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It was my mother's birthday this past weekend. I had idly said something about perhaps visiting, but we hadn't made actual plans — and then she emailed to say "your proposal to [visit] for my birthday was a splendid idea -- but let's do it another weekend. I made a last-minute decision to veg chez [sister]."
And I'm really surprised by how hurt I was. Am. Like, I was upset when I got her email, upset enough to email my best friend to ask for reassurance that I am not a difficult person to love or spend time around, and I was teary in therapy this afternoon, and I'm teary again writing this entry. I don't know exactly why this is hitting me so hard; I'm not distressed at the prospect of not spending time in my hometown (I would happily never go there again), I don't want my mother to decide spur-of-the-moment to visit me (this sounds like hell on earth, something I would establish so many boundaries around, even disregarding the differing practical aspects of visiting me versus my sister), there's nothing there that should be pushing buttons.
And yet. Tears. I feel rejected, and I didn't even know there was something to be rejected from. Something childlike and lonely in my brain is hearing all these messages about being hard to love, about being put up with, about being excluded.
So we poked at that a while in therapy, and talked about how my sister's relationship with my mother differs from mine (obviously, we are different people), and how over the past few years I have been feeling unappreciated and odd-man-out in my family, the latter because of my career choice, and my therapist said something about how I don't feel "cherished" by my mother, and — I don't know. This is apparently a big tangle of yuck and I don't want it. I thought I was starting to be able to relax around my mother after spending a few years constantly defensive about spending my early twenties as a depressive fuckup (and all things considered, she was really good to me during that period) and that we had started to be able to relate to each other as adults. But I am not willing to talk to my mother about this tangle of yuck until I understand it a little better because I can't fucking talk about it if I'm going to cry in the middle, I refuse, you can't make me.
But I don't know what it is.
And I'm really surprised by how hurt I was. Am. Like, I was upset when I got her email, upset enough to email my best friend to ask for reassurance that I am not a difficult person to love or spend time around, and I was teary in therapy this afternoon, and I'm teary again writing this entry. I don't know exactly why this is hitting me so hard; I'm not distressed at the prospect of not spending time in my hometown (I would happily never go there again), I don't want my mother to decide spur-of-the-moment to visit me (this sounds like hell on earth, something I would establish so many boundaries around, even disregarding the differing practical aspects of visiting me versus my sister), there's nothing there that should be pushing buttons.
And yet. Tears. I feel rejected, and I didn't even know there was something to be rejected from. Something childlike and lonely in my brain is hearing all these messages about being hard to love, about being put up with, about being excluded.
So we poked at that a while in therapy, and talked about how my sister's relationship with my mother differs from mine (obviously, we are different people), and how over the past few years I have been feeling unappreciated and odd-man-out in my family, the latter because of my career choice, and my therapist said something about how I don't feel "cherished" by my mother, and — I don't know. This is apparently a big tangle of yuck and I don't want it. I thought I was starting to be able to relax around my mother after spending a few years constantly defensive about spending my early twenties as a depressive fuckup (and all things considered, she was really good to me during that period) and that we had started to be able to relate to each other as adults. But I am not willing to talk to my mother about this tangle of yuck until I understand it a little better because I can't fucking talk about it if I'm going to cry in the middle, I refuse, you can't make me.
But I don't know what it is.
