Empathy for my nada? more like pity, now

[Guest guest]

I understand where you're coming from, and I think I could have felt more

empathy and understanding for my nada if she HAD actually come from an abusive

home.

Sister and I grew up hearing awful stories about how my nada's father had a hair

trigger temper and would beat her and her sisters, and how her own mother

rejected her and ignored her and favored her oldest daughter. (My nada was the

middle of three girls.)

But these stories were jarringly, bizarrely in opposition to the reality I

experienced whenever we visited my maternal grandparents and my mother's sisters

and their families for big family Sunday dinners at least once a month, and

sometimes twice; and we went on big family vacations together sometimes and so

were cheek-to-jowl with my grandparents and aunts and cousins for days at a

time.

My Grandparents were nice, kind, loving people. My mother's family were and are

just simple, hard-working, kind-hearted people.

My Grandpa did not have a scary temper, he never yelled at anyone. My Aunts and

their families are nice. My Grandma never seemed to favor any of us grandkids

over the others, she was just rather quiet and wall-flowery but loving.

As a teen I began to really wonder about this clanging discrepancy between my

mother's descriptions and beliefs about how her parents were, how they treated

her, and my own personal observations and experiences.

My own mother was the ONLY adult I ever saw fly into red-faced, screaming,

spittle-flying rages that would often progress into physical violence. I saw

my own mother verbally attack her own older sister with quietly seething rage

(the one she claimed was the favorite, and whom she loathed) when none of the

other adults were around, and I saw that my Aunt would never defend herself, she

would just fold her arms, hang her head and walk away. I learned later that my

aunt would cry on the way home, each time. She is a sweet and gentle soul just

like her mother/my grandmother was.

Late in my mother's life, as she began to succumb to senile dementia, Sister and

I learned from our Aunts that our mother's version of her/their childhood as a

neglected, beaten child was not the case at all. In fact, my Aunts were

astonished to hear the kinds of things that my nada had been claiming had

happened to her AND to her sisters when they were kids. They were

flabbergasted. Our Aunts assured my Sister and me that none of them were

regularly beaten, they weren't afraid of their father, our mother had not been

neglected or mistreated, and their mother/my grandmother was just a sweet person

and didn't play ugly mind games with her children or pit them against each

other. Just as I had observed myself.

These fixed delusions of neglect and abuse had only been in my mother's

demented little head, for her whole life.

My nada had also developed fixed delusions about my dad (she believed he was

having multiple affairs with her friends behind her back) and about Sister and

me (she believed we were always lying to her, that we were lesbians, and other

things that were complete fabrications. She truly believed that I as an

*infant* had hated her and rejected her.)

So, what I feel mostly is sad and frustrated that someone who was so genuinely

mentally ill was able to pass as " normal " in public , never got treatment

voluntarily, and ended up doing so much damage as a parent. So much damage.

What a waste of human potential.

I guess I should feel lucky and grateful that she was able to give me one good

thing: she did encourage me and support me in developing a talent I had until I

could get good enough at it to make a living with it. So, thanks for that,

nada.

I'm not sure I can ever feel empathy for my nada, but now that she is deceased,

I am beginning to feel a little bit of pity for her, because she was so very,

very miserable, frustrated, angry and unhappy most of the time and she could

have gotten herself help for it, so easily.

-Annie

>

> I totally get where you are coming from Annie, and believe me I have a hard

time turning on the empathy for abusive people, especially waify ones. But

using the same logic, the BPDs are usually grown up abused children themselves,

no?

>

> I am struggling with this myself. Having empathy for my now deceased (cue

her favorite song, Amazing Grace) NADA. I can only feel empathy if I imagine

her as a little girl. If I imagine her as an adult all I get is those black

eyes and borderline rage face (which to be fair I haven't experienced in a

number of years prior to her death, she had moved on to more stealth

activities).

>

> Boy I really hate PD Moms. And I really want to transform this hate into

something more constructive like rebuilding my own life. But it's like my rage

synapses are so strong, if you understand what I mean.

>

> SR

>