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The journey begins ... or continues ... articulating the rollercoaster that is my life

Do I feel guilt about how I may have contributed to having a child with permanent impairment? Who had to hang on, like me, only he was a tiny baby, to life, with all he had. I'm amazed that he made it, he was so sickly and tiny and couldn't hold down.food either.

Yes, I've struggled with enormous, crippling guilt and self-blame. But at the end of the day,.I may not have caused him to have impairment and cognitive delays and autism and to be a failure-to-thrive baby.

I am amazed at how much of our story is the same...I felt guilty about my daughter's brain damage because I, too, smoked weed throughout my pregnancy for the high, and the horrible nausea that lasted the whole pregnancy. I didn't smoke as much as when I wasn't pregnant, but still smoked. We didn't know the full extent of her disability until she was about 6 months old and started having seizures...about 25/day. I (we) found out that part of her brain wasn't formed, and she had all the signs of severe retardation, and one kidney.

Her umbilical cord was tightly wrapped around her neck twice, and wasn't formed right. It should have had 2 arteries and 1 vein, but there was only one artery. She was a "fluke" with so many things wrong, that it was hard to know what caused which. They tried to get her breathing for 4-5 hours (?) at that hospital, then flew her to the children's hospital where she stayed for a month. She couldn't keep anything, milk or medicine down for the first year. The words "failure-to-thrive" cut me to the core. I just knew it was all my fault.

She had severe Cerebral Palsy, and I kept her until she was about a year and a half. I made the decision to permanently institutionalize her due to her not being able to stay well long enough to get her into physical therapy. Pneumonia, kidney infections, bronchitis almost constantly...She would have died in my care. I could not have handled it. Part of what she swallowed went into her lungs.

They were wonderful, and she was the "star" of the hospital, because she functioned higher than everyone else. She smiled ALL the time, and every time I went to see her, someone would ask if I was her mom. When I told them that I was, they told me how big of a blessing she was to them. To several, she was the reason they came to work. When I finally got past the guilt, I realized that she was a TRUE angel in human form. I have had SO many signs that she was heaven-sent, that I have lost count.

The story of her death is more complicated than her birth...I will share that at another time. Please know that you did the BEST you could with what you had at the time, and there was NO punishment involved towards you when it comes to your son! Babies get their nourishment from the mother, while you were the one whose health suffered the most. I KNOW this with ALL my heart!!!

He survived because you LOVE him!!! He is doing as well as he is, because YOU LOVE HIM!!!:hug::hug::hug:

I know that it is painful to be putting your journey into black and white form...which I think brings it more into focus. There is nothing wrong with crying, and it actually releases healing hormones. You mentioned that you have had stomach/bowel problems. Did you know that 95% of the Serotonin in our bodies is produced in the intestines? That's why there is what we call "gut feelings", which is when something just doesn't "feel right" in a situation, and we feel it in our stomach.

You are SO not alone!!!:hug::hug::hug:
Peace and love to you!
AKJ
 
Your words get me all teary, with love and grief and relief and I've read them twice now and no doubt will read them again @AngelkeeperJ/AKJ .

These journeys with our children are so huge, so impactful, so heart-wrenching, so unspeakably guy-wrenchingly, life-changingly EPIC.

I still feel the guilt and grief, that, I believe, you will understand. My son is in care now. I saw him last week and found out that, while I had been rendered severely ill, he had been exceedingly mentally unwell, as well.

It must of happened just after I saw him last. We had a great day, dancing, eating, talking, down at a cool rootsy cafe, in our town.

I went to see if he wanted to come sing with our choir and found out that he had a severe psychotic break the last time he was at his Dad's.

I didn't get too many answers. He's been medicated a lot more and is very subdued.

My guilt is that I'm not with him all the time, or at least a lot more. Even though I know he's being cared for well now, and I am hardly able to care for myself and my other 3 youngest children and my partner.

My motto for survival for many, many years used to be, "if my kids are ok, I'm ok".

