Magical Thinking

The childishness of magical thinking seems to stay with many ACON's well past childhood.  I imagine that it's because we were presented with impossible tasks on a daily basis as children and were told that we could accomplish these things if we just tried hard enough - being perfect, never disturbing adults (no matter the pain we were in), taking care of the adults in our families, meeting all of their needs, fulfilling their dreams, etc.  We believed that if we met all of these impossible demands, we would be lovable and the Nparents would finally love us.  Sigh...  Alas, it was not to be - even if perfection were possible, the Nparents wouldn't have been able to acknowledge the feat - it would have diminished them somehow.  No matter how near to the bar you got, the bar always went higher.  When I was a senior in high school, I took physics from a misogynist who didn't think that females needed to take physics.  The four girls in the class banded together and vowed to get the best grades in the class - I worked my butt off and got an A (as did the other three).  I did not, however, do well in Trig and got a C.  When Nfather saw the report card, he immediately noticed the C - and never did see the A.  That was the point at which he ceased to be my parent and I pretty much ignored anything he said to me.

The magical thinking, however, continued - if I worked harder than anyone else, if I gave more of myself than anyone else, if I were more creative or more intellectual or more organized, then I would be loved.  And the criteria just kept growing until I was always under a lot of stress.  This is the "best damn" thinking that was rampant in my NFOO.   Nfather used to say that anything he owned was the "best damn" whatever it was - he had the best damn grill, the best damn breed of cattle, the best damn house.  He bought the best damn bread, the best damn cheese, the best damn bratwurst.  Anything less would have been unthinkable.  Perfection was the only goal available - and apparently, it was possible in things, but his progeny were always deficient.

And there's a part of magical thinking that allows us to think that if we had only done this or that, life would have been great.  If we could just go back and correct the past - if we had been a better parent, spouse, child, sibling, if we had reached out more or accepted more or confronted N's sooner, our lives would have been somehow different.  And then one day, you finally get that the game was rigged - there was no way you could have won it - there's no way they could have loved you because it was never about you - it was always about them and the fact that they were incapable of love.  And that's made all the difference.