The Power of Words Not Spoken

It was a simple conversation. My mom and I were talking about our schedules so that I could decide when I would go "home" for the holidays. We were both a bit frustrated. She never said the words outright, but I suspect that she was upset because I told her that I would be spending Christmas at my house with my partner, whom my mom doesn't like to acknowledge is my partner. I was frustrated because she couldn't decide if it would be better if I came before Christmas or after Christmas. As usual, we changed the subject without addressing the underlying issues, and the emotional content poured itself into everything else we talked about.

As the conversation drifted, I realized that every subject that we landed on felt like it was filled with emotional land mines, hidden behind what she didn't say. By the end of the conversation I felt wounded, frustrated and angry. While she never explicitly said, "It's all your fault that everything seems to be going wrong for you," that was the message that that reverberated through my head when I got off the phone. I didn't see any of this at the time. I didn't realize that I felt hurt, and it certainly didn't occur to me that I had played a role in the whole painful experience. I was self-absorbed with my own worries, and though I knew that skipping out on Christmas for the ninth time in so many years would not go over well, I completely ignored the fact that she might feel hurt and rejected by this.

It occurs to me that I put up huge walls when I talk to her, because subconsciously I equate empathizing with her with ignoring my own needs and desires. Somewhere in my primal self there is a struggle between her needs, values and expectations and my own. I am afraid that by giving in to what she needs, I will lose some small or large part of myself. In this mucky area of my soul, there are no shades of gray; either she wins or I win. She probably subconsciously feels the same way. Now that I have spelled it out, I realize that this struggle underlies almost every conversation that we have and don't have. This no doubt explains why we spend so many hours talking about the weather rather than talking heart to heart. It's more neutral territory.

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