Holy Crap

I participate in a support forum for people with family member's who have personality disorders.  Tonight I saw a girl ask if she was becoming abusive because she was standing up to her mom.  The answer seemed obvious to me, after reading what she is going through - absolutely not.  But while posting a response, I realized that if I were to ever open up the door to my mom again, any role I would play in any fight we had going forward, I would view differently now.  I have come to realize over the last year or so how grateful I am that I was able to fight for myself (despite so often wishing I could just let it all roll off) because it kept me from letting her convince me that I am not enough, that I am not worthy of love.  Fighting was a survival mechanism.

But now that I got away from her, I can see that fighting was never going to end it.  So now, if I go back, it's on me.  I can't justify one more fight.  I know better now.  I wish I had known it earlier.  But I know it now.   Fighting can no longer be a survival mechanism.  Fighting is what you do to survive an encounter, not a relationship for decades.

And now I have the answer to that question that I had asked my counsellor all those months ago.  What was my role in the dysfunction?  My role was defence and self preservation back then.  It was all I knew and I had no idea how to untangle myself from that relationship so that I wouldn't have to fight.  But now, if I were to engage in any more fighting, I would be responsible for any hurt I caused by defending myself.  Because it is now my responsibility to stay away from a flame that I know will burn me, rather than keep going in for more and then feeling justified in what I need to do to protect myself.

Holy crap.

Sunshine and Falling Leaves

I slept well last night.  I woke up and cleaned the kitchen.  And it was easy.  It has been feeling nearly impossible to do it every day. I have been using all the energy I have to take care of my daughter, work and cope with the stress of my family situation.  Today, I found energy for more.  

As I drove to an appointment, I listened to a song about leaving. I felt happy and sad all at once.  I felt cathartic and realized how far away from cathartic I have felt for so long.  I don't expect the pain to be gone, but I am grateful to feel it mellow.

I felt comfortable like I had just had a hot bath or a massage.  The morning sunlight on the changing leaves made everything so vibrant.

I showed a house that felt like the west coast to me.  I knew suddenly that we could find a home we love out there.  I felt closer to ready.

I thought about what makes me happy.

My husbands company, my daughter's laugh, sunshine in the mornings, good coffee, good music, fall, rain, cloudy days, fireplaces, space around me, the smell of cut vegetables, raw garlic, cooking, writing, trees, bon fires, friends, work that makes me happy, mild winter days, hoar frost, snow falling softly, art, the sky, a good book, laughter.

Can I find all of that out there?  I think...  absolutely.

And The Head and The Heart sings, "Been talking about the way things change.  And my family lives in a different state.  And if you don't know what to make of this, then we will not relate".

Home For a Rest

3 days ago my husband called my dad.  He told him that it stops here.  That if he needs to communicate anything with us, he can call my husband.  No more showing up.  He told him that if he continues to show up, despite all of our communication about how upsetting it is and all of our requests that he stop, we will involve the police.  

It caused me some real anxiety for a few hours.  I kept having to push away this sick feeling, the same awful feeling I get every time we have to re-enforce our boundaries.  Where my stomach feels weird and my heart beats too fast.  And then I said to my husband, "that was the right call to make, right?" and he said it was absolutely the right call to make and it was long overdue.  I knew in my heart he was right.  I began to feel a bit lighter.  By bedtime, felt like I could breath easier.  The next day, I felt lighter still.  I fell playing with my daughter and injured my leg and still felt better.  I felt relieved that my problem that day was a hurt leg, not my parents coming at me.  Yesterday, I began to feel a bit free, like I did right after I shut down communication with my mom.  I got my first solid night of sleep in weeks.  

I know the hard parts aren't over, but I am just so grateful for a break.  I had been feeling less and less able to cope with it.  I feel so unbelievably relieved to know that my dad will not show up any time soon.  I am grateful to feel like I can relax in my own home.  

As much as I doubt our decision to move and feel uneasy about giving up our life here, this feeling let's me know that it will be worth it.  I want a life where they can't get to me.  I want a peaceful life.  

