firecat: damiel from wings of desire tasting blood on his fingers. text "i has a flavor!" (Default)
[personal profile] firecat
"Some parents get really upset when their kids diverge from their headcanons about them."

A great deal of the difficulty in my relationship with my mother just dissolved away to nothing when I read this sentence.

My mother is gone so this difficulty has been living entirely in my head for ten years. I mean, I still have feelings about her having wanted me to be different, but there's something healing about interpreting her want that way. Because I know that, while headcanons can be very emotionally compelling, they're only in your head. They aren't a Great Truth of the Universe or a Moral Imperative.*

*except a couple of mine :D

Date: 1 Sep 2021 02:55 am (UTC)
sasha_feather: Retro-style poster of skier on pluto.   (Default)
From: [personal profile] sasha_feather
Oh how freeing and wonderful.

Date: 1 Sep 2021 03:06 am (UTC)
kore: (Default)
From: [personal profile] kore
Haaaa yes. I believe in some family systems? (not sure) therapy it's called the struggle over the narrative.

Date: 1 Sep 2021 03:58 am (UTC)
lilacsigil: 12 Apostles rocks, text "Rock On" (12 Apostles)
From: [personal profile] lilacsigil
Oh yes, when I realised my mother's issues with me where 99% about herself, our relationship got better! It had not been great since I suddenly got much taller and fatter than her aged 11, so that should have been a clue as to her daughter headcanon!

Date: 1 Sep 2021 05:05 am (UTC)
lilysea: Serious (Default)
From: [personal profile] lilysea
My mother's headcanon is "my *daughter* was put on this earth in order to mother me/parent me/meet all my emotional needs/be my confidant", so...

Date: 1 Sep 2021 08:26 am (UTC)
lilacsigil: 12 Apostles rocks, text "Rock On" (12 Apostles)
From: [personal profile] lilacsigil
Are you the only daughter? I am, and it was weird to see the body issues completely skip over my brothers (one of them is very thin, to the point of being medically underweight until his mid-20s, but the other brother and I look extremely alike, including body type).

Date: 1 Sep 2021 09:31 am (UTC)
lilysea: Serious (Default)
From: [personal profile] lilysea
Are you the only daughter?

I'm their only child - I was the first child they had, mum almost died in childbirth, she was told not to have any more children.

Date: 1 Sep 2021 08:24 am (UTC)
lilacsigil: 12 Apostles rocks, text "Rock On" (12 Apostles)
From: [personal profile] lilacsigil
My mum was and is tiny (and I think orthorexic), and got weird about my feet being bigger than hers first, and then the rest of my body soon caught up! Even without being a fat teenager, I was also 6 inches taller than her at age 12 and the whole "my daughter and I share clothes!" phase lasted less than six months. That said, she has never been in the slightest bit homophobic, which is nice!

Date: 1 Sep 2021 11:48 am (UTC)
sabotabby: (anarcat)
From: [personal profile] sabotabby
Oh. That makes a lot of sense, actually.

I couldn't explain this to my mother because she doesn't understand things like headcanons, but it explains things to me.

Date: 1 Sep 2021 01:28 pm (UTC)
lirazel: Dreamcatcher in the Fly High mv ([music] colored with the seven lights)
From: [personal profile] lirazel
Oh, that's good. Yeah.

Date: 2 Sep 2021 12:16 am (UTC)
snippy: Lego me holding book (Default)
From: [personal profile] snippy
Glad you found something useful with that. I figured out after her death that my mother wanted me to be my older brother (whom she'd been forced to give up for adoption shortly after his birth), and I wasn't that and never could be. Her grief over losing him prevented her seeing/appreciating me for who I was.

Date: 2 Sep 2021 02:11 am (UTC)
silveradept: A kodama with a trombone. The trombone is playing music, even though it is held in a rest position (Default)
From: [personal profile] silveradept
That is an effective statement and very descriptive of a lot of conflict between parent and child.

Date: 2 Sep 2021 12:05 pm (UTC)
stonepicnicking_okapi: Blue-and-white teacup (Teacup)
From: [personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
That is a good way to frame it. Both my parents being dead a long time, I didn't have that, but I think it could apply to other relationships as well, i.e., Your head canon of me is different than my own.

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firecat: damiel from wings of desire tasting blood on his fingers. text "i has a flavor!" (Default)
firecat (attention machine in need of calibration)

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