Lighter, PR, Bones, Tupp--
Thank you. Still plugging away. Still wondering why estimates take so loooong. At this rate, it'll be late summer before I'm out of the friend's guest room and actually living in my new place. But I'm still happy. Every time I go by, feel so grateful to have found it. Loads of plans for deck and garden but I'm sure it'll be a year before I can do much more outside than pull weeds. It's been neglected, but the bones are great:
lots of hostas
some irises
nice (untamed) shrubs to identify (dunno why but I love shrubs)
2 huge silver maples with shaggy bark
a crepe myrtle
a dogwood
bunch of mulberry trees along back fence
a mimosa
one lanky rosebush
There are other things that will emerge and more-garden-savvy friends will help me spot them.
(And, under the old sad doghouse a nice concrete pad that can be the base for a garden shed.)
Beth, it was lovely to hear from you. And thank you. Things are hard with my D, except in a way, estrangement is also a rest. Completely excruciating sometimes, a relief other times. It's a deep grief and sometimes a fear. The negative feelings come in waves and then they pass through. I've done a lot of reading about it, and found I am not alone. There really are quite a few "good enough" and "well intentioned" and "never abusive" and "loved with all their hearts" parents out there whose adult children have rejected them (often but not always it's daughters rejecting mothers). I've found two forums and a couple books. Some of the material from experts speculates that this is partly genetic, partly generational--boomers having been too strictly raised and overcompensating with their own children, who thus feel less duty-bound--and in many cases, divorce related. Makes perfect sense. If a certain child lives through divorce (in my case 2 but my D lived through 3, since her father divorced 2 times also)...and enough other upheaval, then maybe to that child in this generation, family literally is not something inevitable. It's discardable. They see their parents "discard" what are supposed to be lifelong relationships. That karma, when estrangement really happens, may come back to bite us.
Those may be some of the social factors. And then there's genetics, which is something no parent can "parent away", despite best values/intentions/efforts. Sometimes, given the right (or wrong) stresses, experiences and influences, something just "will out" in a child's character. Mental illness, in her case bipolar disorder, can be a factor too.
I can't measure the guilt, but am learning a lot about when to sit with how I DID harm her (my second too-quick marriage to an immature bozo out of my "need" to have a romantic partner, which treated her to half her childhood with him at the center, since he was more child than she was. This is a very deep regret, for her sake. There is a right-wing talk show person "Dr. Laura" who horrified me with her rigidity and bigotry but...was so tough about putting any child FIRST and on some boundary things that I found myself agreeing with her in some areas. And painfully. In this area in hindsight, in particular. If I was going to divorce, and remove that whole safety identity of an intact family, warts and all, from my 6 y/o's life, which I do believe I had to do--then what I owed my child was NOT dating, and NOT remarrying before she was 18. Stringent and involving sacrificing my desire for love/romance, but tough nougies. If I was going to have a child, that is what I owed that child. In hindsight, I agree with her. That entitlement of my own, to have "romance" regardless of her needs--that was wrong and it hurt her. I didn't see it that way at the time, but now I do. And it's one thing when/if she is willing to talk to me about again, I can again apologize for, and ask her forgiveness for.
Likewise, not protecting her adequately from my Nmother's massive influence and control--being both a hypnotized Cinderella myself but also benefiting from my mother's help when I was a tired single parent--not tabulating the cost to my D of that overwhelming influence--though then, I didn't know what NPD was, still, my instincts should have been stronger. And another factor was my over-doting, over-praising her...which gave her a whopping dose of entitlement. Those are the biggies and I own them. I was selfish. And I didn't know what she needed. The downside of the 60s, for sure. Over-reaching in the other direction.
