My Mother

[Ami]

My F stood by me. He tried to have mini "weenie outs", but not much and when I called him on it, he backed down.
 Down deep,people probably blame me for bringing it up, but  I lived it ,  it was done to me. It is reality.
 My F ,for the first time, took a stand with me ,against the monster, the mother who molested her child.
 It felt good.
 I told my M that I am in the small group of daughters who were molested by their M's and she put me there.
 That is direct, real and out there, just as what she did to me was.
 I am getting stronger as I SEE just who was at fault .
 I am seeing the truth about her.
 I always wanted to think that she had my best interests at heart,but she didn't. She used me to discharge her hate. Whenever I got strong, she pushed me down, so I would not .
 The truth is the healer.It is never as bad as lies, never, not even when you face the "worst". I did not have the "worst",but it was bad enough.
 Facing it beings healing , strength and peace.        Ami

[Gaining Strength]

Something in this post or the last couple of posts is helping me. By seeing the monster in your mother, and other mothers here I am beginning to see my mother as something other than the passive aggressive person who is less than loving.  It should be something that  her sitter sees her as the most difficult person she has EVER worked with.  That should tell me something and yet i have not yet gotten my vision of her as a monster.  But I am getting closer.  What she did and does to me is heinous and it is all for her self-protection.  I am enraged!!! Angry beyond words.

[gratitude28]

Oh Ami,
How yucky and gross. It must have been hard to write down the words. I am so sorry that you went through this.
What will you do with this knowledge now? It seems you have already made progress with realizing it was her disgustig act and nothing to do with you. Do you think she did this to other people?
My mother put me in situations that could have led to sexual predation... She seemed to enjoy seeing others look at me lustfully. She had a fantasy of me being a slut. She also talked about sex with my father in front of me - in a 'sotto voce' so that I seemed to overhear it. It was like a competition. It would also twist my stomache.
(((((((((Ami))))))))))))
Love, Beth

[Ami]

Dear SS,
 Your last post IS where the healing is, according to Alice Miller(and my own very limited experience).
  Our empathy has been with them. Hence, we have not had empathy for us.
   As we see the truth of them, we get empathy for us.
   I wish I could be there, already. I wish I did not have to live one more day in this prison of delusions , shame and self hate. However, healing seems to go at its own pace b/c we can only see so much at a time.
 I want to be a bird flying ,now, but I am just at the beginning of the road.
 I can feel that the road is solid and WILL take me there. I know what I want, to be centered, to love myself, to be at peace, to feel comfortable in my own skin, to have my own power.
 I have had glimpses of this, at times.
 I am getting there ,slowly,but I wish it were faster, as I* have "wasted" so much of my life. However, it was not wasted, as the pain helped me to find God.
 So, I guess I need to trust that I will go to the next step, in time, as you will too, SS.   Love   Ami

[Ami]

Thank you, Beth.
 To tell you the truth, finding out about this was a relief.
 It was not this one "act" that screwed me up, as much as showed me the truth of my life. I was nothing,but s/one to have power over. 
 I ,only ,have one memory of "actual" sexual abuse, but it shows me how bad it ALL was.
 Coming out of denial is a relief, even though it is painful.
 Under all this is "me". I want to be done with all this and just  be whole. That is my frustration. I want to be whole, now, and it is slow.
 However, I can't make it faster than my mind will let me heal. Thanks again for your post, Beth.     Love   Ami

[Ami]

I had a huge breakthrough. Many people may not understand if you have not read Alice Miller. However,I want to share it. James has had the courage to walk from point A to point B in a way I have never seen before.
 I have never seen s/one  "heal" before. I have heard many "words" and theories. I have a maasters  degree in Counseling, BUT I have never seen true healing, where an "abused" person becomes "whole", centered, integrated.
 I have never witnessed  this in any of the people I have known, no matter HOW long they have been in therapy(even over 20 years)
  Knowing him has changed my paradigm. I always felt hopeless about "real" healing. Now, I don't.You need s/one to help you who has been there and you need courage. With that,you can heal.
  I want to tell you what happened . James helped me to be safe enough to retrieve the memory of my M molesting me. That required that I feel safe and loved, which I did or I could never have seen it.
 After that, I looked at my M, with "truth". The truth was that she did not ''love'me. She shocked me as much as she could and would smirk and leer at me. I "wanted" to believe she loved me, but Alice says that I cannot lie and be healthy, so I faced it.
 I was in so much psychic pain this week. My heart felt like it would break, literally. I stayed with it and just felt it. I started seeing my M, as she was. Her true self started forming in my mind, not the idealized self,which I "made" up b/c I wanted to(or had to).
 It was very painful,but today I got insights  which are life changing.
 I saw how I always had to "punish" myself like overeat and get stomachaches or make things harder for myself. 
 *I*  HAD to be bad or my whole idealized version of my life, with a "good "mother, would come falling down.
   When I see her, as she is, I don't need to be "bad" anymore.
  I am at the beginning of my journey back from "insanity".
  I am not hopeless, anymore.
  I SEE how I had to be the "bad" one. I had to keep up that edifice or I would see my M and I couldn't,  but can now.
  I am so grateful that James had the courage to heal and then  show me. I really never expected to be 'whole' after all this time.
 Twenty years ago,I had an impression, which promised me that I would heal, that I would be restored. I found God ,in the interim, and now I am finding my own core.
 I am getting the best gift of my life,second to finding God. I am getting "myself".

