Do elderly parents re-write history?

Omigod! You poor dear! How terrible. What idiots!

Along those lines, there was a terrible murder here in Austin many years back. A woman had gone into hiding from her abusive military husband.

He found out where she was living, went over, brutally murdered her with multiple stab wounds in front of their 12-year-old.

While the police--my aforementioned, now-deceased sweetheart was with the force at the time--were processing the crime scene, the woman's mother called and was leaving a message on the machine, "You really should go back to Jimmy. He loves you and you should be together."

The police answered, asked her to identify herself, and told her they were with homicide.

The mother just didn't get it! SHE was the one who had told "Jimmy" where his wife--her daughter--was hiding.

Haunting.

I'm so very sorry you had to go through that and that your family are idiots.

Yeah, me too C'est la vie!
I don't often ask for help anymore.
My uncle is a priest. Several years ago he married my cousin. During the wedding sermon, he preached about rising divorce rates ect and if any of us ever heard or thought the groom was abusing the bride, we were NOT to council her to leave but to pray with her for guideance, god's love and forgiveness. I got up and walked out.
Absolute crap. I'd be the first one in line to help her pack if it ever came to that.
Ceili

It's just plain scary sometimes how re-written people's memories are, and not just the elderly, or the terminally narcissistic. My sister asks me about things she remembers,, and I share very few of her memories of our childhood (with an abusive, narcissistic mom who to this day rewrites history so that it changes about every 10 years). The memories we do still keep in common are the good ones.

I gave up trying to argue with anyone about the past, so there are many things that I've had to deal with alone, or in couselling. It makes me wonder, though, how accurate my memories are, and how much I've rewritten history myself!!!!

dream, yeah, they're finding more and more about the mutability of human memory, period... studies about eyewitnesses, alien abductions, molestation cases, etc. So I definitely think we all do it to greater and lesser degrees.

One thing that has helped me enormously in that regard is journals. My journals from age 10 or so contain lots of imprecations to my future self to remember what it was really like. For example, to remember when I became a mom (or if I became a teacher), how much more kids understand than adults ever give them credit for.

I have been seriously considering having a second child, and going through my pregnancy journal has been great for that, re-living what actually happened. "Maternal amnesia" is a famous thing, that you forget just how awful the pregnancy and childbirth process were. (Not that they always are, but...)

Similarly, I wrote a note to my future self (I have kept that habit) to remember just how utterly exhausting a newborn is. I know that all of this stuff is easier the second time around, but in terms of this discussion, I see how nostalgia colors my thinking already -- I saw a movie on TV that I had watched when the sozlet was tiny, and had a pang for that time, how little and sweet she was, how nice it was to sit there with her snuggled on my lap nursing, and then happened across a journal entry where I mention the movie. She had been sick, and was continuously nursing, and I was totally stuck and couldn't do anything but sit there and be a milk machine, and I was seething with resentment. And that was just a little over 2 years ago.

Approval
A common theme here would appear to be that people value approval too much. Personally, I think shame is an anti-addiction defense. If you feel like you may be screwed up, the shame caused by the disapproval of others can make you behave morally as you don't feel like doing. This is good inasmuch as the feelings of screwed-up people are not up to making wise decisions. Since it is only desirable to feel shame if you suspect you might be screwed-up, individuals quite sure of an absence of addiction should be mostly indifferent as to approval. And if you are screwed-up, you should desire not approval, but disapproval (unless your actions have reformed).

If you don't feel like anything has altered your feelings from their natural state, why feel shame? People will often try to make you feel ashamed of poverty, stupidity, or moral faults. But if you naturally don't want to strive for money or knowledge as much as someone else wants you to, or if you naturallly don't want to sacrifice for someone else, why should you let others make you ashamed of your own natural tendencies? To feel shame for such is just to allow yourself to be manipulated. True, being an addict often causes poverty, stupidity and selfishness, and so it might be preferable for an addict to be ashamed of these than to be totally impudent, but still, a wise person only allows himself to feel shame at the addiction because he realizes addiction is the only thing it is worthy of being ashamed about. By the same token, one should not take pride (the opposite of shame) in anything but being free from addiction. Actually, if you feel totally confident (say from having intellectually studied the matter greatly) in judging your own addiction level to be low, why feel pride at all? It strikes me that pride rather requires an antecedent shame.

