Come play with us, Danny.....

So I messaged the boy on whom I am crushing. 

(+_+)

I sent a casual message inquiring after his sunburn (we were all comparing sunburns right before we left LBI--his was pretty bad), and informing him that I'm planning on going up to Harriman State Park at some point this weekend for hiking/kayaking/general outdoorsy type stuff, and since it's kind of close to where he lives, would he like to tag along?

And of course now--mere moments after hitting "send"--I'm starting to panic. 

What if he says No?!?! What is he says YES?!!??!?!?

::dies::

I've been going over conversations we had when we were all hanging out at Friend's house down the shore. I think I may be over analyzing this, but there was one point wherein I told a story about my best guy friend, and as soon as I said Guy-Friend's name, the boy I like interrupted me to ask if that was my boyfriend. 

Now if I asked a boy if a girl was his girlfriend, it would be because I was subtly trying to figure out if he's single. 

In other crush-related news...

...Mum knows. 

I don't get it. The poker face works on everyone else. I can conceal an incredible amount of emotional trauma underneath a perfectly calm facade. Even my first 2 shrinks were disturbed by the level of Blank I can maintain. But Mum notices even the tiniest invisible fluctuations in my mood. Her psychic abilities are getting stronger. 

I haven't told her anything yet, but she's really determined to wear down my defenses until I tell her what's bothering me. Imagine being beaten repeatedly over the head with a shoe every time you think you can sit down and relax--that's what Mum is like when she's trying to get information out of you. 

I don't understand how my mother has such a strong hold over me. It's not like she even really raised me. And she never showed me any affection. In all my 26 years, I have never once been hugged by my mother. She never did any of the things that might be considered mommy-like.

I'm not complaining about that or anything--I was raised by a really wonderful mother-figure (Nanny) and in general I was not neglected, abused, or in any way mistreated during my childhood. Not by parental figures, anyway. 

But everything I think and do seems to begin and end with Mum; with me forever seeking Mum's approval, Mum's praise, Mum's love--all things that I will never gain because Mum just doesn't approve, praise, or love anyone or anything EVER. She may give hints of these things to friends or acquaintances, but not to her own family, and NEVER to her children. Yet at the same time, she expects perfection from her children. 

This is like a mathematical formula guaranteed to produce mental illness.

The best example I can use to explain what it was like to grow up with this kind of pressure is school and grades. Mum expected naught but A+'s. Anything 99% or below was simply not good enough. As far as I can see it, these kind of completely unrealistic expectations can lead to three possible outcomes:

Result#1: Older Sis #1

This is what I call the best possible scenario. Mum is a lunatic with astronomically high expectations of her children. Big Sis#1 came out with an astronomically high IQ. She managed to breeze through school with all A's without really trying. 

The only downside was that she and Mum hated each other from the beginning, and so the awesome grades didn't really count for much. Their hatred reached a critical level when Big Sis#1 was about 16, and she ended up taking off for England to go live with her grandmother. That was in 1986, and she never came back. All in all, though, Big Sis#1 is probably the most mentally sound of all of us. I have a feeling that is directly related to the fact that she left.

Dad's opinion of us only added to the madness.

Result #2: Big Sis#2, and Mich

Big Sis#2 and I were both the classic rebels. We realized very early on that there was no way we could live up to Mum's standards, so we just stopped trying. 

a.) Big Sis#2 unfortunately suffered from very low self esteem. She lived in #1's academic shadow and didn't have #1's effortless brilliance, so she decided that she was too stupid to even bother trying. If she didn't try, she wouldn't be disappointed when she failed. Big Sis#2 is not actually stupid, but her giving up had the desired effect--Mum eventually accepted the fact that Sis#2 was not smart, and therefore would never get straight A's, so she stopped expecting perfection from Big Sis#2 and thus stopped putting pressure on her. The downside was that Big Sis#2 ended up going largely ignored by her parents, which in turn fed her low esteem, and instead of going out and trying to make the best possible life for herself, she never went to college, has kept the same low-paying job for the last 20-ish years, married the World's Most Useless Man, and still has incredibly low self-esteem.

b.) I was basically the other side of the same coin. I knew I didn't have Big Sis#1's brains, and I saw what Mum's expectations had done to both of my older sisters. Once I cottoned on to Mum's formula, I stopped trying. Like Big Sis#2, I figured if Mum learned not to expect anything from me, I would have a much easier time navigating through my school years. 

