Lunch with my parents went alright. It wasn't great but it was alright. I did bring up what my therapist and I went over RE: my mother being completely apathetic about my health and wellbeing. She just responded with "YOU need to call me and tell me about that stuff. I can't call you because you're always too busy to talk to me." I calmly stated that I always return phone calls, but by then she'd gone back to talking about herself. I'd said what I needed to say, so I let it be.
My wife and I made a bet on how many times my mother would address either of us directly without prompting: she said 2, I said 0. The count was 1, so I gave her the win according to The Price Is Right rules. We were able to wrap up the whole thing in an hour and a half, which was pretty good. Once I got home, I passed out cold for three hours because being around her took so much out of me. But I'm just glad it's over.
I am so proud of you for going, for standing up to her, for just being all around awesome. That took so much work and strength, of course she will never know or even appreciate it, but I can see it. Well done!
Glad it's over lol it's awesome you actually stood up for yourself. The response "You never call" and "you're always too busy" is familiar. I think they fail to see why we avoid them :P But good job facing the fear, when you can feel neutral you'll realize you were the tied baby elephant afraid of a mouse. You absolutely have the power to end phonecalls, dinner conversations, stop speaking, ignore and return silent treatments. I recently started to become more assertive, and stop being everyone's doormat. I noticed people think it's ok to treat me like a back up, dependable, will let you put me in a waiting list type of person. And now I just decided I am done. Do to others as they do to you. When people ignore me. I ignore them. When they're rude to me, I distance myself. If my mother only asks me questions about whether I ate or how the weather is, I ask her the same.Some people aren't capable of anticipating emotional needs of others, and in other cases they can but they for some reason think they dont need to treat certain people with that respect. Because they think oh this person is nice, I dont have to be nice to them. I can treat them like sh* . Sorry, no you cant. Ive been realizing how much time and opportunity I give yo people. Now once people are in a category, I leave them there. I dont expect people to change. and if they do well it's too late.