"In the same way that each of us has had to learn in growing up to resist the temptation of wishful thinking about ordinary things like lotteries, so our species has had to learn in growing up that we are not playing a starring role in any sort of grand cosmic drama." -- Steven Weinberg, American physicist and Nobel laureate
It's a sad, but true, fact that my mother refuses to shake her belief that the lottery provides a realistic chance of obtaining the money to solve my problems and is her only possible way of helping. Just to get rid of me, perhaps?
Even though I tell her about the near impossible odds over and over again, still she buys tickets, treats checking the numbers the moment the draw is televised as though it's a life-and-death necessity and still, she claims that buying lottery tickets is "doing as much as she can" to try to help me.
Obviously, it is nothing of the sort and falls a long way below what might reasonably be expected of a family member who has the means to assist, as she does. She promised me she would do so. If she'd said no, I'd have had to accept that, but she didn't. It isn't acceptable to get someone into a position where they rely on you and then not provide the promised assistance. That's cruel.
A "normal" parent faced with the ability to ease their child's pain and suffering, you would think, would move heaven and earth to do so. My mother will not compromise one inch. She seems to have an over-developed sense of entitlement: that she need not make any concessions, whereas everyone else has to bend for her. Especially me, because, I am only a child, after all (yeah, forget being over 50) and my needs (even medical ones) are subordinate to her whims.
My wants don't even exist. I deserve and get no respect as a human being.
This, once more, demonstrates how infantile her thinking is. Mostly, wishful thinking is the only kind of thinking she does. Fantasy land is more comfortable, I guess. (Since reality doesn't support their grandiose view of themselves, narcissists live in a fantasy world propped up by distortion, self-deception, and magical thinking.) Of course, I know I'll never change this, but neither can I escape it and you must see that it makes even the simplest conversations with her the mental equivalent of beating one's head repeatedly against a stone wall.
