[2948] in Depressing_Thoughts
Re: where's the limit?
leira@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (leira@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Sun Apr 26 21:40:39 1992
>My mom and I came to an arrangement... I didn't phone her for a month
>once. Now, I phone her once a week or so, and she appreciates it :-)
A month? If you want to see a real change, ignore them for a year or more.
I didn't call my mother and didn't take any of her calls for over a year once.
Now she practically grovels at my feet. She still won't pay my tuition, but
then again, she never would.
Dave, it's difficult to think that you might have to completely cut yourself
off from your parents, but sometimes it's the best answer, and sometimes it
actually improves matters. My mother kicked me out of the house near the end
of my senior year of high school because I wanted to go to MIT (of course, it
would have been nice if she'd expressed her disapproval before it was to late
to apply anywhere else, but anyway...). She seemed to expect me to crawl back,
but I didn't bacause I was sick of being told that I was useless and ugly and
not good at anything and completely unappreciative. After that and the year
of no communication, my relationship with my mother is actually better than
it's probably ever been.
I sort of see what I've done as "putting my mother in her place". It's sort
of unpleasant to think of that way, but that's essentially what it was, and
it very much needed to be done. It's hard to deal with someone who won't
treat you as a real human being.
I don't mean to advocate dumping one's parents, but I want to point out that
it might not be as horrible of an option as it originally sounds.
