More on tapping into your own unresolved issues

Every once in awhile we talk about it directly, but almost every post contains some component of having our buttons pushed. Yesterday's post on grieving the loss of the special relationship with a first child put it right back in the front of my mind.

I posted the specifics of what it was that I realized was happening to my son that had happened to me in the comments:

"The mismatch I felt was that my son seemed to be really angry and want to cry and I felt like I couldn't comfort him. And then I offhandedly made a remark to my therapist about how my mom said I just wanted to hurtle out of her arms, and I always felt like she was trying to make everything better all the time.

And my therapist connected the dots in half a second and said, "So it sounds like you really just wanted someone to acknowledge and accept your anger, not tell you that everything was going to be OK."

Um, duh. So, yeah, once I started saying to my son "You're angry! You feel mad and sad and you just want to cry!" And he'd look at me and then stop crying and want to hug me! Like as soon as I acknowledged his angry feelings and validated them instead of just glossing over them and trying to comfort him, he didn't need to be so angry anymore.

Then, strangely, it started to be easier for me to be angry. And I talked to my mom about it, and she realized she was never really allowed to be angry as a child, either. And, even more strangely, in the past few years since having this realization, my mom has allowed herself to have her own anger, too.

Round, like a circle like a wheel within a wheel..."

And hedra hit it right between the eyes with this assessment:

"4) Check your own history. If your pain seems at all out of true to the situation, likely you're handling two situations at once - the current one, and something in the past. Worth looking into. I found I was mourning my own relationship change to my mom from back when my baby brother was born. AND some of the pre-and-post divorce-of-my-parents emotional burden. I'd 'repaired the rift' through the relationship with my eldest, and then here it was torn open again! I learned instead to allow the stretch in the process, and recognize that as a child I saw the relationship as torn APART when it was merely stretched to a thinner thread and greater distance. As an adult I can see that the thread is and always was there, it just wasn't something I could recognize. (Which isn't to say that I don't sometimes feel like the relationship I had with G isn't just busted a bit - we get along well, but I still feel the sharp edges of what used to be my perception of the relationship join... only, I suspect that's still old history showing up again, too. It's not so big an issue for me that I feel a need to go back into therapy at the moment, but I could see how it could have been if I hadn't already done a huge amount of therapy BEFORE child two came along!)."

The more I live as a parent, the more I think that it's only partially about parenting the child in front of you, but partially about healing yourself. And whenever you feel emotion out of proportion to the actual situation, that's telling you that you've hit on something in yourself that wasn't right. (So maybe Marina is particularly feeling this because she felt a loss as an older child, and maybe Jennifer is feeling bad for the second because she didn't get enough alone time with her parents.)

I got an email a few months ago from a women who wanted to know what to do about her toddler daughter's crying, because it literally made her cower and shake, and she'd do anything to get her daughter to stop crying. (Not a sustainable model.) She wanted to know if I had any tips to stop a toddler from crying. (Short of duck tape, no.) I asked if she'd been allowed to cry when she was a toddler. She said that no, she'd had to be quiet because her dad was an alcoholic and would fly into an absolute rage whenever the kids made any noise. Bingo! But when I pointed this out and said she could use the crying reaction as a way to help herself and also give her daughter what she didn't get, she didn't want to hear it and just wanted a quick fix to stop her daughter from crying.

I think about that woman at least twice a week, and wonder how things are going. I know there's nothing I can do about her situation. But I'm hoping that by continuing to talk about it here, maybe others of you who are wondering why certain things make you absolutely lose it (out of proportion to the situation--losing it is sometimes the only reasonable reaction) can help figure it out. And that will make things better not only for you, but for your kids.

Thoughts? If you're having situations that are making you feel stuck emotionally, post them and we'll see if we can troubleshoot. That anger thing with me was so simple, but I never would have gotten there on my own. And if anyone else has had revelations, if you post them maybe it will spark something in someone else.

Comments

[pnuts mama]

@amy- wow. well, i guess i'm glad it's not so much your issues w/ her as a grandma but issues w/ her as being your mom now as an adult. one gift i finally got before my momwhoraisedme died was the knowledge that she respected me and liked me as an adult. i'm not saying if she were alive we wouldn't have issues (i'm sure we would) but it definitely helped me heal that part of our relationship. i hope you two are able to find ways to heal yours. that knocking your legs out from under you bs is not cool- especially when it comes to your parenting, which obviously is a place so many of us feel vulnerable in.

