Hello All, [EdIT IN: Please let me know if you understand, or am I still.........in need of guidance]
I have been putting ideas together from my experience with my daughter in an effort to understand the affect that my dysfunction had on her.
I must begin, though, with the ancestral dysfunction which was carried forth. I didn’t know who I was, as I have said many times and it has taken me a long time to come to terms with that. In the meantime, the missing parts of me, left gaps for my daughter, and she, too, had to try to understand the dysfunction, and how much she 'inherited'.
A mother is a person who is “supposed to know“, maybe an enemy and maybe very caring, but my daughter didn't see me as a woman with 'bad' problems and experiences. (She did say my disability was a problem for her.) One thing I never did was criticize my daughter, but she felt that I did. So who is right? I didn't continue to mother, just felt I 'must have a part somewhere' and she never sought my approval. She kept secret the things I ought not have to know. She was entitled to that. (My own experience.) Letting her be her own woman was important, as in how she ran her home, how she raised her children and I saw that she did it with more ease than I did.. Why? (I was constantly aware that I was an ‘illegitimate’ mother, and perhaps tried too hard?) My mother was still trying to mother me when I was 40. Hmmm. My daughter DID see me as having a shit*y life and has said so many times.
So we struggled with our relationships as adults. We didn't hear each other properly. She would hear me say something and think, 'She wants to control me. She is nosy' And I was saying something that might have been absolutely controlling, but was not meant to be. Meanwhile, when she spoke (wrote) I heard nothing but anger — in a comment that did convey anger but also "I love you, and can't we do this differently?" That could work both ways. Good communication is often lost because of old patterns.
I expect that decisions I made caused her young life to be difficult. I see that turning to anger, and we never talked about it., being she married young, so the “me” that I was became a part of her, unresolved and went everywhere with her, just as would her legs and arms. (Keeping in mind she married an N and was now being emotionally abused by him for the next 10 years, and about now? I don't know. One child lives with dad.)
I carried a lot of guilt and she finally realized I am who I am (or was who I was) because of the things that happened to me, and I did the best I could. (How over-used that phrase is!) She might have begun to see some of me in her. (I gathered that from some emails.) Scary?? I met up with an N! and was most mortified that my daughter knew I could make that error, later in my life.
As a mother I knew so very little about myself that I placed away too much emphasis on how my daughter and grandchildren were turning out, from looking inward and fearing my dysfunction was into another generation, rather than doing something about understanding myself What could I do to find out what was wrong? Was it really something awful or something simple?’ I needed honest communication from her and she needed that with me. (I have also mentioned that my first vist re therapy, I was 19 and I was in and out of therapy until this last therapist = 50 years. I tried!!)
As I read about other mothers and daughter I see there is an awful lot of tension, withholding, and misunderstanding. The daughter can be who she wants to be because the mother is who she wants to be (or is she just not seeing dysfunction, let alone able to admit it?) and I think mothers ought to understand that. If daughters have trouble getting through being an adolescent, it's often because they don't know who they are. They might try to fit in, or be extremely rebellious and the spunk (if they had it!) as a little girl becomes lost and they lose touch with where they thought they were headed. My daughter and I forget much of some years, as they just passed and I felt she was doing so well, 'she didn't need me'--meant lovingly, as I saw her as an adult long before she was mature, so far different from me in my years at her age.
I remember telling my mother about the choices I allowed my daughter to make and I think she was impressed with the fact that I was able to give her the freedom to make a decision that was going to affect her life. I think my mom would have liked to be able to do that more for me, if she had been raised in a different time. She might have even thought back to her mother at that point.
We were not Ns but we were dysfunctional. My mom said, ”I love you” to me only once…on her death bed. Yet all my life she withheld herself emotionally, from her children.
I did read a number of posts on a thread BOARD about estrangements. There are many and it is sad. I am happy that she and I have come to conclusions about thoughts I've had and I have finally let go. I was hanging on for dear life before.
All in all, I think I was an enigma..... might still be.
Izzy
