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A letter to my mother on the anniversary of dad's death.
rosencrantz:
--- Quote ---If it were me, I know I'd have wished it had been the other way round and that if one of them had to go, it would have been her first. Oh Gosh, I probably shouldn't say that, but it would seem so natural to feel like that, even though I'd get consumed with stupid guilt and embrrassment after for thinking it, no doubt!!
--- End quote ---
Sure, I've had that thought. Overall it's been better for me - and I take it as a gift!!! - that he went first. I am in such a better place in my life. I can see so clearly now, it's almost unbelievable. (I think that, even through the screen, you're gonna to see changes comin'!!! :wink: )
I'd rather it had been the other way round - we could have fun, at long last - he'd have so enjoyed his grandson - truly. They deserved each other in the best sense. That's the hugest loss. They only met twice. I just couldn't bear to be around my mother.
I'd have had him come and live here - he'd have loved to have come. I know I'd have enjoyed him being around. He'd have loved village life. There's so much here for oldies. He'd have loved walking into the village and round and about. He once joked that if mum died first, he'd come and live in our paddock in a tent! And I've noticed I keep looking out on the green visualising a little tent!!!!! :roll: but :D
But he looked after me, truly looked after me, by going first and then taking me on this mad merry go round to really sort out 'what is it between you and your mother'. Maybe. That's how I choose to see it anyway because it makes me feel cared for and comforted. And who knows. It doesn't matter. I don't need 'the truth', starkly, all the time!! :wink:
--- Quote ---If your dad were here today, what would you do? Where would you go? What would you talk about? Let's not include your mother in the picture. Let's leave her out. You could go for a stroll together arm-in-arm, take your son, and enjoy watching him run and laugh, together. Chat about what a lovely boy he is. I don't know, I'm just playing with the idea here.
--- End quote ---
Yes, that's lovely. Thanks for bringing Dad back into the picture. That's where I need to stay really. I've given my mother too much of my attention. :roll: ooops - there she was again! It's a lovely picture CG - I start crying every time I read it. Both :cry: and :D. I wish for this thing which never happened. It's lovely. That's a gift!! A lovely gift. Thanks.
R
[/i]
Portia:
I’m struggling. I was very shocked – very shocked - by your letter and gift. Perhaps this a fundamental difference: I commend you R if I may for what you have done and what you aim to do but we’re so different. My psychic bank account wouldn’t let me do what you do. I’m keeping out of it now – too different and I don’t want to upset with endless, useless questions which only serve to explain to me. That is definitely not the point! Best, P
rosencrantz:
Hi Portia - Come back! I'm here as you post!! I know how different it is for you and me. Did you only just realise??? My mother - in me, on me, everywhere with me. Suffocating. Your mother has her eyes on a different horizon. You are nowhere to be seen. But I see you, Sunsilk girl. (Have you seen it yet, the ad?)
'Close' relationship? I don't like it like it is with her but that's 'what I know'. Same for you in your difference, your distance!!! It's what feels familiar and safe to each of us. The result : you, Bloomsbury bohemian; me, boring English middle class!!!?????
But my mother doesn't 'see' ME! Just like your mother didn't see YOU! Just different ways of not seeing!!! Sunsilk girl still waiting to be noticed, little ladybird jumping up to get into the line of vision. I'm full on. Here I am. Car smash. Different ways of being.
You had, I think, more freedom to find out who you were and to be that person because nobody bothered (with) you. (?) I was not allowed to find out who I was as my mother was too busy being me!!! LOL
Don't commend me. I don't seek commendation. :) I'm not sure I'm doing the healthy thing yet, the right thing, what's good for her or good for me. I'm experimenting. I believe I'm meeting her expectations but meeting them 'my way'. I'm watching. It could be absolute failure; maybe she'll be happy. I still want to drag her out of that terrible place she's in but I'll know soon if it's possible or even right.
