It's time to accept it..

It's been awhile since I wrote.  I think I needed a break.  The heaviness is less heavy.  The stress is still very much there, but the weight of it is just more manageable.   I needed to just ride that for a bit.  Not speak of it or write of it while I enjoyed these sporadic moments of relief.

In speaking with my aunt, I stepped closer to peace.  I suspect it's still a ways off, but I think I have found it in certain moments.  I need to accept that I will never feel good about it.  It will never not hurt.  It's never going to be easy to see posts about moms on Facebook or see other moms and daughters, especially of similar age to my mom and I.   There will always be things that trigger memories of her that cause a missing that stops me in my tracks.  That breaking of my heart may be an eternal echo through vacant halls and halls of memories I wish I could climb back into.  There will always be times where I allow myself to wander down those halls and remember her.  I wish I could take those good times and sew together something that made her better.  Something that stopped her brain from whatever causes it.

It's getting easier to see.  I still admit to some far off hope that one day we can maintain some kind of healthy agreeable relationship, though I know that it is not realistic.  She will not get better.  She will not learn not to hurt us.  She wouldn't have sent those awful Xmas cards if she was gaining any clarity or seeing progress that could lead us back together.   She would have stopped when we were children if she could have.  It's like there is something that is scrambled in her brain and when it's triggered, there is no accountability or concern for what damage is causes.  And that is because she doesn't consciously know it has happened.

And so I accept that there is an alternate reality out there.  It is her reality.  Where this is all out of nowhere.  Where it is because she did too much.  She was too good to me, and through all of that spoiling, I lost the ability to appreciate her.  Where I am betraying her.  Where I have turned.  Where she doesn't know where she went wrong.  Where I must be ill.  Where she hopes that one day I can see the error of my ways and stop doing this to her.  And that reality is the story she will share, when she eventually can't pretend anymore to those around her that she is still in our lives.  She will say I went off the deep end.  And she will be my victim.  And they will believe her.  And I finally accept that.  I finally feel like I don't have one toe in her reality where I feel the accountability to her version.  I finally feel less swayed by her story.  It is just that.  A story.

Out of my head and into the air

I finally talked to my aunt.  It went better than I could have expected and she gave me the gift of some peace.  Acceptance of where we are at.  I don't know if that will last, it's hard for me to stay there, I suspect she will slip back into thinking that we should be allowing my mom access to our daughter.  But now the conversation exists.

I opened up to her.  A lot.  I was never allowed to talk about what went on in our house.  To tell someone who was in our life so much and had no idea of some of the stuff that was happening felt good.  It felt healthy.  It felt like letting light come into dark places.

It also stirred up some stuff in me.  I spoke of memories that I don't like to revisit.  My aunt talked about some of the things my mom has said.  Right after that meeting with my aunt and over the days that followed, I felt a lot of relief but it feels like some of the things I talked about and the things I learned are closing in on me.  She asks my aunt to drive by our house with her.  That means she is definitely driving by on her own.  She said she is googling 'grandparent rights'.  I don't know what she is going to do to ramp things up, but I feel like something is coming.   She also told me about my mom's versions of some things.  One of the things that bothered me most was that she tells my aunt that while I say I didn't want to be in dance class for 8 years, that I was pushed too hard and wanted out, the truth is that it was a different story when I won trophies.  Then I was all smiles.  My aunt conveyed a smugness when she said it that I can only guess is conveying the spirit behind my mom's words when she speaks of it.  It makes me angry.  She wouldn't speak to me when I didn't place high enough.  I was a disappointment and a letdown then.  Of course I smiled when I did anything that got her approval.  And that aside, of course I smiled if I won a competition.  Feeling pushed, feeling pressured to win, pressured to be the best, feeling intimidated by my teacher, not liking dance, etc. - none of that should mean that I shouldn't be allowed to feel good about doing well when I did well.  In the years that I had lost love for it, there were not many trophies.  I was allowed a smile when there was one.