@andrea- thanks! 30 weeks is huge. i never imagined i'd be worried about carrying a baby to term, i have embarrassingly nice pregnancies and thought pnut @36 weeks was a fluke. i'm hoping for at least 4 to 6 more weeks with this guy to get those lungs/eyes/brain in good shape and not be super low birth weight. we're getting there!

now if only we could come to some agreement on a name for him. had a nice fight about that this evening.

@ julie- this is my safe place, too. i rec this site to everyone i know then wonder if they ever read it and recognize me.

@mo- i worry about knee-jerk reactions, too. i've seen it happen and it usually doesn't solve any of the original issues, just passes them on down the family tree.

[Beth]

@chaser- I think you definitely hit on something. When I read your comment, I just sat and cried. It's funny because I told my husband way back when the Bean was first born that when he started crawling/walking, I knew I would want to have another one. I had not thought about it in those terms in a while, though. My mom was the only person I ever felt really comfortable being snuggly with (I just don't get to snuggle too often with hubby because we are on opposite schedules and only get to see each other for any length of time for maybe two days a week), and my son took that place for me.
This seems to be my problem with unresolved issues. I will have a revelation of sorts, but forget about it or not know how to take steps to "fix" it. I think this is where therapy could be helpful.

[hedra]

@chaser, oh, YES. The wanting to force-dress them to make them get moving. And I still will sometimes come out with the 'you're going as you are!' thing. Mainly with B, when he doesn't have a plan, or he has a plan but hasn't run it past my plan so it has an essential conflict. And huh, that's probably related to my own issues, in another way, too. I flashed back to walking to school because I hadn't gotten dressed in time to catch the bus. My mom let the older sibs wake me up, and they usually didn't do it well enough to actually wake me, and so if I was going to be ready in time, I had to rush, and if I rushed... well, I didn't rush. I took my time. And missed the bus. A LOT. And walked to school a lot. I'd forgotten why I walked to school so much... conveniently. So, yeah, there's the pain bubble - the delaying for ME is me asking to be attended to, really 'loved enough to bother waking me up yourself'. My mom never came up with a good answer for that. We've got a reasonably decent answer for it, but I still wind up over it. That's one to be let go, now. Funny how much I forget the things that are the linch pin of the issue (forcing me to address it over and over and over in the here and now with my child, instead of dealing with it in myself, where it's less concrete and way more scary and painful - at least for me). INterestingly, B has two issues with not getting dressed - one is that he reads love as 'being helped' and the other is he just finds it BORING. (REading the five love languages books, or at least reading the reviews online at Amazon, helped me figure out the 'I need to feel loved so I will make you help me' thing. The Montessori in the Home presentation has a bit of how to handle that, but remembering to DO it all the time is the trick!)

@beth, yes, the therapy is useful for capturing the stuff and actually working on it. A journal or workbook is also useful. I don't have time to do that anymore, but when I did, I was regularly shocked by re-reading bits from the past and seeing that I'd written down something really central and important, and then had promptly forgotten it again! ARGH. Sigh. Therapy helped keep me on track. It didn't solve everything instantly, but it definitely got things all lined up.

[Joy]

@hedra, if you're still reading these comments, would you mind forwarding the bit on Montessori at home? It's tenerifechica at gmail dot com. THANKS!!

[Lisa F.]

shoot, I don't want this topic to end!

Re: someone's comment about partner being like our parents, Harville Hendrix has some books based on his Imago theory, that we're attracted to & ultimately marry/partner with individuals who are like our primary caregivers, both the good & bad qualities, precisely so we can continue to work on those issues.

Keeping the Love you Find, for singles
Getting the Love you Want, for couples
Giving the Love that Heals, for parents.

I frequently get completely freaked out at how similiar my husband & I are to our parents & become convinced that we will end up divorced and messed up, and scar bean for life. the parenting I received impacted me so very significantly that I often feel paralyzed by parenting decisions and the impact on bean.

BUT we are not our parents, is their rampant alcoholism & domestic violence, Nooooo.
however, I worry that the more insidious sneaky negative messages & emotional abuse from my side may trickle out.

and ooooh, the hot button of compliance, and yes, I too have mentally processed our divorce & divvying up our belongings in moments of crisis, it feels too hard & scary and I just want to bail. but I don't. the moment passes & we stick with it. although I'm not sure how much we're processing, and how much it's just steam being released off the pressure cooker.

sigh. off to read today's topic!

