I See That Now

Everything is upside down. 
I don't know how to right it. 

Very tired. Haven't been eating a lot
or sleeping through the night.... 

My mind keeps going and going and going.... 
On stuff that's been hard to take.
Stuff I feel like I shouldn't have had to take.... 

Been seeing some things about myself. Like I said, 
and it hasn't felt good. 

One of my friends said:
"I better get a handjob or nudes
for helping you, you're exhausting."

We're probably not going to meet in person. 
And nudes are out of the question.
I learned my lesson when it comes to that.
I only embarrass myself. 
Not like I need to send nudes to embarrass myself....
My ineptitude does that with flying colors... 

Telling him things from my side, he said, 
is helping him to forgive his mother. 
As a mother, not sure I'll be forgiven. 
I may have taken things too far. 
But it wasn't like I intended to take things too far. 
So why did you reach out for help?
Because I felt I needed help.
And I accepted it.
And I thought I was helping. But I wasn't.
So the help you got didn't help you be helpful
if you weren't being helpful.

"You can't help people who refuse to help themselves."
Is what I've been told. 

I get it, despite these heavy emotions, 
been pretty disconnected with myself. 
Feeling like sh*t about myself
has been standing in the way
of actually getting some things sorted in my life. 
I have been standing in my own way.
As long as I do that, 
the longer it's going to take to heal
and to move forward. 

I feel like there's a lot that is out of my hands. 
Like people are going to do what they are going to do. 
Even though I want better for them, for myself, too. 

"You want better for yourself, A***?
What are you going to do about it?"

I'm still fighting myself every day
because of how I feel about everything. 
About how I didn't do what I couldn't do. 
About how people are going to judge me
when there was a lot that was out of my hands. 
That's been out of my hands for years. 

I'm mad at myself for letting so much
fall through the cracks.

Like not doing something about this at the beginning. 
I felt like I had no options, no support. 

My son's environment with his father isn't ideal. 
He's letting him get away with a lot. 
Not taking responsibility. 
And there are other things going on
that I didn't know about. 
And I was trying to get him out of there. 
And he might move out when he turns 18. 
But his father's been doing a lot for him
so he might stay there to have a place to live. 
Because he has no friends to move in with. 

And if he did, his friends are just going to let him do what he wants to. 
I wish his father had picked up the reins. 
I trusted him to do that. 
To be a good role model etc. 

People who are stubborn are stubborn to their detriment. 
I'm learning that. It cost me. 

It's been torture. Because I feel like I need to do something.
At the same time, I don't know what to do. 

I want my son in my life, 
but he's not in a good state of mind. 
I'm not in a good state of mind. 
And we've been butting heads, constantly. 
Like he just wants to defy me in any way he can think of. 
I get that teens rebel. I get that. 
I didn't want to listen to my parents,
let alone anyone.... 

But you have to understand what my parents are like. 
All the damage my mother has done to me over the years.... 
And yes, there's been a lot of dysfunction. 
And on my end, too. For my son. 

And should I have had the police take my son to the hospital?
Probably not, because he didn't want to go. 
His father didn't want to take him. 
It probably didn't help
and only p*ssed them both off. 
But that's what happened. 

Should I have done the other things I did?
Probably not, because nothing really good came out of it. 
Who did it benefit? Me?
How did this benefit me?
How did this benefit my son?
How did this make our lives better in any way?

I can't make someone love themselves. 
No matter how much I love them, 
they have to love themselves.

My son's self-esteem is so damaged
because of bullying and him loathing himself. 
I understand it. My self-esteem has been low. 
For years and years and years. 
I've loathed myself so much more than I do now. 
But how can I expect people to love me
if I can't love myself?

I relied on validation from others
to try to feel okay with myself. 
Their acceptance, their validation. 
Some caught me doing it, 
even though that wasn't my intent. 

Like when I want to have a real connection with someone, 
I still want the validation and acceptance from them. 

It took so long for me to get to an okay place
when my son and his father ghosted me for 2 years.
And now, it's taking me a lot to get to an okay place. 
But if I was at an okay place, would they have ghosted me?
Would any of this happened?
Would I still be struggling like I am?

