((((B2W))))

You make so many good points and said things that I mull over as I raise my kids. I know I'm far from the perfect parent and that they might struggle more than I want them to. I hope not. Trying to rectify things now.

I'm not so sure that my mother had a bad life. She was just an only child who was probably very shy and very lonely. She might have never connected with my grandmother nor my grandmother with her. It's hard to say. My grandmother lived with us for 14 years after my grandfather died and I loved my grandmother very much.

My Mom definitely resented my grandmother but what she verbalized to me was that my grandmother was a bad housekeeper. She also highly resented being an only child and blamed that on my grandmother as well, telling me that she was a spoiled child who didn't like the pain of childbirth.

I think my mother was an emotional vacuum and when she adopted my brother, she used him to fill her needs that for some reason my Dad didn't or couldn't. My brother was the girlfriend or the sister my mother never had. They had common interests.

Unfortunately, she also somehow created a monster in my brother who has tendencies towards violence. Anger was a suppressed emotion in my house and somehow was channelled through him. He became an alcoholic as well. From what I recall, his problems started when I was 11 (he is 6 years older than me) when he axed down his bedroom walls while babysitting my sister and I. (I'm sure they started much earlier.) He axed down his walls because my parents wouldn't lend them their new car. He's been violent with me, violent with my father's sister, who he attacked one night and my father had to call the police. As an adult, he's gotten fired from job after job either because of his anger or because of his drinking. Right after my Dad died, he found one of my Dad's credit cards and wracked up $13,000.00 of debt in two months. He was sneaking my mother's car out at night after she went to bed without a driver's license which he lost because of a DWI. One morning she woke up to find her crashed car in the driveway.

He has driven my mother while drunk and also without a license. She doesn't seem to notice when he's been drinking and didn't seem to care that he didn't have a license. He hit my niece on the back of the head in the restaurant when we were celebrating my daughter's first communion. Most recently, he wigged out on my son because my mother tripped over my son's foot causing my mother to fall and hurt her hip.

And all throughout this, my mother has refused to go for help. She also blames me for not loving him more or loving him the way she wants me to. She can't understand why I might draw boundaries because we are "family" even though I've never excluded him from a family gathering until recently and that was only because my daughter wanted my niece (the one he slapped) to attend her graduation and my niece wouldn't attend if he was attending.

My mother told me that his friends are nicer to him than his sisters. I replied that maybe he's nicer to his friends than he is to his sisters.

As far as my relationship with her goes, I just always remember hating her. I don't remember being able to go to her with any problems or issues. She's incredibly invalidating and dismissive. She's critical of everything and everyone if they don't fit her notion of what is right and good. She has an incredible capacity to deny reality. She told me that my brother didn't beat me up when I was little. Of course, she didn't actually see it because he would drag me away from the dinner table and bring me outside. But, when he'd return me to the table, my hair would be a mess and I'd have bruises. She could have put two and two together but didn't. My Dad travelled for a living and was gone 50% of the time. My brother took on a parenting role and my hunch is my mother was pleased he was "disciplining" me.

She recently told me that my brother never drove her without a license, that she would never let him do it. I myself witnessed it. Most recently, she denied that he'd been drinking after I found 6 empty vodka bottles in his room.

And, so, I need to protect myself and my family from him and from her. She is an only child and other than my sister, myself and my brother doesn't have anyone in the world. It would be hard for me to abandon her despite everything. I recognize that her problems probably stem from a fear of being abandoned. It's ironic that her fears could ultimately actually cause her to be abandoned. Recently, she told me in so many words that she's not proud of me. I know it's because I don't think the way she does and I don't love her the way she wants me to or love my brother the way she wants me to and it's not because of who I actually am. But still, would you ever say that to one of your children?


My T doesn't say much but he has said that I tend to be very compassionate towards her. I think he thinks most people would move away to get away from her. In the meantime, I'm building a stronger sense of self. I feel more internal peace than I've ever felt in my entire life. And I just really don't know what else to say about her. Can I understand how she became the way she did and why she does what she does? Yes. But she consistently makes decisions to protect my brother regardless of how those decisions affect me. She herself consistently takes abuse from my brother. But at this point, he has no one else either and he will never leave her. And that's what she really wants.

NOTE: I want to be perfectly clear that I am writing this response in my personal capacity as a member on these forums, not as the moderator. There was nothing wrong with this post, I just wanted to express my own reactions.

B2W,
I want to be really honest and tell you that I resented this post and was feeling angry by the end of it. I'm sure it wasn't your intention but so much about what you wrote felt invalidating.

I agree with the need for sympathy, understanding and forgiveness. These are things I strive to extend in my own life. But while I believe that we can forgive on our own, restoration of relationship depends on the recognition and renunciation of the behavior of the offending party. In some cases, it's not just about a mother struggling with her own depression, or substance abuse, it's about mothers who actively abused their children, who beat them regularly, belittled them more often, or sexually abused them in horrible ways (none of which I experienced from my mother btw, her tendency was towards emotional neglect). I would not presume to lecture someone who had been through that about the need to forgive.

I am also reacting so strongly I think because for a long time I used a "rush" to forgiveness as a way to avoid my own uncomfortable anger and pain over how my mother treated me. I recently got angry at my T for not carrying through on something he had told me he was going to do. In discussing it, I did tell him at one point that I really understood how he hadn't done it yet. His response to me was priceless. "Just because you understand, doesn't mean you shouldn't be angry."