What I Really Believe

This morning I had this thought about how often I question if I am doing the right thing.  I thought, what if my whole life was riding on selecting the correct answer from the following options, how would I answer?

a) the things that have led me to become estranged (and stay estranged) from my family are valid concerns to want to protect my daughter from  

or

b)  I shouldn't be doing this to protect my daughter (and my husband and I) from the dysfunction of my family of origin - the reasons for it just are not enough to warrant this result.

What would I choose.  If everything was riding on it?  

I realized this morning that I would choose 'a'.  If I had to risk everything on the belief that I was doing the right thing, I would.  

I can't truly believe that I am supposed to allow it to continue and risk passing all of that anger and dysfunction on to the next generation.  I can't risk exposing my daughter to the fights, the manipulations, the lies, the hurt, the anger, etc.  I can't risk putting myself in a position that I have historically never been able to successfully keep from getting caught up in all of the anger and dysfunction.  I am her mother.  I am her protector.  I owe her the best I can do.  And as excruciating as this is, this is the only way to guarantee she won't see my mom in her low places telling her she would be better off without her, she won't be shamed for always loving someone else more, she won't feel responsible for whether my mom lives or dies, she won't feel guilty for letting my mom down when she doesn't do what my mom wanted.  She won't do what my mom wants out of fear of letting her down, out of fear of being responsible for her unhappiness.  She won't have people taken away from her when my mom's disordered behaviours cause people to take their distance from her time and time again.  She won't have to realize that she is just not as important as my mom to her grandpa and great aunt.  She will never feel the heartbreak of learning that she has disappointed her grandma.  She will never feel the shame of being told that she embarrassed her grandma.  She won't feel the effects of my mom doing all of the above to me and leaving me in a weakened position to parent from.

She will get to grow up free to be exactly who she is, without worrying that she will let her grandma down.  She will grow up without the weight of adult issues.  She will grow up in a household where holidays do not bring nasty phone calls, cards, emails or otherwise that take the wind out of her own mom's sails.  She will grow up without expectations of who she should be.  She will be loved if she is different.  The love she receives won't have a private dark side.

If my life was riding on it, I would bet my life that I am not supposed to expose her to a relationship that I know will continue to cause damage in our lives, will continue to take my best away so I have less to give her and will continue to perpetuate emotional manipulation of us and those around us.    There has been so much pressure on me to accept these things in my mom and I will not ever put pressure on her to be dutiful to a love that hurts so much.

Again

My dad came back again today.  My mom wants us to all sit down and talk this out.  I told him once again that the only way I will open the door to communication is if I hear from her psychiatrist that she believes she is showing enough progress to make a healthy relationship more possible.  I told him that I don't have it in me to be hurt by my family any more.  He once again turned it all on me, that I am the one hurting them.  That this is my fault.  I said he has just taken over for her, and that he is turning into her.  He threatened in a terse voice, "You better watch what you say".  I told him again that he's not welcome here and to stop coming.  I told him that where I stand with the family is clear.  That I feel hurt and abandoned by them.  I said the people who care about me would never do this to me and they are who my family is.  I said that he and my aunt say that they just let it roll off, but they don't.  They obey her.  They give in and that is not the same as letting things roll off.  If they could let it all roll off, they would be in our lives.  He said, well, that's just how things go.  I said, that's just how things go with mom.

I so badly need this to stop.  I told him I haven't slept well since the last time he came and he just laughed and said I'm not the only one not sleeping.  I said that she created this for herself and he scoffed at it and said I did.  

It Starts to Break

It's been getting hard to sleep again.  It's not just the no contact thing, it's a combination of being busy and ignoring those issues inside.  When I don't deal with my feelings about my estrangement from my family, they begin to grow ugly roots around my heart and I need to spend some time untangling it all.

This morning I listened to the song I listened to after leaving my mom's psychiatrist's office.  I let myself sit with my morning coffee and climb back into that grief so that I could let it out and accept it.  I don't know why it's so hard to just feel it the way it is, without all of the rumination and internal fight.  Without still battling her.  Or them.  Or me..

Today I had the space to just feel it.  The sadness.  The loss.  The grief.  It's all dancing inside of me like a hauntingly sad, silent ballet.  I feel relieved to finally feel it again.  The raw emotion.  Not the anger and the frustration and the guilt that seems to attach themselves so easily.  The pain that is where acceptance comes from.

