A
Ababe
I don't see my therapist again until next week but I've come to the point where I need to "speak" my unspeakable.
Emotional incest from my mother is but one of the traumas in my life. Mom sat in the kitchen and watched TV- my dad did the same in the living room. I'd sit with my mom (as far back/young as I can remember) and she'd pour out the horror stories of her childhood with an alcoholic father and physically abusive mother. She'd tell me about all the problems she and my dad had and enlist me on her side in their arguments. I remember even as a young child feeling like in a way I was her husband-trying to hug away her pain and wipe away her tears. She'd latch onto me like I was a life preserver and she was drowning. As a 7 year I felt so helpless and useless, but she insisted that I was helping her.
We were so codependent and enmeshed in ways there isn't room to share here and I'm not ready anyway.
This continued through my adolescent years. As an adult living away from "home" I stopped after work every day for a couple of years and we often repeated the scenario. When that stopped (my then wife said she wanted to have a child-not marry one) we continued this "tradition" when mom was in the hospital and I visited her alone.
She'd taught ME NOT to cry when I was hurt by bullies and/or angry. My tears and anger were treated like, to use Pete Walker's phrase, "capital crimes" and I learned to keep it all inside.
The last time she was in the hospital she said she was ready to die and the rest of the family tried to convince her she could get well and life was worth living. I told her I would not try to dissuade her from her feelings or decision. I saw in her eyes that she knew what I knew- that her suffering was so great and insurmountable she could stand it no longer. She smiled at me in a way I’d never seen before. It was a moment beyond any intimacy I can imagine. How much closer can a person get than understanding the totality of another’s suffering, stand beside them looking into that abyss together, and say without hesitation or regret, "I release you- Nobody else will, but I give you permission to die."
At her funeral I wanted to cry but I couldn't make myself. I was sure everyone was watching me and wondering what heartless, soul-less son sits stone-faced and dry-eyed at his mother's service. I felt so guilty and ashamed.
I come now to speak my unspeakable, what I’ve known for decades- it’s not a recovered memory, just something I notice sometimes and exile to a dark corner of my mind.
Ever since I was a teenager I’ve had an occasional but recurrent dream. I am an adolescent boy-alienated, unattractive, and too shy to even ask a girl out. In these nightmares mom offers to have sex with me because I can’t get it anywhere else and she doesn’t want me with anyone else, and we do. In addition to the stew of lust, disgust, and shame, there is the terror of worrying that Dad will come home and catch us. Sometimes in the ordeal Dad does catch us and it’s me that he chases and tries to kill.
Pretty Freudian, huh?! And pretty f-up, too. Okay, Oedipus complex and all that, but boys grow out of that, right?
And it gets worse.
Recently I’ve become attracted to role-playing porn video clips of mother and son. Both are obviously, undisputedly adults, but I am sickened and disgusted by what I am attracted to.
I’m not sure if there’s a way beyond our enmeshment to ridding myself of these disgusting dreams and fetish, but I imagine that if there is a way it involves acknowledging that I have these nightmares and fetish and exploring the unhealthy aspects of our relationship that, pun intended, spawned them.
I hope I can bring myself to speak these words, this truth, next week. And I apologize if I've offended or triggered anyone here.
Emotional incest from my mother is but one of the traumas in my life. Mom sat in the kitchen and watched TV- my dad did the same in the living room. I'd sit with my mom (as far back/young as I can remember) and she'd pour out the horror stories of her childhood with an alcoholic father and physically abusive mother. She'd tell me about all the problems she and my dad had and enlist me on her side in their arguments. I remember even as a young child feeling like in a way I was her husband-trying to hug away her pain and wipe away her tears. She'd latch onto me like I was a life preserver and she was drowning. As a 7 year I felt so helpless and useless, but she insisted that I was helping her.
We were so codependent and enmeshed in ways there isn't room to share here and I'm not ready anyway.
This continued through my adolescent years. As an adult living away from "home" I stopped after work every day for a couple of years and we often repeated the scenario. When that stopped (my then wife said she wanted to have a child-not marry one) we continued this "tradition" when mom was in the hospital and I visited her alone.
She'd taught ME NOT to cry when I was hurt by bullies and/or angry. My tears and anger were treated like, to use Pete Walker's phrase, "capital crimes" and I learned to keep it all inside.
The last time she was in the hospital she said she was ready to die and the rest of the family tried to convince her she could get well and life was worth living. I told her I would not try to dissuade her from her feelings or decision. I saw in her eyes that she knew what I knew- that her suffering was so great and insurmountable she could stand it no longer. She smiled at me in a way I’d never seen before. It was a moment beyond any intimacy I can imagine. How much closer can a person get than understanding the totality of another’s suffering, stand beside them looking into that abyss together, and say without hesitation or regret, "I release you- Nobody else will, but I give you permission to die."
At her funeral I wanted to cry but I couldn't make myself. I was sure everyone was watching me and wondering what heartless, soul-less son sits stone-faced and dry-eyed at his mother's service. I felt so guilty and ashamed.
I come now to speak my unspeakable, what I’ve known for decades- it’s not a recovered memory, just something I notice sometimes and exile to a dark corner of my mind.
Ever since I was a teenager I’ve had an occasional but recurrent dream. I am an adolescent boy-alienated, unattractive, and too shy to even ask a girl out. In these nightmares mom offers to have sex with me because I can’t get it anywhere else and she doesn’t want me with anyone else, and we do. In addition to the stew of lust, disgust, and shame, there is the terror of worrying that Dad will come home and catch us. Sometimes in the ordeal Dad does catch us and it’s me that he chases and tries to kill.
Pretty Freudian, huh?! And pretty f-up, too. Okay, Oedipus complex and all that, but boys grow out of that, right?
And it gets worse.
Recently I’ve become attracted to role-playing porn video clips of mother and son. Both are obviously, undisputedly adults, but I am sickened and disgusted by what I am attracted to.
I’m not sure if there’s a way beyond our enmeshment to ridding myself of these disgusting dreams and fetish, but I imagine that if there is a way it involves acknowledging that I have these nightmares and fetish and exploring the unhealthy aspects of our relationship that, pun intended, spawned them.
I hope I can bring myself to speak these words, this truth, next week. And I apologize if I've offended or triggered anyone here.
