Oh, The Pain, it Comes..

I can see this will be a process.  I can see there will be more pain.  It's behind little doors you don't realize are there until they are opened.

Today I was asking a colleague how her bathroom renovation is going.  She and I both have basement showers that are rotting out.  She has been gutting the tub and surround herself, which is exactly what I plan to do with ours in the coming months.  As she told me about how it was all going, she kept mentioning her dad.  The guidance she was getting from him.  How much he wanted to help and would do it all for her if she would let him.  A shot of pain ran through me, without warning.  My dad will never help me with a renovation again.  He won't even call to see how I'm doing..  If I am not willing to allow my abusive mother to continue to wreak havoc and create chaos in my life, I don't get to have a dad either.  If feels unfair.  It feels twisted.

I always believed that I had to put up with whatever she dished out.  That I wasn't allowed to have my own life.  That I wasn't allowed peace as long as she had a say in my life.  What I am realizing now, is that I was completely right.  I wasn't allowed those things.  Not if I wanted to have a father.  Not if I cared if people think I am a good person.  Not if I wasn't ready to orphan myself.  No @#$%# wonder I didn't think there was a way out.  The way out took me 38 years to accept, because the way out was unthinkable.  And now, the unthinkable is so much healthier than all of the fights and chaos ahead if I stay in her life.  Knowing that one of the hardest things you can possibly do has become the best option you have makes you realize how deeply dysfunctional it has all been.  How long I thought her happiness was more important than my own and that I owed it to her to let her cause destruction, anger and fear in my heart.  How much I felt responsible for her and her happiness.  And most certainly for her unhappiness.  So many years of living in guilt, fear, anger.  She actually brought gifts after fights.  Just like an abusive husband or boyfriend might.  Sometimes I have wished that her abuse was physical so that people wouldn't think I was responsible to keep taking it.  So that they could see it.  She would never, ever show that awful side of herself around others.  Only me, my dad and my brother got that side of her.  If her abuse resulted in black eyes, maybe I would have gotten out long ago.  Maybe her own wounds wouldn't be an acceptable reason to harm me.  Maybe as a child when I tried to reach out for help and she put a swift end to that, the school would have kept on digging.  Maybe she herself would have seen what she was doing.  Maybe others would have understood why I was so defensive around her, rather than thinking I was the problem for flinching so much and growing defensive.

If it wasn't for having a daughter of my own, I don't think I would have ever seen leaving as an option.  My daughter now has to come before my mother.  I have one chance to be the best mother I can be.  One chance to not spend weeks every couple of months torn up over fights that only ever have and only ever will go in destructive circles.  I am very, very grateful to finally have the clarity to know that I cannot allow that relationship if I want the cycle to stop.