Unfortunately, my plans were foiled by my own mental instability. I went through some kind of psychological assessment at the local loony bin when I was like 14 or 15 (I have no memory of this), and apparently there was an IQ test in the battery of evaluations. And Mum is one of those people who believes in the infallibility of standardized testing. (My IQ is apparently the same number as the police code for homicide.) I'm pretty sure that test is very VERY inaccurate. Or I cheated. Or it was just a fluke. Since I don't remember anything whatsoever about the psych. eval., I have no way of knowing for certain. All I know is that on all the IQ tests I've taken on the internet, my score hasn't come close to the original one--the highest I can get is 162. 

-_____________________-

On top of all that, I was lazy. I knew that if I did not make any effort whatsoever--if I just didn't bother with homework, never studied for tests, and never tried at all--I would pass with B's and C's (and D's in math...). I might have gotten away with this if it hadn't been for that bloody IQ test. But nooooo, I had to deal with having Mum up my rear about school 24/7, and Mum is incapable of encouragement or anything positive really, so her being "up my rear" means I got to hear a daily diatribe about how much of a stupid/worthless/failure/disappointment/waste of space/etc/etc. I was. 

(And people wonder why some teens find a best friend in their exacto knife.)

So like Big Sis#2, I've had it drilled into my head that anything other than Absolute Perfection is Failure. Therefore, if I have not achieved Perfection, I must be a Failure in every possible aspect of life. 

I know this isn't true, but it's really REALLY effing hard to combat so many years of having this drilled into your head by your own mother. Sometimes I really do wish I was just fully accepting of the feelings of worthlessness, like Big Sis#2. 

Dad really doesn't help. 

Result #3: Little Sis

This one is kind of the opposite of the other two. 

Little Sis does not have Big Sis#1's genius. But she wants it. And she tries really REALLY hard to achieve it. You would never think it either. She's like a closet-nerd. She really does try, though--spends HOURS doing homework, studying, perfecting her papers and projects. She's been on the honour roll every marking period ever since she reached the grades where they start keeping track of things like the honour roll. She always has A's and high B's. She re-took the SAT's the week after taking them the first time, so that she would have the option of taking them a third time if she wanted. (She scored like a 1950 out of 2400 the first time round.) Based on all of the above, Little Sis should Mum's star. 

Negative.

See the problem is that Big Sis#1 set the standard for Mum's Scale of Intelligence. 

(Not to be confused with Mum's Scale of Approval)

Based on Mum's standards of intelligence, Little Sis can try all she wants--she's still not an effortless genius. She still gets the occasional B. She may appear above average, but she's nowhere near Perfect. Know what that does to a person's psyche?

Little Sis is quite possibly the most sensitive, most high-strung person I have ever met in my entire life. Like holy sh*t. You can't say ANYTHING even remotely hurtful to her, for fear that she will dissolve into a sobbing shrieking mess of overactive hormones. 

In my family, NOT insulting each other is impossible. We don't hug or kiss or show affection or tell each other that we love each other. We never have. My family members show affection by hurling sarcastic insults at one another. The greater the insult or more acrimonious the remark, the more Love is behind it. That's just how we roll. But Little Sis has never managed to catch up, so most of my family members just avoid saying anything personal to her. (I'm including extended fam in this as well, not just siblings and parents).

And then she gets upset and wonders why the rest of us seem to have a closer relationship with each other, and why doesn't anyone like her as much as they like everyone else. 

It must fry her brain, that. She can see that we're all experiencing some kind of close emotional bond, but at the same time all she can actually SEE and HEAR is us brutally and ruthlessly attacking each other's appearance, personality, likes/dislikes, etc. 

Poor kid. 

..........Wow this post went waaaaay out in a different direction than the thought that got me started. I don't even remember what I was going to talk about.