Letting go is a really hard thing for me. I don't know why.
I guess part of it has to do with when my mother signed over
her parental rights to me when I was 13.
I still kept in touch with my family
and still consider her my mother.
And I guess I have a hard time letting my son go because of this.
I always wanted to be a good mom, but there were times I wasn't.
I regret drinking when I was in college.
And I regret drinking after I had initially quit.
I won't go back to drinking. I learned my lessons
when it comes to that.
I guess, in some ways I'm still learning to deal with my emotions.
Drinking wasn't dealing with them. It was suppressing them.
"Bottling" them up, only compressed them and they built up.
It's dangerous. Especially anger.
Sadness.... I know it well. Don't wear it well, though.
People do not like to be around sad people.
"Laugh and the world will laugh with you,
cry and you cry alone."
How was I supposed to take being left there
as I watched them drive away?
Not knowing what would happen to me?
Not knowing where I would go from there?
It's not the easiest thing to take or deal with.
There are a lot of things that have been hard to take and deal with.
Like my father's suicide. That was pretty hard to take and deal with.
And knowing that I had told my mother that I wanted to stop seeing him.
Because he would make plans to come get me for the weekend
or for some holiday and I would wait for him and wait for him
only to realize that he wasn't coming. Yet again.
And I didn't know how to take that or deal with it.
And I didn't want to take that or deal with it anymore.
It's one thing to get my hopes up, but again and again?
I guess I had reached my breaking point.
And I guess he reached his....
Anyway.... It was hard to take and deal with.
Which was the point that I was making.
Looking back, I can choose to take things in other ways.
Just because I took things hard or badly in the past
doesn't mean that I can't change my perspective on it.
I can, if I choose to do that.
I made it pretty far without my parents.
I'm pretty sure that my son can make it far without me.
Not that I'm having the easiest time letting go,
but our parents aren't supposed to be joined at our hips.
I knew this about having a child. That he would grow up.
That he didn't want his "Mommy" to hold his hand.
With everything he did or does in his life.
I didn't need mine to. I've had a lot of resentments with her.
For acting like she doesn't care.
"If they wanted to, they would."
But does my mother "owe" me for being her daughter?
For all the times I was there for here?
Even after the times she wasn't there for me?
All the times she acted like she could f*cking care less about me?
I was there for her to help take care of my brothers
when she had a concussion.
To help her dress herself after her operation on her armpits.
I had even gone to her house, the last time I'd seen her
to take her to the doctor's, and she wouldn't listen to me.
She told me she didn't care. I told her that I know.
Then she told me to leave. To "get out of (her) house." So I did.
It's like they only 'care' if they get what they want, how they want it.
If they can blame their issues on me.
And make me feel bad for just being f*cking happy.
Like I have to walk on eggshells around all of them.
But I'm still supposed to be there for them and show them that I care....
I'm still supposed to be the 'big sister' or the 'daughter.'
I had told my mother that the only thing I'll be from now on is a mother.
And I don't get to be that right now.
I actually called a psychic who has been accurate in the past.
She said that I won't have any relationship with my son for 6 months
and that he'll come back to me.
Every time I thought that I lost him forever, he ended up coming back.
And there were long periods of time where I didn't get to see him.
Or be a part of his life... Because "If he wanted to, he would have."
And that's always been really hard to take.
But does he "owe" me for being my son?
For feeding him, clothing him, changing his diapers?
For loving him and caring about him?
Does he "owe" me for anything I ever did for him?
Why would he?
I keep seeing these beautiful relationships
"Mother and Son" and "Father and Daughter"
Where there are loving and caring connections
and wonder why I struggle so much with my son.
To have a family bond like the ones I see.
And I have decided to be happy for the ones who do.
Instead of being sad for something I haven't had for a long time.
There were great times I've had with my son.
When he was young and I got to do things with him.
All the things that I miss.
When he was sweet and innocent. Loving.
When I got to be a mom.
When I got to be there to read him bed time stories.
When I got to take him to the park
and taught him what a toga was.
His shirt got wet so I took a sheet and made a toga for him.
And he wanted to wear the toga on the swings.
And he used to be a pretty happy kid.
But a lot of things are hard to take. I know this.
I didn't always take things well, either.
There are still things that I don't even know how to take....
So how can I expect my son to know how to take those things?
Is he supposed to know how to take things
that I don't know how to take?
Even if I knew how to take it,
does that mean he'll take it the way I would take it?
I keep asking for others' takes on things I'm going through with him.
The guys I know have a bit more insight
because they know what it's like having been a teen boy.
Who is just becoming a man.
In relation to his mother.
Some have good relationships with their family.
Some don't.
Does our relationship with our family
dictate who we are? Who we become?
Does how they 'make' us feel about ourselves
have to be the way we feel about ourselves?
Does the way they see us have to be the way we see ourselves?
I don't have to see myself the way my family sees me.
Or the way anyone sees me.
Do their ideas about who I am have to reflect who I am?
Or do their ideas have more to do with who they are?
Than they do with who I am?
It's been a struggle with my self-esteem for sure.
Starting with how people treated me.
And I felt like I deserved it, somehow.
In a book I'm reading, it says that our perceptions
that we have of ourselves are filled with distortions
born of unresolved hurts.
How our views can be distorted because of what we witness.
And our sense of things come from our views.
