So yesterday was my mom's birthday. I didn't do anything even though I remembered. I (a while ago) decided to not speak to her again until (if ever) she gets herself sorted out to have normal and healthy relationships with those around her. While part of me feels incredibly guilty the other part of me knows this is how is has to be. I am tired of feeling guilty and like I am a bad person due to whatever it is that she says about me behind my back because I do not conduct myself in a way that she finds appropriate or complimentary to her.
My major grappling point is that she's my mother. So the part that feels guilty is trying to tell the other half to grin and bear it. To still love her in her sickness and to continue to reach out to her. To be the better person. My issue with this is that it is chosen behavior. She sees nothing wrong with how she is and therefore no reason to do anything about it. Any attempts I've made to even broach the subject ends in an all out attack by her on me. Another part is that it doesn't do any good. She's going to twist the situation around any way she can until she is the winning party. I have struggled for so many years with this and it's totally futile.
It's beyond frustrating how she can switch to different facets of her personality. Unless you are a part of her immediate family you don't ever get to see all the facts and compare them. So her public face is awesome. If I knew her public face I'm sure I would want to be her friend. I can't tell you how many people have told me how lucky I am to have her as a mom. At those precise moments with ever fiber of my being I want to turn to them and make the offer for them to take her off my hands. But I don't. It doesn't make sense to them and it would reinforce what an ungrateful child I am.
Ever since I have come to this decision to not participate I have had a strange feeling come over me. It's like I'm orphaned and while it makes me sad and angry I know I can't do anything about it. I am also so very grateful for all the women I have in my life that are mother figures to me. It's just not the same. Part of me feels really bad for saying that because these are really great women.
Part of me is totally over it because I can't continue a losing battle and I can't continue to let her degrade me in a totally passive way. (I think that's why it was so confusing as a child, she had my older sisters and I say the mean stuff to each other for her) And the other part I think just needs time. I've done plenty of growing up on my own in the past couple of years and I'm still working on it. I think the guilty part just needs help on days like today.
I would also like to say that I know how incredibly lucky I am. No one's life is fair. I totally get that and I know I'm not the exception to the rule. I also know that plenty of people have and have had it way worse than I do. I count my blessings, and I am grateful for them.
1 comment:
While the family as a whole is an interconnected web, the relationship adult daughters share with their mothers is particularly complex and challenging. How the relationship flourishes or diminishes is generally dependent on how well the parties involved relate and communicate with each other. While there are several theories explaining different facets of this phenomenon, one theme is the continuation of lifelong attachment to and reciprocity with one another (or lack thereof). While mothers often feel tension and difficulty seeing their children as the adults they have become, adult daughters too have difficulty accepting their mothers as autonomous individuals. Everything we want for ourselves such as sovereignty, agency and freedom, so too do our mothers. Recognizing the limitations of your relationship is sometimes painful, but boundaries are necessary to maintain individual sanity and emotional stability.
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