My mother died in 2001 after 2 years in a nursing home. She was alcoholic and her behavior was unpredictable. I spent my childhood cleaning up after her. Even before she drank when I was pre-school age, she stayed in bed all day and I remember being hungry. Once I left the house in a snow storm and walked in snow waist high to a friends and barely made it. I was 4, the friend was in school, and her mother put me in the bath because I was freezing. My mother didnt know I was gone. She could be so nasty and wicked. Her brother tried to molest me when I was ten and she was concerned that I told anyone. Much of the same craziness as others here. I was really angry with her til my thirties, when I began to see the mental illness for what it was.
I had to step back from being the victim and see what it was that made her this way. I figured a lot of it out and was truly able to forgive her a few years before she died. It doesnt change the abuse that happened to me, it doesnt eliminate the trauma, the stolen childhood, chidhood lonliness, depression and anxiety, fear, distrust, or any other issue. Understanding her led to letting go of the blame. That is when I really got in touch with my child within and felt free and healthy for the first time. I was really healthy and happy and almost symptom free for about 10 years, until another trauma re-ignited syptoms. Even now, working with T, it feels like Im digging up stuff that is irrelevant. Yet my mean mother lives on through by sisters. One sister is so angry and Im ususally the target.
In my family, nobody watched my kids, or did anything else. Ive been doing all my life. I spent my teens babysitting for sisters kids, driving mom, trying to fix it for older sisters. All they do is criticize-nothing is ever good enough. I have decided to discontinue all communication. My T is helping me to have a relationship that will not be physical (in the heart only) with siblings. My sister is still mad that I ate her bacon 48 years ago. This is very sick and toxic. I can relate to raves about moms. I am the baby and have always been the peacemaker. However, my body absorbs the negativity and it effects my health.
In my case, siblings to not want to see me well. They are very insecure and they are only happy when others are down, poor, abused, ill, in pain, accomplishing nothing, bitching and blaming, at odds with or about someone or something, etc. In my heart, I know they suffered the same abuse as I and I have compassion, yet, in a conversation it either stirs my anger, I dissociate, or absorb. Distance is the best. I guess it effects us all differently