For many people with bad childhoods, our problem is NOT about needing to be more forgiving or understanding of our parents' problems but instead to extend to ourselves the understanding and compassion that we are worthwhile enough to be entitled to our feelings about what happened to us. It took me decades to be able to be honest about how I felt about my mother and face the reality of who she is and what I could expect from her. And this feels like you read what I wrote and are telling me I'm being too harsh and need to be more understanding.

quote:

It is easy to put a question mark in front of someone else’s name or point fingers in their direction, but not so easy to put that same question mark in front of our own name.

I do put those questions in front of my own name and have done so each and every day of my motherhood. I have lived with the terrible fear of becoming one of my parents and have needed to learn to live with the fact that I KNOW that my stuff has damaged my children in some ways. I just want to face it and own responsibility for that in a way my own mother never did. And I want to be able to hold her accountable for never doing so. There has never been an acknowledgement that anything was done wrong or called for understanding.

quote:

You see motherhood covers so much, and each child is so very unique in character and ability that even raising one child should be different from raising another, even within the same family. I am reluctant to quote from the “mothers” thread, but there are examples not only in that thread but also elsewhere, where siblings who have both been raised under the same harsh conditions seem to have a different relationship with their mother. So therefore the mother must have done something right and something wrong.

Yes, my siblings experience have been different. One sister has also spent much of her adult life in therapy and is leading a fulfilled successful life. My other two siblings have been mired in anger, depression and self-medication for their whole lives and have a string of broken marriages and estranged children to show for it. I am my mother's success story.

quote:

It may not be the expected best, but it is MY best and I would hate it if my children were to turn their back on me one day because they didn’t understand my struggles

I could have written this B2W, one of my worst fears has been that I will end up with the same relationship with my children that I have with my mother. But it is my mother who has turned her back on me, I stand ready to have a real relationship but she will not. I don't expect my mother to go back into the past and fix everything that happened. It would be so easy to let go if she would only acknowledge that wrong was done. But she never has. I hold myself to the same standard that I hold my mother to which is that I need to be able to hear my children and let them know their feelings are legitimate and deserve to be heard, no matter how difficult it may be for me to do so.

Forgive me, I realize that this response may be too strong and/or defensive. You may not have had anything I said in mind when you wrote this. I am sure that part of this is that one of my daughters hit me with a lot last week (some of which was fair and some of which was unfair) and I had to work extremely hard to stay non-defensive and focused on her feelings, part of which required an emergency visit to my own therapist. So to feel condemned for how I am treating my own mother (my feelings NOT your intentions) when I am having to work so very hard to hear my children just felt like a bit too much. I have not meant to be disrespectful and I believe you are totally entitled to your views on this and to express them here. But I also wanted to reply.

AG

quote:

Please understand that these are general statements and that there are of course exceptions, but if nothing else, I think the aim was to get people to realise that there is NO such thing as the perfect mother,

You can look at this statement that I made in 2 ways:

1. NO mother is perfect and YES there are exceptions where some mothers have been EXCEPTIONALLY damaging and forgiveness to those mothers should not come as easily.

2. NONE of us are ever going to be the perfect mothers - we can look at that as a "release" of sorts in that we do not have to beat ourselves up about the fact that we make mistakes. If we are trying to be perfect and if perfection in our eyes = success and anything else = failure, then all of us will see ourselves as failures one way or another. The point was to try and focus on the positives and not the negatives.

If you took it personally, only you know why you took it personally. It was more a reflection on myself and my own observations and experiences over time, not JUST related to this forum, and CERTAINLY not JUST related to the "mothers" post.

If any one of you feel that I invalidated your feelings then I apologise, but I do recall on more than one occasion mentioning exceptions to the rule - perhaps you are that exception, only you will know. I also believe that forgiveness and understanding is not the same for each and every one of us. My level or at least idea of forgiveness may differ from yours?

B2W

i personally am thankful that you started this thread, b2w. i know your intentions are good, so please take what i write in good faith that i am not attacking you. i hope not to come across that way and if i do a apologize up front. especially you and Liese and AG have helped me figure some things out here regarding me and my parents ... and even my T.

i have to say that dissing my parents does not come easy. that's not to say that it comes easy to anybody here. as i said in the mother thread, they taught me some core values that are very important to me and that i will carry for the rest of my life. those are gifts that they gave me and i treasure those gifts and i love my parents for them. compared to many people on this forum i had it pretty damn good as a child. i'm getting better at not comparing myself to other (it's a work in progress!) and just dealing with my issues as they pertain to me and my life.

for years i listened as one of my brothers and one of my sisters tried to convince me that our family was dysfunctional. all the while i thought "nice way to deflect the responsibility of your own perceived shitty life. go right ahead and blame the folks, you're not fooling me". in large part I believe that even now (that would help explain why I’m in therapy … I’m trying to turn this shit around).

well, over time my walls started to crumble and I gave in to the belief that the family was indeed dysfunctional. we were, are and always will be. anyway, I accepted it and I forgave the folks. I actually don’t believe I even had to forgive them because I have always been pretty good at letting bygones be bygones. AG actually helped me put this in perspective (thanks AG!). she said:

quote:

for a long time I used a "rush" to forgiveness as a way to avoid my own uncomfortable anger and pain over how my mother treated me

I was always made to believe that if I had a “bad” feeling it was my “fault” and it was undesirable and hurry up and get over it. If I was discounted or overlooked or left sitting in the grocery cart while the rest of the family went home with the goods, I may have felt sad or angry (you know, those “bad” feelings) but it was quickly buried and the offense was quickly forgiven and i was made to believe that I was being petty and an insignificant whiner. “negative” feelings were not tolerated.

