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Post by Susan Peabody on Feb 5, 2009 15:10:21 GMT -8
As long as I could remember, I had been angry with my mother, both as a child and as an adult. Once I had a dream in which I was so angry at my mother that I was paralyzed. I couldn’t move. I opened my mouth to scream at her, and the words got stuck in my throat. Later in the dream I was talking to my father, and he told me that my mother was pregnant. I went into a rage. Then my mother appeared and I screamed at her, “You are going to do to another child what you did to me?” I was so angry I woke myself up.
I didn’t tell my therapist about the dream right away. Instead I went to my mother. I wanted to process my feelings about my childhood with her, so I asked her a lot of questions about what was going on in the family when I was young. Mom just stared at me. She didn’t want to talk about it. “I don’t remember,” she said. I was livid. Not only had she neglected me as a child, and exposed me to the parent who had abused her, now she was impending in my attempts to get better.
When I finally talked to my therapist about it, he said something interesting. He shrugged his shoulders and said sympathetically, “Oh, she couldn’t do it.” I stopped dead in my tracks when I realized that he didn’t say “she wouldn’t do it.” He said she “couldn’t do it.” What a difference a letter can make. I suddenly began looking at my mother in a brand-new light.
It took time, but eventually I changed my mind about my mother. A change in my feelings quickly followed. Then I started treating my mother differently. I changed. Our relationship changed.
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Post by Judy on Feb 6, 2009 8:04:05 GMT -8
Thank you Susan. Beautifully put.
So many of us seemed to have difficult relationships with our mothers, which in my opinion tend to set us off on a troubled path.
My mom has dementia now. It seems she is reduced to the core of her personality - which is basically negative and dramatic. I have been very impatient with her over the months because I find myself RE-LIVING instead of just REMEMBERING the pain of growing up.
I have prayed for kindness. Just simple kindness. My mother was very hurt. She had an alcoholic mom, siblings, husband and children. I don't think she ever got the love she needed - much less fantasized about.
I feel very sorry that I could not show her the love and respect she deserved. I was so troubled myself. And now it is too late because I don't even think she gets it.
I absolutely get what your therapist said about "could vs. would". That spiritual awakening came to me some years ago. During some very painful times years ago with my last poa all of my family and friends told me to leave my job and get away from him. I couldn't do it. I didnt' understand at the time why I couldn't. But I couldn't. Everyone in my life kept saying "it's not that you can't - its that you won't."
Well, I know now for a fact that I couldn't. As painful as it was I did not have the strength to walk away. It was not just a relationship breaking up - it felt like my whole world was falling apart. As crazy as it sounds I needed the structure of that job - even with him being there - to get me through the day.
I simply did not have what it took at the time. And I know today that my mother simply did not have what it took to do anything other than what she did at the time. I also know she's very sorry for that.
I don't know what I would do or where I would be without these 12 step programs. They are what holds me together today.
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