And So It Is..

The meeting is over.  She came with arrows.  She came broken.  Shaking.  Angry.  Hurt.

Her reality is that I have hurt her.  I have destroyed her.  My reality is still tied to her to an unsettling  extent and so my reality is somewhat the same.  But I am working hard to try and feel it differently.

I heard something today and immediately realized that I still have a core belief that I am responsible for her.  It was phrased about a child who sits on their parents lap, and with proper nurturing and reassurance, they will feel secure and first crawl, then walk away from their parent, to explore and discover and they will know that their parent is there and they are safe.  They can remain bonded and break away at the same time.  But if the parent garners their nurturing from the child (instead of the other way around), the child does not feel that they can break away safely.  They want their parent to be okay and they know that they have to sacrifice something of themselves to keep their parent intact.  I related immediately.  I think I fall into all three of the categories that she mentioned can happen as a result.  The first is the one, who in order to have safety and security, they have to give up a part of themselves.  Another is the one who tries to break away, but in relationships in the future, when intimacy increases, desire decreases because in their primary relationship with a parent, love and connection came with an extra burden.  And the last, the child breaks away and never comes back, but despite living a passionate life, they have little stability.  In my childhood, I was the first two, and some strong hints of the 3rd.  Now in my adult life, I am the 3rd and I hope that I am reaching that late enough in life to maintain stability.  It amazes me to see such a link between my childhood and my lack of structure throughout much of my adult years, as well as my resistance to true intimacy.  I hope that I can work on these things and move into a healthier, more secure place as a partner to my husband.  I do feel that that is what is next for me.  I want to be a better wife.  He so deserves more of me than is currently available to him.

As for my mom..  The door is remaining closed.  It is harder than I expected.  I feel no relief.  I don't know what to expect next and I don't feel secure as a result.  I worry that I will never feel free, but I keep trying to remind myself that I have felt some freedom through NC, and I just need to trust that I will be okay, even if she is not.  Right now, I know that I am not okay because she is not.  I want to change that, but it is bigger than me.  No matter what I do, it is there.  This "not okay-ness".  She isn't okay and so I can't be either.  I can't un-tie myself from her.  I am like a tin can tied to the back of a car being driven by someone who shouldn't be driving, but they tied me there so tight I can't seem to loosen the knot.  Sometimes I can get it untied but she finds it and ties it up again.  My thoughts are completely in tact and I know all of the things wrong with this situation, but I can't control it from my position behind the car.  I just keep hoping that by the time I get the string to give way again, the accumulated damage won't be too much.  I feel like I can recover again, but I don't know how many more times.

I realized last night as I struggled with sleep again, I don't like calling her my mom anymore.  She is beginning to feel more foreign to me.  She isn't what the word 'mother' means to me in my heart. That feels like a betrayal, but that goes back to the beginning..