Call with uPDM - feeling slimed

[Thru the Rain]

I haven't spoken to my parents in over a month. I had some really unpleasant calls with my uPDM earlier this year and I just needed a break. She doesn't really want conversation, she holds interrogations - and then gossips everything she hears (or thinks she hears, or just plain makes up). I was tired of the interrogation and the gossip so I took a break for a while.

But I was feeling better, so I gave my parents a call yesterday - but really pure "obligation" and "guilt". I love talking to my Dad, but uPDM pounces on the phone so she's essentially a gatekeeper there.

Paraphrased conversation with my Mom:
Me: Hi - it's Thru The Rain
Mom: Oh! Well it's been a long time since I talked to YOU!! *** Then with barely a pause for breath ** I hear from Brother1 you're doing this, and I hear from Brother2 you're doing that.

Me: Well I guess you're all up to date on my life then. 

Mom: Well I ask questions.

No kidding she asks questions. It felt so icky. Why not just pick up the phone and call me directly? She's not blocked - and I always either answer or call back within a day or so. But no - she's been digging at my brothers to see if they  "know anything" about me.

I realize this is almost a non-event in the larger sweep of my dysfunctional relationship with her - but it's really bugging me.

[Call Me Cordelia]

Yeah that is icky. No one likes to be talked about behind their back. Especially since if she's wondering about you, she literally has a direct line. But PDs love the triangulation. 

You've heard the one from Eleanor Roosevelt about how great minds discuss ideas, small minds discuss people.

[Seven]

I feel you.  Mine does the same.  Gets info about me through the sibs.  Unfortunately they feel obliged to answer her instead of them telling her to call me directly.  Most of the time their answers are way off base.

UNPD mom: why doesn't Seven call me?
Sibs: *some made up b.s. answer that really has nothing to do with why I won't call her.*  They always spare her feelings, even when she's the one that's done the damage.

[doglady]

Mom: Well I ask questions

Ohhhhh, yesssss, do they ever! (Shudder.)

My uPDm has always done this, too. I call her house 'PDHQ.' She is the Commander in Chief, the Overlord, if you like, of the information hub for...like...everything. From world news right through to someone's sixth cousin's brother's wife's neighbour's accountant died. You name it, she knows it, somehow. So why would I be exempt from her info-hoarding? Her 'interviewing' of me was always relentless and then when I shut it down, she simply turned to other willing sources, as your mother has also done.

I believe it's just another of their power and control strategies. Controlling the flow of knowledge/information/gossip is so important to them, but they don't seem to really care where or who they get it from, as long as they have it. Plus, when they 'have to' get it from someone else, it allows them to punish you further and make them look like the victim if they can also twist the narrative to make it look as if you haven't been so kind as to furnish them with what they want.

In the end I decided the only way round this rubbish was to put pretty much everyone who could be even vaguely connected to my FOO on a radical information diet. But, even then, uPDm found ways to...extrapolate, I guess.  I mean, she's nothing if not resourceful. But only when it suits her. Otherwise, she's wilfully helpless. Gah.

You say,

I realize this is almost a non-event in the larger sweep of my dysfunctional relationship with her - but it's really bugging me.

Well, yes, sure, relatively speaking, in PD World it may be a non-event, but (in my opinion) if you compare it to what would be considered normal behaviour in the real world, it is objectively extremely bug-worthy.