music, narcissists, social media

“I hope you know that I’ve had the time of my life raising you…”

My Saturday got started very early today. I woke up at about 4 AM, needing to take care of business. It took some time for me to fall back to sleep, so I read some more of my latest book. I miss the days when I could zip through books with ease, but I’m afraid they might be gone forever. Either I have trouble seeing the print, or I fall asleep!

I did manage to make some good progress this morning, though. I guess the best time of day for me to try to read books is when I’ve just woken up, as long as I’m not still sleepy. And anyway, as the sun rose this morning, I did wind up snoozing for a bit longer. I had a nice, vivid, colorful dream, too.

Bill has to go away next week, so I’ll be home alone. I may try to record some more songs. I did a song yesterday, in honor of Tony Bennett, who finally passed the bar at age 96. I heard “Because of You”, his duet with k.d. lang, the other day for the very first time. I enjoyed it, and thought I’d like to try it. So I downloaded the tracks, including one that has a male singer.

But then yesterday, when I heard that he’d died, I decided to try Tony’s solo version, which I successfully recorded within about an hour. I changed the key. It might not be the best key for me these days, as my soprano range grows more reclusive. I tend to do best when I stick to one part of my range– either in my head, soprano, or down in the chest, alto. This key is just at the edge of both vocal landscapes. Still, I’m rather pleased with this song.

Maybe if I’d spent two hours on it, it would be better…

There was a wine stand last night, but we opted to stay home. It looked like it might rain, plus I just didn’t feel like hanging around a bunch of other people. Talking with Bill over dinner and libations often means deep discussions, and as he was putting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, I remembered a conversation he had with his daughter when he visited her.

Younger daughter had taken note of how happy Bill was to help her when he stopped in to see her in Utah, last time he had business in the States. He was helping her cook, and wash and dry the dishes, all without being requested to help, and without complaint. Something dawned on younger daughter when she said, “When you were married to my mother, you did all the work, didn’t you?”

And Bill said, “Pretty much.”

Younger daughter said, “I knew it. Whenever she comes here to visit, she basically sits on the couch with her phone and complains. She never helps.”

That led them to have a conversation about what Bill’s daughters were expected to do when they were growing up. I believe younger daughter when she says that they both did all of the cooking and cleaning, and more than once, Ex took their money to pay for things for the house. Younger daughter specifically mentioned giving up birthday money to pay for her younger sister’s diapers. Given that she is about ten years older than her sister is, that would mean that her mother took money from a child to pay for something that was solely her responsibility to buy.

There have been other stories, of course. I’m sure there are quite a few we haven’t even heard yet, but there have been enough that we kind of know that childhood wasn’t a lark for Bill’s daughters. Ex often wasn’t even satisfied with their efforts to help her. She acts like motherhood was a dream experience for her, and yet anyone who knows her offline, knows that she has often had complaints, even when her children were being dutiful and attentive.

The girls would wash and fold her laundry and put it on her bed, and she’d tell them they should put her clothes away for her. They’d cobble together a hot dinner with whatever food was in the house, and she’d throw a tantrum and refuse to eat what they’d cooked. And even when younger daughter got married, on the night of her wedding, Ex was calling her on the phone, wanting her to come to the hotel and play in the pool with her, instead of spending her first married night alone with her new husband.

Because Bill was once married to Ex, and was treated in much the same way– like her servant– he knew his daughter was being truthful about her experiences. He’d been through most of the same treatments, and sometimes even worse. Now, those shared memories of being at Ex’s behest is a source of bonding for them, although most of the time, they talk about much happier things, like food and the grandkids.

Bill’s daughters were pretty seriously parentified, meaning they were expected to meet their mother’s needs when they were still children. My guess is that all of Ex’s children, save for her youngest, who has “severe autism”, are parentified to an extent. They were there to “parent” their mother, rather than be parented by her. Making matters worse is that she really doesn’t allow much input from her children’s fathers, who mostly spent their time working to support Ex and her many expensive habits.

So… seeing that she’s posted the above meme on social media makes me think she’s living in delusion… or she just wants to promote a facade. She never was one much for actually “raising” children. That was pretty much left for her older kids to do. Older daughter is 32 years old and still lives with her mother, in part, because she doesn’t trust her mother to take proper care of her brother– Ex’s youngest child.

