I haven’t posted in a while. Really, there’s been nothing to tell on the baby-making front, except that no baby has been made. Sometimes I assume that my body is not capable of it and other times I chalk it up to timing or lack there-of. We are taking a casual approach. I have no desire to allow something that’s supposed to be fun to turn into hard work. He he he. Hard. Yep, I have the sense of humour of a 13 year old. So maybe yes to the hard, but no to the work, how’s that?
Outside of the nothing-to-tell-ness, there has been the usual wintery mood disorder. Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD. Really – SAD. Because all of those crazy PhD-having mofos have nothing better to do with their time than come up with clever names for crazy. I know when spring is truly coming because I enjoy reading books more and the desire to write, in any capacity, returns. Through the cold months, I write mostly what I am paid to write, with occasional NaNoWriMo, if the mood allows.
Finally, I have had no overwhelming urge to communicate anything. Rather than blathering on just to fill space, I have allowed this blog to lapse. Apparently folks have still been reading my old posts, which is kinda nifty.
No Wire Hangers! Ever!
What’s changed? A message. From my mother. Looking back over my posts, I haven’t really talked about her at all. She’s what you’d call a touchy subject. I don’t actually call her mom or mother or anything approaching a parental nickname. I call her by her first name, which for the sake of this relatively anonymous blog I will say is Margaret. As in Margaret White.
Margaret and I haven’t spoken in more than a decade. When I was a teenager and my world was imploding, she kicked me out. But before that there was a lot of hitting and even more emotional manipulation – and considering how much hitting was going on, that’s a lot of manipulation. There was some extreme religiosity and a great deal of blind eye turning when some really horrible things were happening.
Half a lifetime after all of this comes a small message from good old Mags. Very small. Very timid. Nothing approaching an olive branch or an apology. Nothing to indicate any changes that might make it safe or healthy for me to respond.
“It’s like you have Stockholm Syndrome.” Says my love, a good and true and caring human being. I think about this. He is sure that my contemplation – my wondering whether I should respond at all – is proof of this.
I suppose this is partly true.
But to reject this small contact – it’s like embracing the title of Orphan. Admitting I come from nowhere good. It’s like deleting any hope that the good moments (and even the most damaged of us can usually recall a few) were an indication of the possibility of change. That Margaret could grow. That she could be “Mother.”
As an adult, I have empathy for her. She married young, had children young. Her resources were limited. She was, I’m sure, chemically imbalanced (as I am.)
“But you did something about it.” My love intones. “You fought it. You got help. You wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
It’s true. And yet I am reluctant to assume that it is because of some effort and determination on my part. I wonder whether – in the same circumstances -
But there the logic breaks down. I DID survive as a homeless teen, a group home teen, a lonely and destroyed person. I was obsessive about birth control. I knew that I wasn’t going to be a young mom. Until my husband and I decided to have a child, I had NEVER had unprotected sex. Even at my worst, I was aware that it was my responsibility to make sure I was not a parent before I was sane enough to do it without endangering my child’s well-being.
So do I embrace this title of Orphan and accept that my children will not know this woman who carried me and failed at raising me? Who sent me out into the world unprepared and punished me for the sins of others? I don’t know.
Tags: abuse, Family, mental health, mental illness, mothers, orphan
March 10, 2011 at 12:25 pm |
About the only worthwhile thing I got out of too much therapy, was this advice: don’t expect anything from people that they’ve never shown you that they have. I think I was in the middle of a lengthy rant about a lack of maternal feelings from a maternal relative, and my shrink said, “From all of your stories, she’s never been a warm, fuzzy maternal person–so it’s completely unfair of you to expect that from her.” I was angry at the time–what a horrible, stupid thing to say to me–that *I* was being unfair. But I thought about it for a long time…and it’s actually helped me (in my saner moments). I (like too many) spent a lot of time in therapy complaining about what people were NOT, and not accepting that I needed to deal with the reality of what they ARE. To this day, I spend a lot of time analysing people’s personalities–it doesn’t EXCUSE their behaviours, but it EXPLAINS it to me, and that actually helps me in a lot of ways.
I know that doesn’t make any of this better, easier…but I think maybe it might help with that thought we all hold on to of “well, if I just gave her/him/them a chance…this time they would show me…”. You are clearly very aware of what the EXPLANATION is for Margaret’s behaviour… but it’s hard not to hope that there’s a really good excuse. It’s hard not to think that somehow the problems are STILL somehow your fault: because you’re not giving that person a chance. To understand that they will be who they will be even when you’re not in the room, takes the emotional responsibility off of you to feel like you can fix it.
I also find for me that it helps me to delineate more clearly my relationship with some people–I can never expect this set of feelings, so I don’t, then I’m not angry/disappointed. It doesn’t always works, but it helps. And it helps set parameters so that I can help my children understand what they can expect from certain people, and not create fantasies for them of TV family happiness.
(hoping I’m not being too presumptuous again…)
March 10, 2011 at 1:05 pm |
The idea that I can’t make a thing happen, just by wanting it so much – it’s a hard one for me. I can be a force of nature, when I get my ire up. But even a force of nature can’t, I think, shake this all loose. I wasn’t kidding about the Stockholm Syndrome thing. One of the main characteristics is seeing a lack of abuse as caring. In other words, they didn’t kill me yet so they can’t be all bad.
You’re right, though. Her behavior and choices have been consistent. I can’t expect them to change at this point.
March 10, 2011 at 1:40 pm |
As the eldest child, I was the one who did all the chores (followed by three boys, not much younger than I). And, to this day, I remember finishing the lawn one day (and we had a HUGE lawn), coming in to the house and there was this…adult male arm, sticking out from behind the wall, into the hallway, and there at the end, in the fingers was a dollar bill. And I stared at it blankly for a moment, until the hand waved vigorously, and I walked up slowly, cautiously, confusedly, took the dollar bill–then the arm disappeared around the corner.
I walked on air for days–he’d noticed me!! My father had NOTICED ME.
Seriously.
So, I get it.
But, it’s hard in this world of TVLand families, where everything is group hugs and understanding and family meetings, and togetherness to understand how you can have that with the next generation if you don’t have it with that before you…but you can. The Guy and I have always talked about the fact that we fly by the seat of our pants trying to figure it out, and trying to create a happy, loyal, supportive family. It helps that my second family is so darned great at it all–and it helps that I do understand that *I* am an active part of that, not that I’m just sitting back and receiving it… And, from things you’ve said, I think you might have something like that on your spousal side to help you.