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Digging for weeds

Scarlet13

MyPTSD Pro
I have this vivid memory of gardening with my mother.
I was wandering around outside and my mom handed me gloves. "You can dig up weeds." I protested, because that sounded terrible. "Do it. I am making you."
So, I had no choice. I was my mother's puppet. Her little doll. But it was somehow good. The sun on my back. The dirt in my nails. The weeds coming up and thrown into a pile. I felt bad for them. Some of them were pretty. Dandelions with bright yellow faces and curly leaves. Thistles with pale blue stems, so spikey. I felt bad to take them out of the garden. The garden that I would cut flowers for my mom. She would smile and put them in a vase. She knew the species of each flower. She was the caring mom, I the adoring child. We play our roles so well.

So, I am starting a diary. Not sure if this is a good idea. I just finished posting a thread about obsessing with my trauma. I am also procrastinating work stuff I need to do.
That is how procrastination goes. I need to do important stuff, I know, I am going to make a trauma diary!

So, I am obsessed with my therapist. Not a, I want to stalk her obsession, but an intense attachment. I once wrote and shared with her a poem about how I loved the lines in her neck and how I wanted to crawl into those lines.
It is because I have a perfect mother. A perfect, beautiful mother. I once wrote into Oprah to nominate my mother for mother of the year. I used to be obsessed with my mother dieing (afraid that she would).

The problem is that my trauma stories and my perfect mother viewpoint just don't add up.

I have to sit in therapy trying to make sense of when my T says, "Your mother was the original bully."
I just feel a sickness grab hold of me and this perfect world that I built begin to sway like a house built of cards.
I then look at all the details of my T's body as if I were drawing her. The small tattoo on her ankle, the creases in her shirt. I love creases in clothing. The way she tucks her hair behind her ear. The shape of her ears, like she is some sort human mixed with a mythical creature. I would never tell her this, though! I do tell her that I love her. And she just gives me that neutral, yet soft, yet poignant therapist look. When I read her the poem about wanting to crawl into her she said, "Where was your mother?!"

My mother was always leaving us places. That one old lady who made me jelly toast and taught me how to build card houses.
That one OCD teacher's house where I snapped her aloe vera plant in half. Ohhh she was angry. I was in trouble, but I took in stride. I decided at some point just to be ok with being in trouble. Not to fight it. The belt, the yard stick didn't hurt too bad.
Well, now I am not going to deal with my trauma.
I am trying to figure out how to mother myself at 38 yrs old. This is hard to do as I am in all of this self hate so often.
At least I broke thru my narcissistic false self. I was taught to stuff all problems and emotions deep down and wear a grin!
Now that perfect self is gone and I am this barren wasteland of nothingness and self shittiness. I read that a little bit of narcissism is a good thing. Maybe I am a talented artist and can get into that residency. Blah. I hate being talented. f*ck that. That was all I was ever good for. My mother used it, owned it. Now I am trying desparately to reclaim my love for art. But I am a cheat. I am a fraud.
 
Hi,

just wanted to cheer for the new diary. The "perfect mother" image is so hard to question. Even if we cognitively know it can´t have been real, somewhere deep inside it´s more true than anything else. For me, it´s also been the thing that evokes the most twisted responses. I mean, when I try to actually hold my family of origin responsible for my traumas (inside my own head, not even addressing it with them), i get these super crazy, self-destructive, semi-psychotic reactions. It seems that some part of me is extremely loyal to my parents and to the perfect image of them.

Anyways, I´ll be reading and sending good vibes your way!

ETA: And I get the intense attachment to your T. I have it as well. I guess we really need it in order to trash the perfect mother fallacy.
 
Yes! Totally agree about the semi psychotic reactions with abusive family. I obsess with my trauma because everything seemed so f*cking normal with casseroles, homework, and gardens. My mother had a bf who would use his belt on me. I was extra bad (having been born with ADHD and essentially the devil inside of me) this was justified. She would always say she wasn't serious about marrying him. He was her fun romance. And we did a lot. We were always in our bathing suits. I know he was grooming us. I know some sexual things happened, but don't remember. I remember his rage though. I was prob 5 or 6, but the belt was hitting and hitting me and even going in my back, lower spine. My mother was there watching and time slowed down and she put a hand on his arm and calmly said, "That's enough. You've got to stop. You are angry."
And I think about that reaction. If anybody was beating my child I would have f*cking taken that belt out of their hands and f*cking beat the shit out of that man. Or I would have kicked him out and gotten a restraining order. But my mom just calmly laid a hand out and said, "that's enough."
Later, when she broke up with him, because he was not husband material, she said, "Well, he also had rage and I didn't like that." So, see she was my rescuer! I owe everything to my mother.
 
So, I just had the thought that I can't kill myself. So the reason (and there are a lot of other reasons obviously) is that I spent 15 years living with my mother's second husband, a psycho path bully. He tried to murder me once in front of the pantry (chocking). I survived. But, my mom, sat me down and gave me instructions on how to stay alive. She said, "Just well, you cannot piss him off." So, I got really good at staying alive. He wanted me dead with that evil glint in his eyes. He threatened me nightly. "God, I just want to smash your face in and see you squeal like a little piggy. I just want to break your neck in half."
But, I managed to not die by getting really good at dissapearing. That is how you survive bullying, to disappear into the wall.
So, I have to keep f*cking staying alive.
Ok, that's enough trauma. I am starting to obsess.
 
Oh man, I´m so sorry, that´s some seriously traumatic shit ^.

And: those f*cking casseroles! The warranties of household normalcy. In western societies, at least in these necks of woods, we have this image of a not-good family. A family that produces traumatized children. And the stereotypical image includes alcoholism/drug abuse, poverty and a mother that totally lacks all kinds of care-taking behavior. Then, if you were traumatized in a family that doesn´t fit that picture, it´s very difficult not to get seriously confused and minimize your experiences.

My mother was caring some of the time. And "the official truth" was that she drowned me in cuddles, affection, attention and whatnot. I, unfortunately, was this whining crybaby who just could not handle anything. Nothing was enough, because I was such a wimp. (And hence I should feel guilty for making my mom waste all this excessive care-taking on me.)

The things you told about your mother ("rescuing" you etc.) sound like some serious mind f*ck. Like, really, how could you not get totally twisted?

Sending some more caring vibes. You seem like a brave soul. Glad to have made your acquaintance. (I sound a bit Jane Austen´ish? :laugh:)
 
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