So, I rather hesitantly asked T if he thought the folks were emotionally abusive or at the very least emotionally negligent (of which I am certain), and in truthfulness I was hoping he would agree. what he came back with was how the folks grew up in the depression and they worked their asses off to provide for the family and look at their square-chinned role-models: john wayne and rock Hudson and blah blah blah blah blah. And I know all that and I’ve taken all that into consideration my whole entire life, and I’ve always forgiven them everything, but I guess I just wanted some affirmation. and I felt totally negated by old T. I felt like he was telling me that my childhood experiences were expunged by the sheer fact that my folks grew up when they did in the society that they did, and my own childhood had absolutely nothing to do with me and my experience. It was all about them and their shitty childhoods. In other words, I was made to feel that I was being petty and an insignificant whiner all over again. And I felt something winnowing under the surface and in retrospect was probably anger and resentment, but as I have always done, it was quickly repressed, and I did indeed feel insignificant and like a whiner, and why the fuck did I even bring it up in the first place, cuz in the end I knew I’d be wrong about it.

quote:

our problem is NOT about needing to be more forgiving or understanding of our parents' problems but instead to extend to ourselves the understanding and compassion that we are worthwhile enough to be entitled to our feelings about what happened to us

I wouldn’t change a word. THANK YOU, AG!

Thank you, too, b2w. this particular thread together with the mother thread helped me (and hopefully others), arrive at some important realizations.

and you too, Liese

And everybody else that has contributed to both threads

i think it can be helpful to see others as 'whole' (as in object relations) rather than all good or all bad, especially since i grew up feeling my
mother was relatively safe (she wasnt), and my father the bad guy. But i
dont want to get into the details right now...


People all have good and bad qualities. I appreciated both 'mother'
threads...just feeling really guilty now about
not spending time with my mother, so ill leave it at that for now.
i know shes really lonely at this point
in her life. I cant help but feel sad for her.

((((CD)))))

I'm sorry about your experience with your OldT. That would have been difficult for me as well and I would have also felt like a whiny child. It is true that things were harder in some ways back then. But the truth is that the *experts* have learned so much from the people who thrive and why they thrive the way they do. And, so, it is in all our best interests to apply those principles to our own lives.


((((XOXO))))

Thanks for your thoughts.

Here is my updated report on my relationship with my mother.

Although I'm planning on taking care of her until she dies, that doesn't mean I don't struggle with my feelings about the relationship, feelings my mother will never know.

I only remember hating her and I've always felt bad because I hated her. She tried really hard. She tried hard to make a perfect family. It's a mindf**k. The mindf**k is that on the surface she appears to be the *perfect* mother but it's the emotional stuff, the lack of separation, the lack of boundaries, the controlling nature of everything she does, that she is really only taking care of her own needs and would put myself and my children (and herself) in dangerous situations because she will not take this situation with my brother more seriously.

I don't feel a sense of anger towards her. Just a sense of disconnection. Like, I'm talking to this woman and she doesn't really know me, doesn't really know who I am and doesn't care to know who I am. She assumes that we think alike (well, until recently when I started to voice my opinions and that's when she told me, in other words, that she wasn't proud of me) and she assumes I share her opinions, all of which astounds me because I would never make such leaps with my own daughters. But, with mirror/twinship transference, which is where I think she's at, she NEEDS to think we think alike. I understand that now. It helps. I'm learning to stand up for myself in true assertive fashion and not feel so guilty for having my own feelings. I'm learning to understand where her comments are coming from and they don't hurt so much anymore.

Hope everyone has a mellow day. Sending peace through cyberspace.

I have hesitated to respond to this thread, since my own reaction is so intense. I find myself deeply triggered by this conversation.

My own relationship with my mother is so incredibly complicated. Do I love her? Yes. Always.

She is mentally ill and has essentially cut me out of her life. She wanders in and out. I suppose I forgive her, if we must use that word, but it's the ongoing hurt that's the problem.

If all of these mothering issues could be "in the past," maybe it would be easier? I don't know because the pain just keeps rolling in.

And if you've followed the saga with my dad, you'll know that he chooses not to have a relationship with me because I've set hard boundaries with him regarding his wife. In HIS words, "She's crazy and mean." I will not be subjected to her abuse, nor will I subject my kids to her abuse. He's not "allowed" to see me by himself.

All of this has created an enormous grief that is essentially unrecognized by society. I guess this is where all of my strong emotions come into this conversations. People assume that if an adult child doesn't have a relationship with their elderly parents, they must be selfish and unforgiving...can't we let go of the past and move on?

Oh, I would LOVE to! But the dynamics are toxic.

