Working Through It

Yesterday I had my second counselling session.  It felt like such a relief to let some of it out again.  It felt like a relief to be in a room that is meant for that.

The two most impactful things that happened in that room yesterday were:

1.  She told me that it would not be appropriate for Ivy to be in my mom's life unless/until she can maintain a healthy relationship with me.  I don't know why I need permission for keeping Ivy from my mom, but I do.  I have been questioning all of my own decisions and assessments so much these days.  It felt so good to hear a professional say that it is an appropriate course right now to keep going exactly as I am as far as contact with my mom goes.  She encouraged me several times to stay the course in that way and when I referred to Ivy as an anchor that kept me from opening the door back up to my mom (which I desperately want to some days), she was supportive of me not opening the door and glad that Ivy served as an anchor to stop me from giving myself the relief that that move has always provided (the easiest part of our cycle where we leave the struggle behind and things are okay for awhile).

2.  She asked me if I am struggling with guilt or shame.  I realized what a distinct difference there is in those two things and also realized that I struggle with both.

It has been hard to define what I am feeling.  I was trying to ask a question and her answer kept telling me that I wasn't asking the right question.  The answer she was giving was one I knew, and the answer to what I really wanted to ask, I do not know.  I tried again and I don't think I even knew until that moment what I was struggling with so much.  I asked her if by angering with my mom and being a part of it in that way, what was my role in it?  How dysfunctional am I?

Our cycle always seemed to have a very similar theme to it.  There was something that my mom wanted to control or there would be a boundary I was requesting that she was resisting.  She would try to achieve a change in my feelings/decision/actions/request of boundary by shaming me and/or stating that my request for a boundary did not come from a valid place.  There was no problem.  Or I was the problem. Or where there was no way to deny the problem, I just needed to get over it, and she would deflect that problem and her responsibility in it by bringing up a host of things that were her go-to for when there was no where else to go.  Over the last few years, those things usually included comments about my husbands family, comments about how everyone has to get help because of me, telling me my brother had to see a therapist and told them that he feels like a bad person and like he doesn't deserve love (she never outright said that it was because of me, but the inclusion of that statement always right after telling me that everyone has to get help because of me always suggested that to me), a comment or two suggesting that other people feel the same way as her (i.e.; "Aunty Dar and I just didn't know what to make of your invitation to Ivy's birthday" or "we were all talking about it and none of us could believe that you didn't say goodbye to your brother at Ivy's Christening").  Always in a bewildered, innocent, concerned or disapproving tone.  I would usually know that she was not being truthful in stating things like that, but even still, that line began to blur by the end and she had me believing that many people do take issue with me over things that probably only she really cares about.

Weeks or months would go by while the tension between us would build.  I would begin to pull away.  My pulling away would ignite the worst behaviour from her, she would start pulling out all the stops.  At the worst of times, she would bring other people into the fold and begin to manipulate other people's perception of me or willingness to see me if she couldn't.  There were times she would refuse to see my daughter (each time in protest of not getting to baby-sit) and at those times, she made other people feel guilty if they saw her.  The more I would try to distance myself, the less she would let it go.  The phone calls, texts and emails would increase.  Eventually, I would feel so trapped and upset and it would become too much for me.  At that point, usually there would come a time where I would confront her and I would do it from a place of feeling trapped and angry.  I would try to hold her accountable to what she had been doing.  She would deny, deflect, invalidate, etc. Every time it came to the point of confrontation, I would go into it committing to myself to remain calm, not let her get to me and just firmly state my boundaries and get out of there.  Almost every time, I would fail.  She would act completely bewildered, tell me she was concerned about me and that she thinks I need help, she would accept responsibility for her actions in a way that would make me look completely irrational (i.e. I'm sorry, you father and I thought that keeping medications that are in childproof containers up on the second shelf was okay.  I made a mistake, my bad!" - when the whole fight was about leaving heavy duty medications in flip top lids right on the counter time and time again after excessive requests not to, baggies with pills in them in the medicine cabinet, pill bottles with the lids not even on, and plenty of additional medications all on the bottom shelf, well within my daughter's reach).  She would make me feel like my reality did not exist and that she was bewildered about what this was all about.  That months of tensions mounting was all over something that I must have imagined or just simply don't remember right.  Some things she would just deny.  "I didn't hang up on Chris on Ivy's birthday!!  I called and sang happy birthday to her!"  I would eventually just lose it in frustration and I would yell at her.  I would say all the same things, but I would yell them.  She would often at that point do things like hit herself over and over saying she was stupid.  She would yell back at me, "I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY!! WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT ME TO SAY?  I WAS AN AWFUL MOTHER.  I SHOULD JUST GO AWAY!!"  This was the point where she would sometimes yell that she had been abused and secure her place as a victim.  At the worst of times, she would threaten to kill herself.  She would end up in the bathroom with the door closed, wailing.