I’m sure, on some level, Ex has had the “time of her life” having those kids. Because they’ve been like little servants for her, serving her as if she’s a queen bee. She wants to be waited on and adored, even if she hasn’t necessarily done much to deserve either.

She’s also constantly looking for shortcuts to getting what she wants. That means trying to engage strangers on the Internet, including celebrities. Looking on her Quora account, I noticed a few things…

Two very telling questions she’s asked:

Which is better, Credit Settlement through a litigation firm, Credit Consolidation through an NPO, or bankruptcy… if you are unable to get creditors to work with you to lower payments enough?

I’m surprised she doesn’t already know the answer to this question. I know for a fact that she’s had at least one bankruptcy and, according to younger daughter, had a couple more after the one she had with Bill.

And…

Where can I get funding for an autism service dog’s training? It will cost approximately $10k USD.

I guess she eventually gave up on the autism service dog idea. Good thing, too, if she’s considering declaring bankruptcy again.

But then, she posted this in May 2023:

I live in the states. My family is from Scotland and Ireland and England. I want to come ‘home’ and regain a place as a citizen of the UK. I want to work with the foundation set up to improve the lives of children… set up by the Prince and Princess of Wales. Long live the King.

Lofty goals, indeed. But she’s not actually an altruistic person, nor does she even enjoy taking care of her own children, let alone other people’s children. I suspect she sees children as easy targets for her manipulative bullshit. And her own children… bless their hearts! They’ll always be extensions of her, and she’ll always be keeping a scorecard, expecting them to pay her back for basic things that all parents are supposed to provide for their children.

Anyway… she’ll never change, so there’s no call for outrage or surprise. But it sure is interesting to watch this crap from afar… and thank goodness Bill’s daughters are grown now. I wish we could have had them together, instead. Ah well. At least I think the grandkids will have a better time. Younger daughter is a wonderful, attentive, appropriate mom to her children. That’s a skill she definitely didn’t learn from her own mother.

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divorce, lessons learned, mental health, psychology, YouTube

“Kicking the cat…” What happens when anger is displaced…

Many years ago, when I was a college student at what is now Longwood University, I took a course called Interpersonal Communication. I took it because I was pursuing minors in both speech and communications, and the course counted for both minors. I don’t remember being particularly excited about the class when I signed up for it, but it turned out to be an interesting field of study. I remember it to be an examination of how people communicate in different settings, and while it was not a psychology class, certain psychological terms and concepts were covered. In fact, even though I took Psychology 101 during my freshman year, I distinctly remember learning about the concept of psychological projection for the first time in my Interpersonal Communication course. It was also in that class that I first learned about “displaced anger”.

Although Dr. Nancy Anderson Haga, the professor who taught that class, has long since retired, I remember that she was among the very first professors I met at Longwood when I was a fresh high school graduate attending orientation. I was struck by how energetic, caring, and positive she was. Then a couple of years later, when I was about 20 years old, I was in her class, and she was teaching us about how we communicate with each other. I didn’t know then that one of her lessons would come back to me in bold relief, two weeks before my 50th birthday.

Last night, Bill watched a video his younger daughter sent to him. She was thanking him for a box of goodies he sent to her, with stuff we picked up on recent trips to France and Italy, as well as some very superior German chocolate. In the course of the video, younger daughter talked about how much she loves to cook. Bill also loves to cook. So do I… or, at least I did before Bill took over the job. I used to be a great cook, and always enjoyed it because it was a creative activity. There’s an art to making something taste good, look appetizing, and be nurturing. Actually, I’m not that good at making “pretty food”, but I am pretty good at making food that is comforting. Bill is also good at that, and he’s also a fan of good presentation. He’s been known to plate our dinners with flair.

Younger daughter talked about how one of her in-laws really loves fresh bread, and he likes to have it at every meal. She likes to bake, so she was thinking she might like to make some bread to take over to her husband’s family’s house. I like to bake bread too, especially when I’m in a bad mood and need to pound the shit out of something. Bread baking is great for that.

As she was talking about baking rolls from scratch, younger daughter stated that she wasn’t always sure if people appreciated her efforts. Then her face got very serious and pained, and she said, “The only person who has ever complained about my cooking is my mother.”

