Yesterday, I talked to my mother on Skype. She was all, “Oh, you look amazing! Your hair looks fantastic! And what a beautiful dress! And the watch is beautiful, too! And look at Klara! What a wonderful child! You are really raising her right.”
In reality, I don’t look that hot because I’m sick and I’m not sleeping. The dress is an ancient house dress I dug out because I’d been cleaning all day. The hair is eagerly awaiting tomorrow’s visit to the salon. The watch is a simple Fitbit. And Klara is wonderful by nature and not because of anything we are doing.
What’s really funny is that before psychoanalysis (mine, obviously. My mother never considered seeking help) I could be sitting there all beautifully put together and hear, “You don’t look good. What’s up with your skin? Aren’t you too old to break out like that? You really let yourself go. Aren’t you afraid your husband will find somebody fresher? And God, that hair. I keep telling you to do something about it. Oh, and you really need to try this new diet I heard on TV because your weight is out of control.” And then I’d hear from other people how worried she is that my child is malnourished, unkempt and forlorn.
In case you suspect these are age-related changes in her, I need to mention that she is her regular self to everybody else.
Clarissa's Blog 
So she’s really saying all the nasty stuff, as before, but now it simply bounces off of you? That’s amazing!
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She tries doing the nasty comments every once in a while but she sees they have no effect and she stops immediately.
The reason why she used to make all these criticisms was because she needed my emotional response. If there’s no emotional response, she has no reason to do it.
People who criticize feed on your pain. Once there’s no pain, they lose motivation and go feast on somebody else.
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I wish I had your strength. I am still in therapy but the only thing that cures the razor thin cuts from my mom is staying away for the most part, so that when we do see her she has so much gossip to talk about that she doesn’t dig in to me.
She lives 30 minutes away from us and typically we see her every two months or so.
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Oh no, it isn’t my achievement at all. Really, it isn’t. It’s the method. I didn’t believe it was going to work as advertised but it did and it’s like magic.
I’m so sorry about your mother. Those razor cuts are the places from which your energy bleeds out.
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I completely sympathize. My relationship with my father is the same way and I try my best to avoid him as much as I can.
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