Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Feelings

Went to therapy this morning and it was a mild experience yet I have some very raw emotions hanging on and I'm not quite sure where they came from or why I'm feeling this way at all. I usually cry throughout my sessions but this time I didn't cry at all until I shared a couple of experiences about my mother. Yes, it seems that was it, but why now? I've shared these things with folks in the past and I didn't react this way.

I had scheduled myself to work today but felt drawn to my fave coffee house instead feeling that I want to be alone. At the coffee house, like in many crowds, I am left alone therefore I am in essence alone; I don't have to put on a happy face for anyone. However, it's bright and sunny here, there is folksy music playing, lots of trees to see and the sounds of the city flowing inside. It's vibrant, alive, and I need that right now too. I would go nuts sitting at home alone.

My mother reared her ugly head last weekend but used my daughter to try and get to me. Under the pretense of wanting to visit her, my mother instead talked about me to her. My daughter was very upset by this. She doesn't want to be involved, and I don't involve her. I didn't even tell her that I had stepped out of the family until she asked about it. Her life has been hard at times because of my relationship with my mother. I wish I had been stronger two decades ago in order to prevent hurting my daughter, but I have to forgive myself and be grateful that I'm gaining strength now.

I'm learning to appreciate who I am and forgive myself for things I've done. I take responsibility for things I've said and done, but I recognize that I wouldn't have done such things if my life had started out better. I try to find meaning in all that has happened to me and then why I survived it all. I've attempted suicide multiple times and never succeeded. Although broken, I am actually very strong and deeply compassionate. I wish, so much, that I was filthy rich so that I could help people all over the world. I feel the pain of people who are hungry, who are abused because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time, who are targeted to be victims because they were born with certain body parts, skin tones or in a warring country.

I don't know if I'm looking for reasons to be sad or just need to learn how to control my compassion, but I do know that I am focusing some of that compassion to myself. My friends have great things to say about me but I always push away the compliments, making excuses that they don't know who I really am and that if they did they wouldn't say such nice things. Today we discovered that there is a pattern to my responses to compliments: my mother has complimented, but then when my guard is down she attacks like a snake. About 15 years ago I was walking with her through the house she had just purchased when out of the blue she said that if I hadn't been "so money hungry" the abuse I suffered from a boyfriend when I was 17 would never have happened. We weren't talking about boyfriends, abuse or my past, she just attacked me. That's another message she's always sent me: that I am responsible for the bad things that have happened to me. I've always felt that she can't handle the responsibility she has for everything that has happened to me, so maybe this is her way of deflecting it from herself--blame me and therefore she won't need to blame herself.

I am the one child of hers that she's always dumped on. When I was a child she told me in anger that she would have aborted me if she had known she was pregnant, but that by the time she realized it, it was too late. I was shocked when I found out I was pregnant and I wasn't sure what I would do. I couldn't fathom abortion but if I had considered it there is no way I'd tell my daughter that. Being a mother has been tough at times but I've never wished she wasn't in my life. I don't know. My mother is a bad person, plain and simple. She needs me in her life so she has someone to beat up (figuratively) but I'm not going to be that person for her anymore. Not her, not anyone.

I've asked her for years to please treat me better, to love me, to appreciate me, to show some remorse for her choices/mistakes, but she has always refused. I don't know who reads this, but I'm making it clear that I want nothing to do with her or my sisters ever again. They've all made me small and unimportant even though I've fought and begged for better. Not one of them has attempted to contact me (my brother has, which says so much about him), so it's clear there is no love lost. If I die tomorrow, my mother and sisters are not welcome to the funeral. If any of them dies I will not attend theirs. I don't believe in being fake just because someone dies. If I'm not good enough for them in life, then so be it.

I'm getting stronger, but it's not always easy. That is where I am today. So I'm taking care of myself until I feel better. I love me and I'm worth it. I'm awesome damnit!

LL xoxo

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