Of Forgetting

I remember, as a kid, I would try so hard. And I'd say, "I love you, mommy," and her just glaring me down. I didn't hear her tell me she loves me until I was like.. 30 years old. Growing up, she'd just respond by telling me how I wasn't as pretty as she wanted, or as thin or similar to her in personality as she wanted. But she was always jealous that mothers and daughters that we knew had close relationships. She used to tell me it's because I didn't do enough for her and that she resented that I wasn't close enough with her (while she'd actively push me away).

I‘m a defensive driver.. I haven’t had any issues while driving alone. It’s with my mother that I feel bombarded.

After this, she switched with me, and she accidentally ran over the curb when she was turning too quickly into a parking lot.

We’re home now, and she said the tire is likely popped because of me.. I don’t think it is.. because the car has driven normally for the last half hour stretch home, as well as normally when I just drove to the pharmacy to pick up her prescription.

Whenever my father hears me in any room, he rushes over to observe me, chuckle, and say something to parentify and infantilize me in the same breath.

He's getting so much older and he's so dissociated, confused, and constantly trying to prove that he's not. He's trying, always, to prove something to me when I'm not even seeking it out. His emotional state is of panic because he is the main source of my mother's narcissistic supply.

In the car before, he missed a call from the doctor's office. When he called back, it was an automated voice prompting him to select where his call would be directed to. He kept saying, "HELLO? HELLO? Why aren't you responding? HELLO?" When I told him it was an automated message, he got angry and defensive and said, "I KNOW it's from the doctor! I'm not an idiot!" I said, again, gently, it's an automated message - Select Line #1. He shouted, "I ALREADY KNOW IT'S THE DOCTOR WHO CALLED, THIS PERSON CAN'T HEAR ME - I KNOW - I KNOW EVERYTHING!"

I don’t know how daunting it must feel to realize you’re getting older and battle with confusion you never used to have. All whilst having a younger spouse who’s constantly insulting and humiliating you and everything you do and everything you are. He regains his composure and rebounds from humiliation by condescending me instead, telling me I'm a mindless child who needs his wisdom.

As much empathy as I feel, I am a mother to my father, a manager for my mother's volatile emotions, and I don't have an identity when I'm here with them. I feel like I can never show impatience, anger, annoyance, frustration. I absorb all blame, defuse every tantrum, cook, clean, deal with every aftermath. And in every scenario in which my father feel ashamed and confused, he'll scream: “I KNOW EVERYTHING - IT'S YOU WHO DOESN'T KNOW!” I’M NOT THE ONE WHO DOESN’T UNDERSTAND - YOU ARE.” And then, rather than talk about it, his version of an apology is to chuckle and say, "You're still my little baby doll princess!" And, "Silly, childish little rascal."

And I'm just tired. Every day, my focus for the entirety of that day is on deescalating both parents. Two polar opposites with no conflict resolution skills both continuously needing validation. I feel like I have zero emotional energy.

This is a comedian that I would regularly listen to during my drives to and from work. His newer standup performance struck a slightly more serious tone than usual, but I thought it was really great. I couldn’t help but write a lot of what he said in between jokes: 

“Whether it feels like it or not, we are all each other’s responsibility” 

He talks about young boys in this generation, growing up with social media and lack of intimate communities, and discourse that’s largely absent - such as the body dysmorphia of boys who then become body dysmorphic men. He talks about that show, Adolescence, and Incel culture.

“The hardest life you’re ever going to have to live is your own, which is why I do my best not to judge anybody. Because I think, genuinely, that if I had been born in a different time, I’d probably be just like them."

And he talks about how much we pick up through suggestion. He says at one point: “I don’t know that anyone was running up to young women, specifically, making sure that they felt like they were ugly - they just told them that everything that wasn’t them, was beautiful.”

Another two lines I jotted down, that I thought he articulated incisively:

“These incels - they don’t really hate women. They hate themselves. That’s where all that comes from.”

And,