Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2013-09-19 06:55 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2013-09-19 06:55 pm
[ SECRET POST #2452 ]
⌈ Secret Post #2452 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
01.
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02.
[Giles Coren and Sue Perkins, The Supersizers Eat… The Eighties]
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03.
[Jeff Davis/Teen Wolf]
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04.
[Django Unchained]
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05.
[Valiant Hearts: The Great War]
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06.
[Child of Light]
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07.
[Jurassic Park]
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08.
[Hate Plus]
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09.
[The Three Investigators]
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10.
[Charlie Hunnam]
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 011 secrets from Secret Submission Post #350.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
Re: A writing question
(Anonymous) 2013-09-20 03:09 am (UTC)(link)My mother is similar to the mother in your story. I'm the youngest of two, though, and can't say a whole lot about the finer points of how she is with my brother anymore.
Money is the biggest factor in her attempts to control. She spoiled us when we were growing up and posed it to others as "I just want to give my kids everything I never had." It sounds great. And for a five year old getting a stuffed bear that's bigger than they are, it's fucking ace. BUT: it was conditioning. We were raised to rely on her to provide us everything we need. If we attempted to earn it ourselves, it would be lower quality (at 12, it's not easy for a kid who lives in a neighborhood where everyone has a lawn service, nanny, maids, and professional dog walkers to earn enough money to buy designer clothes). Then we'd be all proud of what we earned for ourselves and she'd sneer and forbid us to wear it in public because then people would think she wasn't providing for us properly. And I say wear meaning clothes obviously, because that was the most common in our house, but it sometimes applied to other things. Like the bike I bought with my birthday money when I was 13; Huffy wasn't the "right" brand. I also bought a car when I was 17 and I wasn't allowed to even have it in the driveway because it was an embarrassment.
I was always more resistant to my mother than my brother was. And not just in attempts to earn things for myself and gain financial independence: I don't like her. I'm adopted and I sometimes wonder if it's a chemistry issue because even as an infant I couldn't stand her and raised hell if she held me. So yeah...more resistant.
Fast forward to 2013 and my brother and I are around 40. I have a very distant relationship with my parents and the slightest, well, slight, can set off a grudge in my mother that results in months of refusing to talk to me. And by slight I mean I might have said "I'm sorry but I'm not following what you're talking about. You said you sent a text about it but I don't have a text from you." Three weeks and counting since that one.
My brother is...I don't even know. Something's wrong with him, nothing all that bad or anything, I just don't know how to explain it. He's shut off from other people and won't call our parents or visit for holidays or anything. That all sounds like no big deal but it's really extreme with him. He won't answer phone calls from family or attend weddings or anything. He will talk to our mother on the phone every now and then but not our father anymore because he told him to grow up and just put on a suit at my parent's 50th wedding anniversary party, which was a formal occasion and the venue required black tie. My brother showed up in jeans and a T shirt and my father's demand for a suit was a compromise since it was still not formal enough for the venue's requirements but something my father could work with to convince them to allow him in.
That was 3 years ago and when we were all together visiting my mother in the hospital last summer, my brother never acknowledged my father. My mother is the only person in our family (immediate and extended) that he acknowledges at all. He seems to love her very much, actually.
Which brings me back to money. My parents own my brother's house. They've owned every house he's lived in his entire life. If his job moves him to another city, they buy a new house for him. And a new car because apparently you have to have a new car to go into a new house's garage.
My mother constantly brings up things like the houses and the cars and all the furniture and stuff every time she talks to him. And ever since last summer when she was in the hospital, I've believed that it is a combination of guilt and fear (of not being able to support himself) that makes up my brother's love for our mother.
My parents don't own my house. Neither do I, incidentally; I rent a house because I can't afford a mortgage on a house I'm only going to live in for a couple years before my job moves me again. The fact that I've resisted my mother's attempts to buy a house for me is a huge point of contention. She went so far as to travel to the city I live in that's on the other side of the country from her and she bought a house. Then she came to my house (I've never had her here before or since) and acted like it was a surprise visit. I gave her the tour of my house, feeling like shit the whole time because the house I rent is nothing special and all of my furniture is bargain stuff. And then she told me how terrible my house was and that she'd called the movers and they'd be there the next week to pack up my stuff and move me into my new house. And let's be clear: she said it was my house, not hers. She does the same about my brother's house. And I'm sure if I hadn't kicked her out of my house right then that things would have gotten very bad. I can't say for certain, but I am happy to not live under a roof she owns and have her laying one guilt trip and manipulation after another on me as I've witnessed her do to my brother.
Again, sorry if none of this is any use. Basically, a parent like that is a nightmare and it gets worse with age. I spent my teens hating myself because she always told me how terrible I looked. And by that she was talking about my hair, which I wasn't good at styling myself. I just didn't want her styling it because A) "that's for little kids" and B) she would rip my hair out by the roots when she brushed it. To this day no hair dresser can make me even notice what they're doing because I'm immune to all feeling on my scalp after a childhood of having her literally rip my hair out every night before bed. I finally realized, many years later, that she has no sense of what other people feel, physically or emotionally. She genuinely thought my tears and screams begging her to stop were for attention, even those times when we were the only people in the house.
OH! And we traveled a lot when we were growing up. So when we had grown up and moved away, she kept my brother in the same town (for the first 12 years or so) by saying she'd only pay for one trip a year and if we moved away, then that one trip would be just to come home to her. Like I said, it worked for 12 years with my brother. A lot less for me because I went into a career that included travel and honestly, I'd be happy to never go "home" again. And by "home" I mean the most recent place my parents live, since it isn't where I grew up. We moved every few years and I think I was out of their house maybe a year before they moved somewhere else. And they took my brother with them and I honestly believe it's because he was scared to be away from them. She's threatened our whole lives that being away from her would somehow make our lives worse or, when that didn't work with me, that we'd be hurting her more than she could bear and did we want that responsibility, etc.
My mother has more friends than anyone I know. Everyone loves her, and she puts on a hell of a show about what a great parent she is. I've had some of her friends tell me that they wish they could be as close with their daughters as my mother is with me. I have no idea what she tells these people because we're not close and I've never done anything during any of my very few and infrequent visits to give the appearance that we're close. The fact is that she's emotionally abusive and only cares about her children for what they can do for her image and I avoid her as best I can without hurting my father more than he can handle.
Oh, and in his defense, he's actually a good guy. He really means things "I want my kids to have everything I never did" and he wishes my brother would stop wasting his money on whatever it is he's wasting it on and put a roof over his own head. My father, who was a way from home a lot, never really saw until the last 10 years or so how manipulative and controlling she is with us. His awareness has caused some problems for them and if they live long enough, it's not likely they'll make it to their 60th anniversary.
Re: A writing question
*hugs*
It does look like good help to me actually.
In my work there is no father, and the oldest son plays a role as the "man of the house" There's an element of fantasy in the story's premise which I didn't mention because it seemed unrelated to the question I was asking. The protagonist is protecting a dark secret of hers.
There's also a thing with one of the children, who's actually a cousin of the protagonist who the mother used to take care of. The mother decided she wanted that child and the parents weren't fit. basically it's hinted at that she killed them after the sister in law got a nanny for the child.