Mother from hell now has cancer.....

GotToChange

CH27 wrote: »

You have two choices.
You let go of all this bitterness & resentment that is festering inside you
or
You let it go & enable yourself to be happy.

I am not bitter CH27. It is the way my life has been and I cannot change the past - or the people.

If I am asked about it, I can only describe how it has been - from my own point of view. By the time I was old enough to even begin to attenpt to understand (I had no frame of reference amongst my peer group), no-body would talk to me abouit it at all; it was all ancient history/water under the bridge/bygones.

They might want to know me when the book is published; title -
"Don't come to me if you want a kidney".

When I "joked" with my therapist about this - he said (smiling) it sounds like a title for a farce.

About right.

CH27

GotToChange wrote: »

I am not bitter CH27. It is the way my life has been and I cannot change the past - or the people.

If I am asked about it, I can only describe how it has been - from my own point of view. By the time I was old enough to even begin to attenpt to understand (I had no frame of reference amongst my peer group), no-body would talk to me abouit it at all; it was all ancient history/water under the bridge/bygones.

They might want to know me when the book is published; title -
"Don't come to me if you want a kidney".

When I "joked" with my therapist about this - he said (smiling) it sounds like a title for a farce.

About right.

I think it's best if I leave this now.

Good luck for your future hun xx

GotToChange

londonsurrey wrote: »

If you heard a woman talk about her husband, how he'd ill treated her, ignored her, paraded his mistresses before her, would you say she was sensible to stay with him, to continue working on their marriage?

That is one of the perverse things about this nightmare; it has been like the worst possible failed love affair....
...and has been echoed in my disastrous marriage etc etc
(I am not even going there).

sassyblue

GotToChange wrote: »

I would absolutely (the puppy under the table) love it if they should ever call me - derogatory comments, insults, bad news (well, not love that) and all..... but they never do, never would, never have.

Again - I would - good bad or indifferent - give my right arm for someone to initiate contact with me (= acknowledge that I exist at all).

Oh, this cancer thing has openend a whole bag of worms - and I can't get the slippery little bu**ers back in.

Those bits of your post are heartbreaking GTC. I hope you can find the urge to move on.

GotToChange

sassyblue wrote: »

For speed l am replying in red....
----

All things considered l'm glad you had this childhood. Had you been with your mother you could be so much worse off than you are...

Aaah yes well she wanted YOUR life as it seemed so much better than hers....

Maybe she did that to get it out in the open to try and have someone help her deal with it? Misguided though....

As I write this, my heart also breaks for the child that she too once was.
Which makes me even more of a whiner. No it doesn't it makes you a caring person who wants to make everything right, but you can't deal with her problems you have your own to get over.

Thank you again for your insights - most especially the thoughts re. D's actions and behaviour. I wish that I had beeen a better sister to her.

One thing that my mother has repeatedly said is "You are her (meaning K, not D) big sister" - and i do resent that as, until 16 I didn't know of her and it is D who may be better (if anyone must be - as at the age we are now, our ages don't really matter and this whole "big" sister title on me is a crock of ----) thought of as K's elder sister.

One particularly dark thought that is creeping up on me now though is that I really (and yes, of course, times have changed) feel that my mother should have held off from subsequent children after she and my father split up. Three had been created as a result of that marriage (1961, 1962 and 1963) - but she only had one (D) with her - then she brought up M's son and had two more with M (although one girl died).

It IS judgemental of me - and I am ashamed of it. But I too had a husband who manipulated and bullied a situation that left me as a mother without her daughter - and I would no more have had any more children (and made sure of it) than walked to the moon.

And my mother has the nerve to say, "I have no-body" - when this fool for one has been trying for her entire adult life. Until now I guess.

GotToChange

Thank you so much all for comments, insights, encouragement and even a little tough love.

I did not expect the thread - and me -to be so well-supported and am very grateful.