On the other hand, to show myself some compassion/mercy, I also think about the things I could not control: the culture's continuing implosion and media poisons, her father's alcoholism and later death, his screaming fights with her stepmother (and her witness of that, weekends and summers--which I could have prevented I suppose by staying married to him--because although he yelled a lot, I didn't so it would've been less of that-- but I still feel in hindsight that my divorcing him was the right thing to do. I couldn't bear his yelling. I did not know how bad it was between him and his second wife, though I should have figured it out). And, her brothers (one step, one "half") dumping her after he died, which devastated her, her other (his third wife) stepmother glomming onto her and supplanting me (she became the pal, she sent my D money, listened endlessly to D complaining about me and, I believe, never encouraged her to forgive or reconcile with me, instead kind of "taking the space"--she'd not had kids of her own and had a strong interest in that. She also had, in a sense, taken my D's first stepmother's husband, then her house which she inherited from D's father whom she married literally on his deathbed, and even first stepmother's son. My D was on that list. At first I was truly delighted they liked each other...until stepmother gradually froze me out and I belatedly realized she'd become a "best friend parent" to my D, and I was no longer needed (once I stopped sending money).
Another thing I couldn't have prevented--my brother, her Uncle's, attack on me which literally destroyed the fragile shreds of family identity--cousins, etc., turning their back on us both after he began his campaign. That I believe tore her sense of family futher apart. (And my mother, her grandmother's, betrayal of me. I can see that in a longer historical context and forgive my mother...but it was another piece of D's "safe world" that got destroyed at the end. It's all been just too much for her. I don't blame her. Truly, I can understand why she's done what she's done. Too much loss/death/harm/pain...and I'm the living reminder.)
And, to comfort myself further, I remember...simply how hugely I loved her, always. Too much, too immaturely, too unawarely. But in my pure heart, where it was not flawed, so profoundly. Still do.
It's been shocking to read in forums how many parents of ECs (estranged children) found that these adult children ditched them for good when the parents stopped giving them money. I still pay her cell phone every month, though the irony of paying for it when she won't call me, even on my b-day or mother's day, doesn't escape me. But that's one thing I will continue. A lifeline for her in her situation (I don't know how she is surviving and that's where the fears kick in), but also...perhaps a future way to hear from her, one day.
Our last encounter was typically painful. She'd asked me not to contact her for "several months" (after blaming me for her own abandonment of her cat, something I understood as projection--she couldn't bear it, and in her state of mind she literally couldn't take care of him) and I respected that to the letter. When I did contact her, just a voicemail with my new address, I let it be. Then a week later I had a message from the company that owns her storage unit in Florida, a message for her...and texted that to her. A few hours later got a text (my first message from her since February): "What part of do not contact me do you not understand?" I prayed, read, calmed, sat with it...then texted back: "Forgive me for misunderstanding. Your note end of Feb., said "several [x3] months. I love you very much, Mom". A few hours later, one more text from D: "Try 24." Ow. So...I'm back to NC.
Pathetically, I was grateful, even despite her cruelty. She responded! But that's what it's come to.
Meanwhile, the book "When Parents Hurt" is full of advice--90% of it on letting go and understanding all I can do is atone when allowed, work on my own mental health, and happiness. Even happiness. And very much no-guarantees advice on how to better manage even these terribly fragile moments of contact in hopes of keeping the door open for something new to possibly grow, one day (though often it doesn't, and some adult children keep the abandonment complete and permanent). I work on it with my T, also. Probably, my next contact despite her edict will be to send her a b-day card in October. His advice, sometimes, is that I don't have to "obey" her orders to not speak--as her controlling me to that degree isn't healthy either. But I do NOT want to shatter anything fragile. So, if he advises me to take her "24 months" literally, I absolutely will. That would mean that in June of 2015, I can text my child again.
There. Naked, that's how sad it is. But I am also committed to my own health, and healing. I have times of great grief but also times of happiness. I will not become a ghost if I can help it.
I'm off to church where every week, I have the comfort of a silent candle I light for her. We also have a ritual of "atonement sand" where you can step over to a quiet corner, write in a sand tray what the burden is, and then rake it away to release it. Every week, after lighting the candle, I step over and write in the sand, "Harm to D" and atone, and pray, and then run the little rake over the words...
Thanks for asking. Didn't think I could share all that here. But there it is.
How are you, Beth? If you're up for starting a thread to catch us up, I'd be very glad to hear.
love to you,
Hops