I guess I didn't even know what ok felt like. Maybe I still don't?

Now my motto, in reference to that, has had to change. - "If I am OK, I'm in a better position to support my children to be OK".

My special son pulls on my heart strings constantly.
My wellness is what I need, to be able to give him more and I'm struggling with the guilt of needing that time and attention on myself.

It weighs on me, like Atlas with the world on his shoulders.
 
More tears, more tears, more tears.

I just reread what I just wrote and it's heavy.
My grief over my boy and my yearning for him and my internal struggle with my own health needs and my sense of connection and responsibility and empathy towards him are affecting me more than I realized.

On another note. I was just down at a cafe, having lunch with another of my beautiful children. My 19 year old son.

While I was with him I got a call from the trauma unit that I've been trying to get in contact with but I couldn't hear very well and I'm to ring again in the morning.

I don't live with that son. He is at Dad's. Dad got the house (that I had procured for us) and he waged a big hate campaign against me (nothing new, but in my absence and extreme dire state of health at the time, the teenage and young adult children were deeply affected).

I have worked smart and long to reestablish my relationships with them, and although we have all been damaged by the estrangement, the maternal ailienational abuse from the pater, and the effects of being tied by blood to narcissists and PTSD sufferers and autistic people and drugs and and and .....We, my children and I, are building healthier, loving, honest, respectful relationships, slowly but surely.
I live for this end. In part, that is what I've fought to stick around for. That and my kind-loving friendship with my manfriend. And my creative, expressive, peer-supporty meaningful connections.

That and more, but that will do for now.
 
Dear Mum,
I'm sorry you have suffered so much, in life.
I'm sorry I really have trouble feeling safe around you.
I'm sorry I can't take care of you better.
I feel so guilty for not looking after you better.
It feels like you are my child, not the other way around.
I wish we had honesty, caring and reciprocity in our relationship.
I wish I could get over all the years of hurt, rejection, abandonment, violence, negation, isolation, terror, aloneness, depression, self harming, self-esteem destruction, guilt and shame that you constantly drummed into me.
That I could do what Dad and Pa wanted me to do "be good to you" "take care of you" " forgive you", but how can I when I feel so unsafe around you? When I struggle to feel respect for you? When I don't trust you?
You didn't parent me. You abused me and sabotaged me and gaslit me and tried to make me your slave.
I got raped and nearly died and you said and did nothing to support me or even let me know I wasn't to blame for it.
You led me to believe I was a "guttersnipe", your words,
That I was worthless and unacceptable as a child and teenager, if I didn't give up my will, self-respect and hope for my sanity and life to you.
I can't trust you or like you yet, even though I know you are deeply damaged, traumatized, sick, lacking in self awareness, maturity, accountability, honesty and you are not cognizant of what you've done that's damaged me so much.
I needed your love and care and you never gave it. Now it feels too late. I hope not, but I fear so.
 
❤️ ((( :hug: @mumstheword :hug: ❤️
You are SO PRECIOUS and LOVED by our Lord, who is, and WILL, be carrying you on your journey! You are right, the BEST gift you can give to your children, is to be as healthy as possible! God can make a way when there seems to be no way!

Do you know the serenity prayer?
God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and the Wisdom to know the difference."

I used to sit and cry, while praying this prayer, because I didn't have words of my own to pray.

My heart aches for you! I also have a deep sense of hope and faith, knowing that you are moving in the RIGHT direction, in EVERY WAY! You are gathering the tools, and letting deep, long buried pain rise up in order to be healed. Those feelings can't stay hidden and heal at the same time.

Blessings, Peace, and Hope being sent your way, along with my prayers that God will move any and all mountains that might get in your way!

Love and Hugs,:hug:
AKJ
 
❤️ ((( :hug: @mumstheword :hug: ❤️
You are SO PRECIOUS and LOVED by....
Thank you dear @AngelkeeperJ/AKJ, you are an Angelheart :-).
Yes I do know the serenity prayer. My stepfather taught it to me. He learnt in in rehab programs for drug addiction.