[Shelly]

@caramama: I am the poster who was TERRIFIED of not being able to love the second child as much - and who was SHOCKED at the overwhelming love for the second and struggled with actually having distance from the first! My second (my daughter) was a very very easy baby, and remains to this day (almost three years old) the *happiest*, *snuggliest*, sweetest natured child I have ever encountered. Half the time she thanks me when I tell her "No, you can't have/do this, but you can do that if you want to". With my first, my son, we had HORRIBLE nursing problems for a very very long time, lots of struggle, lots of pain, lots of weight loss, etc. etc. - and about the time that was getting better, he became colicky. (He was a great night sleeper, though, which was the one thing daughter never was...)

Anyway, the thing was - actually still is, sometimes - I drown in guilt all the time, wondering if my love for him decreased once I had her. I am so in love with her, after all, and he and I developed a distance for a while after she was born (I perceived that he and I were especially intimately connected because of living overseas while Daddy was deployed). I still wrestle with that guilt and a tendency to try to analyze the degree of love I feel for each one.

Yeah, not making you feel better yet, right?

But honestly, I think it is all about what hedra said - I don't think I feel more or less love for either one. I think my LOVE gets bigger and bigger and it encompasses all of them (kids and husband). Like hedra said, each new interaction, each new joy, my love gets bigger and bigger and has new facets I never could have imagined ahead of time. I also have a unique feeling of love for different, specific facets of my relationship with each. He will always be my first baby, the one who turned me into a Mommy, the one who showed me what love REALLY is about. She will always be (I pray!) this unique ray of sunshine and joy in the world who is just EASY to enjoy, and she will always be my baby girl who gave me such a gentle introduction to mothering two, who made it so easy to bond with her and love her when I had feared it so much.

The other thing is that yeah, I think you do *like* or *enjoy* each one more or less or differently at different times. My son was just hitting the toddler age of defiance right when this sweet-natured easy baby girl came into our lives. It's unfair to blame all of any distance he and I had on the arrival of a sibling; it very likely would have occurred anyway as he was growing into a new phase of life, personality, discipline, etc. And like someone else mentioned, those come for every child at certain times anyway - irrespective of siblings - so I try to always remember that largest lesson of motherhood (for me anyway!)... EVERYTHING is a phase, everything is temporary, everything is a season. Including the ebbs and flows of positive or negative feelings. Of course each one is easier to like at certain times, but my love for each (and for the whole of all of them) is simply beyond measure.

That's how I always try to think of it.

[Maria Wood]

I don't want this topic to end either!

@hedra… I relate so much to the morning rush/anxiety. I was oldest and by default had the responsibility of getting everybody up and out of the house for school – including my mother, who had to drive us. We were late nearly every day and my mother was groggy and still pajama-ed in the driver's seat. I know now she was hungover/still drunk from the night before, but I was a classic ACOA-in-the-making and bought wholesale into the family denial, so I didn't know it at the time.

Nowadays I think part of my determination to homeschool is to avoid the daily morning panic and strife of getting out of the house on time. P has been going to preschool this year and it has been a huge struggle for me. We have had mornings with me yelling about getting in the car NOW, mornings of me trying (unsuccessfully) to make her dress herself/put shoes and socks on herself, and recently a morning of me yelling because we couldn't find her shoes: that was a big one in my childhood.

I'm learning from reading these comments that P is (among other normal developmental things…) looking for proof that I love her enough to help her get ready, or simply looking for more connection with me before a long day at school.

Oh, how I wish I could take back all my mistakes! I am so afraid of the damage I'm doing to P through my blindness, inexperience, tiredness…

However, I am learning so much about myself, healing or at least acknowledging so much of my childhood. I am sick about her having to be the guinea pig for it all though.

[caramama]

Shelly - That does help. Thanks for putting it out there.

The getting ready in the morning thing? Holy Crap! I have a hard enough time getting my 13 month old ready to go to my mom's. What the heck will I do when she refuses to hurry up and get ready on her own (when old enough)??? I guess I'll be re-reading this and Playful Parenting and How To Talk... and re-visiting many of my own getting-ready-for-school issue, huh? Oh boy.

