So, we spoke honestly with our mother.

This'll be a bit aggressive, verging on venting, but I want to get a sort of record of how it went.

We talked with our mother a couple days ago. It didn't go well. Could've gone worse - at least her "well then, I won't live with you" kick-out threats only were spoken a few times - but there was a certain... well, theme of badness to it that was very clear.

She didn't... really... see us as a person, is the closest wording I can find.

We're just... something to raise into an adult I guess? Like a stubborn farm animal. Ba-gawk.

We didn't bring up all our material (we certainly didn't mention plurality),
but we did cover our lack of trust to open up safely or to speak meaningfully, our long-felt shame in ourself, and our feeling of often being criticized.

She reacted with hysteria, invalidation, and for the first time we know of she attempted traditional memory gaslighting.


The Bits

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In no particular order...

We said we feel she takes everything meaningful we say and turns it into a reason we are immoral, ungrateful, and hard to raise.
Unsurprisingly she didn't hear that, and every response she gave was making us out to be immoral, ungrateful, and hard to raise.
One of those was "There you go again! You keep trying to find the worst in what I say." Yeah, you got me there, we have definitely learned to look for subtle attacks.
(She did say "None of my friends tell me they feel unsafe to open up to me emotionally!" which was kinda funny.)

(I didn't take any additional responsibility either for the purposes of the conversation besides what I'd already thought about. But I'm pretty sure that's different because I have already been thinking that way and I am completely sick of it. Plus I suspect if I budged she would keep pushing everything onto me.)

It was very validating to recognize the circular arguments and shut-downs she tried, and be able to side-step them. Particularly obvious because she kept saying "let's circle around to what 'you' said before."
I also noticed she seemed to have one initial emotional reaction and tries to center the conversation around that as she builds it up. This included many long, complicated, train-of-thought-derailing diatribes when we gave her an opportunity.
Lady, we're quite used to your crying fits by now. You do not have our sympathies.

Near the end, we pointed out that she had spent the whole conversation criticizing us and saying we were entirely at fault, just like we said at the beginning we were worried about, and she not taken any responsibility for change herself.
Her reply was "That's not true! I said several times I would make changes!"
which was news to us: We couldn't remember hearing a damn thing like that. And we decided not to question our memory for once. (She never did specify what changes she had apparently offered.)

And, most damning, she never acknowledged any of our struggles or pains. It didn't seem to cross her mind that it was possible for us to be hurting.
(Though when we brought up our long-felt constant deep shame, she did give us
"That's ridiculous to blame me 100%!"
which, by the way, isn't quite what we said.)


Conclusion

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I will credit her that she didn't mind us taking notes on our phone, and taking a quiet minute to put our thoughts together. That's one thing she's accepted. Probably 'cause she read it in an autism book somewhere.

At the end of the conversation, we did get her to agree to "sit on" what we said to her, instead of immediately trying to refute everything. Who knows if she'll actually do it.

I'm confident we did our best to remain calm, communicate clearly, avoid derailing, and attempt to address her words without accepting their... rottenness.
We went into this believing there was a good chance she would listen, and we left it feeling fortunate we had prepared for the worst. At least we can say we gave her a last, calmly explained, honest chance.
We've done our bit for now, and we're not kicked out of her/our house. I'm okay with that.

Maybe none of this would've been necessary if we could just keep our head down and our mouth shut, like our friendacquaintance.
I don't know how long we could keep that up if we needed to, but it doesn't matter anyway... a big part of this conflict revolved around her demands for special attention and "a good relationship," which turns my stomach a little to think about, now.


Misc.

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I started feeling more and more sadistic towards her tears, whether they were crocodile tears or genuine hurt. It was gratifying.
I'll have to pay attention to that feeling - it's not one I want to feel for anyone else.

That was two days ago, and I haven't felt "shifty" since then. Sam and Em are still around, but I haven't felt, y'know, plural or median in myself. I kinda hope it comes back. Maybe we were all rattled or needed to come together for the big event. If it doesn't come back... I guess there'd be a good reason, but I'd miss it.

EDIT: Of course it's not long after I click Publish that i start wondering if this is slanted too harshly or our perspective is skewed... but, really, i'm too tired to think about it and get riled up again