It's hard knowing how much she is obsessing. She is applying a lot of pressure to my dad to contact me and ask to let her visit.  She has pressured my aunt as well.  She confirmed that my mom asked for the email I sent.  That she handed her her iPad and sent my aunt on a mission at xmas to get photos and videos of Ivy for her.  This I knew, but still hearing it adds some weight to it.  My aunt says that my mom keeps saying to her and my dad that they must know more that they are not telling her.

My aunt also spoke of a time my mom was committed to the psych ward, before my brother and I were around.  My mom has referenced this, quite a lot in recent years.  She doesn't say anything about it other than that she tried to kill herself and spent a month there.  My aunt said that the doctors had thought she may be schizophrenic.  While I don't think that she is (though I do think she has a personality disorder), it gives me a bit of relief to hear that that long ago, a professional has seen issues that seem to be invisible to so many people.  Things that she keeps in check around most people.

All of it feels so heavy again.  I felt such relief a few days after talking to my aunt.  An intense, beautiful relief.  It took me that long to have the relief truly set in and then it was gone so quickly.  That talk with my aunt has been something that I have been feeling the need to do for so long, it was always this future conversation that would hang over my head.  I so needed it to be over, and now it is and I'm still struggling so much.

Maybe more relief will come.  I really hope it will.  Maybe I am just having a hard day.  It was a challenging day with my daughter.  My husband is gone on another long trip after only being home briefly after a long trip.  I feel a bit overwhelmed.  I hope that tomorrow will be better..

"It's Wrong"

My dad called again this weekend. He wanted to know if they could come for a visit.  I get this call every few weeks.  Each time I say that he is welcome, but I am not ready to allow visits with my mom.  This time I was more clear.  "It is your choice to stay away dad".  He said, "No, we're being told.".  I reminded him that I have been consistently clear that he and my aunt are welcome to visit.  His response was "It's wrong".  Two powerful words to the daughter who is trying so hard to stop feeling like it's wrong to put an end to the dysfunctional cycle I have known my whole life.

It made me angry.  I feel angry still.  So many things have been "wrong".  And my dad never said a word.  He never spoke up.  Nobody did.  Nobody ever came to me as a kid to say, "It's wrong".   Nobody ever told me it wasn't my fault or that I didn't deserve it.  That it was going to be okay.

It was wrong.  He was wrong.  Wrong to not come home after work.  Wrong to lie.  Wrong to hide booze around the house.  Wrong to smash his car while drunk.  Wrong to need a babysitter.  Wrong to scare his kids.

And her.  All the yelling.  Screaming.  Shaming.  Bullying.  Crying.  Smashing.  Threats.  It was wrong.  He didn't say a word about that either.  It was my job as their kid to take it all in.  And it is my job now to continue to.  And if I don't, if I can't, that is wrong.  And if I ever stood up for myself, that was wrong too.  You're not supposed to speak out against a parent.  You're supposed to take it.

After all the things that were wrong, I never once heard him stand up and say a word.  He took it.  Her abuse.  Let her abuse us.  Never stood up to say that anything was wrong, ever.  Until two years ago, he made sure I knew I was wrong to not speak to her then.  And again now.  My only experience of my father standing up for anything was to stand up against me.

So I have let them both down.  The anger makes me think I don't care, but the charge that runs through my body tells me that I do.  If I didn't care, it wouldn't affect me.  I want to not care.  I feel angry because every time I finally feel some relief, he calls and I go back to fight or flight.

I want to disconnect completely.  I want it to be over.  I'm so sick of disappointing them.  Being in their life is like shooting craps.  Will I land on pride or disappointment.  I never know.  Every time I play, it switches.  We're so proud.  You're breaking our hearts.  Disappointment was always such a part of my relationship with my mom because she was always so vocal about it.  What I never realized was how much my dad agreed.  Not saying anything was his silent support for everything she did. All those years that I thought he silently felt for me and sympathized with how she treated me, he didn't.  He silently condemned me for standing up for myself.  He never thought she was wrong.  Only me.

I was a kid.  I needed him to say it was wrong then.  I was just a kid.  I get to say enough now.  Enough.