And that deep wounds hinder our perceptions.
So that speaks to what I was saying about how
we don't know how to take some things....
If we take things very badly or really hard... The more it hurts.
There are some things I took pretty badly and pretty hard.
A lot of things were pretty hard to accept.
I think the less I was able to accept things
the harder I took those things....
I guess it comes down to not knowing how to accept some things.
Like the extent of the selfishness of other people.
The extent of their carelessness.
Wondering how they could be so selfish and careless.
Towards me... Towards my son, too.
And I know that he wonders the same thing
and has a hard time accepting that, too.
But I know that it has to do with the people being selfish and careless.
Not with him and I and that makes it a bit easier to accept.
I read that hurt accumulates in the soul.
When you have a soul connection with someone,
you can feel that hurt coming from them.
I could even 'see' some things that happened to people.
Not everyone, but a few times.
And you not only sense it, you feel it.
It has rarely happened.
Maybe didn't feel close enough to everyone to feel it from them.
There was a guy I felt it from....
Which made it harder to accept that he hurt me, too.
And I know it sounds like bullsh*t. Didn't think it was possible.
Never even experienced that before....
He didn't believe me, either.
But I had 'seen' him being abused.
When he and I were kids, I always saw him sad,
but I never knew why....
Anyway, our perceptions can cause our issues.
I'd say that most of our issues are caused by our perceptions.
It says, in the book, that our 'emotional tank' gets full of pain.
The thing is that I don't consciously remember all the things that hurt me.
I tried to minimize a lot of it by telling myself that it could have been worse.
That it really wasn't as bad as it could have been.
Even though a lot of it was pretty bad.
Stupid things people said to me, or did to me.
And a lot of neglect.... A lot.
A lot of it never got expressed because I couldn't tell my abusers
that what they did to me actually f*cking hurt me. Deeply.
And I think that's why it affected me a lot more.
And I just got pretty angry, until even getting angry about it
didn't do anything about it....
I never really spoke up about it.
Like when my mother would leave me alone with her boyfriend.
Who I used to think was my father....
When I was going to counselling....
I told my counsellor something that happened to me
that was pretty painful.
My mother was going to go somewhere.
She was just up the street when I had changed my mind,
that I did want to go with her and I was crying
because apparently I wasn't allowed to change my mind
and just go with her. Even though I could still see her
from the window next to the front door....
Her boyfriend hit me so hard.... I was about 7 years old.
The closet door was open. The closet next to the front door.
He hit me so hard that I hit the back of the closet.
Because I was crying. Because I wanted to go with my mother.
When she wasn't even 2 blocks away.
And if I was allowed to leave, I could have ran to catch up to her....
But I wasn't... And that's what I got for crying about it.
And there were a bunch of things....
A lot I pushed back, to the deepest parts of my mind
so that I just wouldn't ever think about it anymore.
So that it wouldn't hurt me anymore.
But the pain stayed there.
The pain from traumatic events.
Being physically and emotionally abused....
About never being allowed to talk about it.
And they wouldn't listen to me so why would anyone else?
"Children are supposed to be seen, not heard."
It had been rammed through my brain so many times.
But angry kids aren't usually angry for no reason.
And it takes a lot to get me angry sometimes.
But it also made me want to have some power and control.
But being controlled and powerless all the time
gave me distorted views on self-control and empowerment.
Do you know how powerless I felt when I wasn't even allowed to cry?
There wasn't any comfort. It was about 'making' me stop crying
by giving me 'something to cry about.'
And I wasn't allowed to cry about that, either.
And can I tell my well adjusted friends who weren't abused
about the times I was abused?
They'd say "Sorry that happened to you, A***."
But they can't even understand it.
And it's hard to even try to process trauma without feeling
like a victim. And I have felt sorry for myself, too.
But does feeling sorry for myself help me feel less of a victim?
And I'm like: "Just because I was a victim
doesn't mean that I have to feel like one and act like one
for the rest of my life.
Or make anyone else a victim...."
"Two wrongs don't make a right."
Like I don't have to make anyone's life hell
just because I had a hellish life.
But... I know there are people who have had it worse than me.
Even though what I went through was pretty f*cked up.
I'm sure there are people who have stories that would make my head spin.
That distorted their views to the max. Beyond the max.
Like there are crazy people who were driven crazy
by what they went through.
They literally had no way to process it.
Because they just couldn't.
And I understand that. I get it.
Here I am, almost 30 years later....
Still wondering WTF happened to me.
Because some memories are GONE from my memory bank.
But my soul still knows what happened to me.
It still feels everything. Whether I consciously feel it or not.
And there have been things people have told me.
That I couldn't do anything about.
Even though I felt that I should do something about it.
But I didn't....
Which may have compounded the pain....
Even though I didn't know how to help them.
When people consciously remember something,
the pain is conscious and they can't just 'forget' about it.
When they can't 'remember' what happened to them,
and the soul still knows, there's some deep pain.
And they don't know why it's there or how it got there.
Or what it's about. It's just there.
And when it's there, it's like hard or impossible
to go back to before it got there.
Unless it gets processed. Somehow.
And I'm still trying to figure out how pain gets processed
so that it can be released.
So that we can change our perceptions... And move forward...
Because all the things my soul remembers
are things that I'm holding onto
without really knowing what those things are....
And what to do about processing those things.
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