Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
A letter to my mother on the anniversary of dad's death.
Wildflower:
Hi Rosencrantz,
Hope you’re getting a good night’s sleep after all that tough work today.
--- Quote ---Dear Wildflower. If I say there's nothing you could say that could hurt me, does it mean to you that I'm not listening? I'm listening.
--- End quote ---
Caught red handed. :oops: :D Talk about reading me like a book. :D But I’ve got to work on that, don’t I? That and worrying all the time about hurting people. :wink: So it’s my issue and it’s been duly noted to self. No worries. But thanks so much for posting that. :D
--- Quote ---My poor H got used as a therapist this afternoon. I sobbed and sobbed and shouted all this stuff about wanting someone else to love my mother for me. It's real enough.
--- End quote ---
I think it’s great that you said out loud to your H that you want someone else to take over the job of loving your mother. Great that you said this out loud and great that you said it to him. Has he heard this from you before? Does he support and understand how much of a drain your mother is on you?
--- Quote ---I'm not even sure she DOES need me.
--- End quote ---
So, I just want to change the emphasis a little here. Does she need YOU? What does she do if you’re not there? What did she do when you got away? What is it about YOU that she needs and can’t get from anyone else?
I took another look at that passage, and on second reading I’m not so sure it applies, but in any case, it’s on page 72 of When You and Your Mother Can’t Be Friends. This book is so great, by the way. Thanks for recommending it!!! :D
Thanks for supporting and filling out the ideas in my posts, Portia and CG. I felt like the Zorro of posters today (who was that masked poster?) :D
Wildflower
rosencrantz:
Hey guy, this thread is giving me a headache. Wanna come and play???
I want to come back and respond to all the thoughts and support. I've got so much out of this. Thanks again. But I 'skipped out' today. :shock: The opportunity came up to go to town and I grabbed it!!!! And I bought pressies for my son and more clothes for me.
And one T shirt I shall probably never wear but it has the most elongated elegant little cat you have ever seen as a white outline on a black background, sitting as upright as could be with a little pink diamante-studded collar. And she is ME! [I'm sorry guys but she's also got a pink diamante studded pink tiara - can we forget that bit!!!!!]
Of course, the contrast between me, for real, and that little cat couldn't be further apart but I'm gonna keep this somewhere I can see it, cos she has the BEST expression on her face and she just brings a smile to my soul.
She is SO pleased with herself, but has good reason to be and is quite beautiful. And you just know she brings pleasure to all who cross her path. Even if she is a bit princess-like. :wink:
Gee - I couldn't share that with anyone else - I know you won't hate me for it. (Agh - I hope. :oops: Having a 'hot moment'. Struggling a bit here!!) Anyway, it's who I was 'meant' to be and might be yet!!
THE END - for now - is that OK? Any unfinished leftovers - if I've inadvertently left you in the lurch - see you in Healing or somewhere new. You can ask me what you like, if you want. Just...somewhere else. :-) OK? I just need to get out of here. :D
Hugs, hugs, hugs, hugs, hugs, hugs, higs, hugs, hugs, hugs CG, Portia, Wildflower. :D
rosencrantz:
I am still the child from whom my mother's mental health was kept a secret.
Did other members of the wider family ever know? Was it ever called a 'mental health' problem? Not that I'm aware. But things were 'different then'.
My father was too afraid of losing her to the mental health system. Like her sister had been before her : in and out of hospital, pills, drama, containment, control, divorce, lost children. I felt sorry for my aunt - why couldn't she spend her money as she wanted, see who she wanted; what else did she have? But 'the family' did not approve. Self-righteous prigs. Were they all hoping for a bit of her money when she died??? (The diagnoses changed over time. She was probably bipolar - or perhaps NPD.) So my father wasn't about to have my mother 'in hospital' or 'treated' for 'mental illness'. Mental hospitals weren't very nice in those days.
When I was in my teens my mother looked at me and said I was depressed and that I was making it all up to copy her. I guess that absolved her from guilt, or having to 'deal' with it.
What she did was define me twice (four times?) over - as depressed and as making it up and as copying her and as not depressed. It's that convoluted kind of statement that I still get lost in. It just won't be pulled apart for me to make sense of and work out what applies and what doesn't. What she implied was that she was depressed. (Should I have understood what that meant, at 16? In the 60s? Probably not) But I didn't realise that this was a mental health issue.
I tried to get help for her (against my father's wishes) - but they just said 'well, your daughter's here now'; I wrote and they didn't reply and my mother's reactions just got more out of touch with reality. And then my father started to become irrational (new word!) as well. Then I was really lost and alone. I still didn't realise that it was a 'mental health' issue. Or that it can be 'contagious' if you live with it.