[Cassie]

Hedra - I'd love a copy of your Montessori at home PDF as well, if you're still reading this far down and it's not too much trouble: cassie DOT mayo AT gmail DOT com. Many thanks!

[Suki]

@Andrea -- I had the exact same issues (eating) with my son at 10.5 months. I HIGHLY recommend the bood "My Child Won't Eat" - order it if necessary. It is a quick read and was the ONLY thing that finally let me let go of all of my anger/frustration/worry etc around meatimes. Mealtimes have been a JOY ever since I read that book (whether he eats or not). Give it a read!

[Robin]

I had this happen 3 years ago. My FIL died, my husband was being really supportive of his sister (who is unmarried and childless) and after a while it made me really angry. And I couldn't figure it out, how horrible was I that this made me mad? It took me a month or so then I realized one day, that when my Dad had died (when I was 21) my brother had done NOTHING to be supportive or available to me, and little for my Mother. I felt abandoned to handle my own grief and my Mother's dependencies. And it popped back up when my FIL died.

[hedra]

@Maria Wood, honestly, you're likely doing much less harm than you fear - either that, or I'm doing more harm than I think! Just keep trying, learning, spotting areas to work on, and carry on. It's really about keeping moving, on and on, yes?

As for the morning fights - yeah, we still have days that we're the yelly parents. Lessee, probably at least half the time someone yelled at someone for something in the morning (and once one person yells, it cycles rapidly to more people yelling - and we've got six people, so ... ouch?). And that's the good weeks. 'WHAT are you *doing*? I said it was time to load up, and you're out picking flowers/sword-fighting/wandering around aimlessly in the yard!?' Or 'GET your shoes ON, NOW.' Argh!

And yet at the same time, we also end up saying a lot of the positive stuff. Can you do that yourself, or do you need my help? What would you like for breakfast? Thank you for helping me with that. Etc. This morning, B (who is SIX), fed the cats, took out the recycling, and made the school lunches. Like, all of them. Granted, it took four times as long, and also meant DH had to be there along for the ride with him, but... but hey, it worked out. Today.

And this discussion HERE led to DH and I discussing the wake-up for B over lunch today, and we're going to adjust some stuff so he has the undivided love and attention of someone in the morning (If I try to help him wake up and get dressed, M or R always seem to pop up and want to watch, which totally invalidates the special-alone-with-parent thing and leads to fights and resistance and foot-dragging and impatience/grumpies/eventually-yellies on my part). So, change parents, see what happens. Either that or I have to wake him up REALLY early to be up before M and R (who sometimes join me at the computer at 4:30 AM, sigh). We'll try another solution, and another, until he outgrows it or we find something that works (at least until he outgrows the solution, too). I'm certain I'll have to ask their forgiveness for something, later. But I'm okay with that, too. I want them to know that it's okay for them to mess up as parents when/if they become parents, too.

[Swistle]

I think I will need to go into therapy just so I can understand this conversation: I'm reading all the comments and I'm missing a lot of it because I don't understand the therapy vocabulary. Still, I can pick up enough to see that this is a really interesting topic. I'll be thinking about this for days, I can tell.

[Julie]

The power struggle of getting dressed. Yes, oh yes. The exhaustion of being The Only One Who Will Do.....it can feel defeating, because sometimes I have to do things for myself like use the toilet. Having grown up in a single parent home I have a new appreciation for what my mom went through with us - not only was she The Only One Who Will Do, but was also simply THE ONLY ONE. While my husband is around, he's not always helpful and it's important for me to remember that at least he's there to bear witness.

[Julie]

@Hedra....please let us know what happened with the job (or just let me know if you posted about it on Monday and I missed it). If that didn't work out, I think you should seriously consider going into some form of therapy, you are so wise and insightful and have so much to offer in the way of constructive advice.

[Julie]

To clarify: BEING the therapist, not GETTING the therapy.

[hedra]

LOL! No, I knew what you meant.

And no, thanks. My mom's a minister, I've done therapy, and I'm happy NOT being a therapist. I'll write books, though - just wait! (I'm already in several, mainly as a panelist or contributor-among-many, but I'm working on my own - or will be when DH finishes his licensing exams... Next year.) I think that's more my calling. Writing. Which is why I end up here all the time... sigh. Back to work! (Oh, and no, I don't yet know about the job, the head-hunter is trying to track down more info for me... waiting. Waiting. Waiting. I hate waiting.)