I do know how these topics can suck a person in and the feeling of wanting to respond can be a drain on your time and before you know it, hours have passed.

So, please don't feel the need to continue and equally don't think that I am wallowing so very much. My spirit has been dented this week and I am in danger of becoming absorbed by and swallowed up in thoughts of people who are in no uncertain terms wasting their time or energy on worries about me. I will pull myself together and be fine, I'm sure.

For now, thank you - I appreciate every word and thought.

xx

londonsurrey

GotToChange wrote: »

One thing that my mother has repeatedly said is "You are her (meaning K, not D) big sister" - and i do resent that

That is such a classic. She happily reminds you of your societal ideal role, and you accept it.

And you know that even if you weren't reeling enough from the emotional bang in the head when she says that, and had the presence of mind to retort "And YOU are my MOTHER", she would, in the blink of an eye, deflect that with something dismissive with no effort or conscience whatsoever, refusing to accept HER societal ideal role.

GotToChange

londonsurrey wrote: »

That is such a classic. She happily reminds you of your societal ideal role, and you accept it.

And you know that even if you weren't reeling enough from the emotional bang in the head when she says that, and had the presence of mind to retort "And YOU are my MOTHER", she would, in the blink of an eye, deflect that with something dismissive with no effort or conscience whatsoever, refusing to accept HER societal ideal role.

Oh - bazinga!

That is what I am lacking - presence of mind to be able to come back at the insults (oh, and the ability to actually get a word in between the shouting/swearing at me....). I always think of a (hopefully not smart-a**) reply when I have rung off/been hung up on.... (the latter is more usual).

i.e. when (on Monday, and yes, with cancer on her mind) she told me that I am an absolute effing failure and that it is all my own effing fault that people (the whole world apparently) cannot stand me..... - why did it take me a good few hours to think that I should have said "By whose standards am I a failure? What/who is the benchmark?" - because if it is "OurK" (ugh, I HATE the "our" prefix and she seems to exaggerate it when talking to me, just so I know I suppose....), then if being a fat, one-dimensional, darts-playing* lesbian is a success, then I hold my hands up, I am not in that league.


But, again, you are right, I end up reeling from what she says and my voice - even if she would bl00dy well listen - deserts me.



*Which she has only been able to do due to family support - someone to leave her child with for weekends and weeks at a time. If I had had that, I may have been a champion showjumper rather than hacking round the fields - sometimes with my daughter on the front of the saddle.
(Having said that, babysitter availability would not have made me a fearless rider, so I cannot blame lack of childcare entirely. I'm still a bit of a wimp**.)




**Even more so now, not even having been in a saddle for five years.....

londonsurrey

Don't beat yourself up about not always having the comebacks. I had mine "pinned" with lots of them, and she would then just literally ignore me.

Even when in court, when we were asked if each party had a question for the other, my question to her was "Do you actually hear anything I say".

Guess what? She was so used to ignoring me, that even in court, and she's a trained solicitor, she actually just sat there, ignoring me and the question, in front of all the magistrates, clerk, etc!

As I said to my friend, what did my head in, and took me ages to understand was that she was "chasing" me all these decades, insisting that I listen to her, take part in whatever "games" she wanted, but at the same time, while paying me all this attention, she was simultaneously ignoring me!

So there's no actual "winning" with her. I think the key is to realise that behind the fascade, and no matter what society wants us to believe, there is no actual mother to be unearthed, to be persuaded, no mother to be found in that body.

thorsoak

Oh dear - what a mess! Nothing any of us can say or do can repair the hurt and rejection that you have experienced - it is so sad that people can behave in such a way

My only suggestion is that you let them go - completely and utterly - divorce your entire family if you like! Symbolically, I would buy one of those great big fancy balloons, write a label "my dysfunctional family" - take it up to a high windy spot - and then let go of it! Watch it fly away - and take the symbolic hurt and rejection with it.

{{hugs}}