I don't know if I'm saying all of this very well. It's not a matter of a parent not being perfect. It's a matter of a parent causing ongoing damage in my life that I'm desperately trying to recover from and protect myself from.

There's a great discussion about some of these issues over on the What a Shrink Thinks blog. She dives into the utter complexity of it all:

http://whatashrinkthinks.com/2...g/?h=t#comments-wrap

And with my own kids, I am forging a new path and they are living a different life, thank God. I think everyone should go to therapy, and I hope my children do. It goes without saying that no parents are perfect...I certainly am not. And yet, my children have a deep attachment to me...they can trust that their needs will be met, physical and emotional...they tell me when I'm screwing up, and I apologize.

We have a deep and real relationship and that is an incredible gift.

I've often said that having children made me understand my own mother less. I cannot imagine my kids going through the things I went through as a child. I cannot imagine not participating in their lives or baking them a birthday cake or even remembering that it's their birthday.

Okay. I'm done. I'm sorry if my vent is offensive, but this community is important to me and I needed to say this. This is part of who I am that society doesn't understand...so I guess it's really important to me that THIS community understands.

thanks for listening.

((((((BG)))))))

I am always inspired by the mother you have become. I am sorry for the pain you go through being denied the relationship you long for with your parents. Thank you for posting that link.

(((hugs above)))

Genuine forgiveness, whatever that is, is impossible if one is living in denial. Many of us here are engaged in the painful and difficult process of stripping past layers of denial about our moms. For the first twenty five years of my life, I would only ever let myself focus on the positives about her. If anything was wrong, I figured it was me for not being a good enough daughter. I kept getting hurt and I wasn't emotionally healthy. Now I'm slogging through some stuff, not for the purpose of dissing my mom, but for the sake of working towards greater health for myself and hopefully, eventually, for our relationship.

Of course I love her. But sometimes things are complicated. And love can mean many different things.

Thank you for the kind words, AG and HIC.

HIC, what you say about being the "good enough" daughter really resonates with me. I spent my childhood trying to take care of my mom, and for years, struggled with my own failure.

It wasn't until I had kids myself that I realized, "Oh! That was never my job in the first place!!"

Keep slogging! There's so much wisdom and growth to be found in being truthful about ourselves and our experiences.

Edited to remove identifying information - AG

quote:

they must be selfish and unforgiving...can't we let go of the past and move on?

Oh, I would LOVE to! But the dynamics are toxic.

This is exactly why I do not have the relationship I desperately desire with my own Mom, well said BG.

Through therapy I learned the dynamics in our relationship, what belongs to me that is my stuff, and what belongs to other people and is their stuff. I think any adult child who makes a choice not to set boundaries w/ their parents the boundaries are about them (the kid) and how they feel and what they want and what is safe for them. I've taken care of my Mom too, BG, my whole life. And it's only recently I've allowed myself to put up boundaries (re: not to stay in my parent's home on vacation for example) to protect myself in the present My Ts always support that I can make more or less boundaries as I learn what I want for myself and what I can tolerate emotionally - and this time it's about me and what I want... not what I want for my Mom. I want more than the world to have a relationship with my Mom (and it kills me it is so limited right now). What I want for ALL my relationships is to be effectively able to deal with interpersonal conflict, walk away from most interactions feeling good about myself and good about the relationship, sharing myself authentically and being able to assert boundaries as needed and have them heard (even if they are negotiated, or asked about). Unfortunately, this doesn't work well when the person you're trying to build that relationship is perpetually drunk and emotionally abusive (the drunk I don't want to enable/it's triggering and the emotionally abusive I haven't learned to manage it better (not take things personally if possible and set boundaries so that I can regulate myself or assert myself and say the behavior is not acceptable) which is what I'm working on in therapy. Both my Ts have, in limited ways, talked about the relationships with their mothers - talked about anger, looking at the positives/negatives of current/past situations, and what is best or was best for them "in the now".

Hugs, Cat. No child should have to take care of their mother when they're still a child themselves. (((CAT)))

And thanks for the edit, AG. Would you believe all this time I've looked at "Heldincompassion"'s name and thought it was "Heidi in compassion"?

My eyes are going!!!! I did think it was wonderful that she was able to feel compassion for herself!!!

BG,
I didn't know HIC's given name, so I thought maybe you did and had accidentally used it. (FWIW, I've made those kind of mistakes on usernames myself )

(((HIC))) (((Cat)))

((((BG))))

I don't want to ignore everyone else's posts here but I wanted to respond to something you said, which is below.

quote:

This is part of who I am that society doesn't understand..

I know lots of people who are deeply involved with their FOO's. I don't know most of them them well enough to know if they are enmeshed and entangled or if everything is in balance for them.

Where I live, there are many people who grew up in the area. There are people who have moved in and/or moved out but there are also a lot of people here with huge extended families. It's easy for me to idealize them and denigrate myself. "There really must be something wrong with me since I don't have that. Just another thing that is wrong with me. I KNEW there was something wrong with me and now I finally have proof." LOL!!

I've struggled with not being like them, not having families like them. I tried to pretend that I did. But things didn't go so well for me when I tried to *pretend* I was like them. I always felt "less than" somehow.

