Show, then aid - Sabine page 135

[winencandy]

Sabine, I'm finally getting caught up on my journal reading
Congrats on the new doggie addition, glad they are getting along.
I think your cold baths are CRAZY!

and


{{{hugs}}}

[tomi]

okay if we're going to go the "what my mother did to screw up my life" route --- I'll throw my story in the pot.

Lets go back to before she was even pregnant with me......... marriage troubles with already 3 daughters. A husband who liked to go to the bars and had a few girlfriends on the side. She smokes and drinks beer - too much of both. Oooopsy....... Pregnancy #4 happens............. husband freaks out about having another kid --- goes "on a bender" (her words) ........... gets killed in a car accident while she's 3 months pregnant with me. (he wasn't driving, but the driver was drunk) She's a mess, trying to raise 4 daughters alone -- long story short........... years of 12 beers a day --- absent from my life and that of all my sisters. Hate your mother? Oh yes, I've been there.

But now its 52 years later. Mom is 87. She stopped drinking and smoking when I was 15 - but the damage was done. I haven't had much of a relationship with her until recently. She's going blind. No longer drives. She needs help. So I help. Its my turn to be different I think. I could treat her with the same level of indifference that she treated me - but I choose not to. I choose to love her - even though I don't feel love for her. Love isn't a feeling - its an action. I take her shopping every 2 weeks, and I do her bills and read her the mail. I sit with her for a couple hours and talk to her. She has no one else. I mean, I have another sister who is 5 minutes away from her - but she has a very busy life and doesn't take the time to see to moms needs. I do her laundry and lace up her shoes ----- fix curtains --- do whatever she needs. Why? cuz I want her to know what being loved feels like before she passes on. I don't think she's ever had real unconditional love offered to her. So thats what I'm doing. Its not easy --- and some days I really dred going to see her. But I feel God's calling me to do this.

I'm not trying to pat myself on the back.......... I'm just saying that it is possible to see your mother through different lenses if you allow yourself to let go of the pain and anger and disappointment and hurt --- and just choose to love. There is a great deal of self healing to be had by offering to love the person who caused you so much pain.

[DCarr10760]

Love isn't a feeling - its an action.

Truth.

[Sabine]

Winencandy, thanks for the hugs. That post wasn't THAT emotional for me, just an outpouring prompted by someone else's situation. Better out than in!

Tomi, I am glad that you have gotten to a giving place with your mother.That is a blessing for you and your mother.

I've been down that road. She has been loved by me before. As unconditionally as a child can love a parent, after all there is a lot of power in that relationship, but the child doesn't know that: they just love. I poured and poured into that well. And then I realized she didn't even want it, much less have anything to give back.

At first I stopped calling her as a wishful punishment. Surely, her sense of time was just different from mine, and eventually she would call to see how I was doing. She would SEE how she liked my calls, and WANTED to talk to me. Right? I always broke before she did, and had a lot of anguish in those years, until I finally wept with her (at her? She wasn't weeping, though she SAID she felt bad) and asked why she didn't love me, or show it, in SOME way. (Oh, how I shook and felt sick, doing it, terrified that I would hurt HER, terrified at how I was opening myself up to more hurt for myself.) She promised to change. She did write me two letters in the next five weeks (well, emails, but I consider them letters, because she took the time to write them. I don't care how they got to me.) And, then, it was back to normal for her. She cannot sustain a relationship. She just doesn't have it to give.

After that, I didn't call, because it hurt me too much. To reach out to someone when it makes you feel better, or even neutral, is one thing, but to plunge the knife into your heart for the sake of something they don't even want, is just stupid.

And I finally smartened up.

Even then, it has taken years to get to this acceptance and neutrality.

I still care about her in an intellectual way. She's my mother. She doesn't choose to hurt me: she's just built that way. She cannot manage anything better. But I don't have to sacrifice my well-being for hers.

If someday we have a relationship, that would be great. But it is her turn. And I'm not holding my breath. I've got others to love.

That last post wasn't from a place of anguish any more. It was from feeling brave enough to admit something that is completely unacceptable to say in our culture, that I hated my mother. As it is, I was never able to say it while it was going on. I can only admit to it now that it is past. Just like my mother, it is the best I can do.

[Sabine]

I DID have that pot roast dinner last night, and enjoyed every bite.

[tomi]

Sabine -- you're mother's inability to love sounds just like my ex husband. So, I think I get what you're saying now. I gave and gave and gave to the marriage - all to find out he wasn't really interested in what I was giving. Turned out all he wanted was a woman to take care of him physically.......... you know, clean, cook - and sex. Took me 18 years to finally see it and realize I had to choose to live that way - or get out! I chose to get out!!!! He actually told me that he had never been in love with me. Dumb Ass! I'm still carrying around a lot of hatred toward that man! He stole 18 years of my life. We were divorce in 2000. But sometimes the pain of hearing him say he never loved me feels like a 500 pound weight on my shoulders. Mostly I can deal with it now - but at times it cripples me. Funny.......... I didn't have a weight problem until after my ex and I divorced.......... I guess it could have had something to do with all that emotional baggage. I've always blamed the fibro and the stresses of trying to blend two families (with stubborn spoiled step daughters) -- but it could also be partly from the damage caused by that man who lied to me for 18 years. Intersting............ I've never thought of that before.

Mom wants my help and my company now -- but when I was living at home (left at 18) I was just a burden to her. I don't ever want her to feel she is burden to me, even though at times I feel she's a burden. I guess I've come to understand that she did the best she could at the time. Now I must do the best I can in her final years.

[tomi]

thanks for allowing me to work through those thoughts on YOUR journal!

[naiadknight]

Mi madre... hell where do I start? Guilt trips and "don't upset Mom" were the major rules growing up. She didn't smoke or drink (well, she had alcohol a couple times a month), but I've wondered if that would've helped her. She would physically run off, drop everythnig and walk out the door for several hours, if she got too upset. Nobody ever knew where she went. I was usually the one that located her, because I was the one that knew her haunts. So, I was remembering every bingo parlor and gambling room she'd ever gone to while Dad called them and I kept my sisters from freaking. At least once, we were called by the cops or a friend because she was threatening to jump off the I-20 bridge and she would only talk to me. I talked the knife out of her hands when I was 12. I was my mother's keeper, and helping my father raise my sisters. I grew up PDQ so I could take care of Mom. Fast forward to college, and I revel in no longer being my mother's keeper constantly, dropping in and out of contact by whim until mom discovers cell phones and gets me one so she can call and talk. The thought of not answering her calls didn't cross my mind. I would'nt be the one to drive her to suicide again, Fast forward to her mother getting cancer and dying. Spending more time with my grandmother made me realize that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Fast forward to my wedding, where my mother watches tv with my grandmother through much of the prep and reception. I have forgiven my mother, but I still limit contact and live across the state for a reason. I am no longer my mother's keeper and I intend to keep it that way. Associating with her is usually only stress and drama.

[tomi]

Oh I pray my son does not have these horrible feelings about me one day.............. I try to be a good mom - supportive and loving. I hope I'm doing better than my mother!

Sabine -- sorry we've hijacked your journal talking about horrid mother experiences!!!!

[naiadknight]

Tomi- The fact that you see her for what she was means you didn't do that to your son. You're a great mom.
Sabine- I'm sorry I started the horrible mom crap. Happy bunnies and rainbows to make up for it?