Look at us now, Mother film

[Couscous]

I'm curious if anyone here has seen the film Look at us Now, Mother! I saw it about six months ago and it gave me a lot of food for thought. The maker of the film acknowledges that her mother treated her abusively and that she had been the family scapegoat, but somehow her daughter was able to make peace with her. I thought it was a pretty interesting film.

https://www.gaylekirschenbaum.com/look-at-us-now-mother

[Notwendy]

I have mixed feelings about watching this. I read the synopsis, and I think it was difficult for the daughter to grow up with that criticism- my BPD mother also was critical and narcissistic. However, if there's reconciliation, I think it's a path to a relationship with ourselves.

It's good she was able to reconcile with her mother, but for me, that kind of message reinforces the attitudes and expectations of my family that somehow it was on me to do that- that if there were issues between us, somehow it was on me to change that. BPD mother also blamed me.

Which resulted in decades of me trying to please her to accomplish that. Criticism is difficult to hear for a child, but what we experienced was more than that.

Some of what we experienced will remain whispers between siblings, euphemisms. Emotional reconciliation involves looking at them through adult perspective. These are the behaviors of seriously mentally ill people. They had nothing to do with us.

Having a working relationship with someone takes the ability to have a relationship in the first place.
I can do my part to be as understanding and forgiving as I can, but I can not change the mindset of a seriously mentally ill person. I am glad for this mother and daughter pair. Glad that they could manage a better relationship. However watching such a film would only be a reminder of the messages I have heard.  I saw how my friends' mothers behaved. I wanted that kind of a mother, and tried very hard to be as well behaved as possible so as to perhaps have that kind of mother. It seemed all I heard from adults was "try harder" with these "mother-daughter" issues as if "daughter"
wasn't doing her part.

[Riv3rW0lf]

Which resulted in decades of me trying to please her to accomplish that. Criticism is difficult to hear for a child, but what we experienced was more than that.

I agree with Notwendy.

It also seems like this movie would be incredibly triggering for me, since I've taken the decision to be no contact to protect my mental health.

It's not that I don't want to forgive, it's that I can't forgive while having a close relationship with my mother because of her ongoing abuse and sense of entitlement. When upholding boundaries result in severe backslashes and silent treatments which in turn trigger my C-PTSD symptons resulting from her severe abuse of me as a child... It's just not the same as criticism. Does her mother have a PD? My mother was highly criticising too, but like Notwendy said, there was much more than criticism too.

When I believed my mother had "just been an alcoholic", I had somehow managed to convince myself it was all okay and we could get past our rough past because she had stopped drinking which equated change for me... What I hadn't realized is that her alcoholism though, was just the peak of it and that there was severe manipulations and neglect underneath it, parentification emotional, physical, sexual abuse, and that she would never take responsibility for those, nor try to change her behavior... She expects me to do all the work because she stopped drinking, but there is a limit to where I can go without her stopping her meltdowns and rages too. 

[Notwendy]

This is the one situation where children are expected to be responsible for and to repair a relationship with their abuser.

If I were married to someone who treated me the way my BPD mother treats me, everyone would be advising me to leave them.  If it was another relative- like an aunt or uncle or cousin, people would say the same.

I do believe there is something sacred about the relationship with our parents. Otherwise, it would not have been carved in stone along with 9 other important rules that form the cornerstone of major religions. But honoring a parent involves how we relate to them, and I don't think enabling them to abuse us is really honoring them. So while I understand why all cultures value respect for parents in some way, and we value it too, it's a challenge to navigate this relationship when there is on going emotional and verbal abuse. It's hard to know what to do sometimes.

But even the title "Look at us now Mother" smacks of narcissism. "Hey look at what I did! Look at what we did! Aren't we amazing that we fixed this relationship?" "Now, I am going to show everyone how they can do it too."  I am glad for them that they could do it but I don't want to watch that movie.

 

[Riv3rW0lf]

But even the title "Look at us now Mother" smacks of narcissism. "Hey look at what I did! Look at what we did! Aren't we amazing that we fixed this relationship?" "Now, I am going to show everyone how they can do it too."  I am glad for them that they could do it but I don't want to watch that movie.

This is also my perception of it.  

[madeline7]

So I watched the trailer and that was enough for me. The Mom saying the reason she might not have been nice to the daughter is that she was a bitchy little girl growing up. Always placing the blame elsewhere. Mean and vindictive.
And the Mom even said she pulled a Mommy Dearest on her daughter. And then the Mom at the end is so hungry for forgiveness. All about the Mom. Look at ME ME ME.

[Couscous]

What this film helped me realize is that unlike the mother in the film mine doesn’t appear to have the capacity for anything that even approaches the realm of emotional closeness.

If my mother lived locally I could see myself being willing to go shopping with her as I do appreciate her input on matters of esthetics, even though I do realize her concern about my appearance is all about her… But I do not believe that the exchange of genuine affection is possible due to her fear of engulfment, which places extreme limits on what kind of relationship is possible.