Being drug-free and completely devoid of any desire to be sodomized (a chemical addiction, IMO), I totally avoid both shame and pride. Occasionally, despite myself, I might be led by the foolishness or manipulation of others to slightly feel shame when I know intellectually I shouldn't, but it is no big deal to me. After practice, one gets quite effective at avoiding being manipulated by shame, and I'm pretty effective at that by now, I think.

Parents are generally the most effective at making you feel false shame because their not typically having a self-interest in lying about their opinions as regards whether you are screwed-up makes them more believable and irresistible.

Two situations come to mind. (1) A parent who has been misled by a puritanical "all fun is wicked addiction" upbringing, or a "we take pride in our achievements and wealth" childhood into honestly thinking you should be ashamed of innocuous matters. (2) A parent who doesn't feel she should be ashamed of her real addictions, and so to get back at you tries to make you feel ashamed of your non-existent addictions. Not that these possibilities are incompatible.

Something that rather strikes me as curious is that many of the people here talk about their parents' real addictions as being bad, yet what really gets their goat is something their parent said to hurt their own feelings. A good way of reforming an addiction is to make the addict ashamed, and though I know it is easier said than done, perhaps not being so quick to take offense at your parent's false insults might not make it seem so much to your parent that you are being hypocritical in suggesting shame has a purpose (i.e., in reforming your parent). I imagine parents can be unusually ashamed by grown children, too.

Somehow the sting of shame leads many people (especially, I'd say, in the South) into thinking that shame itself is hurtful, and that somehow it is in one's best interest to manipulate people into praising you regardless of whether your behavior was praiseworthy. Shame is an emotion that has a purpose, and when the emotion should be felt, it helps you. But somehow many people don't look at it that way. These people vastly overestimate the importance of reputation and honor, and viewing any shame felt as a defeat inflicted by the shaming individual, they tend to forget their shame like people forget sexual abuse.

CodeBorg's example could be a little different. Going on vacation, particularly going on vacation to a beach, is something parents made fuddy-duddy by their upbringing can feel guilty about (a beach vacation can seem to fuddy-duddy people as being full of temptation and laziness). Maybe CodeBorg's parents really did have a good time at the beach? The pictures were a way to show to other fuddy-duddy people the ideal quality of "vacation at beach" that must be studied to determine whether "vacation at beach" be sinful or innocuous. And of course, CodeBorg's parents could study it when at home and a safe distance away from the controlling manipulative forces of "beach addiction" to perhaps understand better what a "vacation at beach" represents, something they naturally would want to do if it is a matter of anxiety to them. "Fun" is something people can be uneasy about feeling or wanting their children to feel. Of course, it could be that the picture of a vacation is a matter of pride--a picture taken so CodeBorg's parents could later take pride in looking at the picture or in bragging about it, and feel like successful parents who spent time or money on their children. But somehow this latter explanation seems less economical to me.

I don't see, CodeBorg, the connection you make to "not caring to 'accomplish great things'". That's something I wonder about my paternal grandfather. His philosophy he expressed as "to try to make the world a little better place." Why not be more reckless and try to make the world a much better place, if you feel like trying for such has a higher expected improval of the world than trying to make the world a little better place (more certainly)? I do feel that is my situation, and accordingly "Save the world or bust!" could be one of my mottoes, and I don't see what is wrong with that. Matter of fact, my goal is the one requiring more immunity to shame, inasmuch as taking risk and being odd as great things require is not very much approved of. I admired my grandfather, though; too bad he died before the question was of interest to me.

There's certainly a lot of food for thought here. I'm finding it very instructive & comforting sharing your experiences with you. I don't have much to add right this minute, as I struggle with the extreme tiredness brought on by a debilitaing virus that has struck 100s of us in Melbourne, Oz. But I'm certainly THINKING about what you've all written! Thank you all for being so honest. I'll definitely be back!

