I got this email from my mother.
When you’ve been hurt by someone so deeply they forever have the power to make you feel raw and deep down hurt.
Sometimes only with a word, a look or an email.
I don’t know what step this is in the twelve step program but I do know that my mother prides herself on having completed all twelve steps more than a couple of times. It’s likely that if I went back through my emails I could count how many times exactly since I get random emails like this every few months.
But when those emails are followed by more emails calling me a bitch and blaming me for stealing her daughter it’s hard to really feel how so very sorry she is.
Because it isn’t the drinking that keeps me afraid of her. She’s sober now.
It isn’t the alcoholism that made me consider a move 3,000kms away that much more. She still knows where I live.
It isn’t the making amends emails that come and go that keep me from letting her share in my children’s lives. I know she is sorry for drinking.
It’s the mental illness. The bipolar. The kind that makes her so blind to anyone else but her. The manic moments/days/weeks.
They scare me.
And oh how deeply they hurt.
Each time I am left having to rebuild my strength, myself.
Still without a mother.
It is not the alcoholism. I could forgive and make amends if that is all it was. I could thank her for getting sober and forget the horror of pleading, watching, living with an alcoholic.
I know I could. Because I don’t hate her. Sometimes it would be so much easier if I did but I can’t and I don’t. My heart is heavy with grief and guilt not hate.
I don’t need to forgive because you cannot forgive what is about to come. What always comes.
How do you forgive someone who continues to hurt? How do you let someone in knowing they will never be able to consider your needs, your feelings, your life?
As a mother, how do you let that person into your children’s world? Knowing one day she will manipulate, disappoint and hurt.
Because that’s what she always does. There’s always something.
So she’s sorry. So very sorry. And yet, at the bottom of her email four little words -sent from my iPad- tells me everything I need to know.
She’s sorry about her drinking. But clearly she’d rather have a new iPad than support her youngest daughter through University.
Once again I know… she’s not that sorry about any of the things that matter after all.
OMG girl…..Big hugs to you!!
I grew up with an alcoholic father ~ (Not the same as a mother, but yet same friggin disease that stole from us)
I unfortunately didn’t see my father with to many sober days!
The disease took him right to his last week of life! He passed away 3 yrs ago to Liver Cancer (which we all know that the Cirrhosis in the liver probably compromised it)!
I am so sorry that your mother is hurtful with her words…….saying sorry and not meaning it is worse than anything!! Just reopens the wound!
She is a lucky person that really don’t deserve you…….you could hate and her not have your email……in reality, she didn’t know you in her alcoholic days, why should she know you in her sober days?!?
Because you are a loving and giving person!! Keep your head up high
Nicky
sending love Maija. you are a strong woman.
The kind of strong you never knew you’d have to be, right? You do what is right for you and your family, not anyone else. You call the shots for your own sanity, and you have every right to choose who gets to be in your kids’ lives at this point. You have created good from much chaos…keep going. Your sister and kids are lucky to have you.
I am sorry you and your family are suffering because of her actions and words.
{I just wanted you to know that I read your words today.}
Thanks for this post. I find it really inspiring that you can differentiate between the harm that comes from alcoholism, that plenty of recovering alcoholics can and do make amends for… and the harm that comes from not actually being “recovering,” from continuing to live in that self-centered world of taking rather than giving. I’m in recovery and it’s so important to me to become someone that people in my life can count on, so I never have a child is hurt by me the way you are hurt by your mom.
I’m sorry that you don’t have the mother you deserve. And I’m sorry for her that she lacks the tools to get better.
That email made me laugh but the rest of the post made me so sad.
That is so sad that it hurts you so badly. I am sorry that you had to grow up like that. Awful.
Maija – You are strong and amazing. I want to wrap you in a hug and give you the love you should have had from her.
Mental illness is horrible, because it is so hard to discern what is the disease and what is the actual person. I don’t know if that makes the situation better or worse.
It is amazing what we can tolerate ourselves versus what we will tolerate happening to our children.
You do what you feel is right, because you act out of love for your family.
Much love to you.
Keep writing, Maija. And know we’re listening. And caring. A lot. ox
@writewrds
i echo many of the words already posted above. your strength and caution are so present in your words. i too just wanted to let you know that your words were read and felt. thank you.
Maija,
Surviving a childhood in a fractured family is hard. And just when you think you’ve caught your breath, something like this slams you with the hurt and grief – again and again. You can forgive, Maija. That doesn’t mean you have to trust.
A big hug to you. A really big hug.
HUGE HUGS!!!
For once I’m not sure what to say.
I haven’t lived this so I dont’ feel able to.
Just know that i read it.
M2Mx
Thank you – to all of you. Your words and knowing that you’re reading mine (especially the ones that hurt the most to type) mean so much to me.
Truly, thank you.
It’s amazing that you can see the difference between her mental illness and her alcoholism although so often they run together in our behaviors.
Setting boundaries is so awful, it just plain hurts and I can understand and feel you pain. I’m so glad you’re writing about it and sharing….it will help others as well.
I ‘get’ this sooo much! But like my step mother, your mother will never ‘get’ it but continue to ‘get’ you:( sigh…..I’m so glad you were able to rescue your sister. I tried to rescue mine and was partly successful but it’s her bio mother so it was harder…and there is damage…so much damage.
hugs