I don't even want a relationship with her. But she has no-one else!!! And I see her and feel so much pain. The truth is I don't care but I feel. (??!) How can you 'care' about someone who has smothered you, bludgeoned you and demanded everything for herself in the public guise of giving everything to you????? But I feel her pain. It feels like MY pain. Maybe it IS my pain. Maybe she doesn't feel anything at all. Maybe it's there inside her but she doesn't feel it but I feel it. She's trained me well as a dumping ground. And here, I'm back to not knowing who is who.
I don't want her round me for the confusion she causes in me. She demands love. I don't love her. Can somebody love my mother for me? Please? Can somebody build her some boundaries so she won't invade mine? I just want somebody to take her away - perhaps look after her and make her feel better, then I won't have to!!! But MY pain, the pain that's really inside me, that's what I'm going to conquer. That's the road (row?) I'm hoeing. Then I'll know, I'll really, really know what it is about me and my mother!!! :wink:
Phew! Thanks for that. (More cascara??!)
Why were you shocked? What's does psychic bank account do? :D
R
PS I'm not giving my mother attention here, I'm giving YOU attention. And I'm giving ME attention. Because I want to!!!
rosencrantz:
Oh sh*t what happened here. I've been working, working for days, getting as nice as pie, working so hard so I'm the best I possibly can be for dealing with my mother, calm, smooth, yes, thinking of dad, calm, kind, happy thoughts, tears and maybe (intake of breath) sentimentality - never mind, it works - feelings, anyway - and my whole apple cart just shot into the air and everything has fallen and landed harshly haphazardly all over the place. I've got another headache. I haven't phoned. I should have phoned but I'm all over the place, tense, rattled - she'll have my buttons pressed in no time and I'll be after her like a rattle snake, a wolverine, pouncing and pressing all the wrong buttons back.
Sod it - she can phone me. Or write to me. She won't. She'll say it proves I didn't care because I didn't phone. I can't live my life like this. :cry: :cry: :cry: I'm so angry, angry, angry with her. And I don't know who I'm angry with any more. I'm so sick of it all. I'm sick of being good. Sick of being controlled/having to be controlled. Sick of being the butt of everything. Yes, she SHOULD have been the one to go first.
She bitched and bitched at me after I supported her when dad died. I supported her too much, then removed myself briefly. That's what she can't bear - abandonment. She said irrational things in a crazy way, nagged me and blamed me and made my life hell. She certainly paid me back. And it's all just like when I started to make the move away from home at 19. Me, the innocent, bewildered. Huh? I never knew I was this terrible person. Headaches. Doctor. Psychiatrist?!!!!??? You mean this person I'm chatting to each week is a psychiatrist!!!? Hey 8) - it was the 'in' thing to be chatting to this particular guy at that particular time in that particular environment. Yes, really! My mother hates him with a passion to this day. "You took my daughter away from me. You ruined my life." Er, no...that was me! Per-lease will you just let go.
And then I think I'm a terrible mother - I feel so useless. Odd moments of brilliant mothering but the rest of the time like Wildflowers mother or Portia's. God knows what stories he'll create about his childhood with me!!! "I went to all these efforts to entertain my mother and still I was boring". "She just avoided me all the time - even if we sat together it would be to watch telly or she'd have her nose in some junk mail catalogue." "She never believed (in) me." "She was always saying she loved me, but I knew better." He's 'just like' my mother!! It's never enough. A permanent uphill struggle to get him to think positively and rationally about the world. (Perhaps I expect too much of a ten year old?)
Back to my mother. She terrorised me my whole life and hasn't got the faintest idea. Change the goalposts, rewrite history. She'd want to know 'why' so I'd give an example. "Oh, I wouldn't say that dear. I couldn't. That's not nice. That's not me." Maybe I went mad and didn't notice.
I think of my life to give you examples of how she terrorised me tho - and I HAVEN'T GOT ANY. I haven't got stories like CG. All I know is what happened this last year. And the terrible ways I've felt and what's she's 'done'. This year has been a microcosm of my life as a child. I KNOW that it's been like that my whole life long. Why else would I have watched a film called Sybil and say 'I don't understand how or why but that's my life up there. And Gaslight. That's HOW I FEEL but it's not WHAT I KNOW.
