Might Be A Rough Day..Need Some Help

Amber

Wasn't until I parked my ass in counseling did I find out that things we never had in the first place, but were entitled to as human beings, are also major biggie losses. My list includes; lack of support, lack of encouragement, lack of validation, lack of affection, lack of honest feelings, lack of caring at critical times, lack of acceptance, etc, etc...all losses.

You're doing great and just by dealing with the stuff you never got from your mom is a huge step in the right direction. I pined away for years not knowing that I was still trying to get it from them and not realizing that it was never going to happen...I was enslaved by it.

As a living, breathing person you are entitled to all the things you need and may have to find some of it within yourself and some from other people, but your mom probably won't be in that batch. Even though your mom fell way short of the parental mark, it was probably the best she had to offer. One thing that kept me trapped was the feeling that they "owed" me and I was trying to collect on that debt. Takes some work, but you can wipe the slate clean and make your own fresh start and reparent yourself...which is one of the primary purposes of therapy.

Hang in there...the grief may hurt for awhile, but it's one of the surest paths to healing old wounds like you describe and gaining your emotional freedom.

God bless you.

Post edited by: lobo, at: 05/28/2008 21:06

Just reading this thread is making my heart pound. These women shouldn't have kids, or they should put them up for adoption or have an abortion! My mother used to control my grandmother by threatening to put me up for adoption when I was a little girl. I am an unwanted child born to an unmarried woman who is narcissist/borderline personality disorder. She blamed me for being born and ruining her life, even though she dumped me off with grandma and when on about her whoring. She made my father marry her in name only (he was a one night stand, they didn't even date!), and she had two other marriages, both under 6 months each. Then she had a live in boyfriend when I was around 7 or 8. Well, he didn't really live with us, he lived at his parent's home, but my mother made grandma, whom we lived with, allow him to sleep over almost every night. Then there was the alcoholic who moved in with us when I was a junior in college. She needed my bedroom to put grandma in, as she and grandma shared a large bedroom, so she paid to put me in my own apartment. A lot of 19 year olds would have been thrilled to be moving out of the house. I cried all the way across town with my twin bed strapped to the hood of my Camaro. I hated leaving my grandmother, who was the only person, to this day, who ever loved me.

A shrink once told me that I was never anything more than a "self-object" for my mother. I only exist as a "representation" of her! Everything about me has been a disappointment or embarrassment to her, even though I am constantly trying to achieve perfection to the point where it makes me crazy! It still continues. I am never thin enough (I'm 5'6", 116 lbs, size 2 - she was 5'3", 250 lbs for most of her life), never dating the right man (until we break up, then she always finds a way to contact them to further embarrass me!).

She also made her now 90 year old brother and 93 year old sister do her bidding for her, they took over when my grandma died. Her 90 year old brother still lives next door to her and waits on her "hand and foot". When he doesn't "hop" to her tune, she either calls 911 or the Senior Abuse Hotline and has them come out and make reports. She had a stroke and didn't want to do the exercises necessary to be fully functional, so I instructed her caretaker (who I hired and trained) to not serve her lunch until after she did her exercises. My lovely mother reported me to Senior Abuse and told them that I refused to feed her. They sent out an investigator who found a refrigerator full of wild caught salmon and organic veges and the investigation was dropped. Now, she can barely stand up from her bed and pivot onto the potty chair which is next to it. And, she complains about how sick she is and makes everyone jump to her attention. She complains that her teeth are no good so she can't chew vegetables, but somehow she's able to chew ridged potato chips that she sends her 90 year old brother to buy for her.

A book that helped me "see the light" was CHILDREN OF THE SELF-ABSORBED - A Grownup's Guide for Getting Over Narcissistic Parents. I read that and had an "ah ha" moment or six.

I have given up on having any kind of normal life, and I don't even have BP - I'm just an emotional wreck from my upbringing! For the last 25 years or so, I've felt like I was "marching toward impending doom" and now the doom is here and I don't know what to do with myself! I go through the motions of living, but I have been dead inside for some time. I enjoyed a brief respite and had some hope when I was introduced to a man last year who convinced me that he was my soulmate, manipulated me into genuinely loving him and then just disappearing into thin air. Someone on here suggested that I go out and have some "fun". There is nothing that is "fun" for me - the last time I had fun was when I was in my guy's state, cleaning out his closets and looking at houses for us to live in together that he had arranged. THAT was fun because it was building my future. Oh, I saw "Sex & the City" on opening day - you'd think that would be fun, but I cried though half the movie and then for several days after. NOTHING is fun to me unless it involves a future that I prepared myself for.

And, Lobo, I just LOVE reading everything that you write here! I wish I could go to your shrink! You are right about the "losses" concept. However, I disagree that we got the "best" our parents had to offer. My mother found time to screw various and sundry men, she had time to bleach my hair when I was FIVE!! But, not to play with me, or let me be a Brownie or a Girlscout. She gave her "best" when it was important to HER! I was so scared at being put up for adoption, but I probably would have been better off because I would have gone to a family that actually WANTED me!

I am terribly jealous of all the kids I see whose parents teach them to ride bikes and take them to Scout meetings and have birthday parties and have playdates and go on family vacations. I always wanted these things so badly and thought I'd have them with my own family - the one I would create - and it's dismal to realize that it's never gonna happen. The best I can look forward to now is to be some old guy's sex toy for his golden years - and go on golf vacations broken up by screwfests when his Viagra kicks in. THIS LIFE MAKES ME SICK!

Thank goodness for the internet! At least I have someplace I can vent now. Holding all this in for years just makes me feel like exploding! I wish I had never stepped in and managed my mother's care. She was practically dead when I took over for her Octogenarian brother and sister. She would probably be dead now. I did what I always do - I go above and beyond - I nearly killed myself redoing her filthy cluttered house, designed a custom food plan, interviewed over 25 caretakers, trained 5 of them in specialized diabetic food preparation. I spent over 6 months in bed recuperating from this ordeal because a shelf of books fell on my head and gave me a concussion. Then I had to fight with medicare to get all of her hospitalizations covered. You don't know what "fun" is until you've faxed letters back and forth from Sacramento for months. I finally had the opportunity to show her what a fabulous daughter I am. You know how she repaid me? She complained to EVERYONE who would listen and told them about how I threw out all of her beautiful things. OVER and OVER again!! She told a social worker sent by medicare (who had been to her home before and barely recognized the place after I was done with it) that she has a HORRIBLE daughter!!! In front of me!!! The social worker took me aside and told me that I should just run away from her and never look back.

I guess what I am learning from reading all of your stories, is that I am not the only one who has had it tough. A lot of people have stories. It's just that where I live, I have nothing in common with most of my neighbors and so-called friends. They all look at me like I'm weird. They haven't had my experiences - they can't even conceptualize what my childhood was like. I masquerade like I'm normal and look like I just stepped out of Vogue, but I'm deeply damaged.