Yesterday as I was having breakfast in the lodge it turns out that most everyone is staying til Tuesday to hike and kayak and have meals together. I was never given this info from my daughter and it just dug that wound even deeper. I just got in the car and left. I can tell when I’m not wanted.
I think you are doing emotional reasoning, because you feel it, it has to be true. When my anxiety is high I forget all manner of things, and I make all manner of mistakes, I don't mean anything by it, it is just I am not managing. A wedding is a very stressful thing to have, and you are highly reactive - your daughter might not have asked you to stay because she was worried that you might feel pressurised to stay longer. Sometimes not asking is a way of avoiding potential conflict, and sometimes not asking is to ward off feelings of not feeling important enough to your Mother that she may not stay longer. Sometimes not asking is forgotten because of stress, will your Mother go off at you? Sometimes
the most important thing is the thing that I don't do. You are personalising a whole lot of stuff, which may not be about her, but about your trauma, abandonment and social anxiety issues. You did have to apologise to her for going off, maybe she didn't ask you anything more because she didn't want to put more pressure on you? There are at least half a dozen caring reasons that I can think about off the top of my head that you could have considered before going for the worst one.
Maybe think how was it from your daughter's point of view. How do you invite and manage your Mother when she has PTSD, and has such terrible allergies? I am sure your daughter angsted over that, and she did the best that she could do, just as you did the best that you could do. How about you reel it back a bit and stop engaging in those top ten distorted cognitions?
I can tell when I’m not wanted.
Yeah and this is a whole world of confirmation bias that I also live within. You don't know that for certain. You made assumptions. Your daughter may not have asked you to not put any more pressure on you, to see how you felt at the time. You were highly anxious about driving and about going. I can see that if I was in your daughter's position I might not ask you to do more because I didn't want to overload you? She might have been hoping that you might just stay for as long as you felt comfortable so she left it open so you didn't feel pressure. She tried her best, and she accomodated you to the best that she could. It was her wedding, and she had a lot of people to try and make happy, and it seemed that she did her best with you? And you are not focussing on the positives but on the trip ups, which we all have at family gatherings? No wedding takes place without a few people feeling put out or their noses out of joint?
I sought refuge on Sunday, and then lost my shit on Sunday afternoon, and Sunday night & Monday. It was not those people, it was me that meant that happened. You might want to look at how anxious you were getting to the wedding, and maybe go I had had enough, and really wanted to go, instead of turning it in to a hurtful drama?
Still hurts to be expected to believe that the daughter did one unintentional thing in the wedding, whereas everything else was well thought out. Just another excuse to exclude me.
You are making this about you, and not her wedding. Of course she could have done one unintentional thing in the wedding! People make mistakes. People get it wrong. You can build a self serving representation of this situation which justifies you not going to other things if you want. Or you can view it with some balance, and go "Well it was totally horrendous getting there, that really took it out of me!" "I was really reactive, but I owned that and moved on, and I did really well taking photos and I was successful in being the Mother of Bride on the day!" "Hey some stuff happened that was hurtful, but all families and all weddings have that type of stuff, it is most likely not personal, so overall I did okay". At the end I may have looked through a particular abandonment and rejection lens and thought I was not wanted which may or may not have been true. It is not about you. Your daughter didn't purposefully go out of her way to exclude you, from what you are saying she tried to accomodate your PTSD and allergies as best as she could whilst having a lot of other people to take care of. Your issues are your issues, better to own them rather than actually poision the whole wedding as being a disaster, which it was not. When you are not wanted you are just actually not invited at all, which has literally happened to me in regards to my own family. If you were not wanted and not welcomed you would not have been invited.
Maybe slow down and think about how hard it is to want your Mother there and to stay longer, but not want to put any more pressure on her, when just driving there and getting there is so hard for her? How about slowing it down and think about how hard would have it been to have a Mother that just pisses off when she feels like it? I mean that is such a reactive reaction - which may have no basis in reality other than it felt real to you. Maybe you just taking off was hurtful from your daughter's persepctive?
If you haven't read David Burns' book on distorted cognitions then you could do well to read it?
You could also show yourself some Self Compassion over the fact that your dear friend, who would have given you a lot of support and back up, committed suicide, so there is the grief over lost support, love and belonging.
To my way thinking you are robbing yourself of all the successes and inclusions that were there in actually by focusing on all the negative things. If you hadn't been in such a state before the wedding about driving there, and the reactions you would have to the chemicals that you may have been approachable, and things could have been run past you? You may have been consulted and you may not have heard things due to your own panic and fears? I know I do these things when I am in a state. I don't take information in, and I don't hear what people say. So maybe give yourself and your daughter the benefit of the doubt and actually breathe in the positives of the situation?