After those encounters, we usually wouldn't speak for awhile.  Our contact would be limited for about a week usually and then she would start contacting me wanting to just act like things are okay again and I would eventually give in and let it get brushed under, unresolved.  I would feel guilty for having hurt her and taken her to the edge like that and that guilt would make me let go of whatever I had been fighting for.

These encounters have been a regular occurrence since the time I have been pregnant with my daughter.  They were a regular occurrence at other times of my life as well, but they have not been as bad as the last 3 years since I lived at home.  They have become like clockwork.  The whole cycle usually would take about 3 months or less to run its course and it would happen over and over and over.  Now, standing on the outside of it for a couple of months, I need to know what part of that dysfunction is mine to own.  I don't think I can find peace until I do.

I am so grateful to have the space and support to go through this.  I am ready to tackle it.  It is scary, but I know this will sink me if I do not dig very very deep and get rid of what I never truly realized had seeped in so much - shame.

I'm Ready

I have been ruminating too much.  It keeps me up at night and it is not productive.  Yesterday I had lunch with a friend and talked, let it out of my head and into the air and felt such a difference.

I am trying to look at when it is the hardest and why.  When I am alone, it is the hardest.  When my husband is home, it feels easier.  When I talk about it, I get some relief.  I am realizing I need a structured plan in place.  I can't let days and weeks go by without letting it out.

I think I avoid writing when things feel the worst.  I don't know why.  I find it easier to write when I have moments I can find some beauty in.  Writing from the hardest places seems scary.  Talking from those places is easier.  So, I need to talk more.  I need to try to write even when I don't think I can find beauty in what I have to say.  I need to find a good therapist who can see me through the next couple of years.  It is not going to be easy.  I never thought I could do it.  I can't say it is easier than I thought it would be.

I keep comparing how I feel to an emotional prison.  When my mom was in my life, I often felt trapped.  It felt like I couldn't live my life in peace with her in it and I knew that the weight, the pain and the guilt of cutting her out of my life could possibly sink me.  It left me feeling like I had nowhere to go.  Over my daughters first 3 years, I began to see that I had yet another anchor that was working a hook into me.  I was allowing dysfunction into my household and it was affecting my daughter and if I were to allow myself to be in denial about that, I would be repeating the cycle and I know I can't live with that.

So now I sit, on the other side of the prison wall, still trapped and I know that it will be up to me if I stay there.  I don't expect to feel free now, but I need to get there.  I need to work so hard to get through this.  To deal with the grief and the guilt and free myself somehow.  I know better than to think that you can sacrifice more than you can afford without your child paying a price.  If I can't move through this, despite my best intentions, my daughter still loses.  I want her to have a childhood free of adult issues.  I want her to have a mother she doesn't feel responsible for.  A mother she knows is happy and strong.

These days, it doesn't feel like I am moving through it.  It feels like I am staying in the same spot and I need to change that.  I am ready to deal with it. Head on.  And I need help.

So, today I will start looking for that help.  The counsellor I have now is covered by the province but is also limited to 8 sessions.  Session #2 is tomorrow.  I have to find someone who can see me through this longer term.  Someone amazing.

Grace

Over the holidays we went to BC to see my husband's family.  His grandfather is sick.  He won't be getting better and we have been meaning to go for years.  So we went.  So that my husband could see his grandpa one more time and introduce him to our daughter.

We flew to Terrace and then drove from there.  We drove through the mountains after a lot of snowfall and the beauty of it kept lifting away the heaviness of the days before.  The excessive gifts from my mom with notes attached "Why me?", little frowning faces, question marks, hopes that I could work through my troubles, etc.   I just looked out the window, astounded at the beauty before me and allowed the miles between there and home wash over me.  It felt like a relief to be so far away.

