Thank you
definitely agree about stress. We've got some inherited chronic stuff like bronchitis. Should be mild and just inconvenient, but stress makes it into a whole other thing. Plus post-covid/long Covid. One thing leading to another. Not getting a stitch in time.
Tiny update: Doc just reviewed and said this is most likely Covid, given that my oxygen levels are dipping. Will continue to treat as the flu. I could have done without the diagnosis, frankly. The panic attacks are horrendous. Anyway, it's not gone, so everyone should still stay alert and practise safety measures.
Relatively peaceful in the house right now. I'm being more vocal about what I'm doing, mum's mostly sleeping, and I'm getting very irritated with dad for not practising safety measures properly - she loves it when we are in conflict. I'm trying to impose essential survival activities only mode to reduce work and stress, but it's very difficult to convince an Indian housewife when she's in the Indian housewife mode to adhere to that
About mum. It's complicated. She isn't that bad either. Some things she can't help, some things that I guess she learned and can't stop using as a survival tactic. All my grandparents were abusive to my parents - physically and emotionally. Narcs and enablers. Golden children, my parents were the scapegoats. They were groomed to basically fail - not allowed to stand up for themselves, bad habits encouraged, beaten down at every step. Her father and brother used our circumstances to exploit and control me and her financially and legally. She started breaking out of their hold only last year, but has a long way to go yet. A lot of her 'mean' or 'greedy' behaviours stem from trauma. Some are just the only dynamic she has experienced. That household is so horribly toxic. Same with her in-laws, though that side's style was thankfully quieter but more manipulative.
I can't cut any of them off until she does, and she won't. Can't cut her off because they'll use it to cause legal trouble for me. Made sure through grooming and disruption tactics that I don't have the resources or the necessary smartness to fight them. Plus she's a victim too and she's my mother. I do love her. And she's pretty cool at times. Also she's been sick all her life so that has played a huge role. Plus she hasn't had the advantage of growing up with the internet and having access to information about abuse. No one like Tattlers to point out narc behaviour that she could relate to. Plus of course anyone, especially a narc, would deny as wrong their own traits. I used to tell her but I'm the last person she would ever listen to.
I've developed unhealthy behaviours to survive myself, and God knows how many narcissistic traits I've inherited
so I hardly have a leg to stand on. I've just vowed to break the cycle, and seems like the universe agrees = no chance at getting a partner. Oh well. Better single and lonely than to bag myself a male Smegs. Can you imagine the horror?