I need now to accept that I have lost my aunt.  I have accepted that my brother and I will likely never have a relationship again.  I think I have grieved my dad.  I never expected him to protect me or to look out for me in any real way.  Plus his health has been declining for so long that I had already been preparing myself for loss.  My mom told me 15 years ago that he was showing signs of early Alzheimer's and I think I cried for two days solid (I don't know why she said it, she has also told me that she thinks she has Alzheimers).  When I found out his body was starting to shut down on him,  diabetes, arteries almost closed, little heart attacks and he kept on smoking and drinking, I grieved.  Ambulance calls, hospital stays and still he couldn't let go of his vices.  I cried and cried and cried.  I let go and let go.  Little did I know that all of that grieving would help me now.  My mom is like the rest of his vices.  He won't see how unhealthy it all is.  Even when faced with what seems like the worst.  He let go of his beer finally, but I can see now that it was only because he couldn't drink anymore without falling over.  He never did it for the better of our family.  He couldn't made choices like that and I can walk away from him easier because of that.  My mom always made me believe that everything she did was for our family and I couldn't see how selfish her choices really were, how mentally ill she really was because I was raised to see her the way she wanted to be seen.

So that's where I am at.  Still struggling to accept the loss of my aunt.  Beginning to accept the loss of my mom.  Accepting the loss of my dad and brother.  It's a long way from where I started.

One day in the not so distant future, I think we will drive away from this place and make our home somewhere new.  And I want to find peace before we go.

"Sometimes the tears we cry, are more than any heart can take.  We hurt, just keep it inside, it's no wonder that it starts to break."  - Birdy

Update:  5 hours after writing this post, my dad showed up.  He asked why I can't be stronger than this.  He told me that my mom just lies in bed all day.  He said that he and my aunt aren't in our lives because we 'snubbed them'.  He told me to quit bringing up the past.  Any peace I had found, turned to anger, tears and renewed guilt.  I told him to never come over and do this to me again.  I told him that he was as responsible as she was for all that abuse because he stood by and did nothing.  He allowed it.  I asked him if all those days she spent in bed when I was a kid were my fault too.  I told him if he wanted things to improve to quit enabling her by re-enforcing that I am the problem.  I reminded him that I will not open the door without hearing from her psychiatrist that she is showing enough improvement to have a healthy relationship.  I reminded him it doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to be healthy.  I told him that what I am doing is requiring an unbelievable amount of strength and that I am doing for my daughter what nobody did for me.

And I shouldn't have bothered saying any of it.

It Takes a Long Time

It takes a long time to get through this.  It has been awhile since writing here - it has been difficult to make sense of things and I think this is where I come when I finally start to feel some kind of peace.  Sometimes that means a long absence while I walk through it, lost.  It would be more beneficial to write than to wander lost, I'm sure!

To catch up on the basics, after repeated requests to have my dad respect our boundaries, 8 months into NC, I let them know (through my aunt) that I no longer want contact with either one of them.  No more cards or gifts on holidays and we don't want them going out to our cottage (a place that they were always welcome before).  It put me into the darkness for a bit.  Back into that sadness that is too painful to have anything beautiful about it.

And now, I feel officially like an orphan.  It hurts so much that this is the healthiest option.  The pain runs so deep and it feels like a secret.  It's not like my parents passed away, both within 8 months of one another and I can talk openly about my grief.  It is a dark family secret they don't want anyone to know.  I am used to those, but so tired of them and I want to be able to be open.  I want to be able to own my decision and not feel like it's my deep dark secret.  But if I were to be open now, the anxiety and guilt that would result from telling would be more than I can handle.  In my heart I know that it's her secret I would be telling.  I want to get to a place where I feel like I can own my truth over keeping her secrets.

Lately I have been thinking about Christmas time.  How scared I am already that I will run into my mom at a mall.  Today that thought triggered so much pain.  Not because of feeling scared at how painful it would be to see her and have her see my daughter (it would be heartbreaking and I dread that ultimately inevitable moment), but because I thought about how painful this coming Christmas will be for her.  My mind's eye saw her shopping for presents for people she no longer has in her life, and my heart shattered at how sad I know she is.  And I want to make it better but I can't.  And I want to have a mom but I can't.  And I want to understand why, but I can't.