When we arrived at Gran's house, I could tell it was worse than we thought.  She was out of sorts.  She couldn't really be present with us.  She was losing her husband.

As our short visit progressed, I asked Gran how she met her husband.  They met at a party.  She wasn't interested in him, it was her sister that seemed to hit it off with him.  But that didn't work out, and they just kept running into each other at parties and ending up together.  I wanted to get some stories from her about them for my husband.  His Grandpa was not able to communicate the way we hoped and I wanted Chris to come away with something to hold onto.  His gran instead began to tell us what an abusive relationship it was.  Without getting into details, she made it clear that he had hurt her in many ways.  For decades.  Right up until he was diagnosed with cancer, at which point he quit drinking, which had always been the trigger of the abusive behaviour.

It was hard to hear her talk about it all.  Hard because I knew it was hurting Chris and hard because it was a lifetime of pain, all just spilling out as if it couldn't stay in.  She was about to lose him, and she was still hurting from all he had done.  What struck me was that she was still there.  She didn't want to be away from him.  She wanted to go back to the hospital and once she was there, she didn't want to leave.  She loves him so much.  She is loyal still.

Everywhere we went, I saw the same things.  Evidence of abusive cycles.  Some having improved, some having ended, some continuing on and being passed to a new generation right before our eyes.   But everywhere, I could see it.  I could feel it.  Sadness.  Anger mellowed out into other things.  Fear.  Loss.  Tragedy.  So much more than I have been through, and still they were there for each other.  Maybe not as much as I think.  Maybe a snapshot is not enough to tell.  Maybe I don't know if it's good or bad, but I just felt something I can't easily access.  I don't know what it is..  Acceptance maybe?  Grace for one another, despite it all.  I wondered at how they were all still in it together.  All at their different stages of recovery and abuse.  They all still gathered together.  And I can't.  I fear running into my mom at the grocery store.  I don't know what that makes me feel.  I don't know if that break in me is what saves me or if that will be where I one day will feel weakest.

I remember when I first met her and saw this photo hanging in her dining room, I saw quiet strength.  I was relieved to find it downstairs when I didn't see it when we arrived this time.  When I see this photograph now, I still see strength, but I also see vulnerability.  Sadness.  I see acceptance of harder things in life than I have ever known.  I see all she was holding on her shoulders.  I see grace.  I think I saw it all last time too, but didn't know why.

By the time we were leaving, I could tell that she didn't want us to go.  I didn't really want to go either.  I felt like there was something I needed to learn from her.  From all of them.  I wasn't ready to come home.  Part of me wanted to change our trip.  Be there when my husband's grandpa dies.  Go to the funeral.  See how they love.  See how they grieve.  Try to understand how you get through it all.

We came back as planned.  My dad came by on New Year's Day.  I wasn't home, but called him back.  It felt so good to hear his voice. It was the best gift I got.

Here is to Peace

It is strange to enter a new year in the midst of such a difficult transition.  I am used to the new year being a time for that feeling of a clean slate.  I am trying to feel that, but I have to admit it is muddied by the situation with my mom.  I know there is more to come.  I dreamt of her last night.  I dream of her relatively often these days and it is always the same.  I am leaving and she is doing all she can to make me feel as low as she can in hopes that maybe she can break me into staying.  It's the only way she knows.

In the spirit of the new year, I will say that the past few days I have been feeling a slight improvement in my ability to see that it had to end.  Not one of those days that my mind gives me a break and I feel relieved and free for a bit.  Just a slight lessening in the things I struggle with about it.  The slightness about it makes me feel like it is the kind of change that stays.  I tend to torture myself a bit, questioning if I am just too sensitive. If it really was my fault, if I brought it on myself by not just going along with her.  By not just giving in a little more often.  'Other people are able to have her in their life without this happening, maybe it is me' kinds of thoughts..  And it is true, I fought her more.  I didn't do what she wanted.  I stood my ground while others gave in.  But I know in my heart that I had to fight for myself.  No one else was and I don't know who I would be if I had tried to be who she wanted.  It is this kind of thinking that has lessened, just a bit.  I am grateful.