It's been a huge struggle for me to accept my reality. As I have accepted my situation more, though, it is becoming easier to feel less like I'm stigmatized. And as I look less and less at the people who have all these *perfect* families and look more and more to people like me, who have had to rebuild for one reason or another, whether it's because of divorce or trauma or mental illness or death, I have found that there are a lot of people out there who are in the same boat and who are very accepting.

Because the truth is that there are people who have experienced a minimum level of adversity in life, and there are people who have experienced an average amount and then there are people who have experienced a greater amount of adversity. (I'm talking about life in the U.S. and not in, say, Afghanistan.)

I am just not going to fit in with those who have only had a minimum level of adversity in their lives. I won't get them and they won't get me.

It's clear to me that you have worked hard on your relationships with your parents (and with your children) and yes, you've had to set boundaries to protect yourself and your children. But things aren't the way the are because you didn't love or you didn't care or you didn't try. On the contrary, I see that you have tried A LOT and put yourself in vulnerable situations, especially with your Dad.

But it IS because there are forces involved out there that are out of your control, mainly your parents.

I just felt really bad that you would feel somehow like there was something wrong with you because you don't have the *perfect* family. If we all had the opportunity to look more closely into other people's lives, we'd probably see a lot of cracks. I hope you can find people like you in your community. Do you have any meet ups in your area? I have lots of them here. Lots of people looking to rebuild their lives. It's actually really nice to know that I'm not the only one in my boat. Grrrrr. I know that sounds awful because I wouldn't wis my boat on anyone but you know what I mean.

xxxx

Liese, thank you for the thoughtful reply. I really hear you on the "no perfect family" thing. I guess it's just this grief I'm going through right now that feels sort of "unacceptable."

Bah.

But you're absolutely right. There ARE no perfect families...and not everyone with lots of togetherness are happy or healthy.

And people who have no adversity ever? Kind of boring. At least that's what i tell myself.

Ironically, we probably LOOK like one of those families with our three boys and my husband's extended family, who ARE very close. They're a great example of "not perfect," yet we have such good, healthy relationships with them.

Anyway, thank you for the kind words.

Hey B2W,

You were worried about hijacking my thread and, instead, we hijacked your thread. I WAS worried that the "mothers" thread would either trigger people who have difficult relationships with their own mothers or are mothers themselves or both. And, honestly, as the discussion went on, I was sitting and watching, nervously biting my nails, knowing it is a very sensitive and highly charged topic.

Just wanted to respond to this:

quote:

I would hate it if my children were to turn their back on me one day because they didn’t understand my struggles

That's a very scary thought and a fear that I share with you. I worry too that my children might decide one day that I'm toxic. I know I am not even close to being a perfect mother. It is conceivable that some day, one or more of my children might choose not to speak to me. As I struggle with my relationship with my own mother, that thought is never far from my mind.

I like to think that as long as I try to understand their struggles, everything will be okay regardless of my own struggles. It may not be perfect but it will be okay. I hope.

quote:

Sometimes I think it is more a case of not being completely aware of their struggles, because most of those struggles were not spoken about.

That is such an important point and, for me, it highlights the need to share our struggles with our children BUT with caution. I say this because the few times I have felt any empathy for my Mom has been the few times she shared her own struggles with me. She didn't do this when I was a child. But a couple of times when I was older. And it had a huge impact on me.

Even though I think it would have been inappropriate for her to share her struggles with me when I WAS a child, I think there must have been a way to communicate a message other than the message she sent. The message she sent was that she was perfect and I was not. It may not have been the message she intended to send but it is the one that came across. Had she let me see more of her humanity (hmmmm, this is sort of sounding the use of disclosure in the therapeutic relationship) perhaps I would have more compassion and love for her than I have.

For instance, I've only seen her cry once in my entire life that I can recall now and that was within the last 6 months when I showed up at a mass she had dedicated for my deceased father. She's dedicated a ton of masses since he died and it might have been the first or the second one I went to. I knew she was angry at me for not going to more of the masses but she never told me. Had she told me, our relationship would have been more genuine. Instead, she masks her anger but it comes out in other ways.

Maybe if she had shared more of her feelings with me or struggled with me when I was struggling or let me know that what I was feeling was normal, that life can be hard and can hurt, that we have anxieties that stump us and we have to face and overcome, maybe there would be more love between us now.

And, so, B2W, my advice is to let your kids in a little more. Don't burden them. Just let them in. Let them get to know you. Don't make the same mistake my mother made. Let them see your humanity.

quote:

..and what is love but acceptance anyway??

xoxo,
I would beg to differ. I think that love seeks the beloved's good. I think there are cases where acceptance is not love. It is not love to accept beating or emotional abuse from someone. It is not love to accept someone's need to harm an innocent to handle their own rage and shame. In many cases, holding someone accountable for their actions is the loving thing to do, as evil actions harm the person doing them as much as the person to whom they are done. There really are some things we should not make our peace with no matter what the mitigating factors.

I believe so strongly in the necessity of extending grace to others, since all of us in our humanness do carry both dark and light, and none of us are perfect. It is vitally important for a healthy person to own that. as you said. I know I often stand in need of forgiveness and I am always very grateful when it is extended. But it is not something that can be demanded or expected. And the choice to extend forgiveness, especially in the face of long-lasting harm, is not one I would presume to make for another person. I cannot help but feel that this thread is attempting to press that choice on a group of people whom, even more than the average person, should be left to decide this for themselves. My concern for the people who will read this and then condemn themselves for not having yet reached this ideal, or not wanting to ever reach it, is what prompted me to express another opinion on the topic. They have a right to their anger for as long as they need to feel it without being told they are a bad person for feeling that way or are suffering from a lack of understanding and acceptance.

