Mama Drama

I love seeing Dr. Gordon, especially on days when we don't focus on eating disorder stuff the whole time. Today we actually talked about some issues that I'm having with my mother! It was so cool! I felt like a real patient, talking about real problems. I won't go into too much detail about my mom, so I'll just give you the basic gist. It is fairly important that you understand how I'm feeling about her right now, because apparently it could effect other areas of my life. My mom and I have always had a super solid relationship. We're friendly together, I talk about my problems, she gives me advice, tells me about her day and any neighborhood gossip she feels is important for me to know. She has flaws for sure, and we have the occasional argument but other than that everything is fine. On the car ride home from NH over winter break last month, I was having a panic attack of sorts from being squished in the back seat with her and my brother, while my 11 YEAR OLD sister got to sit in the passenger's seat (is that even legal?). I got impatient with Rachel, Rachel got upset, and my mom became frustrated with me and called me a bitch. She said, "You are really being a bitch, Eliza." I didn't respond, but just kept focusing on my breathing since I was so scared of throwing up from the claustrophobia. She kept going however. "No, you are a bitch and you know you're a bitch."

This was almost a month ago. The incident has certainly had a longer lasting effect on me because she seems to think everything is perfectly fine between us. For some reason I just haven't let it go. If my mom had always been an insensitive and unfeeling person it probably wouldn't have been such a big deal, but the thing is that my mom never loses her temper like that. I asked Dr. Gordon if she thought that one experience could change how you felt about somebody. She said that one experience probably couldn't work all by itself to change your opinion of somebody, but rather, it might serve to prove or qualify other aspects of that person's character that you hadn't thought about much before. For instance, my mom was the youngest of all her siblings, just like my sister, so it makes sense she would be more apt to defend Rachel in a situation. It also brought back memories of times when my mom has told me to be more mature or act my own age or be more agreeable when really all I was doing was expressing how I felt. My mother is a compassionate and reasonable person, but usually only when it comes to stuff she can understand or relate to.

Anyway, I've been trying to work on keeping the anger and resentment tucked away for now. My family is really all I've got after all (I don't have many friends), and I wouldn't be able to bear it if I made waves in the household dynamic. This is going to be tough however... I'm not used to bottling up my emotions. I'm pretty expressive most of time. I guess all I can really hope for the time being is that I'm able to sublimate the feelings in a healthy way and NOT through eating disordered behaviors, which is what Dr. Gordon is scared might start to happen.