What do you want?

[shabenanizer]

I once asked my mom what does she want from other people, she answered, "Their sympathy".

What started this conversation was we just finished watching Beautiful Mind where John Nash explained that he applies "diet of the mind" when managing his schizophrenia. Though he desires a relationship with the imaginary friends because they fulfill a need,

Comments

[anonymous]

her comparing herself to the protagonist is about the most shameless ploy to get sympathy I have heard of in all my life.

[shabenanizer]

It's interesting to see which fictional characters my mom identify with and why. John Nash is a tortured genius, his fame is what Mom (and Dad) aspires to but has no empathy for his tortured soul. In Prince of Tides, Mom thought the mother character was heroic for covering up the rapes of her children and never got them help for their trauma, which inevitable led to her children growing up troubled and suffering mental breakdowns. My mom never understood why the adult children characters were estranged from their mother, after all they should be grateful for everything their mother did for them.

[anonymous]

That's interesting about The prince of tides. This is the guy whose mom was involved in a murder in the 1960's Q1605 ..That's me. I screened that movie for my mother one time. in an attempt to ward of a potential Narc Rage, before it came on I spent about 20 minutes disclaiming that me insisting she watch it was in no way an indictment on her of her giving us a horrible childhood, and that any resemblance between us and any characters in the movie was merely a coincidence,. I think that might have confused her more than anything.
As I watched her watch the movie it was apparent she in no way "connected" herself with the mother.

[shabenanizer]

Hello Q. I'm not at all surprised your bitch of a mom didn't make the connection, Narcs don't recognize themselves in vile characters. My mom connected with the Prince of Tides mom when she was being abused by her husband and her children appear to side with her, as children normally do with the parent who is being hurt. When we left the theater my mom said, "Those children were on their mother's side!" Well, true, but she totally missed the rest of the film when the children grew up and were estranged from their mother. Like the diet of the mind from Beautiful Mind, Mom totally missed the point. When Mom has her pity melt downs and wail that "nobody is on my side!" (which is cue for us kids to reassure her that we are on her side and love her...), I should have said to her, "were you ever on my side?"