So as I enter a new year, I want to try to be kind to myself.  Gentle on myself.  I can tell even in typing that that there is a part of me that doesn't believe I deserve that because of what my mom is going through and how I feel responsible.  So, I will work on it.  I will try to take into my heart what those who are closest to me tell me - I am not doing this to her.  She has created her life and I am not responsible for her happiness or sadness.  It's a tough one but I am going to try to get there.

So, here is to quiet. Here is to kindness.  Here is to forgiveness.  Here is to peace..

Happy New Year :)

Only I can set me free..

I know that I hold the key.  It is not up to my mom to set me free.  It is not up to my aunt or my dad.  My friends and husband try, but I have to find it inside of myself.  I will admit that it helps that my friends and husband see something that I don't always see.  They see a black and whiteness to it that I only see intermittently.

Those days when it is clear, feel like freedom.  They feel like sunshine through a window.  I can tell on those days that I hold the key.  I have a degree of peace knowing that it is there, but also some fear about whether I will keep dropping it over and over.  How long before I know how to hold on to it.  How long before I will set myself free?

When it is not clear, I think of her eyes.  I think of how much she must be hurting.  I think of how much she has been hurt to be the way she is now.  And I think about how she doesn't understand how I could do this and how much I have broken my own mother's heart.  Inside of those moments, those days, she has me.  I am back in the guilt of it all.  I am feeling responsible for her.  I am questioning if I just didn't handle things better and failed her.

And maybe that is okay that she has me at those times.  It probably can't be any other way if you are to grieve and heal properly.  If I were to be able to walk away without looking back, I think I would be headed for trouble.  If I were to be able to instantly know how to not feel things that I have felt for so many years, I would hold the great secret to life.

And so I need to surrender.  This year is coming to it's close soon and I will enter the new year with that word in my heart.  Surrender.  To the grief.  To the sadness.  To her eyes.  To my pain.  Eventually and intermittently on my way, I will surrender to those beautiful moments of sweet relief and happiness.

This World Was Made for Dreaming

The last few mornings I have been getting up before my daughter, pouring my coffee and sitting to enjoy the peace of early morning with the dog's head resting on my leg.  I have been listening on repeat to my favourite song these days.  It's called Morning Sun.  A few lines from it:  Honey, child, let me tell you now child.  That morning sun is here to greet us with a loving light so warm.  That morning sun is here to meet us.  Waiting on the waking up of everyone.  Let me tell you child, let me tell you honey child.  That morning sun has come to greet you.  She's peeking round the corner just waiting just to meet you.  Shining down on all your troubles.  Let me tell you child, let me tell you honey, child.  This world was made for dreaming.  This world was made for you.  This world made for believing in all the things you're gonna do.  Let me tell you, Child.

What I want most as a mother is to never forget that this world was made for dreaming.  That a child should wake up to this feeling and that it is my job to sing this right into her heart. 

These days, my life is splitting away.  Away from the comfort of what I know.  Even with all of the trouble, even with all of the pain, my mother was still comfort.  She is my mother.  I can't think of many more powerful words than 'mother'.  I am grieving for the loss of that comfort.  Grieving her losses as well.  It brings with it so many things that are so uncomfortable and feel so raw.  I want it back so badly.  

But then I sit in the morning and feel the peace of that morning sun coming up.  I feel the space around me, the space a friend described to me recently as a new thing she is seeing.  Despite all I am feeling, she sees a light in me.  She told me that it's like I'm dope sick.  That I'm feeling awful, but getting clean.  I now understand why people go back to things that are not good for them.  The good things have them believing so deeply in their heart that the bad parts are worth it, all for just a taste of the good.  

And so, that song just keeps playing and each morning I let myself hear it sung to me.  To the child I was.  I give that child a chance to just hear it and know.  That morning sun was for me too.  This world was made for dreaming, this world was made for me too.  

And then my daughter wakes, and in my heart, I have even more room to sing it to her.  And I know that she feels the sunshine of my love for her.  And I know that I can't go back.  No matter how badly I want those mornings with my own mother, all those ones that were good.  

Tiny Jolts

The reality of it hits me intensely some days.  It feels like blades in my stomach.  My heart seems to stop for slight moments, tiny jolts. The last few days have been hard..  I don't feel that the decision is wrong, it just feels awful.  The guilt and empathy for what my mom is going through is rivalling the relief of being safe from her contact.  All of that, and I still feel angry to top it all off, ugh.  What a mess of emotions.  I feel angry that even though she abused me, even though she isolated people away from me, even though she has shamed me my whole life whenever it pleased her, and even though it all had lasting effects on me that I am still now trying to sort through, I still feel like I am the one doing wrong by closing the door to any more of it.