It stopped me from doing many things I wanted to do and from getting close to others. I was always afraid of being 'found out' - as being the wicked daughter or of being the one with the mental health issues!!
And then 'I wouldn't have told you if you hadn't phoned' said my father. My mother was in hospital having electric shock treatment. I sent a greetings card every day but when we spoke on the phone, she complained that I hadn't written 'love from me', just 'love, me'. I rolled my eyes - 'that's typical of my mother'. But I still didn't realise that it was a 'mental health' issue. :shock:
Nobody sat down with me to explain, to discuss the implications, to apply a label. Well, it's not nice to apply labels to people is it?! She didn't complete the course of treatment. She was still 'depressed' because of 'me'. I should have been shocked myself but I didn't accept her 'diagnosis' of the reasons seriously, so I didn't take the rest of it too seriously either. No-one actively 'involved' me in anything other than as a scapegoat.
And now I assume that I am the adult from whom my mother's mental health is kept a secret.
But it's not a secret, is it? It's not a secret any more. It says so on the Attendance Allowance application. Mental Health Problems. And I'm going to have to get my head round that, find a new persective on it without the guilt of not having understood through all the years.
But no-one else understood, did they? Or at least, nobody sat down with me to explain or explore. My father seemed to think I was the enemy, going along with my mother's definition of 'it would be all right if only my daughter would be different'. This was all my fault in one way or another. He was angry with me because my mother's refusal to let go meant that I'd come between them. It wasn't my choice, Pa!
I guess he finally mellowed.
I said my final goodbyes to my parents about five years ago on the occasion of a special wedding anniversary. Or at least, I thought I had. I didn't realise it's what I'd intended. I made one last final try to reach my father. It wasn't to be and so I 'said goodbye'. I was so startled last year to realise I was going to have to open up old wounds to say goodbye again!!! Family expectations. Family phone calls.
Well, yes. I'm glad I did, of course.
What my father had really wanted to do in his last years was revisit the places he served in the war (in France). :cry: I wanted to take him but couldn't face handling my mother. What my mother really wanted was a party - to be the star of the show. She got her wish - a funeral wake.
What lives people create for themselves. I shiver.
And the daughter?
Well, that's not my life. I gave up their life a long time ago. I refused the invitation to carry the 'mental health' burden on through the generations. I refused it a long time ago. This last year I thought for a while it was my only option again - to 'carry' her mental illness for her so she could be well - but I've had to refuse it again. Sorry, Ma! The buck stops with you.
Whatever my life is, it's not dark and enclosed and sheltered and alone and contained and small and lonely. It's VAST. People I've known, places I've seen, lives I've lived! I have space and views and summer and companionship and love. And laughter. Lots of laughter. And a whole load of pain, I admit. And talent to use. And more people to meet. And money and hope and...mess. A whole load of mess, too. There's too much of 'me' and too much of my things and clothes and paper and books and just 'things'.
But it's a start.
Thanks, Ma, for what you gave me that was good.
R
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's never too late to be what you might have been.
~George Eliot
rosencrantz:
PS And tonight I wore my pink pussycat T shirt - and my son loves it! :wink:
R
Anonymous:
Gee Rosencrantz, I was so enthralled by this last post of yours, no not the pink pussy cat T-shirt one, although I thought about that too, like, "GO ROSENCRANTZ, YEAH, you wild girl, GO!!!"
But the one before. I had an image of you of stepping back. Kinda' takin' it in, in a bigger view than ever before. You know what I mean. That is how I see it. Time, distance, healing, and WAMMO - the perspective changes, and makes more sense in a whole lot of detailed ways. There's wholeness that comes from seeing it as a whole, I think?????Duh????
Gosh that's powerful what you talked about!! I got a clearer picture of the struggle.
And I wanted to add on the other thread, but didn't want to break into (not too much anyway) on the workings between you and Wildflower at the moment, but you don't miss me (minutely) at all. I'm sorry for giving you that impression, and I can see I have. :cry: I just feel like a board-hog sometimes, 'cause I talk too much. I've rejected the notion of commenting on every way you have helped me and HIT-ME (in a good way) right between the eyes, but I can see I should and I'm so so so so so so so so so so so Sorry!!! You put a lot of time and effort in helping me sort out some serious shit!!! Now I just had to include a swear word or it wouldn't be me, I can't legitimately wear my 'Warning this body contains adult themes, nudity and strong language' T-shirt tomorrow. HAHAHA. :D
Like Wildflower says, I value you and what you have to say. All of it, even if I'm a thicky and don't get it right away. I love your style. 8)
(((HIG)))
CG
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version