Even though he attacked me after I tried to get him to stop hurting my mother, and threatened me with a hack saw while holding me down and hurting me, which contributed to the development of my c- ptsd, he was my caring parent.

He went away after that and went into a year long rehab program and was actually my most stable parental figure after that, but he could never go against or remedy what my mother did to me, nor could he save me from my destructive-to-my-person-and-children ex.

I wouldn't be as kind or as caring without his loving influence in my life. He has passed now. He got a disease from his drug taking years and it took him out about 11 years ago.

It is a really good prayer and I still remind myself of it and use it, to this day.
 
I think I have been having some memory retrieval about that first sexual abuse.

Interestingly, at the same time,I have developed a urinary and uterine/vaginal infection. I have pus coming out of there.

I think I remember a warmly lit room with candles and a reddish light. The man who gave me majic mushrooms when I was three, also did other things to me.

He made me lie down. He told me about some things that "boys do to girls" . He told me that girls have to let them do it to them, because that's what girls do. I was a girl. I believed him. I let him do those things.

I think he bathed me too, after he had done it and have me the drug mushrooms on toast.

My mother was always preoccupied with whatever man she was involved with. At the time it was a schizophrenic man.

My Dad said she was "catatonic" but I don't believe she was at all. Maybe she faked it to get out of admitting the crap parenting that she was inflicting on me.

He said she was "psychotic", no, she was, and still is, histrionic. She lies and always has. She gaslights and manipulates and always has.

She said I was a "difficult child". I never said back to her "well you are a difficult mother" but I wish I had.

I could never ask her about the "maybe" abuse because I don't trust her to be honest with me, especially about something where she is potentially culpable.

I never had a hymen. I think I was molested and penetrated by a man who shared our house when I was between two and a half and three and a half.

But I don't know for sure. All I know is that the there are signs and symptoms that point to it, that came after.
 
I am still having "lady troubles".
Sex is out of the question.

It's disconcerting because the possible early sexual abuse memories are bringing up more feelings of a highly unpleasant nature, towards my mum.

I'm grieving the mother-daughter relationship that never was and never will be.

I'm grieving how my inadequate mothering led me to become an inadequate mother.

Although to be fair on myself, I'm nothing like her. I deeply respect my children. I'm deeply empathetic towards them. I'm continually loving and kind to them, although since the older ones sided with abusive dad,.I struggle with certain aversions and avoidance of contact with some.

Damn, I'm now, hearing a horrible, abusive domestic going down two units down. My heart rate and breathing are needing some attention to slow down, so I'm going to sign off now.
 
I know who you see when you look in the mirror. I know who you see when you write in your diary.

What you don't realize is who WE see...

This is who we see.... this strong loving resilient person who is doing the work to create a world where she and her family are happy and healthy

My T told me that I am a truly amazing strong, resilient, compassionate, caring, giving person on the phone today.

I have worked smart and long to reestablish my relationships with them, and although we have all been damaged by the estrangement, the maternal ailienational abuse from the pater, and the effects of being tied by blood to narcissists and PTSD sufferers and autistic people and drugs and and and .....We, my children and I, are building healthier, loving, honest, respectful relationships, slowly but surely.
I live for this end. In part, that is what I've fought to stick around for. That and my kind-loving friendship with my manfriend. And my creative, expressive, peer-supporty meaningful connections.
 
Thank you :-) @Freida .
It's funny (but not as in haha funny) but compliments feel strange to me still.
I used to actively negate them until I realized that that was rude and I was denying people the gift of giving me something I really needed.
Validation.
I still feel kind of frozen and awkward when people say nice things to me, like they must mean someone else really, because that's not the me I've been led to believe I am for much of my existance, here on ole mama earth.

Sometimes I just cry when people are kind and that's what I feel like doing now.

This point segues into the next part of the story and this bit reads more like a love story and less like a horror story ...

