Comments

• 13/08/2008 @ 19:25 roze said

  

  Your mom sounds like she was in a terrible place with herself LetGo. Putting herself in abusive situations and then abusing you. Do you have any sense of what was causing this in her life? Is she still around? I am struck by your mom knowing where your most precious box was and somehow wanting you to have that money - even if it was blood-stained. You must have been terrified that you were going to lose her as - however tough it was - i suppose that was your normality. I can only imagine where that leads - to the most difficult forms of insecurity i suppose and fear - total fear - perhaps even of losing the person who was causing you so much damage.
  

• 13/08/2008 @ 19:27 roze said

  

  And sorry to post again but it just struck me that in some way your protected your mom that evening and made David leave her alone - seems that your mom expected you to deal with a lot of her emotional issues - and oh so young.

• 13/08/2008 @ 19:52 LetGo said

  

  Uhhh... yeah. She was pretty much just bat-shit crazy. Kinda sick to my stomache today after thinking about this one. As far as why she did these things... in my proffesional opinion... Mania, obesessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia: paranoid type, and ofcourse major depressive disorder.
  She was 1. Sexually abused by a teacher when she was 13-14. Ended up shooting herself in the stomache.
  2. Grew up with an extremely abusive mother herself that mistreated her physically and emotionally... Gramma did a number on my mother and her 2 sisters... then treated the baby boy like a prince. The baby boy is now recovering from a traumatic head injury he recieved around thanksgiving of 1992 from drinking and partying too much with the wrong crowd. More to that story belongs on another brick.
  3. Her father sexually abused the oldest sister; of the 3 my mother was the middle child. My mom claims that he abused her as well, but this was a new development from what she told me when I was a child. Mom does in fact make up as many stories as possible to make herself the victim. I know that seems cold, but it's true. I really don't know if Grampa touched her, it is possible. Just weird she told me her teacher raped her, she told me this when I was about 7, but said Grampa never touched her. Then 20 years later she starts telling me Grampa raped her... I don't know what to think.
  There were some good memories we had, and I try to think about those instead. Sadly the scales are tipped to the negative I'm afraid and I am left still sorting out these emotions. All of these things she has gone through is why I have kept trying to salvage this mother-son relationship, but she refuses to work at it. She refuses to acknowledge what happened. She continues to this day to claim she was "the best mother ever", and whenever she says that I freakin lose my mind. I don't confront her much on these topics, but when she goes tooting her own horn about what a great job she did in raising me, because my accomplishments are ofcourse her accomplishments. She tried to sabotage any forward step I would make in life.
  And as far as the box... she gave me the box to put my stuff in. It was a small wooden box I kept silver quarters in and other little trinkets. She put the money in there because she told me she would be dead by the morning and I should take a cab to where my dad was staying.

• 13/08/2008 @ 20:40 LetGo said

  

  I must say, I feel really cold-hearted for putting those words there so matter-of-factly... but I have spoken to her many times that she needs to find some professional help, but she gets angry and says hateful things...

  
  I think I'm angry because I am now the same age she was when she did these things. I find it absolutely deplorable that any parent would choose abusing a child over confronting the actual problem. She was and still is a very intelligent woman, strong to a degree, and was very beautiful. Yet her soul was truly one of the darkest things I have ever witnessed first hand. She made the decisions she made and still refuses to take responsibility for them. So, yeah, I guess that's why I look like such an ass when I list the horrible things that happened to her as a child. It tears the heart to pieces.

• 13/08/2008 @ 23:54 UMxx said

  

  Hello LG,
  This is a hellish story - no - this is not pity but it is a story that I would love to beleive won't be repeated in any other person's life.

  It's a tough act to be expected to understand at 9 what your mum wanted of you - when what you knew was that David was not treating your mother properly. It's hard to sort out a way through this kind of relationship that allows you to work through all of the stuff you experienced and regard your mother as someone who had a shit life herself but wasn't able to work through her own stuff herself.

  I wonder what your hopes are for a relationship with your mum in the long term? I can hear the frustration in your story about your mum not being able to deal with the reality of what happened and to take responsibility for her part in your life. I don't feel you look like an ass at all when you listed the horrid things that happened to your mum. It's not as if you sound like you are feeling cold toward her experience - she had a shit life too. Somehow you have grown with a sense of strength and resilience - that's come from somewhere - it is probably why you are here trying to work through you experiences - part of wantting more than just surviving without getting something that allows you to have a quality of life.

  The scariest thing that I can imagine is that she gave you the money with the message that she would be dead in the morning and to take a cab to your dad. Did she say more than this? That's a pretty big punishment for a kid just trying to do the right thing.

