Sunnydaze, you are indeed a survivor :occasion: I'm so glad to read that you have an excellent "T." -- I've had two over the years...lifesavers. Bless 'em...and bless you :smile:
Thornyrose, it's funny...I can't pin down a person or a moment that was decisive in my releasing of so much rage and hatred towards my mother...it was years and years and years of work...and the influence of some incredible people.
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...I came to understand that my mother was hauling along so much unhealed crap from her own life...that she had serious, chronic mental illnesses...and that in the last 15 years of her life, she really tried to turn things around. I came to see how she had suffered. I never trusted her; never let her in. Couldn't; too much damage done to me very early in life. So I decided to live with what was; let it be good enough. I had no illusions about any intimacy or real rapport with her. Strangest thing...to be so out of synch with your mother.
I guess a key thing was to see her as more than my mother --> as a whole person in herself, with some history that had nothing to do with me, as a person who had been in her own hell. It took me a long time to be able to do this...there was a period of about five years when I was shredding a lot of telephone books and smashing a lot of dishes (that she gave me!) in her name :eek:
One of the hardest things I've had to learn is to be a good "mother" to myself...to take care of myself in the most basic, humane ways. Yikes. So much easier said than done :wink:
I guess, too, that getting so much rage, terror and grief out opened the way for other feelings to emerge...more natural feelings that are at the core of the heart -- empathy, compassion, sadness for her own suffering. I'll never condone certain of her actions and beliefs towards me...she's marked me for life, it seems (I hope not). But I came to see that she was more than the "demon mother" of my childhood...and the only way I could really "drive myself sane" was to get as much of that demon mother's influence out of my system as I could. I'm still working at it. Every day. Funny...I told my husband today, when he asked me what it would mean for me to be "free of it" (my history and its effects), "I would have my mind to myself."
Another thing I've consciously done (and this has been hard at times!!) is to remember good moments with my mother, because they did exist.
There seems to be a whole other level of mind-f***ing that happens when a mother abuses her child...
Best,
Roo:smile:
Thornyrose, it's funny...I can't pin down a person or a moment that was decisive in my releasing of so much rage and hatred towards my mother...it was years and years and years of work...and the influence of some incredible people.
*********************************
...I came to understand that my mother was hauling along so much unhealed crap from her own life...that she had serious, chronic mental illnesses...and that in the last 15 years of her life, she really tried to turn things around. I came to see how she had suffered. I never trusted her; never let her in. Couldn't; too much damage done to me very early in life. So I decided to live with what was; let it be good enough. I had no illusions about any intimacy or real rapport with her. Strangest thing...to be so out of synch with your mother.
I guess a key thing was to see her as more than my mother --> as a whole person in herself, with some history that had nothing to do with me, as a person who had been in her own hell. It took me a long time to be able to do this...there was a period of about five years when I was shredding a lot of telephone books and smashing a lot of dishes (that she gave me!) in her name :eek:
One of the hardest things I've had to learn is to be a good "mother" to myself...to take care of myself in the most basic, humane ways. Yikes. So much easier said than done :wink:
I guess, too, that getting so much rage, terror and grief out opened the way for other feelings to emerge...more natural feelings that are at the core of the heart -- empathy, compassion, sadness for her own suffering. I'll never condone certain of her actions and beliefs towards me...she's marked me for life, it seems (I hope not). But I came to see that she was more than the "demon mother" of my childhood...and the only way I could really "drive myself sane" was to get as much of that demon mother's influence out of my system as I could. I'm still working at it. Every day. Funny...I told my husband today, when he asked me what it would mean for me to be "free of it" (my history and its effects), "I would have my mind to myself."
Another thing I've consciously done (and this has been hard at times!!) is to remember good moments with my mother, because they did exist.
There seems to be a whole other level of mind-f***ing that happens when a mother abuses her child...
Best,
Roo:smile:
