Good one, CB - I thought about copying some of the better short statements, but instead, I suggest that folks just read the whole thing. Makes total sense. But, that's from where I sit now... once, the article would've upset me, 'coz I simply couldn't work out "how this could be"...
There is a tricky point - or place - where we have "bonded" with these kinds of moms (or N-womb-donors, to borrow Bones' phrase)... where we're stuck in an impossible loop or attachment or process of banging our heads on a brick wall & hoping for a different result other than a headache... where we've tried all kinds of creativity, denials, fantasies... even to the point of thinking that "the problem" is US... where we try to make the N (or mentally ill person)... into a normal person and have a normal relationship of the "usual" reciprocal depth and intimacy and respect. It's even possible to make oneself ill, with very real physical symptoms, in the process.
This Cary guy (gal?) goes a step further than I did, once upon a time. I saw a "way out" of this dilemma, by tagging myself "an orphan with living parents"... but Cary's right: it's even better to see them as not existing in the shared human experience of reality. There is no way we can ever decipher the rules that govern their universe; and it's just as pointless to expect that they'd care about our universe.
Thanks for this, CB.