[Monica]

@hedra, Jumping in very late to see if you'd be willing to send me a copy of your Montessori at Home presentation? msamsky at gmail. Thank you!

[pesce]

Seconding so many things. The easiest one is the recommendation for the book Parenting from the Inside Out. Some passages may seem obvious, very worthwhile for the overall framing of how we manage our issues and how our pasts shape our parenting.

Another book recommendation which isn't only related to parenting, more about domestic relationships in general and the roles we play: The Bitch in the House. Anyone know it? There are essays by various women, but I found several I identified with and really benefited from reading. Namely one essay about the asking for HELP issue- a.k.a. CONTROL FREAK needing to do everything herself (or needing to redo what was done by someone else YOUR WAY), then harboring just a teeny weeny bit of resentment for it. It was an eye-opener because the conclusion was that you can't have it all ways. Do it yourself and assume that superwoman persona. Or let someone else do it but don't compare to how you would've done it. Or be confident enough to ask for help. (Gulp.)

Moving right along. In the vein of perfectionism and not wanting to disappoint, I like so many grew up in a house where Dad grumped a bit (though nothing like so many of you had to deal with) and Mom was the energetic, optimistic powerhouse. Only one hitch: she wound up "making nice" all the time, smoothing things over, "don't raise voices" (ha! my dad did, why couldn't we?!), etc. etc. Thankfully I met a man who does not fear a raised voice, gets it out, gets mindful about what set him off, moves on. At first it terrified me. Then it liberated me. Honestly, how liberating to realize that expressing anger would not shake the foundations, and actually might make them stronger.

So when my baby cried (what felt like all the time when she wasn't nursing or sleeping), I was very uncomfortable. I tried to play the low-key, handle anything with grace Mom. But I tended to apologize or otherwise try to justify. Even with strangers- how ridiculous! I'd be on the bus, she'd start crying, and I'd glance around and mumble at anyone who'd glance back something about her having a hard time falling asleep in the scarf, or gee! she's hungry, or whatever. What a wake-up call that was! As if I owed more to strangers than I did to my daughter, to be there 100% for her and give her space to cry and support that.

Similar things hold true re: husband and wanting to make sure everything ran smoothly. That's a combo platter of all the above. Keep him happy and loving every single second of being a father, no raised voices, be supermama...

One last thing I can admit here. Everyone's talking about the second child and love felt towards the children. Try this out for egotistical. We're thinking about a second and I can already sense a potential feeling of mine that with all the time I'll be spending with a newborn nursing, etc. I'll be missing everything that Dad and 1st are doing together. Of course I'll relish the relationship between them, but I'm afraid of feeling jealous. Throws back to fear of being excluded. I always seemed to be involved in trios of all sorts, and in the end I wound up on the outside of the 2 others (or at least perceived it that way). How twisted is that fear of potentially being "left out"? And more importantly, if I wind up with all eyes spying on husband and first, how will that shortchange number 2? That said, I assume this is intellectual and upon seeing a future number 2 my heart will melt and I will have all eyes on him/her. (There I go, smoothing things over again. See, I'm fine! No problem! Everything's fine! ;)))

Thanks, everyone

[bim]

Yeah, it's late in this thread, but I finally had time to read more of it. Ouch. I'm the rare male who reads, just lurking and all, but these posts just resonate.

How I want to be the dad who is present, because mine was gone so often. Then the divorce when I was 12, and I spent weekends with him. I never learned how to goof off on weekends with friends, because it was Serious Family Time With Dad. I mean, I don't know how to meet people, at least I feel that kind of insecurity, even as people tell me I talk to anyone, and always get people laughing. I still feel like an idiot on the inside, isolated.

So dads go through this, too.

I forget who wrote it, earlier, but yes, it's amazing that we marry the people who have the same hang-ups our parents and siblings did. My wife is so much a combination of my dad and mother, it's weird. Why did I choose that? My mom's tactless distance at moments of need, my dad's weird disappearing acts (at moments of concentration for him, a science type), that and more, arising at times with my spouse. Probably both are just human, but often I react to her just like I react to my parents. Bad move.