[Iphi]

Dear Ami - I have just read this whole topic for the first time today.  I am so sad and yet glad for you, that you have recovered the missing piece that makes everything make sense.  When I read your posts, I suddenly really understood for the first time exactly why you feel so deeply unsafe in the company of women.  Previously I accepted that it was so, but I had no insight - it was just an intellectual fact, not something I could deeply get, with context.  Now I really get it. 

You are innocent.  Your mom makes her choices and they degrade her.  But they do not degrade you.  Only that she foisted it on you - forced it upon you - to keep her secret.  It's awful.

I understand her facade of the mother.  Like other positions that have a lot of authority and a presumption of goodness attached to them, people use them as cover to perpetuate their perversion.

I don't know why exactly this is coming up as an association in my mind, but I will share it and maybe it will mean something to you.
Reading this I keep thinking of a college friend I used to have, who used to tell me 'secrets' that were the kind that you really do NOT want to hear.  But then you feel you must keep them because they were told in confidence.  She would tell me how she had the hots for her best friend's boyfriend (then fiance and husband) and how she was often tempted to seduce him and calculated that she could make it happen.  Then she would do things in public that were flirtatious - brushing up against him or giving him a big full-body hug.  Meanwhile, her best friend and the boyfriend were innocent and trusting but I knew it was icky.  It was so icky. Lots of things like that and she would keep doing it.  Then you are in a bind because you feel you can't tell and nothing happened and you are the 'bad guy.'

Or if I confided in her something vulnerable or embarrassing, later on in the larger group of friends, she would make fun of that thing in general, but not say your name.  Do you know what I mean? 

Or she would invite two sets of friends to an activity, who did not know each other.  Then when everyone was together, she would monopolize one group and ignore the other one.

I have often felt really guilty for what eventually happened, because I handled it poorly.  Eventually I told her best friend that she had been telling me how much she wanted to sleep with her husband (by this time they were married).  I felt that I should have addressed it with the girl, and not triangulated like that.  But the whole thing was a manipulative set-up, wasn't it?

We were at a party once and we were all really wasted and she and I were talking to this really attractive young man, who was far more wasted than we were.  He was just absolutely blotto.  She pushed me to invite him back to my apartment with the idea that we would take advantage of him.  I took a pass on that.

I think she is coming up for me because she is like your mom.  They do things the same. 

[Ami]

Dear Iphi,
 Thank you for sharing that. After facing this about my M, I realize how important facing ALL truth is. I was missing a piece of myself b/c I had lost this truth about my M(sexual abuse and  all the rest which became clear after I saw the sexual). It was that bad.
I had minimized my M so much. i thought that if you lived in a nice house, had piano  lessons ,and went to camp, you could not be abused.I added other things like if your parents sent you to college and bought you nice clothes.
 I really thought I was 'exaggerating" b/c I was not in a "war zone" or in an orphanage.
 I am still in denial, now, but it is lessening.
 As it lessens, I click back in to place, as a puzzle.
 It is wonderful to click back in, even if it is a little at a time.
 Thanks Iphi, for being such a  kind friend.    Love   Ami

(((((Iphi))))))
 

[Ami]

I am getting hope. There IS life after an NM. We just go down a little further than the average person,, but the process of getting up is the same, for small problems or large ones.
  I feel hopeful for the first time, in a long time. I faced what has been in the back of my psyche.
  I want to mine truth, as you mine  diamonds. It is as precious as diamonds.
             Ami
 

[Ami]

I am seeing old patterns  I replay in the present,like trying to convince current day relationships of my "worth" by convincing them of something *I *believe. I remember doing this to my M, all the time. I had to get her to understand that I DID know things and see things. I had a deeper reason for being here and was not invisible. I was a person with dimensions, aspects, parts of me which were individual to me. I want to be "seen" and that replays,in many ways.
 I see that my "being" here,on the earth does not have to be justified. It just is and I just "am". It does not have to be validated from the outside It is OK just to "be . I do not have to justify my being here by doing things or knowing things. I can just "be".If you "get " this, you have been here. It is an important lesson about inherent value being 'inherent", not earned.         Ami

[seasons]

I see that my "being" here,on the earth does not have to be justified. It just is and I just "am". It does not have to be validated from the outside It is OK just to "be . I do not have to justify my being here by doing things or knowing things. I can just "be".If you "get " this, you have been here. It is an important lesson about inherent value being 'inherent", not earned.         Ami

Lovely ((Ami))          love to you always, seasons

[Ami]

Thank You, Seasons
 You have  a gift for encouraging and uplifting others.I don't know if you know this, but it is true and it is one of your unique  gifts(IMO).  People in 3D must  know and appreciate this  ,too. I would bet on it.
               Love    Ami

[Ami]

Alice Miller says that as you heal from abuse, you will feel deep rage. . It is not intellectual, but a "body" feeling.
 Seeing myself as "bad" was a defense mechanism so I would not have to face the truth. Shame is a defense mechanism against the deeper feelings of rage , helplessness, hopelessness etc that we have as children, when we are mistreated. We HAVE to blame ourselves and we do.We continue to do so,all through life. We live based on that original decision.
Thinking we were '"bad" was the safe decision,then, based on our home life, the only safe decision.
             Ami

[James]

Ami.........what I found about my rage/anger, is that it was a psychological defense protecting myself from the dangerous realization that I was not loved. IMO there simply cannot be a more devastating, painful reality for a child to face than this. True healing in many cases is about facing this.......Love, James

[Ami]

I felt a "bodily" sense of rage ,this morning, for a short time. It was a strange feeling. Then, it left. I think I was afraid of it b/c it was so different and "overwheling".
 Did you experience anything like this, James?                     Love you,   Ami