"You're giving yourself permission to be broken."
It wasn't my choice to go through a lot of this. 
Did I want my son to ghost me? No. 
Did I want to be close with my son? Yes. 
Did I try to re-establish the connection many times? Yes.
Did he try? Yes. A few times. 
But I kept trying and trying and trying. 
I still want to keep trying. He means a lot to me. 

It's not like: "Yeah, I'm just going to stay broken...."
It's not as easy as that. 
Lots of complicated things
that bring up complicated feelings. 
And wanting to do the right thing, 
but failing miserably at everything... 

I want to be there for my son, 
but he doesn't want me there. 
Partly because of the times I wasn't there. 
When I was too checked out.... 
Partly because of the times his father didn't want me around.
Partly because he didn't want me around, either. 
And yet, I still don't want to give up on him. 
Even though they don't want me around. 
And if they don't want me around, what can I do?
Feel sorry for myself because they don't want me around?

And I know why he didn't want me around. 
Because a lot of the past sh*t that he can't leave in the past. 
That neither of them can leave in the past.... 
That apparently, neither can I.... 
Yes, they blame me. 
Yes, I blame myself. 
So I see why they don't want me around. 
But the longer it stays like that, 
the longer my hands are tied. 
The less of a chance I have to make an impact on my son. 
I mean, I already made a negative impact on him. 
And that conflicts with me telling him I love him
and that I do actually care about him. 
Like nothing I do to show him that
seems to count in any way.

"Are you letting who you were
get in the way of who you could be?"

Why is it that people only see who I was
and not who I could be?
"Because you haven't changed enough?"

It's weird feeling so emotional over some things
and other things..... I have less feelings about....
If I felt so strongly about everything.... 
That would be a huge tidal wave. 
Tidal wave after tidal wave.... 

But I can't figure out why I care so much about some things
and other things... I didn't care enough about. 
Things I should have cared about. 
I don't know why I was like this. For so long... 

Part of me is saying: "They will be okay on their own.
If they don't want me, they don't want me.
Why do I keep trying? 
Why am I the one who keeps trying?

Because I refuse to give up on my son?

If they got something out of it, it'd be fine, right?
Like when I had money to give to my ex.
He had no problem meeting with me, 
having lunch with me, talking to me about our son. 
When that could have been a normal occurrence. 
And we could have parented him together
like we were supposed to. Like I had wanted to.
instead of him calling all the shots
and not getting a say in how he's being raised.

When I had saved up money to take my son on a trip, 
we had a nice time together, 
so we were going to go again, but it didn't happen
because our bus crashed on the way... 
And all the things that happened after that. 
And I made it worse than it had to be. 
Because I got upset at how they were treating me.... 
My ego came out.

And my son said, 
"You could have just tried getting the luggage back
when we got back to Ottawa."
And I did, and it still took 5 f*cking days. 
And I had to go through the insurance company to get it. 
I told the insurance guy
who apparently knew someone at the bus company, 
and apparently it was easier for him 
to get the ball rolling on getting my luggage back
than it was for me to get my own luggage back. 

Anyway, I see that it wasn't necessary to try right then.
That I could have waited until we got back. 
But I felt like I had to do something.
But I didn't go about it the right way. 
Getting upset about it wasn't the right way to handle it. 

And it's stuff like that... That's why my son and I 
have had a strained relationship. 
Because of the things that weren't necessary. 
As a functional person, I should know
what is necessary and not necessary. 
He doesn't see me as a functional person.
His father sees more what isn't necessary, 
but can't see what is. 
Like the nurturing my son needed. From me.
Even from him. That he didn't get.
Because they just kept pushing me away
and he wasn't trying to be close to him.
He wasn't opening up to him
or making it easier for him to open up to him.

I don't know why I haven't been unlearning things. 
But at the same time, do I have to put up with
people treating me badly?
But isn't there a way to command respect?
Instead of demand it?

