I love the process that these posts take the reader thru, and the opportunity to see things from a different view than we have been seeing them.

For instance I am now processing finding my mother’s journal from the early 90′s when I lived with her. In the entire notebook, she talks about how mean I was to her, how much ‘contempt’ I had for her, and gives almost daily examples of incidents where I ‘demeaned’ and ‘attacked her’, and went ‘ballistic’ toward her…. She talks of being a failure -and she was NOT one-and how everyone sees her as a failure.She says her children are a monument to her failure as a parent and a person.she says I was the way I was because she ‘spoiled’ me growing up.

She says in her journal that I abuse her emotionally all the time, that I am abusive of my daughter; that I self punish -to Prove to others that I myself am failure, and it’s to-get this-’reproach’ others and to make them feel guilty.

Throughout this over a year long journal, she never writes about my discovery that my toddler daughter had been molested, of my then 16 yr old nieec’s molestation by her step dad, mom’s own mother’s traumatic experience in a nursing home, having her leg broken in a wheelchair when her leeg was allowed to drag the floor- subsequently my grandmother died from sepsis after the compound fracture the injury caused.

There were alot of traumatic events that year, but all my mom referred to is how mean I was to her, how I ‘picked fights’ with her, how I ‘despised’ her, how much she wished I would leave…..and it was only her love for my daughter that made her allow me to stay.She outlines how no one in the family liked her and how she was now going to live life for herself , and that the behaviors she was practicing with me were that of ‘not rescuing’, not giving advice, not reacting to my ‘rages’…..she actually WAS in therapy at this time…It seems to me she took out her anger at HER parents and her life with my dad and his alcoholism out on me…all that pent up emotion….

I had been in AA for a few years at this time yet she treated me as if I were an untreated drunk she had to ‘handle’.

I got the sense reading it that she was talking about someone else, that I was being ‘nade into’ someone she hated and feared,
My memories of that time are of great fear, grief and confusion about wondering WHO molested my child, what to do to help my child, anger and sadness at my niece’s molestation, and fear about my sister and niece’s safety after my brother in law tried to intimidate my niece; intense sadness at my grandmother’s nursing home injuries that caused her death.I also had been diagnosed with a serious chronic illness in that year and the medication for it was brutal.

I am seeing more and more that my mother from my childhood on, seemed to insist on being my ‘victim’ and if and when I did blow up after all the picking at behavios, and the mind reading,that was the proof of how mean I was to her. I was helpless as a kid to know how to handle this and even as an adult got very confused by it……If I tried to ‘resign’ from being the bad guy in my family, it seemed there were more and more offenses that were attributed to me.

But no one in my family- no one- ever commented on the things I tried to accomplish and what I did to try to support my mom, emotionally, my niece, being there fort my daughter ,and any of the things that were HARd, to deal with. Its as if they were all ignored.

I literally began to wonder at times if I were really being this mean to people and didn’t know it.

In my life I gravitated toward hurting wounded men, or extremely detached and cold men. None of that ever worked out.

I think my post may belong in another comment section.Noy sure which one… I do appreciate this blog…its kicking my emotional triggers and its helping me heal finally I think….

What a great topic….Thank you….I also had some really bad relationships and tried so hard to make them work. Always searching for my worth outside of myself, all the while it’s just waiting to be noticed inside of me. I am learning alot about valuing myself and reading that just solidified that….

Peace,

Jaime