When everyone writes about their pasts and the attempt to, like chaser about force-dressing the little one, I feel it strongly. For me, it's anger at my daughter's (7) temper tantrums. She's a gifted and volatile kid, huge expectations of herself that I try my damnedest to soothe and relax. She's so tense. When she loses it, I get insanely mad at her for having the temper tantrum. Why? Because I had them as a kid. I ripped a book case out of a wall once; hell, I ripped a tree (nothing BIG, but more than a sapling) out of the ground once, in pure rage. I was afraid of myself. Lots of biking and meditating helped that, when I was about 16 to 20. But damn, when 7 hits the temper tantrum, I want to lay right into her, just so she shuts up. It's the dumbest reaction. When her sister A flips out, same reaction. I don't deal well with anger. I'm still afraid of myself. I have no idea why I was that volatile as a kid. I wish my kids weren't.

Sigh. Thanks, everyone, for baring your souls and letting me talk, too.

[Lisa F.]

hey bim, thanks for letting us hear a dad's voice.

[hedra]

@bim, have you read The Highly Sensitive Child? I would bet that would answer question 1 (why was I like that, why are they like that?). It gives some clearness to the sense of self - smart, sensitive kids can be really reactive to their own powerful emotions. And usually people don't teach them skills to handle it, just tell them to suppress it. Which also gives the message that those feelings are too strong and dangerous to be allowed, and that they MUST be suppressed, which of course makes them come out all the stronger because they're now scary AND you have no skills for them.

I would also recommend (strangely or not) the Melody Beattie book Codependent No More, mainly because it deals with how to respond to rage attacks in yourself and others. Might not be a codependency issue (likely just 'gifted and sensitive' which tend to go together - and not sensitive as in 'touchy' but in 'feels things intensely, has no filter for making them be less intense'), but some good methods nonetheless. Library check-out, maybe.

I love hearing a dad's voice here, too. Don't hesitate to post! (Even though I suspect some of the same 'do I look like an idiot, I feel like an idiot' shame issues likely surface in responding as well as talking - ooh, wait, shame attack, that's in the Melody Beattie book, too - maybe buy it, since that's now two of the four typical symptoms of having grown up with that kind of system... by the way, I had all but fear - shame, guilt, and rage were my main no-control zones.)

[J]

Such a wonderful topic...such amazing people commenting. This community always makes me feel like I belong somewhere. Thank you everyone!
This topic is near and dear to my heart because I grew up in a fairly disfunctional family, like many of the commenters here. There is too much to talk about and not enough time on my hands, but my mother's influence on my life has always been very strong. Unfortunately, her influence was mostly negative: she is narcissistic and respects no boundaries and often aloof. I have felt abandoned often throughout my childhood. My parents divorced early, but my alcoholic father (also may have been narcissistic) was a rather unwelcome presence in my life. Later he tried to commit suicide by jumping out his apartment window, but he survived. Fun times.
Then, when I was a teenager my mother remarried to an alcoholic yet again, and we moved to another country (the U.S.). She has always been manipulative, pushy, disrespectful of my feelings (arguing with me endlessly when I dared to feel anything but love toward her...I think trying to "talk me out of" those feelings). When it was convenient for her to parade me around so-to-speak, she would recognize me, but when she was more interested in her own pursuits, I was pushed to the side. I have been so angry with her all my life and seriously doubted my ability to be a good mother to a child. At the same time, all I ever wanted to do was to have a loving family of my own. To create and nurture this family. Well, I have this family now and finally after years of soul searching and incredible support from my husband, my self-confidence and strength are somewhat recovered. However, I had to physically move away from her (we live on opposite coasts), then I had to repeatedly tell her how I expected to be treated (this, after I married and had my husband's undying love and support behind me).
Things are actually at a good place at the moment because she is so in love with our little girl and she is also very involved in her life even from 3000 miles away. Therapy, along with my stepfather passing away from drinking too much, helped her become less neurotic and self-obsessed.
However, I went through a terrible phase of not knowing if I could shake her influence off of me to have the ability to be a loving and patient parent. When my daughter was an infant, she was pretty high-needs and I lost my patience and my self-confidence many times over. I know this is normal for many parents, but to me, it just showed that indeed I wasn't cut out for this stuff. I was also very angry with myself, but at the same time had no ability to ask for help until I was literally ready to jump off a bridge. No surprise there since help never came from my mother. Instead, I got lots of arguments. Even now, after what I just said about having healed and gotten stronger, I am so angry at her for not choosing to give me the love I craved. And deserved.
Well, I didn't think I could get this much on the page since my daughter has been calling for me from her crib, but thank you again for letting us all get our thoughts/feelings out in a safe place. And sorry for the rambling. :-)

[Ashramama]

YAY!!! I'M NORMAL!!!!!!!