My mother is a typical histrionic. Everything that happens to her is the "most awful, most terrible" thing to ever befall a person. Twenty years ago, I told her that she cried "wolf" so often, that after awhile, something serious will happen, and I won't believe her. It is really very draining on a person interacting with her.

She is a wonderful little actress for OTHER people. I can always tell, when I call her, when someone else is in the house, just by the way she answers the phone. Her "hello" exudes charm and vivaciousness. I get the whining, when nobody else is around to hear it.

One day, some years ago, we got into a tiff. She started in with how she didn't want to live anymore, and that God should take her. I turned to her and said, "Whatever turns you on". It was as if I had swiched on a light bulb. Her demeanor immediately changed, from the whiny brat, to a normal human being.

Talk about being manipulative!

I hope you get over your virus soon. It sounds awful.



Uh . . . I didn't mean you guys. <gulp>

And I could swear I remember everything about my pregnancy, the labor, delivery and those 1st exhausting years!!!!

Msolga, I hope you're feeling better.

Soz - re: having another child - no-one warns you that 2 children is NOT twice the work but about 10 times!

I was an 'only one' so had no experience of siblings. Yeek hard work. Specially when the first was a quiet thoughtful child and the second a rumbustuous, active, ever moving child.

Yeh... My FIRST is both thoughtful/ analytical and rambunctious, active, ever-moving -- I can't quite imagine having another one and dealing with her adequately. My husband was an only child for 4 years, and then had a sibling and things went baaad... she has a very similar temperment and I think she may (and I) may be best served if she remains an only. We'll see.

How are you feeling, Msolga?

Heehee - I was the rambunctious second child!

What I see in certain older members of my family is, back in the day they lived wild lives, committed adultury, ran the streets, hung out with hoodlums, did time, had children out of wedlock, all sorts of sordid, funky things and now, they're holier than thou and casting harsh judgements on everyone else.
As if it's possible to hide illegitimate children.

that explains a lot :wink:

Hmmmm .... It isn't just elderly parents that develop these convenient gaps in their memories! I was talking to my sister the other night about my mother, our family ... all sorts of things that had made family contact difficult for me since my father's death. Anyway, I broached a few things that had happened in our childhood that had caused me to feel compromised at the time. The sorts of things you ALWAYS remember. Well, blow me down, she didn't remember anything about what I was talking about! I'm starting to get a very strange feeling about my family ....Seems neither my mother, nor my sister can recall any of the difficult things ... How come I do, then, I wonder?

msolga- Apparently when you were going through difficulties with your family, they were totally oblivious to your pain. Each person relates to situations differently. One person's tragedy is another person's annoyance. Obviously there were things going on in your family that you considered very important..................that were not that important to your mother and sister.

If it were one person who "forgot", we might say that the memories were repressed. But two people..........

Phoenix

Yes, 2 very close people, my mother & sister, very similar ... neither of whom I got along particularly well with as a child, or adult, for that matter. (As I mentioned earlier, I was seen as my father's daughter, while my mother & sister got along like 2 peas in a pod.)
I was going through family difficulties, but it was a pretty dysfunctional family, so I guess I wasn't the only one experiencing this. But I seem to be the only one (of the 3 of us left) who would like to talk about the things that caused difficulties between us. I'd really like to & remember so much so vividly, but it seems that I'm the only one who has any recollection of these things. A real pity, I think.

msolga- My husband grew up in a dysfunctional family. He had a brutal father, and a very self absorbed mother. As a result, he remembers very little from his childhood. When he wants information, he asks his sister.

Phoenix

I suspect that I am "the keeper of the secret information" in this dysfunctional family. Strange, as I was the youngest. I remember so much, so vividly, still! It is almost as if the other remaining 2 members of the family lived a different life to mine ... Strange!

msolga- Interesting point about you being the youngest. So's my husband's sister. Apparently she did not get as much flack as my husband.