AG

Firstly I would like to thank everyone for commenting.

(((Liese))) Thank you for being so open minded and supportive. Personally I think you are doing the right thing about understanding your mother, and not making a tremendous issue out of her failures. I think that your soul will be rewarded for that level of understanding that you are showing. Your point about sharing our struggles with our children is certainly a good point. From my point of view my children are too young, and I don’t know if I will ever be brave enough, but I will admit that you are right in what you wrote.

(((AG))) You and I will just have to agree to disagree, because I do not share your opinions, and neither of us should feel bad about that. We are entitled to our own individual thoughts.

(((CD))) I am glad that you can at least accept and reflect that although your parents may not have been perfect that they did as you wrote provide you with some vital gifts: “they taught me some core values that are very important to me and that i will carry for the rest of my life. those are gifts that they gave me and i treasure those gifts and i love my parents for them”. Sometimes when we focus on the negatives it is easy to forget the positives, so I am glad that those positives have remained in your heart.

(((XOXO))) You and I are on EXACTLY the same page! I loved this that you wrote in your first response…” I think it can be helpful to see others as 'whole' (as in object relations) rather than all good or all bad”
I was also in COMPLETE agreement with your entire second response but I think the part that I appreciated your insight the most was when you wrote… “I also think our therapists would be accepting of many of our parents had they been on the couch too. i think, too, not accepting the negative parts of ourselves leads to self-hate. all parts myst be accepted for self-love. Ive read that quite a few times and have experienced it personally (such as feeling shame). for me, the experience of accepting others' faults has led me to greater self acceptance. I wish the same for everyone here too.
...and what is love but acceptance anyway”
Thank you XOXO. I wouldn’t change a word of what you wrote.

(((BG))) If your mother is mentally ill she deserves forgiveness, just as you or anyone else would require forgiveness if you had to walk in her shoes. We do not blame a blind man for walking into a pole. That does not mean you should not feel hurt. I did not walk in your shoes, but I do have a friend whose mother is mentally ill and I have watched the pain in her eyes. It is extremely difficult because there is no person who you can take your anger out on for the “absence” of your mother – not even your mother herself. If it means anything, I will say this, you will have a level of understanding that others will never have, and although it is not easy, that understanding carries a value.

(((HIC))) You wrote: “I would only ever let myself focus on the positives about her. If anything was wrong, I figured it was me for not being a good enough daughter.” May I say this? Focusing on the positive aspects of your mother does not mean deluding yourself that she is perfect. If you do that, of course you will never be the “good enough daughter”. It simply means allowing yourself to see both the good and the bad, but choosing to appreciate the good and choosing to understand that she is not perfect. In cutting her slack, you ultimately cut yourself slack.

(((CAT))) I am glad that you now have boundaries with your parents. There is nothing wrong with boundaries, in fact they will allow you to spend more quality time as opposed to the quantity of time. It is far better to have 30 mins of quality time over the space of a month, than a week-end away that causes nothing but regret. It is in those 30mins of quality time that you will gain understanding and acceptance. All the best with that.

My last point I would like to make is this, because this is fundamentally what I was trying to get across, and ultimately backs the reason why I believe we need to focus on the positives and realise that neither we nor our mothers were/are perfect…

While we are trying so desperately to not make the mistakes of our mothers we are more than likely making other mistakes along the way, and I personally would hate it if my children had to disown me for those mistakes not knowing how hard I tried to avoid being another type of person. It is impossible to be successful and in control of every dynamic of motherhood.

I spent time over the last 2 years reflecting on the things where my mother had failed me, but you know what?.....I can't change those things and I feel a whole lot better thinking about the things that she did give me and how she did try her best, as opposed to all the times I thought she failed or didn't try enough. I never want her to die and be left with the regret of not trying enough to understand her. I am very comfortable in that view.

May you all find a place in your heart where you are comfortable.



B2W

(((Name redacted at members request -AG()))) lots of hugs and love to you. And plenty of support. You are courageous and strong beyond words.

I don't have much to say about my mom right now, maybe that is because I'm not ready to go there yet, even with my wonderful T. But I think DF said a lot of what I was thinking as a read through this thread. There are two groups of moms/parents we are talking about. There is a group that yes, made mistakes, were imperfect as parents and who carried baggage from their own childhoods. Then there are others who are actively violent, abusive, negligent, and emotionally damaging in a deeper way that causes lasting harm to their child and results in all kinds of debilitating disorders which I won't go into here.

For that last type of mom, forgiveness and acceptance is something that I would never presume anyone should or could do. Some members here have been subject to unimaginable horrors at the hands of their moms or their moms have turned away from the horrors that others (Dad, etc) have inflicted, and they should be given understanding, kindness and acceptance for what they must deal with and the choices they make to forgive or not.

I think this has been a good discussion for the most part but there needs to be a more open acceptance and sensitivity towards those who are not in a position to forgive and move on.

