Meant to say, PP, that I am certain your tattoo is gorgeous! And I'd love to see it!
I have had serious thoughts of getting a small sunflower tattoo to help heal the prior discord between my daughter and me, but I blew it by telling her about what I wanted to do and why during the time she was raging at me when we were on vacation...and she was loathing everything I said and did at that moment so she turned it into a horrible idea somehow....likely because I was horrible in her mind just then.
I'm sorry, because I do love the idea. A sunflower to represent her because we grew them, her Dad and I, and I have many photos of her near them...my favorite is so amazing. She has a totally delighted-with-herself huge funny grin on her face, and a big sunflower is bowing down toward her just like a friendly big mammal. And it even has a happy drunk bee in its center. It's an amazing pic, I have had a few large versions made...one for her and one for me.
Maybe I could ask her again about going with me to a tattoo establishment? Or do y'all think it's a dead subject and I should not mention it again?
Hops
Hops, I think instead of doing the things you want to do to reach out to your daughter, she needs you to do the thing you are resisting doing.
There is a reason, which only you know and only you need to know, why you don't want to explore this topic along certain lines.
I'm trying to be nice about this and not overstep.
But you aren't going to get a shortcut on this for the simple reason that THERE ISN'T ONE.
You don't get over alcoholism by reading books and going to meetings, you get over it by stopping drinking. The books and meetings help.
You don't get over past abuse by telling yourself they really loved you. You get over it by admitting it was abuse, admitting it was damaging, feeling everything that's appropriate to feel about that, and striving to reach the point where you can genuinely release the situation and the people involved because you have genuinely dealt with them, and it, and you are healed.
Your daughter knows BS when she hears it. She knows avoidance when she sees it. She will also recognize guts and moral courage when she sees them. You are amply supplied with both guts and moral courage. Use them here.
Getting a tattoo isn't going to make up for something you did that you should not have done, or something you didn't do that you should have done, someone you should have protected her from and didn't, someone you should have encouraged her to be closer to and didn't; the only thing that will make up for that - for whatever it is - I'm not asking, this is a generic list - is
admitting it
letting her tell you how she feels about it and not interrupting her, not minimizing her, not invalidating her, just hearing her
accepting what she says and not making excuses for yourself [take her at her word. let her have a voice.]
accepting what happened and what has resulted from it
asking forgiveness
and meaning it
and trying your best - a real best, for her; not a rhetorical best, for strangers on a message board - not to do it again. Whatever it is or was.
This, trust me, will work. But you can also take my word for it: nothing short of this ever will.
And I know this is hard to believe, but I really am on your side here. I'm on your daughter's side too. I don't think they have to be opposite sides.
