Heading Off with a Bad Start
The early buds of 2013, and I am already off to a terrible start.
I suppose that anyone who loves their family will have issues with their parents at one point in time. Or multiple points. My relationship with my mother has always been a shaky and imbalanced one. At times, we argued and often had issues with one another. In high school, we argued a lot about my choice of friends, my decisions, and my perspectives. She has always been a harsh woman to the ones she loves. Her criticisms have always been extreme and really cut to the bone. I guess being my mother ensured that she could always hit me where it hurts whenever she wanted to, which was a lot of the times.
It got better when I left for college. While she would never admit it, I think that by not having me live with her for long periods of time, she saw me more like a guest when I did return home - a loved one who had to be cherished on limited time. To a traditional Asian mother, I will always be a child to her, but it seems ridiculous to always be treating your adult daughter like a child who needs to be attacked and supervised for everything small thing. During my longer holiday stays during college, she gradually became accustomed to me again and started to nag at me.
Nagging is fine and harmless, but she really does take it to another level. I suppose that every child will say this about their parent, but my mother seems to always take a small error and turn it into a personal attack on my character and my choices in life.
Melodramatic and overblown.
And most of the time, because I could always expect going back to my university afterwards. Tolerance of these naggings and forced obedience for peace became a chore to me, but I bore them. Because I knew at the core of all these rude and sometimes even abusing words that she says, she pours them out out of her love and concern for me.
Moving back home was definitely the wrong choice. Of course, it had to do with disputes between my parents and him and problems wedging their place among us, but I still think this goes beyond the regular, normal, accepted reaction.
Did I say normal and socially acceptable? I say that again.
These days, we argue over the smallest things, and they always explode into such large and distressing fights. At first, I thought that perhaps she was simply overreacting to the fact that I was hanging out with him "so much" over the holidays, but now I feel that it is much larger than that. In all directions possible and at the most random of times, she will accuse of me of small things that come out as serious problems with my character.
As if I were an arrogant and ignorant child who lives in her self-centered world of concerns.
So far, I have been simply accepting her craziness and tolerating them as best as I could - reminding myself that they are all acts of love. Demented and twisted, yes, but still ... love. That has failed to work in the last couple of days. I found that I could no longer accept this anymore. No matter how much she loves me and no matter how much of those acts of love are, there is no justification for this repeated tirade day after day. No matter how much she cares, this is not okay.
It is not okay.
And it is not fine.
No love is supposed to stress you out until you start losing weight, start losing clumps of hair in the shower, and lose any sort of restful sleep at all. No love that is healthy, anyway.
For the past couple of nights, I have been thinking of contingency plans for the case that things will become worse. In the case that it all boils over, and I have that mental meltdown in front of her and out to the world (instead of just screaming it all out in my dreams or just inside my head). Or if I starting acting out violence. I started thinking of hotels and places to stay so I could remain out of her sight and approach for as long as possible.
Or maybe I am just crazy. Maybe parental love is supposed to make you want to kill yourself all the time.
I suppose that anyone who loves their family will have issues with their parents at one point in time. Or multiple points. My relationship with my mother has always been a shaky and imbalanced one. At times, we argued and often had issues with one another. In high school, we argued a lot about my choice of friends, my decisions, and my perspectives. She has always been a harsh woman to the ones she loves. Her criticisms have always been extreme and really cut to the bone. I guess being my mother ensured that she could always hit me where it hurts whenever she wanted to, which was a lot of the times.
It got better when I left for college. While she would never admit it, I think that by not having me live with her for long periods of time, she saw me more like a guest when I did return home - a loved one who had to be cherished on limited time. To a traditional Asian mother, I will always be a child to her, but it seems ridiculous to always be treating your adult daughter like a child who needs to be attacked and supervised for everything small thing. During my longer holiday stays during college, she gradually became accustomed to me again and started to nag at me.
Nagging is fine and harmless, but she really does take it to another level. I suppose that every child will say this about their parent, but my mother seems to always take a small error and turn it into a personal attack on my character and my choices in life.
Melodramatic and overblown.
And most of the time, because I could always expect going back to my university afterwards. Tolerance of these naggings and forced obedience for peace became a chore to me, but I bore them. Because I knew at the core of all these rude and sometimes even abusing words that she says, she pours them out out of her love and concern for me.
Moving back home was definitely the wrong choice. Of course, it had to do with disputes between my parents and him and problems wedging their place among us, but I still think this goes beyond the regular, normal, accepted reaction.
Did I say normal and socially acceptable? I say that again.
These days, we argue over the smallest things, and they always explode into such large and distressing fights. At first, I thought that perhaps she was simply overreacting to the fact that I was hanging out with him "so much" over the holidays, but now I feel that it is much larger than that. In all directions possible and at the most random of times, she will accuse of me of small things that come out as serious problems with my character.
As if I were an arrogant and ignorant child who lives in her self-centered world of concerns.
So far, I have been simply accepting her craziness and tolerating them as best as I could - reminding myself that they are all acts of love. Demented and twisted, yes, but still ... love. That has failed to work in the last couple of days. I found that I could no longer accept this anymore. No matter how much she loves me and no matter how much of those acts of love are, there is no justification for this repeated tirade day after day. No matter how much she cares, this is not okay.
It is not okay.
And it is not fine.
No love is supposed to stress you out until you start losing weight, start losing clumps of hair in the shower, and lose any sort of restful sleep at all. No love that is healthy, anyway.
For the past couple of nights, I have been thinking of contingency plans for the case that things will become worse. In the case that it all boils over, and I have that mental meltdown in front of her and out to the world (instead of just screaming it all out in my dreams or just inside my head). Or if I starting acting out violence. I started thinking of hotels and places to stay so I could remain out of her sight and approach for as long as possible.
Or maybe I am just crazy. Maybe parental love is supposed to make you want to kill yourself all the time.
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