  Were you angry with her for this or did you feel like you had done the wrong thing?

  Hope you hang around LetGo - this is a good space to be able to talk through stuff in our lives. You won't be seen as needing pity or attention - just someone who like the rest of us needs some support and listening to while we get through what we are dealing wiht. take care mate UM xx

• 14/08/2008 @ 00:08 LetGo said

  

  She blamed me for every failed relationship she ever had. The worst part is that she feels I had some type of responsibility in making decisions at this stage of my life. For example, she started giving me marijuana when I was 7. Now when I ask her, "What the hell were you thinking giving marijuana to a child?" Her response is that I "asked for it."

  Now I remember this day clearly because it was shortly before my parents separated. She was sitting on the couch smoking a joint and I sat next to her and said "Can I try it?"

  So she passed it to me. I remember years later when I asked waht she was thinking she said, "I had fun watching you act like a monkey." Lovely parenting skills.

  What do I want for the long term? I don't have a clue. I feel bad because I kind of excommunicated her completely. I've tried repeatedly to stay cordual with her, but she is just a giant void of concentrated negative energy, sucking the life out of everything she touches and breeding self-doubt, fear, and loathing. I have no idea. My heart aches to think she will die, old and lonely, partly because I am unable to forgive her for the things she did to me, as well as the dangerous situations she put me in, but mainly because she has done these things to herself.

• 14/08/2008 @ 01:24 UMxx said

  

  I think that it is really hard to think about forgiveness until somehow you are able to just live with what has happened - some people call it acceptance. Don't set the bar too high - it is just a way to keep your self feeling bad. But I can't imagine an adult who would hand over a joint ot a child - mind you I don't think I can understand an adult smoking a joint around a child.

  I didn't mean to stir up feelings for you to feel bad because you have coped by having little to do with your mum. I wonder if you really had any other options - maybe the best that you can want for yourself for the long term is that you can work through this and the chain of abuse stops. Too often it seems to continue through generations. It takes incredible courage to create this sort of change. How did you manage that?

  Are you proud of yourself for managing this? I hope you can honour yourself for how far you have come. Maybe there is a slim chance that by working through this stuff you won't feel like getting involved in your mother's versions of your earlier life. Somehow I feel it is more important to be able to live comfortably within our own skins than worry about others. I wonder if in some ways your still are feeling responsible for your mum - it's not unusual to feel like this I reckon.

  cheers xx UM

• 14/08/2008 @ 13:21 LetGo said

  

  I'm not proud. I'm afraid. My father is just like his parents, he's going to drink himself to death, and my mom is just like her parents, completely separated from reality.

  Now, I'm an alcoholic... I try not to drink as much as I have in the past. When I get to drinking I don't stop. I drink everyone under the table then drink some more. Took years of practice. I've blacked out so many times, done so many stupid things. And, as you might read in the future, I have a touch of the crazies as well. My mom was a writer, so, any ability I show in illustrating these memories comes directly from her. But the things she made up, and the things she did were so absolutely insane, I'm terrified of doing those things to someone else. When you cannot base how you are going to live from watching your mother or father, you become very unsure of what it is you're supposed to be.

• 14/08/2008 @ 19:36 roze said

  

  LetGo, I cannot tell you what this last post reflects. I have been thinking of you a lot today and i was going to post this evening to say that you are a very talented writer. And then i read this. And it is not coming from your mother - it is coming from you - perhaps a perverse sort of genetic gift - but the words and the emotions and the experiences are yours. No-one else can own these.

  I stand up and applaud (and i know you don't want loads of well done stuff) but i do applaud that you can write that you are afraid. We all carry fear - it underlies so much of our action and inaction - and yet we rarely name it. We give it all sorts of other identities because they are safer somehow.

  And now in making your bricks and talking of that fear of what you may do to others immediately perhaps reduces that possibility. For fears spoken are less scary than when they sit inside. And yes we are supposed to learn from our parents but that does not mean we internalise the learning and live it in our own actions. Each of us can struggle through to find our authentic voice and selves - which certainly are marked by our experiences of our parents - but they are not determining who we are - just allowing us to reflect on who we may be differently. And if there is no sure learning - something we cannot take - then it is so much harder as you write.

  I have spent so much of my adult life not wanting to be my father (an alcoholic and heavy user of prescribed drugs for over 50 years) that i somehow lost sight of who i wanted to be. Took a huge craziness last year - so much fucking pain - to be able to begin to realise i had a choice. And crazing is that - a breaking of the surface - that perhaps highlights some deeper fissures that we need to engage with in order to be whole. With love roze

• 18/08/2008 @ 08:41 UMxx said

  

  Hi Let Go,

  I have been thinking of you also - your reflections on your memories and the way that you are able to communicate your memories and experiences. I'm not quite double your age - but I didn't have that capacity and insight at your age - I doubt I have arrived there yet.