One time, she asked Bill if her mother (Ex) had ever complained about his cooking. Bill had replied, “Of course. All the time!” As he was telling me about talking to his daughter about this, he laughed. But I can imagine that when Ex criticized his cooking, it probably really hurt his feelings. Here he had taken the time and expended the effort to make something nourishing for his ex wife, and her only thought was to disdain it in a mean way. Younger daughter then related a story that, frankly, I found heartbreaking. I could also see that telling us the story was making her feel bad anew, even though the incident had happened years ago.

Younger daughter and her older sister were tasked to cook for the whole family. If they didn’t cook, food wouldn’t be made, and someone would probably get into trouble. She explained that Ex and #3 were going through a particularly lean financial period. Consequently, there was very little food in the house. And yet, it was younger daughter’s implied duty to make dinner every night. There she was, faced with the task of making dinner for seven people, but there simply wasn’t much food in the house to accomplish that goal.

Younger daughter looked around to see what there was on hand to make dinner. She found frozen pie crust, instant mashed potatoes, some frozen vegetables, and a single chicken breast. Perfect! She could make a shepherd’s pie, of sorts. That would have been what both Bill and I would have done in that situation. It was quite genius, and she was able to make something edible and probably even tasty.

Younger daughter put together the pie, and was feeling pretty good and accomplished. Then Ex came home from wherever she’d been during the day. Younger daughter proudly presented the pie she had created out of the few ingredients in the house. Ex’s response was to declare it disgusting, refuse to eat, and lock herself in her bedroom for the rest of the evening.

I could tell that relating that story was very painful for younger daughter. But then she brightened and said she was grateful for where she is now. Ex no longer has the power over her that she once had. Like Bill, younger daughter was able to escape the FOG (fear, obligation, guilt). But the scars remain, and I know how that feels. Sometimes, old memories still come up that bring on the pain from the past.

Of course, Bill was pretty angry when he heard that story. I don’t know exactly when the incident happened, but it sounds like it might have occurred when Ex was still being paid child support. I believe younger daughter got the hell out of her mother’s house as soon as she could after turning 18. Either way, it was Ex’s responsibility to see that there was food in the house, and to make sure her children had enough to eat. Complicating matters was the fact that she wouldn’t allow Bill to help his daughters. She was too angry with him for that. We didn’t know this was going on, because they couldn’t and wouldn’t talk to Bill during that time. If Bill had known about this, he would have taken action. In retrospect, we should have taken action when she refused to let him communicate with his kids, but it seemed like it would have been a waste of time, since they were teenagers.

And that’s where the lesson about “displaced anger” comes into play. I remember learning about the concept in that college class at Longwood, and that’s why I titled this post “kicking the cat”. Displaced anger– otherwise known as “misplaced anger”– is when a person deals with their anger by directing it at a less threatening cause. It can take different forms. For instance, a person who was raised in an abusive home, with a parent who beat them, might try to soothe themselves by saying that it was okay that their parent hit them, since “that was how things were back in the day”. Or they might say, “he or she was just trying to make me tougher.” Meanwhile, the righteous anger is boiling under the surface, and it comes out against someone or something that is less able to fight back.

I remember in my Interpersonal Communication class, as she was explaining “displaced anger”, Dr. Haga talked about a man who comes home from work, angry with his boss for acting like a jerk. Instead of addressing the jerk boss, since that doesn’t feel like a safe thing to do, the man kicks his cat. Or he gets drunk and verbally abusive, and beats on his wife. Or he snaps at his daughter that the dinner she made looks and tastes like shit. Or maybe, if he’s a really sick and violent person, he takes the family dog out to the desert and shoots it (sadly, I do remember hearing and writing about a man who did this when he was angry with his wife).

It doesn’t matter that expressing anger in this way is harmful to innocent people or animals. The anger feels like it has to come out, and it doesn’t feel possible for the man to direct it toward the appropriate person, so the man directs it at individuals who seem weaker and less threatening. I grew up in a home where I often got abused by angry people– especially my dad and one of my sisters. They would often take their anger out on me, because I was the youngest and, at least for a long time, the weakest. Usually, the anger doesn’t really dissipate, though, especially when there are consequences for expressing anger in such a way. I will also admit that I have expressed anger inappropriately by directing it toward the wrong source. I now try to do better, as much as I’m able. Therapy is a good thing.