TN

(((Name redacted at members request -AG()))) You are not a failure. You are doing what you need to do to heal, which is an act of enormous courage.

B2W

quote:

Thank you for being so open minded and supportive.

I am supportive because I believe everyone has the right to say what they think and feel. In a forum like this, with all that we have learned about defense mechanisms, we, of all people should be more understanding of the defense mechanisms that people use, such as denial. We all need to start practicing things like mentalizing in order to connect with one another and understanding one another and not to alienate each other. It hurts me so much to see people beating each other up simply because they don't agree.

I said what I said about my mother because I was sharing my journey. I have no idea if I'm doing the right thing or the wrong thing, if there is such a thing, even for myself. It is my opinion that it's an individual journey, an individual decision. What's right for me would not necessarily be right for someone else.

I've been in therapy for almost 5 years and have only recently begun to draw boundaries with my mother. When I first went to therapy, I didn't have a sense of self. My therapist told me that whatever sense of self I had was all pain. I didn't understand anything about emotions or emotional needs. I didn't understand why I felt so bad about myself. I didn't understand that I grew up with with a mother who actively taught me to put my needs last, if I was allowed to recognize them at all. I thought my mother was perfect and there was something wrong with me because I didn't love her and haven't been happy in many many years.

So it's not so much that I chose to focus on the negatives but that I needed to learn about it in order to protect myself from further abuse. The splitting I did was to believe that others were all good and I was all bad. I didn't do the vacillating back and forth that borderlines are notorious for. I was very consistent in believing I deserved the crap I got and everyone else was worthy.

It's not so much that my mother intended to hurt me as she was taking care of her own unmet attachment needs - and frequently they weren't in my best interests. The fact is that my mother gets angry at me (still) when I take care of my own needs as opposed to hers.

I'm learning to tolerate her anger while trying to balance taking care of myself. She lives only a mile from me and is a more immediate presence in my life. She will not let me go without a fight. She has her claws in me. It is much harder for me to extricate myself from the relationship because of those factors than if she lived far away or didn't have any interest in a close relationship. So I have to be extremely mindful with her that I don't get lost in there and fall back into old patterns.

I beg of you all to try to understand each other. It may just be that we can't always deal with the pain of our own lives.

Ppppppppplllllleeeeeaaaaaaasssssssseeeeeeee.

I would like to apologize for becoming overly protective of people on the forum. I took responsibility for something which is not my responsibility and overreached. I know enough of the people who post here and their courage in facing their own healing to never doubt your own ability to care for yourselves. You are each more than capable of reading this discussion and coming to your own conclusions.

I carry a lot of anger over the people in my life who chose to look away and not defend the helpless, in some ways it's the deepest sin I know and I think I carry a vow within me to not ever do that. So when I read something that I know will adversely impact people here, my first instinct is to step in and stop it, to protect the helpless, to not be my mother. I was triggered by what I saw as a dismissal of people's experience and pain and heard that most hated of messages to me "just get over it, how you feel is unimportant; they had problems too you know." I have battled that message for most of my life in order to create a space for my voice to be heard and my feelings to be experienced, sometimes at great cost, and so it is a message to which I have a difficult time not responding, or for that matter being reasonable about.

But the truth is, no one here is a child or helpless so it is overreaching of me to do for people what they are more than capable of doing for themselves. I stand by what I have said on the topic, but am re-considering whether I should have said it. I am stepping out of this thread but will continue to monitor it. I'm very sorry.

I also wish to say I'm sorry to people who have been posting in this thread, especially B2W and xoxo, for my aggressive stance.

AG

AG You are OK and everything is OK. Thanks for the explanation. As an outsider reading this topic (not my favourite topic - so I couldn't even summons thoughts nor words to even post ) I could see that you were activated by the topic matter. I think you have explained your position really well.

Be kind to yourself AG.

(((Name redacted at members request -AG))) I am TRULY sorry that you misunderstood what I said. It was NEVER my intention to say each and every person who has suffered abuse should look beyond that abuse and forgive. NEVER. NEVER. NEVER did I assume that, and NEVER did I presume to walk in each of your shoes. On several occasions I mentioned that there were exceptions and that they were generalised statements that I was making. ALWAYS there are exceptions to the rule, and if you or anyone else is that exception then only you will know. I don't presume to know. At one point in time to give you just ONE example although you can read through what I wrote, there are certainly more examples where I made mention of generalised statements and exceptions I wrote:

quote:

NO mother is perfect and YES there are exceptions where some mothers have been EXCEPTIONALLY damaging and forgiveness to those mothers should not come as easily.

If you or anyone else for that matter chooses to re-word that to "never forgive" that is your choice and I am sure you will have thought long and hard about it, and it is not for me to tell you what to do. Let me also say that in some instances I completely understand if a person finds it too difficult to forgive.

Name redacted at members request -AG, and anyone else who has had that EXCEPTIONALLY damaging and abusive background due to their mothers, please understand that I do see you as exceptions to the rule. Please also understand that I am walking my own path with my own views and those views I expressed were only there as my own form of expression. They were not to judge you or anyone else, but perhaps to make us all think not only about our own mothers but also about ourselves as mothers, thereby allowing us to "release" ourselves from distorted expectations that if we are not perfect then we have failed as mothers.