  I wonder what it is that allows us as humans to recognise that our parents had many deficiencies and few answers for us and how we wanted to be. I know that I can stop what my mother had handed to her from her parents. My father was a little better and seemed to do a better job of fathering than his own father - who we commonly call a "waster". Someone who is untrustworthy and wastes life and opportunities by taking all the wrong shortcuts.

  You seem to be quite resilient and tuned in - we all have our own stories of craziness - things we have done that make no sense to us or others in - you're in similar company here.

  I don't know - you just seem to have the knack of getting me to think - I like and respect that.

  We don't have to be our parents - we can make choices and take chances to ensure we don't. take care mate UM xx
  

• 18/08/2008 @ 13:38 LetGo said

  

  I think that quality that allows us to recognize those things is a sense of altruism. One thing that all of the abusive people in our lives had in common is that they were unable to think or concern themselves with anybody but themselves. Their lives were crap, and we know nothing about their pain... while they are completely blinded to the pain they are causing the people around them.

  I'm not sure how the quality is instilled,what chain of events help to form it, but people that try to face the issues that bother them the most, that are able to truly resolve them, I believe these people do it not for themselves, but for the benefit of those closest to them.

  Thank you all again for your understanding. It feels a bit weird to write these things down where anyone can see them, but it is a great relief when people can put in their advice and thoughts. These memories have been popping up a lot lately, and it seemed as soon as I put them here I got a bit of a break from them. I'm remembering other things now, things that I haven't thought about in years. I wondering how far down the rabbit hole I should go... lol.

• 18/08/2008 @ 19:45 Mebenji said

  

  Oh, UM knows a lot a bout rabbit holes! (LOL!!) Me, I wonder how different is it to write things here where people can come and comment - I did a lot of writing in A4 size, lined books, in pen, more than 1000 pages in all (before the the Doc I was seeing went to Sydney 1995). I didn't even how him that writing - so now I've written some here, you come here, others write here too, I wonder at the difference it makes to have feed back and responses, to know people out there care about how we are feeling and what we've experienced - what are your thoughts? I'm trying not to analyze too deep least I would start censoring myself too much, nevertheless, I find it interesting - and I would not have guessed how good it can feel knowing someone else will see. That's the most surprising thing of all.

  -Mebenji

• 18/08/2008 @ 20:50 LetGo said

  

  My thoughts, and I will borrow a bit from the talkabout I posted a week ago, are that society does not really allow much of an outlet or release from these experiences. Even close friends (if you can bring yourself to tell them about things like this without heavy, heavy, h e a v y drinking) cannot really provide adequate support or advice when they hear about these type of events. I'm sure we've all gotten the same old "Oh, that's sad," or my personal favorite, "Just get over it."

  
  Just get over it is what I tell myself all the time. But sometimes there is no "Just get over it", sometimes people need more time than others to properly deal with trauma. It's funny that as a society we think people should be able to pick themselves up from their bootstraps and do it alone, but in the mental health industry one of the biggest concerns is whether a person has a primary support group or not. Support is crucial in helping a human being resolve issues, but that is what we lack the most.

  
  So, response is crucial. Especially from people that have been in similar situations and experiences. And in this medium, a person can unload whatever is in their head. You're allowed to do it at your leisure, whenever the thought strikes you, and you're not under the spotlight of a counselor or a room full of people watching you. Not to mention that events like the one above, those are about impossible to get through. I never told that complete story to anyone, not even a counselor or even my dad. But here, it's unedited, and free for someone to read and tell me if this is normal or not.

  
  And on a side note, maybe that's what this all boils down to... wondering whether or not this is what the majority of children have to go through. I know a lot of children go through much worse, and still function jsut fine. I keep feeling like this isn't so bad, why does it bother me so much. There is something to think about.

• 18/08/2008 @ 21:13 harmony said

  

  Hi LetGO

  Believe me - it is so bad, it isn't so normal for a child to live long term with what would seem to be a severely mentally ill mother not getting medical treatment. Your experiences seem extreme to me - and I know extreme, having lived it myself in many ways. The majority of children don't go through such extreme experiences. Maybe because of your job with people who have been through hell, you get a bit of a skewed view - but I see your experiences as end of spectrum. I work with young people who have multiple barriers to learning/ employment and hear horrific tales on a daily basis, but they usually have a bit of a support system going on somewhere. The fact that you seem to have been coping without support makes it all the more miraculous than you have survived thus far.
  Love Harmony