My mother...

A few days ago I sat down with my mother. We really talked, not the customary 'Hi! How's it going! You'll come to the birthday Friday then?, okay that's good take care now bye bye then,' but proper communication about real honest feelings.
Now it's quite hard to do that with a person like my mother. Very goal-oriented, a bit of a bitch, quite often cold and distant. As our communications had been really negative the past few months, we were on two completely different pages with expectations and resentments and all sorts of bad things. Things needed clearing up.
The thing is that when you finally get into a little house cleaning relationship-wise you often find out there's a bunch of hidden dirt lurking behind the sofa you'd completely forgotten about; or never even knew about.

It all started when I made a resentment list. It goes like this:
First you draw up four columns. At the head of each one you write the bold heading.

1. I'm resentful at: I took a piece of paper, and I wrote down names of people that are closest to me that I harbor any resentment towards. My mother, of course, was on the top of the list.
2. Cause: I then wrote down a column next to each person listing those resentments, either generalities (she judges me) or specific instances (she didn't think my grades were good enough and thus made me feel bad about myself).
3. This affects my: The column next to that held the feelings of self that this affected, whether they be security, self-esteem, ambition or personal relationships (self-esteem).
4. What's my part: The last column involved the reflected feelings I could find in myself and whether I showed any negative feelings of my own; dishonesty, selfishness, self-seeking or frightened (I tend to judge myself for my failures and that's why it hurts so much when she does it (fear, self-seeking)).

Doing a resentment list helped me a great deal in confronting and understanding my own emotions, frustrations and anger. A common saying amongst the fellowship is: Expectations are premeditated resentments. I realized a great deal, for example that I had great expectations for myself,my girlfriend, my friends and of life in general. Not expecting anything leaves you happier for the things that actually do happen.

I also realized something else. I am a product of divorce, a 12 year long one in fact. My folks were very committed to making their doomed relationship work, and I got to see and experience first hand just how doomed it was. While my mother is a very big character, strong loud and quickly gets angry and annoyed, my father is a lot more docile and calm. Unfortunately I take after her.

They eventually broke up in my teens and I was very angry about this. Just like most angry kids they want someone to blame so I blamed her and I've blamed her since without thinking much about it. As a kid I made a drawing once of my parents. My mom was a dinosaur eating my stick-figure dad. As it was she who was always yelling and shouting and angry, naturally I assumed it was she who did all the bad things in the relationship, and it stuck with me.

In any case, for the time being it's been a bit easier speaking with her. Making the list was a positive, and having the talk was also positive. Making a resentment list can also be helpful in everyday situations, for more pin-pointed situations such as "a jerk cut in front me in traffic today" and what effect that has on you.