Early on in therapy, I 'wasted' so much time waxing lyrical about how 'wonderful' my mother was and how I had no reason to be depressed...
(sorry to steal your words! Thanks!)
Bloopsy -
Those steps of going over the good parts are important too. Our disturbance and upset is not because someone is just all bad, it's because we are trying to make sense of their good and bad parts - and ours -together. This is never more poignantly true than with your mother.
Please remember that you are not the same thing as your experiecne. Your experience with Ricky was bad, and feeling betrayed by your Mother is bad - but Bloopsy herself is good parts, bad parts and in between parts.
Please get the help you need to really apprecaite your own good parts, nurture your in-between parts, and teach your bad parts another way.
Sometimes, when our Mothers fail us, we must become our own Mothers. Usually, if we recognoze that, it turns out we're actually Very Good Mothers.
I think you can be that kind of Mom, if you will embrace yourself when you are sad, be patient when you are mad, and dance and play and sing with yourself when you are glad.
All of your parts deserve love and respect. Give it to them and they will give back. Children always do, even the ones inside.
T