I wish so much that she could stop being a destructive force in my life or that I could grow the ability to let it all roll off.  I have wished for the ability to let it roll off for so many years. Sometimes I succeed.  The problem is, I can let it roll off at first, and then it doesn't let up and eventually I just can't anymore.  If she doesn't get what she wants, she takes it up notch by notch until she has engaged a reaction and then continues even still until that reaction turns into awful fights between us.  She just can't let go of whatever she wants from me.  Not if I reason, beg, negotiate - nothing works.  It has gotten so twisted and sick sometimes, I just need it to stop. Not for a few months.  Not even for a year.  I think I need years before I could handle it with a thicker skin.  I need to begin healing and not keep ripping a scab off just as it begins to form..

I have begun to realize that all of the years that I wished for the ability to let it roll off was not the best wish.  It wasn't a co-worker who didn't like my outfit or a rude salesperson who was upsetting me.  It was a parent who abused their power.  A parent who bullied me and made me feel like I was not enough.  Who tried to shame me into being what she wanted.  An abusive cycle that continued into my adult years, the guilt, shame and punishment she bestows until we end up in total destruction.  I don't want to be someone who can let that kind of abuse be okay in my life.

The other side of her is beautiful.  A caring, wonderful woman who would do anything for anyone.  A proud mother who celebrates the things she loves about her kids.  It's why I never thought I was allowed to close the door on her, even though the abusive side of her didn't ever stop resurfacing long.  She is a good person.  She doesn't mean to be this way.  I have come to realize that someone who is abusive is not a bad person.  Nobody means to be an abuser.  They are people who have been deeply wounded themselves who are doing the best they can.  She always has said this to me.  I did the best I could.  I believe that.

Her best is still too hard to bear, at least for me.. which is heartbreaking.  For me and for her.  At this point I truly don't believe I can keep my mom in my life and protect my daughter from the dysfunction of that relationship.  I do hope that one day I can have my mom in my life and my family's life.  If one day, distance could create the boundary she seems capable of with with other people.  I want that so badly.

I understand why people worry that if they ever came forward about a family member abusing them, people won't believe them.  I feel exactly that way.  People see the caring wonderful person that they are and can't accept that there are other behaviour patterns that exist that they aren't seeing.  Maybe they know there are issues, but they think it’s limited to her depression.  They don't see the darkest side.  That side is a secret that is well guarded.  I'm so painfully aware of that and have always operated under the pressure of that secret.  I once tried to share some of it with a family member.  They no longer spend time around me.  They felt that they were betraying her or upsetting her by having a relationship with me independent of my mom.  The stuff I shared didn't result in support from them, it feels almost like it just made them feel uncomfortable to hear it and they don't want to be disloyal by supporting me.  It hurts that the only person in the extended family I have ever opened up to didn't stand by me.

A friend recently pointed out to me that for years I have told her that "when things are good, she's amazing".  She said I have talked like a battered wife for years.  I truly understand why abusive relationships go on for so many years.  The good times make you feel like you owe it to them to stick it out.  In cases where the pressure to keep them happy is enough, you feel like if you were to leave, they might kill themselves.  You don't think they will let you leave without more destruction than staying causes.  You know they struggle with mental health issues and that makes you feel insensitive to not be willing to just accept the abuse.  You know that some of the people you care about the most don't believe you have the right to leave.  That one is so hard for me.

I need to focus on what I do have.  I have such a strong little support network of people who do not accept my mom's behaviour as acceptable just because she is my mom.  People who are rallying around me to support me and encourage me that what I am doing is not wrong or crazy.  I am so grateful for this.  I am also grateful to have found a wonderful source of support and validation through an amazing woman's YouTube channel dealing with similar issues.  I don't think I could have handled this decision at all if it were not for hearing her experiences, warmth and complete understanding about the struggles of having a mother with issues like my moms and the difficult decision to not be in her life.  Hearing her story was the first time I ever realized that I am not the only one, and that I can hopefully find peace.    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmgr8VRf_N60ohSmSByL40A.