I am a caregiver for my elderly mother. All her life she has been stubborn to the point of obstinacy and, given the opportunity, a bully, a controller and verbally abusive to those who were close to her, i.e., HER mother, her former husband (my dad).
Alternately, she was also dutiful in that she, as a divorced mother, worked as many as 3 jobs at a time to provide for us, feed and clothe us, and often supported other members of the family who needed a place to stay. Possessor of a fine mind which lacked formal education past the 9th grade, she became a saver, a penny-pincher, almost a Shylock in her attitude toward money and people. She, until very late in life, exhibited little humanitarian spirit unless someone was completely and obviously her "inferior" or in desperate need.
She was determined to have the final word in all things and generally succeeded in that goal.
When she got involved in church in her 60s and 70s, she was happier than ever in her life, but that was based on sand, unfortunately. She came to be more trusting of others for a time, came to believe totally in Jim & Tammy as God's messengers.
My instinct caused me to recoil from them, caution her not to put he faith in man but in God. She was undone when the truth came out. She then turned to Jimmy Swaggert, against whom I again cautioned her (my instincts are seldom wrong when it comes to wolves in sheep's clothing). After Swaggert, she developed cancer, and after faithful attendance at her church for many years, her new (young) pastor refused to visit her in the hospital,~~ he "just couldn't relate to old people."
Needless to say, her faith was challenged and subsequently died because it was, in fact, her last attempt to believe in her fellow man.
Three more bouts with cancer over the next 20 years, and then dementia reared its ugly head after an auto accident --another driver negligently ran a red light and hit her--and she suffered head trauma. Her attorney sold her out, said she only had 11 years to live and that wasn't worth much in court and threatened to resign her case if she didn't settle for $6000.
He was, I discovered, at the time interested in settling a six-figure case he was negotiating with the same company, a fact which he failed to disclose until I pointedly asked about conflicts of interest, after reading her brief~~which resembled a teenager's book report written in the bathroom ~~and her case was being so abominably mishandled.
By the way, anyone shopping in Charlotte, NC for a personal injury attorney should email me for a name to avoid if you are wise
Now, Mom suffers from a rather bizarre "selective" dementia and is, nonetheless, due to her years, dependent on me.
This is a living hell that I unknowingly entered as a caring daughter.
I have had an education since becoming a caregiver.
I believed I was very much UN-like my mother, yet I have discovered otherwise.
I have recently succumbed to the temptation to retaliate against her intentional bad behavior by bullying her. I am no longer the tolerant, caring, patient, loving person I have striven to be all my life. I have been verbally abusive to my mother, screamed at her for being her (normal) obstinate self, and her passive-aggressive attitude has even caused me to do what social services could interpret as physical abuse by taking her firmly by the arm and escorting her back upstairs--forcibly sometimes---and returning her to her bed when she behaves like a spoiled child, repeatedly getting up to interrupt whatever I am doing (which is generally trying to recover from mental and physical exhaustion, to unwind from having to attend to her whims and demands for hours and try to half-finish the chores I have no time for while attending to her) in an ongoing effort to annoy me and force me to focus my attention on her by pushing my buttons.
All my life I have tried to help and have helped others. I could not understand what was happening to me internally. Yes, I was stressed on many fronts, but to feel the core of my being twisted like this was devastating to me.
Recently, though, I had an epiphany: I have in the role of caregiver evolved to become the "force" that my mother has acted against all her life, that which was the source of her resilience in the face of almost impossible odds ...for he life was a very difficult one from childhood and throughout. I've given her a target for her anger, and thus I motivate her to live out of defiance.
I now believe that by radically changing my behavior, I have been unconsciously molding myself into what my mother needs to continue to live. She does not respond well to kindness, as if that is basically alien--even unacceptable-- to her.
If I am kind, easy, or indulgent, she in short order becomes snide, bullying, overbearing and obstinate.
Conversely, when I adopt the persona of an unkind person, she struggles against me at first, then appears to relax, becomes pliant and even agreeable. She delivers an "equal and opposite" reaction, much like Newton's Law.
She is pleased. I am horrified.
I read your comments on kindness not meanness, and I think, what a wonderful world that would be. However, I truly believe that Jesus Christ himself would not have done much better than I have done (if he was NOT given permission to miraculously heal her nor cast out the fear/anger "demons" which undoubtedly reside inside her...lol).
I mulled this over for a long time. This conflict-based survival was just so...alien an approach to life for me.
I suspected I was onto something.
Further reading fleshed out my theory.
Mother is essentially, a child suffering from "oppositional defiant disorder". She is seeking to elicit intensity of feeling, for that is when she feels I am most engaged with her. She unwittingly seeks attention yet does not know how to accept loving attention and so elicits something more familiar--anger, chaos, frustration, discord.
She is in her mid nineties. I don't think there is time to "retrain" her child within. Nor do I believe I have the patience at my age to go through such an arduous undertaking. So I continue the charade.
Some might say that is selfish/mean. Some might say that is survivalist (MY survival). Others might believe that my behavior upon becoming my mother in order to motivate her to keep living is insane. Others might see me as a sacrificial lamb.
But I do love her, and I know how vastly terrified she is of death, as she has no belief in an afterlife anymore.
That is a concept I am trying to work on with her, to ease her mind.
That is all I know how to do. For I do love my mother. She deserved better. She suffered much. She deserves to know there IS something better when we leave the corporeal form behind.
That is also something that, despite many opinions to the contrary, my instinct tells me this is so.
I am not at all religious. I believe all religions must erode and die before the truth of existence is known. I was of course reared in the Christian faith in the South, but never bought into the dogma of the necessity of religion.
I believe we are all here with the wisdom to find the Truth. It's just finding the first bread crumbs to follow...
So much of one's truth is defined by perspective and choosing.
But concepts of "meanness/kindness"? Not at all as simplistic as one might think upon first considering.
They are surely relative to the immediate situation and the persons involved.
And I dare say this is so in most cases.
If, in fact, our purpose on earth is to learn from each other and then to teach one another, perhaps that UNkind word delivered at precisely the right moment will serve to educate someone else that bullying is generally bad, for instance, or it might even be the EXACT happening that would trigger needed self-awareness. One never knows.
After all, even Hitler WAS a teacher, albeit a horrifying one.
Furthermore, to suppress honest emotion, even if it is anger, is to deny self-expression and perhaps consequent opportunities to understand ourselves more completely, and that, too, is unhealthy ~~still another facet of the meanness/kindness conundrum.
Theory of "kindness always"
... useful application of "unkindness"...
and/or extrapolation of the cathartic usefulness of emotion expressed "unkindly"...
Not as simple as one might first think.
Transcendence seems to be that of which you speak, one can only conclude.
And I have to say, I don't think we as a civilization are sufficiently evolved to safely assume that mantle yet.
First one must not ignore that directive, "Know thyself." Whatever path leads there.
Our breadcrumbs leading to that knowledge are our emotions.
Suppressed emotion simply festers into passive aggression, violence, or worse. Worse would be self-destruction.
Perhaps we should just start with a general rule of "try not to hit anyone", and go from there.
Blessings to all,
I exit smiling,
HM