Last week, I wrote a post about how I’ve gotten hooked on Code Blue Cam, a YouTube channel devoted to police work. In a lot of the videos, the perpetrators who get busted are clearly mentally ill or under the influence of something. A lot of times, they are also very angry and agitated. I watched a video this morning that featured a man who was extremely belligerent and defiant. The police were trying to be kind and helpful, but this man was consumed with rage. He was extremely abusive toward the police, as well as the civilians who were involved in the altercation which caused the police to be summoned in the first place.

This video begins with a drunk woman who gets hauled off to jail, but it ends with the belligerent man, whose tone goes from extremely rude and defiant, to desperate and pleading.

I found the above video kind of hard to watch… but it was also kind of fascinating, because before the guy was put in handcuffs, he was a complete asshole. I sat there wondering what in the world had happened to him that had caused him to seethe with so much rage. But then, when he was finally arrested and placed in handcuffs, his tone became pathetic. He openly said on more than one occasion that he hoped the police would just shoot him. This is a miserable person with deep problems and a lot of unprocessed anger, which was coming out inappropriately. It wasn’t that different than Ex being nasty to younger daughter for making something she didn’t want to eat for dinner.

Another video, this time involving young men who were in deep trouble and expressing negativity in a destructive way. One of the young men openly expresses disappointment in himself and how his life has turned out… and says he wishes the cops would kill him. He obviously needs help.

Maybe the teens in the above video were trying to be manipulative. I think the guy in the first video was very manipulative, and if these two young guys in the above video don’t get some real help, they will wind up like him and either spend a lot of time in prison or get themselves killed. But I could hear real anguish in their voices. Bad things happened to them that led them to where they are now, and unfortunately, they weren’t able to find the kind of help they needed to avoid ending up on the wrong side of the law.

I have no doubt in my mind that Ex has experienced some really terrible things in her life. I know that she suffered horrific abuse when she was growing up. I’m pretty certain that she’s an extremely angry person, and that anger stems from the people in her life who failed her when she was a child. I think she’s also angry with Bill. He probably had her thinking he could heal her and solve her problems. Bill is a very kind, nurturing, loving and gentle person. I know this for a fact, because I’m his second wife. He doesn’t have a mean or violent bone in his body. However, like most people, he does have a red line, and if you cross it, he’ll be done with you. I think Ex thought she would never reach that red line, because he is such a kind and patient man. But she did reach it, and he decided he was done. So, when she presented divorce papers to him in a very dramatic and manipulative drama held over Easter at Bill’s dad’s house, she never expected that he would agree that their marriage was over and offer to sign the papers. He went off script.

Ex was expecting Bill to say, “No, we won’t have any of that…” and try even harder to please her. That was what he’d done in the past. But, after almost ten years, he was just done. He had gotten away from her toxic influence while they were separated, and realized that there’s life beyond divorce. He found out that he didn’t have to live the way he’d been living. He knew he wouldn’t be alone, and that being broke was temporary. So he called her bluff, and fucked up her vision of what was supposed to happen. She had to adjust, and I think wound up with someone who was even less suitable for her. But she’s smart enough not to threaten divorce with #3, because it’s doubtful she’d find a #4. Or, at least she won’t be able to hook someone by having kids with them.

But she was still left with two tangible remnants from their marriage– their two daughters. So she decided to keep the girls away from Bill, as a means of punishing him for “abandoning” her. At the same time, she treated them particularly badly, because they probably remind her of Bill. As younger daughter got older, she started to develop the same kind of self-preservation skills that Bill has. She started to go off script, and she rebelled. Ex responded by being inappropriately angry. She “kicked the cat”– in this case, younger daughter– instead of finding a healthier and more appropriate outlet for her rage. Instead of being grateful that younger daughter had managed to cobble together dinner with very few ingredients, which were ultimately Ex’s responsibility to provide, Ex was angry and mean. And now, I think she’s paying a price, since it’s obvious that younger daughter is now alienated from her mom.

Younger daughter ended her video call on a happy note. She said she was so grateful to the other people in her life who are kind and considerate. She even said she was grateful to me, of all people. That made me feel really good. For years, I was angry with her and her sister, because I know their dad, and I know he was “kicked” by Ex for years. Now I have empathy for them, because I know they’ve felt the pain from Ex’s proverbial shoe, too. They have been on the receiving end of her misplaced anger. Thankfully for younger daughter, she’s managed to develop the skills to get out of the strike zone. Unfortunately, I’m afraid the people who have chosen to stay around Ex are paying for the independence of those who have left. I can only hope that someday, older daughter will get out of the strike zone, too.

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