Manipulate.

Manipulate: To manage or control artfully or by shrewd use of influence, especially in an unfair or fraudulent way.



I'm not sure if I'm behaving well or behaving poorly this morning, which almost certainly means I'm behaving poorly. I'll have to make some calls today to friends to check my motives. Shorty will probably be one of them -- not because I enjoy talking with him or value his advice, but because he likes to see his name in print. I have to humor these guys or they won't listen to me complain.

My phone rang this morning early -- 6:30 AM -- as I was preparing to leave for an A.A. meeting. I almost wrote " walking out the door to go to an A.A. meeting" but decided at the last second that I wouldn't lie to compound my probably already poor behavior. I saw that the call was from my mother. This usually means a crisis with my father, probably caused by his drinking although no one will acknowledge that fact.

I'm trying to balance being of service with being manipulated. Some recap is in order here so that I don't look completely scummy. My father absolutely refuses to go to A.A. While my mother doesn't openly reject my suggestions that Al-Anon would help, she gets quiet and begins waffling away, delaying in the hopes that I won't press the issue. She is, after all, the installer of my People Pleaser buttons. She doesn't want to upset me unless she is trying to upset me, like with the 6:30 AM call.

My sister and I have been suggesting that a retirement home might now be appropriate for my parents, partially to end my dad's isolation and partially because he would have more immediate access to help and assessment. Nothing. My mother, in fact, often introduces vague anecdotal quips to support her position: "Mrs. Smith lives there and she told me once to stay in my own home as long as I could." Or "We have such wonderful neighbors here." Fine.

It can be hard not buying into other people's bullshit. I fight the urge to drop everything and rush over to Solve Your Problems. That's not the A.A. way. I tried to get people to solve my problems at the start. They kept talking about providing me with the tools to start solving my own problems.

Very crafty, those A.A. people.