After THEIR bus driver crashed the bus.... 
THEY left us stranded at the hospital. 
I had to pay $80 to get us from the hospital
to the next bus station. 
Instead of making the call to Toronto
to get the ball rolling for us... 
They told me to go use the payphone
like I wanted to use the phone to call Joe down the street.... 
Like I want to pay MORE money
to make a call they could have made for me.
Since they were making a call to their own company.....

BUT... I could have just waited until we got back to Ottawa. 
And not dealt with that guy at all. 

Anyway, I keep going back to this.... 
Like my son not wanting anything to do with me. 
And then feeling forced to give up. 
And people saying: "You're giving up on your kid?!"
I have to accept that he doesn't want me in his life. 
Could he change his mind? He has before, 
but it took so long... I thought it was over. 
I had to accept that it was.... It was pretty painful. 
And my son knows this. 
He knows how to hurt me and does it
because he knows it hurts me.
Now I have to accept it all over again.

But he sees it like:
She's not a functional person, 
so why should I want her in my life?
(Even though she's my mother and she loves me....) 

My mind and heart says: "Don't give up on your son."
And not knowing what's going on with him
is driving me crazy. 
Not being able to do anything for him
is driving me crazy. 
And they aren't allowing me to be there. 
Even though I had many chances. 

And every time I needed to address something
it was like it wasn't my place to do it
even though he's my son.....  I'm his mother. 
I should have a say about the medication he's put on. 
Because he should never have been put on Zoloft. Ever.
And I should have been told right away. 
And I should have been told when he ran away. 
Instead of my family seeing a police notice online
and telling me... That's how I found out!
That my son was missing!
Shouldn't I have had the right to know?
Shouldn't the police have told me?
Shouldn't his father have told me?

It's not like I don't care! I do!
When am I told anything?
When do they answer the phone when I call?
When I have money?
When they are going to get something from me?

It's been really f*cking hard. It has been. 
All of this. But I made it harder. 
I didn't have to keep shoving my foot down my throat. 
Or both feet.... I did, though. Didn't have to. 

This is the only place where I can open up about any of this. 
As much as some things have been my fault, 
not all of it has been my fault. 
So I can't fault myself for things that were not
and are not my fault. 
I can only fault myself for the things that were. 
And that are. That's all. 

Can I do something about something
when people do not want me around?
And who would want me around in the state I'm in?
Insecure... Etc.

Even though he needs to be set straight on a bunch of things. 
Things that I told his father about. 
Things his father isn't addressing... 
That it is also his job to address. 
Since he has custody. 
And keeps shutting me out. 
And the more his father gets down on me, 
the more my son gets down on me. 
And then I sometimes get down on them
for getting down on me. 
When things need to be discussed
and brought up, and addressed. 

And it's not up to me to address anything. Ever. Apparently. 
Even the things that need to be addressed. 
Because who would take a drunk seriously?
Someone who's emotionally unstable?

But just because something needs to be addressed....
It may be helpful to address it in another way. 

Why does this destabilize me so much?
Because it isn't fair to me? Fair to our son?
For him to be made to look at his mother this way?
But if he chose to see me in another way, 
he'd see me in another way, right?

Because people don't know the full story?
Because my son isn't the way he used to be?
Because of me? Because of his dad?
Because of the school stuff?
Because he chose to stop caring about anyone or anything?
Because it feels like there is nothing I can do?
Because I can't control them?
Because I can't make their choices for them?
Because I can't make them call me?
Or want to call me?
Or care about me at all?
Because this wasn't what I wanted?
And would things be better and different?
Had things been better and different?
If I had been better and different?

A friend was telling me the other day
that it's not always the case. 
That despite our BEST efforts
sh*t can go wrong. 
That people can just not appreciate any efforts we make. 
And that no matter what good values
we try to instill in our kids, 
or what we try to teach them, 
sometimes it doesn't get through to them. 

But I unintentionally taught him sh*t
that I had learned from my parents. 
Which wasn't good to teach him. 
I see that now. 

But we can't address things by not addressing things. 
So things need to get discussed. Frequently. 

"Ego is the absence of awareness."

Which brings up the valid point
that discussions have the proper impact
when it comes from the proper level of awareness.