we tell ourselves.
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