- Dec 2, 2014
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My mom (an NT) has one personality trait that really irritates me sometimes. She seems to have this unnecessarily high concern for what is socially appropriate and what "looks nice" to the point where she may stubbornly say I can't or shouldn't do something because it appears (to her) to be socially inappropriate or ugly/gross etc.
For example, I care about and love birds a lot. There's a woodpecker species that is declining across the US because as urban development increases, people chop down all their dead trees. Literally all that would need to be done is keep some of the dead trees because woodpeckers love dead trees (tons of bugs in them, which they eat by pecking through the wood). Throughout the time we've lived at this one house, our large backyard has had several trees die on us. They've all been removed. I don't know if our neighborhood requires it, but it's made the woodpeckers stop appearing. I once asked my Mom why we couldn't have kept the dead trees. "They don't look nice" was her reply. I was expecting something more reasonable, but apparently the livelihood of animals is less important to her than making she other people don't tsk-tsk at her for having a dead tree in the yard. For the record, none of her friends go out there. Hardly anyone would notice or care if we had dead trees unless there was a neighborhood rule against it. Our backyard is kind of a wild space--the neighborhood kind of kept some of the wild areas when it was developed.
Another time I had left some birdseed and bird feeder cleaning tools out on our screen porch. She told me to move them and hide them under an outdoor shelf so that the man who was coming over to inspect our roof for repairs wouldn't see it. Turns out, he never went out onto the porch. He stayed inside and inspected all of the "problem areas" on our ceiling. Why was she so concerned about a few objects being out of sight? He never went out there and he neve saw them.
And of course, she's majorly into fashion. I can't wear this because it's "not what people your age wear". Or I can't wear this because "the colors don't match", or some other thing. It doesn't matter if people can or can't see it--she'll insist on all of this petty stuff.
Am I in the wrong here? Maybe I'm making too big a deal out of this, but I don't understand why my mother has all of these strange priorities that revolve around how other people perceive her or the family. I'm sick of having to care what other people think about me; it just makes me anxious and sorry for myself for having what I could call "failed social interactions".
For example, I care about and love birds a lot. There's a woodpecker species that is declining across the US because as urban development increases, people chop down all their dead trees. Literally all that would need to be done is keep some of the dead trees because woodpeckers love dead trees (tons of bugs in them, which they eat by pecking through the wood). Throughout the time we've lived at this one house, our large backyard has had several trees die on us. They've all been removed. I don't know if our neighborhood requires it, but it's made the woodpeckers stop appearing. I once asked my Mom why we couldn't have kept the dead trees. "They don't look nice" was her reply. I was expecting something more reasonable, but apparently the livelihood of animals is less important to her than making she other people don't tsk-tsk at her for having a dead tree in the yard. For the record, none of her friends go out there. Hardly anyone would notice or care if we had dead trees unless there was a neighborhood rule against it. Our backyard is kind of a wild space--the neighborhood kind of kept some of the wild areas when it was developed.
Another time I had left some birdseed and bird feeder cleaning tools out on our screen porch. She told me to move them and hide them under an outdoor shelf so that the man who was coming over to inspect our roof for repairs wouldn't see it. Turns out, he never went out onto the porch. He stayed inside and inspected all of the "problem areas" on our ceiling. Why was she so concerned about a few objects being out of sight? He never went out there and he neve saw them.
And of course, she's majorly into fashion. I can't wear this because it's "not what people your age wear". Or I can't wear this because "the colors don't match", or some other thing. It doesn't matter if people can or can't see it--she'll insist on all of this petty stuff.
Am I in the wrong here? Maybe I'm making too big a deal out of this, but I don't understand why my mother has all of these strange priorities that revolve around how other people perceive her or the family. I'm sick of having to care what other people think about me; it just makes me anxious and sorry for myself for having what I could call "failed social interactions".