And the guilt when I finally 'realised' that it was ALL MY FAULT. (Not that I would or could have done anything differently)
AND I CAN'T DO THIS ANY MORE. :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: I CANT I CANT I CANT. I JUST CANT.
r
CG For God's sake throw me one of those T shirts and let's get outta here!!!!! XXXX size please.
Wildflower:
Hi R,
Can I join your anger sorrow grief, R? I wanted so much to be out playing tonight but I’ve got a bad case of the blues. :cry:
--- Quote ---And then I think I'm a terrible mother - I feel so useless. Odd moments of brilliant mothering but the rest of the time like Wildflowers mother or Portia's. God knows what stories he'll create about his childhood with me!!! "I went to all these efforts to entertain my mother and still I was boring". "She just avoided me all the time - even if we sat together it would be to watch telly or she'd have her nose in some junk mail catalogue." "She never believed (in) me." "She was always saying she loved me, but I knew better." He's 'just like' my mother!! It's never enough. A permanent uphill struggle to get him to think positively and rationally about the world. (Perhaps I expect too much of a ten year old?)
--- End quote ---
I’m so, so sorry if my stories of my mother have upset you and the other mothers here. But he’s only 10, R. My trouble started when I was 8. You have so much time to hug your son and love him. Listen to him. Notice him.
I realize that some of the things my mom said are mild, and that any good mother could say these things. Taken alone, any of the things she said could have been forgiven, even laughed off. But the neglect and criticism piled up. There was little to nothing to balance it out.
When my mom put me off, she never followed up. Except maybe once in a blue moon. She rarely played with me. She rarely spent time with me. She turned her back on me over and over and over again. And when she criticized me, she criticized who I was. She would say really mean things to me and then laugh them off when I got mad or upset. “I’m just teasing honey. Can’t you take a joke?”
I went to a therapist once when I was 8 or 9, on request of the school counselor. The therapist was this large matronly woman with white hair down to her shoulders. We played tiddly winks. We talked. I was closed up. She asked me if I needed a hug and asked me to crawl into her lap. I did. And I wanted to stay there forever and runaway all at the same time while she held me tight. I was already starting to feel so bad about myself. Years later, I asked my mom why I only went to see her once, and she told me we couldn’t afford to go anymore. Okay. I understand. But then she said, in a gee isn't this interesting tone of voice, “You know, she told me that something had really hurt you.” And that’s it. That’s all my mom said. She was TOLD by a damned therapist that I had been really hurt – and she did NOTHING. Jeez I’m so mad and sad right now.
(BIG WAILING EMOTICON)
Anyway, I dated a guy for a couple of years and he had this habit of holding me close to him – he wouldn’t let me get away. Turns out that’s what I needed – the worlds longest, safest, most dependable hug. I just needed to know someone cared about me.
Just be there for your son. Hug him. Let him know he can count on you when he’s in trouble, that you’ll be there when he’s hurt, that you’ll love him when he makes mistakes. Love him for who he is. I sense you already do these things. Give yourself credit for that. You don’t have to be perfect. My mom was far beyond fumbling and being a little confused – and the more I look back and am able to handle the truth, the more I understand that.
--- Quote ---I think of my life to give you examples of how she terrorised me tho - and I HAVEN'T GOT ANY. I haven't got stories like CG. All I know is what happened this last year. And the terrible ways I've felt and what's she's 'done'.
--- End quote ---
You know what I’ve discovered? That my mom didn’t mean for me to feel the way I did. It wasn’t her intention. But I did. My feelings were real. I was confused, yes, but my feelings were real. And my feelings were a sign, a big red flashing sign, that things were not okay. My feelings pointed the way to what was confusing. Your mother may never have terrorized you in the physical obvious sense, but she certainly terrorized your sense of who you are. She invaded you. You don't need terrible stories for that to feel terrible.
((big hug))
Wildflower
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