At a crucial juncture in my life, I met my beloved.

We were both in a bad way when we met and I'll admit, the first time I met him, I don't remember, the second time, I saw him, I was hiding in my sister's car.

Our 19 yr old sons are besties. And that is why and how we met.
We met and quickly realized we understood each other's world, values and experiences like nobody we'd ever met before.

We bonded over a conversation about comfrey. And another about a horrid bird or swine flu type flu we'd both had and were both still suffering after effects from.
I never got to get much in the way of medical care, it was hard enough together children any.
He believed me when I mentioned symptoms I was suffering, he'd experienced the same thing. My kid's dad just called me a hypochondriac.

One day, it was like a spell broke. The spell my children father had over me. A very powerful, bad spell that was destroying me, day by day. I was tired, so bone-shatteringly exhausted, of the scary eyes he gave me every time I looked at him.

My new friend smiled at me and I noticed his eyes were full of warmth and light.

My Baby Dada's eyes were like bottomless pits of darkness.

My new friend had no agenda but happiness to have found a friend and like-mind to talk too.

I'd never experienced such a thing from a man before.

Something in me started to unfreeze.

I told him later, it was like the spring thaw.
Waters melting and starting to gush, from the high mountain ice, flowing and forming into clear, rocky waterways, trickling down through crevices and cracks in rocks to form smaller, then larger, waterfalls. My emotional body was melting from a light-filled, warm gaze of true loving-friendship.
 
Now back to horror ...

So now is time for a few minor memories that filled me with dread and horror.

Seeing a scene on a telly when I was maybe 4?
It's not so much the scene, it's how I felt.
It was just a standard scenario - woman walks to her car, it is dark. Man grabs her as she tries to enter her car.Woman screams.

Seeing this scene filled me with such fear. It was like an ice-cold grim reaper grasping my heart. I froze. I'm sure I said nothing and was already well versed in not going to my mother for comfort.

She said I was a whingy child. I remember a lot of silent suffering and shaking in fear.

Why do I bring this up?

It just strikes me as curious, an extreme fear reaction surely not warranted by an only- implied violent television scene.
The early signs of PTSD triggering?
I would think likely.

Another early memory. My mother and I were in Tasmania with her weird friends who I always felt very odd and "not-right" around.

We got lost. It got dark. I'm sure I was still 3 then. They had kids too. Incidentally one of those girls ended up with schizophrenia, the other had two babies that died of SIDS.

Anyway, that was waaaaay later, back to 1976. So we got lost, it was a mountain and bushy, and temperate rainforest, and it got dark and cold. We got.lost and must have stumbled on to someone's land because I remember he had a gun pointed at us and it was scary for a three year old who'd been walking for hours and hours in the dark, knowing no one knew how to get back to our cars.
I've had guns threatening me on three separate occasions.

I'm sure that family were abusive, maybe even pedophilic. I remember a couple of really scary and yucky things I witnessed or had done to me as well as their girls but that was later.

For some reason my Dad liked to visit those people, too. I always found I felt horrible around them and after we left their place.
I don't exactly know why though.

I did get strapped with a belt by the stepdad once though. And they burnt two of their houses down. Two!

The strapping was because we, the two girls and I, were jumping off a top bunk and one of the girls jumped too high and broke a light bulb.

The Dad came in and demanded to know which one of us broke it, but nobody would welsh, so he took off his belt, took our undies down, and strapped us all.

They lived in a filthy house with a back yard full of horrid junk too. My Dad was a complete grot too. He hated cleaning. He told me it made him depressed to be in a clean house.

I also saw the mum make one of the daughters cook her a steak and eat it in front of her daughter's. Yelling at them to get away as They looked on, looking very hungry. They were very skinny little girls.

We never ate there. Often the baby and girls would be getting around in just dirty underpants, or the baby a very full nappy, that I never saw the mum change.

I was frightened by those people and I never understood why my separated parents both seemed to like them and would visit them.
 
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