[Kimberly C]

Holy crap, I am normal, and normal is screwed up. I have been living so near to family that I was excusing the out of control non- adult behavior with my 16 month old daughter as "normal" because that was how my parents, grandparents, brother, cousins,etc were doing it. And I really don't want to raise myself. I want for her to be so much more than me- like whole and calm and without these issues with anger and frustration.

Yesterday I watched my dad jokingly, laughingly threaten my daughter with a switch for throwing rocks. And he looked serious, and she was scared, and I didn't interfere. Ugh.

[Ashramama]

I should clarify - I meant I'm normal in the sense that I totally identify with everything everyone has said here. It's nice to know I'm not on my own (my DH is 'normal' in the more traditional sense, and he thinks I am completely off my rocker and I was beginning to believe him). Thanks guys!!

[hedra]

@Kimberly C, I just want to give you a hug. There have been times I have stood there and done nothing because... I don't know why. Doctors, especially, were an issue - never speak back to an authority (!). They'd do or say something I thought was unprofessional, inappropriate, or medically just plain WRONG, and I'd just nod and keep my hands in my lap. G got the worst of that. I learned over time how to step in, step up, open my mouth, stiffen my spine, whatever you want to call it, but it took TIME. Practice, talking it out, making a plan for 'the next time this happens' (and then the next time it would be something different that would throw me, sigh). Now, though, look out! But again, I've had 10 years of practice. Our first kids don't get the most well-shaped, experienced parents...

Fortunately I'd already learned how to take my dad down for unacceptable interactions with ME (in the process of navigating back to a normal relationship with him when I was a late teen), so I didn't have to do that with him. I did have to do it with my mom, and loads of other people. Best I can offer is to ask forgiveness of your child for not stopping it, and try to nix it the next time. (It can be hard if you don't even know how to address it without coming across as 'overly serious' or 'no fun' etc. - I found that re-interpreting the situation out loud was a help - 'Grandpa is playing at being serious, and he's pretty scary at it, isn't he? I don't think he understands how good he is at that - he really DOES look like he'll hit you with that! OUCH! That would hurt! Silly grandpa, doesn't he know that hitting isn't allowed?' - keeps it light, but makes the point.)

[effective nancy]

Oh, hedra, please share the Montessori at Home with me as well, if you're still reading this thread? effectivenancy AT gmail DOT com will do nicely. I must say, while this has been an especially fruitful topic with advice and support coming from all corners, you've really outdone your usual brilliance with all your posts.

Thank you, everyone. I think I finally get some of why Tinkerbell's crying drives me so batty--I don't believe I was allowed to cry as an infant, and I do remember my mother coping very poorly with my temper tantrums at older ages. My mom always bragged that I "never peeped" as a small kid, and while I think it's because as an easy child I was easily mollified by being picked up, I must have somehow internalized not-crying as the state for babies. Naturally, I got a monstrous fussbunny for my own kid in karmic comedic conception. Ahhh. That revelation feels good.

[Kristen]

@beth- it is so nice to hear someone else express these feelings. for the past two weeks, I have been feeling irationally angry at my 10-month old daughter. She's been so fussy and willful, and for the first time, I've really felt like I was wishing that my husband and I just HAD SOME TIME ALONE!! But, instead of talking to him and expressing these feelings, I just get angry at him and her. Sometimes, too, I just want to have some alone time. It's really hard for me to synthesize my immense and overwhelming love for my daughter with my feelings of frustration and anger towards her. I guess all I can do is try to work towards working it all out.

[Larissa]

Thanks! Took a veeerrrryyyy long time. But was super fun, so tllaoty worth it! Tonight I need to be more efficient. For the thumbnail strips, I use the collage feature on Picnik. Then I make the space in between white. Glad you like. The Detox is going well! Aside from really wanting a cup of coffee on this chilly, rainy Ohio day, I'm feelin' go-oo-ood! Thanks for stopping by!

[Kasia]

iPlay CG uses the device's sound egnine so sometimes it may lock up for unknown reasons. Go into sound settings, slide the volume to maximum and flip all the switches off and back on. This will refresh the sound egnine immediately.