agonyaunt | (no subject)

Dear Amy: My mother died almost 21 years ago.

On the 20th anniversary of her death, I was reflecting on her life, our relationship, and the ripples it sent through my life.

For better or worse, I posted my thoughts on Facebook. Our relationship had some huge ups and downs. She was a difficult person at times, and she said and did some pretty miserable things to me during the last five years of her life.

I did not go into specifics in the Facebook post, but I did say that the treatment I received colored my memories in a less than flattering way.

I summed it up by asking people to think about the effect their words have on the people around them.

My 32-year-old niece read my post and was offended. My portrayal wasn't the grandmother she remembered. She then blocked me.

She showed my post to my brother, who proceeded to berate me for my "anger,” and for forgetting that she loved me. He then said I need therapy to deal with my anger. That was the last I heard from him.

I saw a therapist for four months. After hearing all about my life, she marveled at my restraint.

Over these months, I've sent cards and gifts for special occasions, as I always have, without mentioning the ISSUE, but I’m wondering if I should respond and if so, how?

I believe they're upset because I didn't toe the "party line.”

— Distressed

Dear Distressed: Yes, people should be aware of the effect their words have on others. That includes you. Your knowledge, experiences, and memories of your mother would not line up with your niece’s. After all, your niece was 11 or 12 years old when her grandmother died.

You assume that your family members are upset with you because you have told the truth about your mother’s behavior and its impact on you.

I believe it is just as likely that they are upset mainly because you posted these thoughts, feelings, and impressions in a public forum.

You don’t mention having any regrets about this, but – speaking as someone who has written two memoirs – when you publish painful personal family stories, family members are going to react. You can either own your version and try to talk about it, or retreat to your respective corners.

Ask your therapist to coach you about ways to handle this without violating your own truth. If you regret posting this publicly, acknowledging your regret might at least start a conversation.

Sending cards and gifts as you’ve always done might seem to you like gestures of reconciliation, but this behavior is also one way of sweeping this under the carpet, without acknowledging the pained reactions that your posting seems to have triggered for other people.

https://www.arcamax.com/healthandspirit/lifeadvice/askamy/s-2453842?fs

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LW is entitled to be as angry as they want, and their relatives are just gonna have to live with that.

Also, I gotta say - the fact that their niece tattled to their brother (niece's dad?) about this suggests that whatever toxicity Late Mom displayed has clearly passed to a second and then a third generation.

Uuuuuugh this is super awful advice.

It is not LW's job to gently guide their obnoxious, presumptuous, "how dare you openly express your own emotions about your own memories of events you experienced" family members to the concept of "we had different relationships with this woman and remember her differently."

It is not LW's job to soothe their anger and hurt feelings. They are the ones who decided that LW was doing this reflecting on the past AT THEM, as an attack, which they promptly got angry and defensive about. (Interesting how the jerk brother, who might well benefit from therapy to deal with his anger, thinks that therapy is the appropriate tool/threat to SUPPRESS LW's anger. Which is, of course, Inappropriate and Bad anger, unlike his direct verbal nastiness to a living breathing human being, which is pure and righteous.)

I don't want to go into detail here but... this thing, the thing where you're supposed to portray The Family Image in public no matter how much it costs you, and telling the truth about your own suffering and your own anger is seen as a betrayal of family loyalty... this is a very familiar thing. It can fuck right off.

LW, you did nothing wrong. The only advice I can give you, sad as it is, is to hold your ground, and resign yourself to losing people who will only love you (for some value of "love") if you are willing to live a lie for the sake of their comfort.

Yup, every single one of these points, and extra underlining as a result for THIS IS BAD ADVICE.

Interesting how the jerk brother, who might well benefit from therapy to deal with his anger, thinks that therapy is the appropriate tool/threat to SUPPRESS LW's anger. Which is, of course, Inappropriate and Bad anger, unlike his direct verbal nastiness to a living breathing human being, which is pure and righteous.

I caught that too - and good job for LW on taking their brother's "I'm gonna be an asshole" suggestion seriously and finding that therapy was actually a big help (even if it didn't make them less angry, because anger is presumably an appropriate response to whatever-it-is they went through.)

A thousand times this. My brother and I have very different memories/experiences of our mother, because SHE DIDN'T ABUSE HIM (our family had the Scapegoat/Golden Child dynamic, and my mother is a malignant narcissist.)

I don't get into it with him, but I also have my entire bio-family blocked from my Facebook FOR A REASON (and I don't use my legal name on there, either.)

The LW did nothing wrong by sharing her truthful experience of her upbringing.

“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”

― Anne Lamott

Yes, the niece was fairly young when her grandmother died, and I don't doubt that her memories of the woman are much more positive and loving than the LW's. Maybe it was really shocking to hear LW say these things about her beloved grandmother. But she's not twelve anymore, she's an adult. She doesn't need to be sheltered from the fact that her experience wasn't the whole of reality.

She was fairly young, and she also presumably wasn't being raised by the woman. She only visited. Not only was LW stuck with her, but based on "she said and did some pretty miserable things to me during the last five years of her life" I give it better than even odds that LW had the role of primary caregiver for Mom during those last 5 years - LW's brother and kids skipped out of that.

the whole 'dont speak ill of the dead' thing really bothers me, and I have a lurking suspicion that is what's at play here. However

>I saw a therapist for four months. After hearing all about my life, she marveled at my restraint.

I'm calling bullshit here. I know so many people that are like "my therapist thinks im amazing" and like... half of those people are lying about seeing a therapist in teh first place. This whole line rubs me the wrong way and makes me incredibly skeptical of LW.

What exactly makes you skeptical about it? In my experience of therapy, telling an outsider about the horrible shit family members have said (and then pretended was No Big Deal, Why Are You So Oversensitive and Unreasonable) and getting an authentically horrified/scandalized response is deeply validating and useful.

And really, it's a therapist's literal JOB to be encouraging and supportive! If they're telling their client they did well with the survival skills they had, that's completely appropriate. It doesn't mean they're not working on developing BETTER coping skills, it just means the therapist knows what positive reinforcement is.