On always yelling at my mother

[bodlon]

This was going to be a writing day, or at least an editing and planning day, but it's turned out to be a hurting day. The pain is of sufficient volume that I'm having trouble focusing on anything else, and I've spent hours cycling through sitting with it, trying distractions, and engaging it rationally with no real progress.

So I'm going to blog it and see what happens.

In 2006 I bought a house because my mother needed somewhere to retire. Our family is small, I'm an only child, and she's got a wide variety of interesting health problems that make life entirely too interesting for both of us.

She is a smoker. I am asthmatic and became particularly sensitive to cigarette smoke after a nasty round of bronchitis from about 12 years ago. Under my roof, smoking is (and has always been) forbidden. The expectation is that mom smokes outside. When she complained that the winter was too cold a while back, I bought her an e-cigarette, which she does not seem to use. When I catch her smoking inside -- like I did this morning -- I get hurt and angry about it. And then I shout at her through various means.

And then I feel guilty. Crushingly, terribly guilty.

Rationally, I know it's perfectly acceptable to lay down boundaries about what occurs under my roof. It's okay to ask someone not to smoke around me. It's reasonable to expect a family member, when asked, to stop doing something which does me harm.

And really, on reflection, so much of the yelling I do at my mother is me crying out for her to stop hurting me, already: use my name/pronouns, respect my need for rest and space, respect my property and safety, etc.

And because she can't hear and understand me, I can't have any other real conversations with her. Our communication has zero nuance. More than half the time, she doesn't hear me at all, or misunderstands what I'm saying. Sign class? Honestly, sign class did roughly jack shit to improve this.

I don't want to be this person who only ever yells at his mother. That's incredibly toxic for both of us. On the other hand, I feel like nothing I have tried over the last few years to improve our relationship has done anything to make this better. When I try and share the things I like, she doesn't get them. We're both creatives, but our aesthetics are polar opposites, and not in a good way.

I am furious and heartbroken and at a loss.

This post has been mirrored from Christian A. Young's Dimlight Archive. To see it in its original format, visit dimlightarchive.com

Comments

[pauamma]

Time for an in-house IRC server? (Assuming, as you appear to say that a large part if the issue is inability to hear, not inability to listen)

[bodlon]

Possibly, but her written communication skills aren't great. She often puts this down to a generational thing, but it's a lot of misspellings, confusing grammar, multiple punctuation marks.

What may be a better solution is something which allows me to type to her quickly in real-time while we're in the same room. I'm considering getting her an e-reader of some sort anyway. Finding one that can browse enough that I could speak with her via a chat program would be a real boon.

[pocketmouse]

Dude, you are doing nothing wrong. This is your mother using her hearing problems as an excuse to not listen. And she knows that you're not going to push her too far, and is taking advantage, which sucks.

[bodlon]

I don't know that it's quite that simple, but I suspect there's an element of that there, yeah.

Just...ugh.

[contrarywise]

That's a very challenging situation to be in, especially with a parent. This is the sort of thing that therapy can help with in terms of venting your feelings safely and getting suggestions and support for dealing with this. Ideally, it would be family therapy with both of you present, but I'm guessing your mom wouldn't be willing to participate in that. It's hard to say whether your mom isn't responding to your requests because of communication issues or because she really doesn't want to change her behavior, but either way, it sucks that your mom is continuing to behave in ways that hurt you. *hugs*

[bodlon]

Mom would potentially be amenable to therapy -- she worked as a community support specialist for many years, and has been in therapy herself here and there -- but the basic communication challenges presented by her deafness make that tricky.

If I can find an elegant solution to the hearing problems that she's willing to do the work with, that opens this door (and a great many others). It's just getting that bit figured out.