Lying to Ourselves

Okay. This one is pretty raw. Another blog post from summer of 2019. I wrote this shortly after one of the two main, really ugly and frightening blow-ups that mark my disintegration brought on by discovering my daughter’s trans-ID and the subsequent impotence I experienced as a mother. There were many less explosive, yet intense conversations that went poorly, but they were easier to recover from. The second blow-up was only about a year ago and I managed to terrify both my kids that time. I like to think that nothing could set me off like that today.

You never empathize with me.

You like arguing against me.

You manipulate me.

You don’t care when dad is mean to me.

You’re never on my side. You don’t seem to even be able to see my side.

You gaslight me.

I’m learning about cognitive distortions. Not for my new role at a non-profit for families with children who’ve been diagnosed with mental illness, but because of the challenging relationship I have with my own 15 yo daughter. When she said these things to me yesterday, did I recognize them for cognitive distortions? Yes, but I still let them sink in and hurt me deeply as a mother.

One way to deal with cognitive distortions (black-and white thinking, overgeneralization, using a negative filter, disqualifying the positive, to name just a few) is to examine the evidence. Here are the facts from my perspective:

I’ve been a consistent advocate for my daughter. When she was in school, I insisted she have plenty of time to work on her interests, prioritizing that over any schoolwork that was sent home. I advocated for her choice to leave school to direct her own learning, providing what I saw as ample evidence that she is perfectly capable of acquiring any knowledge she needs. I’ve advocated for her privacy and for her right to learn things through lived experience rather than having us structure her life for her.

I’ve put intense effort into prioritizing relationship over control and refused to impose consequences to “shape” her behavior. I make sure that I’m available to her when she wants to share something she’s learned or some content that simply amuses her. I implore her father to see her as a person, to recognize the things she does well and to show interest in her interests, to build connection with her.

What I don’t do is agree with her view of the world. We are in different camps on most current political and social issues, and I don’t affirm her views that she believes are grounded in sound reasoning, because I don’t believe they are. Unfortunately, general society supports her views. This has damaged my credibility in her eyes and she rejects me as a mentor. She seems to look for every scrap of evidence that I am not to be trusted and every mistake I make (and I know I make plenty) gets tallied and used to obscure anything that might be construed as good parenting.

I look for every possible thing I can agree with her on and make sure I vocalize it. We spend way more time together than most mothers and daughters, mostly I believe because her friends are in school, so she comes to me to share her thoughts and discoveries. We have amazing philosophical conversations and her language skills are phenomenal. She is indeed my daughter in her thinking style and her passion.

She doesn’t see this part of our relationship. Or rather, I think she unconsciously rejects it. Because she believes my influence is tainted, she wants nothing more than to not be me. This is so incredibly painful because I’ve spent my adult life intentionally gaining the wisdom I would need to parent her soundly. I have so many resources and practices that could help her become more self-aware and confident. But she is determined to be broken, in need of fixing. The system has poisoned her against me. There it is, dear reader. The reason for my anger.

I blew up yesterday after we created this list of how I “make her life hell”. She’d sent me a biting text in the night outlining why she hates living in our home, and I had hoped to find a way to address some of her cognitive distortions. I spent the morning preparing myself for the conversation because too often I allow myself to get triggered by the way she sees my presence in her life and I respond defensively.

But I failed miserably to contain my pain and maintain my practice of patient calm. I went completely off the deep end and slid back into the me I was in my twenties: sarcastic, truth-telling, intimidating, tone dripping with contempt. I hadn’t seen that woman in decades. And I proved my daughter totally right. Years of work down the toilet.

I am a terrible mother. Our relationship is destroyed. Cognitive distortions? I hope so. I’m new to the concept, but I fear the evidence is not in my favor.