In the book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents the author talks about emotion phobia and explains that it’s as if our mothers have a snake phobia, and we keep plopping a fat snake in their laps — and they just can’t stand it, no matter how meaningful it may be to us. She also says that if we are able to back off completely from having any expectations of emotional closeness our parents will sense this, and paradoxically sometimes this results in their being a little less closed, although it’s not a given by any means.

So while I am all for forgiving my mother I also am keenly aware that this still will not result in us having any kind of meaningful relationship.

[Turkish]

I'd like to see this, but I won't pay $10. (Cheap bastid, as my ex told me?). Bastid is my word, she just called me cheap to the kids.

It's funny, my mom, from the Midwest and born in '42, sometimes said they she'd pull "The Jewish Mother" whatever that is.  My Israeli friends don't fit that stereotype. Must be an American thing.

The point here might be that healing (coping?) and acceptance are important, no matter how one chooses to do it. I chose VLC as my mom slipped into dementia. I kind of wish that I'd been able to document some kind of healing journey.

The author Pat Conroy chose his coping journey by writing about his family's dysfunction in often thinly veiled as fiction novels. His oldest sister never forgave him for it, yet he kind of reconciled with their abusive father, The Great Santini, before they both died.

My ex, to her credit, has kind of done the same thing with her father, especially given that he recently almost died from heart issues. She has a better r/s with her mother (covert incest). Her younger sister still struggles with her feelings towards their father.

[Riv3rW0lf]

What this film helped me realize is that unlike the mother in the film mine doesn’t appear to have the capacity for anything that even approaches the realm of emotional closeness.

If my mother lived locally I could see myself being willing to go shopping with her as I do appreciate her input on matters of esthetics, even though I do realize her concern about my appearance is all about her… But I do not believe that the exchange of genuine affection is possible due to her fear of engulfment, which places extreme limits on what kind of relationship is possible.

In the book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents the author talks about emotion phobia and explains that it’s as if our mothers have a snake phobia, and we keep plopping a fat snake in their laps — and they just can’t stand it, no matter how meaningful it may be to us. She also says that if we are able to back off completely from having any expectations of emotional closeness our parents will sense this, and paradoxically sometimes this results in their being a little less closed, although it’s not a given by any means.

So while I am all for forgiving my mother I also am keenly aware that this still will not result in us having any kind of meaningful relationship.

This is true for me as well, that forgiveness would not lead to a meaningful relationship with my mother.

Also, yes to the snake ! Whenever her and I started feeling somewhat close, the fear was palpable, and she would become highly dysregulated, which kept me at bay... Unless I acted a specific way. I do have some memory of some "closeness", but I see now it was just the Karpman Triangle...  Becoming the Victim on the Karpman Triangle always result in her calming down... I just realized this now. It felt like proximity to allow her to save me, but it is not. It keeps me in a FOG and in a victim state, which is completely opposite to my deep core. My brother prefers the victim position, and he has no issue at all with our mothers. This is weird to finally put this into words.

There is once, when our relationship almost felt normal, but I was living 10 hours way and only seeing her once a year, over a period of a few days. If outside the triangle, then distance is the only thing that makes the relationship feels somewhat normal, and still, there were a lot of outbursts.

When I moved back into my home province, and before our last fall out, she was already saying things like : "You will come here once a month, and we will go to your house once a month too." She was planning to see us two weekends per months, despite the fact we would live 4 hours away from her, like I didn't have something else to do? But it wasn't a wish for emotional closeness, it was control and proximity to her grandchildren. She needed to take the most space she could. She cannot be close to anyone emotionally because of her fear, yet she still needs to be the one everyone love. She is a real Queen.

I remember feeling shivers when she said that, because I remember all the crisis and outbursts she had with my brother, whenever she couldn't see her grandkids whenever she wanted. He once drove them 2 hours during a snowstorm to get them to her house to calm her down and appease her.

So... No contact is the only way to go for me right now with young kids. She is uncontrollable when it comes to her grandchildren. Something about it just set her off. The parents become enemies, and she feels a need to save them, to enmesh herself to them, to feel they need her more than they need their parents. It is all very unhealthy.

I know I will be able to forgive her at some point, I am actively working on it, for my own inner peace, but I might not resume contact even then. To me, those are separate.

[Notwendy]

It may only cost $10 to see this film but then might  be paying at least $500 for therapy after that  

So it's a no!

But mostly because I'd feel jealous that this relationship was able to be worked out. I've tried with mine, I'd try again if I thought there was hope my mother could "see" my intentions but know she can't, and it's sad.

[Methuen]

I know I will be able to forgive her at some point, I am actively working on it, for my own inner peace, but I might not resume contact even then. To me, those are separate.

I completely understand this.  My aunt did this (my mom's sister).  She forgave her father (my grandfather), and told him so.  But I don't actually know if she ever saw him again after that.  And I completely understand if she didn't.  He abused all his children (my mother being one of them).  

As to the film - I am in the "not interested" column.  The scene where she puts her fingers in her ears and sticks out her tongue - that is my mother! - along with a few other scenes.  Just not something I need to see (again).  I've already forgiven my mother (mentally), and have more than enough contact with her.  

But for those who want to watch it, and find it helpful, all the power to you.