Have I been born or at some point rendered unable to detect an important tell between incredulity expressed out of pure and simple confusion, and incredulity expressed out of anger; frustration; exasperation?
Is there not a valid associative tie between incredulity and annoyance, then? I've seen a correlation too often for that to seem right.
It may have been emphasized harmfully by Mother.
Could Mother really be innocent after all, my understanding of her passive aggression false? No, I doubt it. There is some burden of responsibility that a mother should bear the brunt of maturity for with her child. That a lover should not have to bear the brunt of maturity for with a lover.
What, exactly?
I have felt a desperate need for, and lack of, validation for my interpretations of social interactions all my life. Having thought about that for a moment, yes, I believe all my life within useful memory.
Where is the sense that the validity of interpretation is to be assumed supposed to come from? Certainly, with my upbringing, it was undermined if not entirely destroyed. If I were to be allowed to assume that my interpretations were valid, Mother would have allowed me to defend myself from her passive-aggressiveness with logic. Which of course I did anyway, but it was continually invalidated at the point of my observations so that no argument I made could stick to her.
Narcissist. What have you done to me.
So I crave explicit validation of my interpretations as at least reasonable or understandable, and I crave it constantly. I become anxious and aggravated if it is not present and I begin to feel doubt.
What has this to do with incredulity? Mother often spoke to me in incredulous tones. From her, it seemed to mean that I was an unbelievably bad child. That my inconsideration and selfishness were so great that it was almost inconceivable I even existed. And so when she was angry at me, she would shout at me incredulously. How dare I question the love she undeniably had, while she complained at every juncture of what I was costing her and how much trouble I was that she put up with, and no matter how hard I hurt and raged and explained, trying to make her understand that she was hurting me, she never stepped down. Not once. Because she loved me, clearly.
So incredulity became the badge of "you horrid thing", to not back down became the abuse I was most used to, and letting me have my way became the golden grail I sought that represented the love I never got at home?
Perhaps, but of course I left home horribly twisted, and did not get my way often.
Things to learn and clarify:
To let me get my way is not what loving me is.
One can love me and not let me get away with shit.
One can not love me and let me get my way.
I know this, but the assumed lie may still be deeply ingrained in my emotional responses, moreso than for most.
Confusion is not inherently condemnation.
Confusion is not inherently condemnation.
Confusion is not inherently condemnation.
There are things someone may not understand about me other than how horrible I am.
An unfortunate number of people have the bad habit, but not everyone thinks something is bad just because they don't understand it.
What else?
The validity of my interpretations is assumed to be present, not absent, where no remark of it is made.
Gods, it's going to be a nightmare to reverse engineer that one. Geesus.
