the circle of the damned locked
the circle of the damned locked
Great. Now I have to be careful what words I use. My dad now has become, understandably, sensitive to a number of things. You cannot say 'relax' or 'hyperventilate' because they have become trigger words. If it was just him and this situation, that would be both temporary and tolerable.
However, you all know where this is going, it turns out that my mom really must have some issue with people telling her what to do. I have no idea of the origin of this issue. However, it turns out that you have to be exceptionally careful so that she doesn't immediately take things as you telling her what to do (or say or etc.).
To be fair, the one context in which there was an actual discussion of ways to say things, or how to focus what one was saying to address what one needed addressed was in the specific medical context. This was asked for and established under prior situations, I stopped doing it, and got asked to do it again. So when certain things happened this time, I did that.
This isn't that. This is one of those conversations where you are talking and say something about oh, well, then you'll go do that as an attempt to confirm, restate, possibly comment, or be supportive. However, that is apparently telling someone else what to do. Unfortunately, the specific thing this morning was that she was talking about talking with someone, and I restated as oh, well, then you'll say blah blah blah.
While I get that you can far more easily take this as telling you what to do or say, that requires ignoring all the contextual clues, the whole rest of the conversation, all tonality and body language, etc. But now I have to play the game of somehow never saying anything that could be taken as telling her what to say or what to do.
Or just tell her no, I was commenting, and walk away. Because she had obviously shut down, and this was a waste of my time.
P.S. In the category of non-verbal clues, I know she didn't do this consciously, but when she told me not to tell her what to say, she literally walked up to me and got in my face. She was maybe 1 foot away all of a sudden. Really? It obviously didn't work, but it's beginning to be very clear to me why so much of my energy may be being sucked away into things that waste it, rather than help me.
Great. Now I have to be careful what words I use. My dad now has become, understandably, sensitive to a number of things. You cannot say 'relax' or 'hyperventilate' because they have become trigger words. If it was just him and this situation, that would be both temporary and tolerable.
However, you all know where this is going, it turns out that my mom really must have some issue with people telling her what to do. I have no idea of the origin of this issue. However, it turns out that you have to be exceptionally careful so that she doesn't immediately take things as you telling her what to do (or say or etc.).
To be fair, the one context in which there was an actual discussion of ways to say things, or how to focus what one was saying to address what one needed addressed was in the specific medical context. This was asked for and established under prior situations, I stopped doing it, and got asked to do it again. So when certain things happened this time, I did that.
This isn't that. This is one of those conversations where you are talking and say something about oh, well, then you'll go do that as an attempt to confirm, restate, possibly comment, or be supportive. However, that is apparently telling someone else what to do. Unfortunately, the specific thing this morning was that she was talking about talking with someone, and I restated as oh, well, then you'll say blah blah blah.
While I get that you can far more easily take this as telling you what to do or say, that requires ignoring all the contextual clues, the whole rest of the conversation, all tonality and body language, etc. But now I have to play the game of somehow never saying anything that could be taken as telling her what to say or what to do.
Or just tell her no, I was commenting, and walk away. Because she had obviously shut down, and this was a waste of my time.
P.S. In the category of non-verbal clues, I know she didn't do this consciously, but when she told me not to tell her what to say, she literally walked up to me and got in my face. She was maybe 1 foot away all of a sudden. Really? It obviously didn't work, but it's beginning to be very clear to me why so much of my energy may be being sucked away into things that waste it, rather than help me.
listening
ReplyDeleteShe left me a nice little note, later.
ReplyDeleteheaddesk