(((AG))) Apology accepted. There are other topics that upset and trigger me too, so I do understand. We just happen to see things from a different view point at this time and I accept that, but you too should know that I never started this thread as a means to offend you or anyone else.

I trust that you will all know in yourselves if you do or do not belong to that group of exceptions. I trust that you will also know that my intention was never to hurt or anger any one of you. That being said I am still comfortable with what I wrote because I know that I had ABSOLUTELY no bad intentions and so I have a completely clear conscience.


B2W

((SD)) Thank you, it's always a slightly queasy feeling having an apology hanging out there with no response, thanks for taking the time to reassure me.

B2W, thank you for accepting my apology.

xoxo,
I very much appreciated your generous response. I also understand more of where you are coming from in terms of understanding someone's behavior in context, I agree with you that children forced to become killer's is heartbreaking. I think that this topic is actually a very complex one that is difficult to boil down to a set of rules, and I sense we agree on a lot more than we disagree on. Now is not the time (at least for me ) but I would love to discuss it further some time. And I also wanted to say that I do know you have always been a strong advocate of expressing all of our feelings and owning our "darker" emotions. I actually had you in mind when I admitted my anger and resentment at reading B2W's first post, as my first instinct was to act like I wasn't angry. So thank you for helping me be more honest. And you're alright in my book too.

Now I really am bowing out.
AG

I'm more than a little saddened that nobody
has yet responded to Liese's plea for a little
more understanding of others differing points
of view.

Liese; I fully support what you are asking here.

Please please lets keep this forum as a safe
place to speak up and to always respect others
even when we may disagree with them.

We will never all agree on everything but trying
to understand each others point of view is so
important.

Awww, AV, it was nice of you to acknowledge that. I was really happy with the way things turned out because I don't believe that anyone had any malice towards anyone else. It hurt me to watch the conversation disintegrate, feeling in my gut that it was a gross miscommunication spiraling out of control.

When I read about this thread, I think about what forgiveness really means and how many definitions of it there can be.

For me, the easiest to understand is debt forgiveness. You owe me $100, but you don't have the money to pay me back, so I forgive your debt and say you don't owe me anything anymore, and our relationship is restored. If you were able to pay me back, I wouldn't need to forgive the debt. So in order to forgive you, I need to be really convinced you actually can't pay me back.

Some of our mothers owe us a debt. They did a lot of damage to us, for which they never made reparations. If they are able to make reparations, but just don't want to, we have little reason to forgive them. Instead we keep waiting for them to make some effort to somehow make up for the damage they have done.

For some of us, maybe our mothers will eventually apologize, or do something to repair their actions in the past When that happens, we will have to decide if the effort of repayment is sufficient to renew the relationship. We don't need to forgive them if they make a genuine and sufficient effort to repair, because the debt will be repaid in full.

For others, we will get tired of waiting for repayment that will probably never come. So we let go. We don't restore the relationship with our mothers, but we try to let go of as much of the resentment as we can. We accept the situation to the best of our abilities.

For others of us, we may come to an understanding of why our mothers aren't capable of repaying us, even though they may appear to be able on the surface. We might look into our mothers' pasts, see the wounds they suffered, and come to some compassion for them. As a result of this, we may choose to forgive. We might still limit the scope of our relationships with them, to protect ourselves, but we no longer hold the hurts they inflicted on us against them, because we see how our mothers may have had few resources to make a different choice, either in the past or now.

I think it's OK to be in any of these places. It depends on the circumstances, on our mothers' actions, and on where we are in our own journeys. In part, it also depends on the philosophy of the individual. Those who believe strongly in a moral free will are probably less apt to forgive, because they hold that regardless of the circumstances, a person ALWAYS has the option to act in a better way, so our mothers are always capable of apologizing for the past and trying to make it up to us. For myself, I tend to think that people usually act as well as they are capable of doing at a given moment, so I think maybe this makes me a bit more likely to forgive people. But I think both positions are valid and have their own advantages.

Thank you Lillies and BLT for your valid reflections.

(((Lillies)))

quote:

i will make it an ACTIVE JOURNEY to implement forgiveness in my life towards my mother, not to absolve her, not to excuse her or her actions but to free me.

It is the part about freeing yourself that is so important, and yes forgiveness means different things to different people in different situations.

(((BLT)))

quote:

It depends on the circumstances, on our mothers' actions, and on where we are in our own journeys. In part, it also depends on the philosophy of the individual.

I guess my philosophy in terms of forgiveness related to the circumstances in my own life, comes from an inner spiritual "knowing" that I have always had for as long as I can remember. I know that I wouldn't have made it this far without that spiritual connection and for that I am eternally grateful.

May you all find comfort in your own reflections and decisions.

For those of you who feel upset about some of the comments made not just by myself but also by other members (and for the record I am not only referring to Name redacted at member's request - AG, because there are others on the other side of the fence who feel equally as offended) let us put this thread behind us, because I think TOGETHER we have far more to offer each other, and overall I think we ALL support each other very well. We came here for support and understanding. We came here to be able to freely and securely express our thoughts and feelings. From my point of view this site saved my life, and I am not just saying that. Up until now I have always felt support and acceptance. Let us all look ahead and move on from this thread - it is not worth the pain it is causing.

's to all of you!

B2W

This topic is closed.