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Old Oct 13, 2007, 11:44 PM
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eskielover eskielover is offline
Legendary Wise Elder
 
Member Since: Oct 2004
Location: Kentucky, USA
Posts: 25,074
I watched how my Grandmother was overbearing toward my Mother. She was always telling my mother how to do things all the way up until alzheimer got to her & even then, she wanted everything her way & wanted to make everyone go along with it.

I also realized that my Mothers self-esteme was almost non existant. She never stuck up for herself & always went along with everything she was told. When I was 5 years old, my Grandfather was transferred from California to Kansas. Luckily that forced some distance, but is scared my Mother......she didn't know what to do without her mother there all the time.

I don't know how or why I was able to see this but I swore I would never let my parents or anyone control me like that. I remember getting into fights with my parents when I felt they were "treating me like a baby". I was constantly pulling away from them from the time I can even remember. I still respected my parents no matter what, but I wasn't going to let anyone make my decisions for me. It was ok if they wanted to discuss situations, but no way was I going to allow anyone to control me.

I don't know if that is an internal makeup, personality trait that just comes naturally, or what because for as long as I can remember, my mind has worked that way & any time someone tried to control I would fight back & not let it happen. Those people who couldn't deal with that.....I would walk away from. For some reason however, most people learned to accept me for who I am.

I think it's important to know ourselves & set our boundaries before others can know what to respect. We can't leave them guessing or beat around the bush trying to be nice. There are ways to be tactful & still get your boundaries set for others to respect. We are the ones that allow others to be overbearing in our lives & if it's something we don't like then it's something we need to stop. I think my Mother liked having her Mother be overbearing. It made her feel more secure since her self esteme was so low. There were times later on in life where she would complain about it a bit, but never would do anything about it. I was the one who finally set some boundaries & then it was "how dare you let your daughter do that?" But I knew I was fighting back for my Mother even if she didn't want to herself.

I have always been fascinated by how personalities develop differently than how I would think they would or even where they come from based on the environment. I grew up with both parents having very low self esteme so I don't have any idea how I turned out the way I did...especially since I didn't have any brothers or sisters. We always joked that I was adopted because I was nothing like any part of my family.

Being determined not to be controlled by anyone helped in never allowing anyone to be overbearing towards me even when my grandma tried. I never was afraid of a good fight if I felt it was needed, so guess that must have helped some.

This was my experience with overbearing family ,
Debbie
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Leo my soulmate will live in my heart FOREVER Nov 1, 2002 - Dec 16, 2018