Hi, I am new here so I feel a little lost.

I am so sorry that you are going through all of this, and feel so alone tonight. I understand how difficult it is to want your mom, but to be so angry at your mom. I think that since we are blood related we love our moms but we don't have to like them or like what they have done. I obviously don't know what happened, but she may have panicked or tried to clean you up but was so scared that she hurt you while trying to help. I can only guess.

Don't be mad at yourself for loving your mom, that is natural. Just remember it is your choice to forgive her and let it go or to continue to dislike her and be angry. I think angry keeps a person stressed out. But you have to do whatever helps you cope. That is personal.

Please don't hurt yourself. Try to love the child in yourself and protect that child within you. She has seen too much and has had to deal with too much. Love yourself, you are not alone, you have the strong part of yourself. That part needs to be nurtured so you can blossom. You are married, you have a job, you are functioning, you are so far ahead of so many, pat yourself on the back and say: "I am doing a Great Job!".

Put some positive sticky notes up on your bathroom mirror so when you get up in the morning you remember that you are succeeding. You are beautiful inside. And this past garbage is not going to steal any of your day. You choose to be a success story.

I have not walked a mile in your moccasins but I have walked a trail that included childhood rape, adult rape at knife point, hostage at gun point etc. I was told to never discuss any of it. It was a disgrace for any of these things to happen to me and these are all secrets that my mother insisted should never be discussed. And they never were. I was the victim, the abusers were allowed to go on with their lives, I went into hiding. I am still in hiding.

Stay strong. I hope you choose to celebrate your successes.
-RJ

It took me until my adulthood to develop resentments toward my mother because of her unwillingness to take charge and protect her children.

It took me many years after that to realize that she was nothing more than another child in that house. He would not have chosen her to be his wife if strength and intelligence were prominent characteristics of hers.

It wasn't long after that when signs of forgiveness started creeping in. Her knowing and turning her head the other way will never be okay. She knows it, and I know it. I have to try my best to let it go so that when the day comes where I have to bury her, I'm not burying some of myself with her.

I hope today brings you some relief. Working through these realizations can be tough. Many hugs.

At time like these, the Serenity prayer is all that will help. Get my brain going in a different direction. Hugs.

My mama was the power behind the throne as dad played out the role of her "pit bull while she held onto his leash." I eventually caught on but felt so stupid for not knowing that back then. Isn't that sad? how we kids beat ourselves up for what? being a kid; acting like a kid? Were this "kid" to have had protection from the adults around me, I wouldn't have had to be in that horrible survival role in the first place. It's my good pleasure now to treat myself better than they did.

This next statement took me years to understand and am hoping it helps you. Dependency on our parents is natural for the development of attachment for the development of love because of their protective guidance. For years I took the "essence" of my love for Mama's barely "essence" of love and tried to build an attachment that would make her into the protective guidance role I needed so we could "love" better. Notice how I was initiating what each parent should have been initiating. A child's role is responsive. Period.

Mama had paranoid schizophrenia, so she didn't have it in her to be what I needed. She was dangerous in all aspects from day one and once I war raised and could remove my physical body from her presence, she continued being emotional dangerous to me until her dying day.

Babies come all wired up in their brains to attach. It is the parents to complete the cycle of attachment--or not. Children have a natural fear of abandonment and will do darn near anything to "get their parent(s) to adore them" through gaze as the apple of their eye" for the dual attachment to take place, so love can be felt and completed.

My breakdown at age 62 finally made me see what my psychiatrist, primary care doctor and therapist were saying to me. It was not my fault "they" couldn't demonstrate love with me because of their own mental disorders exacerbated by their own abusive childhood's involving physical and emotional abandonment.

I grieved and moved on to others, my therapist mainly, who could love property and teach me what that felt like so I could love properly. Our grown children needed to see that change in me. And have been responsive. We are happier than we have ever been since I have been diagnosed (OCD tied into my mother's mental illness and chronic PTSD) and one more in the family (obsessive anxiety disorder); three of us are on meds and all have been to therapy in some capacity.

The work has been worth it: we have the love connection! And the next generation will benefit because the last generation did their journey work with all the coping tools and helps available.

PS I forgot to recommend Dr. Bruce Perry's books on attachment disorder theory: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog and Born for Love. Both books are excellent.

When mama died, i felt relief for both of us. Her tormented mind was done. No more trouble going on inside her. And no more worries for me. I buried her without shedding a tear. Didn't feel hate or love or anything other than what I could feel--nothing much for we never had attached properly. And after my breakdown, I lost the connection of trying to make her "title" into what I needed as a mother. I feel out of love with that persona in me who was trying too hard to get what was killing me.

So I stood as the stranger I was next to the coffin holding the woman who had been dead to me for years. Time had run out for us. And I began to accept life "as is." That's the sad facts about mental illness that we, in this family, have had to come to.

And then I took myself out for Chinese food because Mama's "essence" did that every month with her daughters to celebrate dad's ability to provide a steady paycheck. And I celebrated that the hard work was over.

I was very triggered about a doc saying that my mother must have cared "she was your mother.."...............I know what you mean.

Its very confusing i'll go for saying that i'm with you.She was evil and I would rather think of myself as a orphan than try to reconcile THAT "relationship".......Sorry for me there is no reconcilaition other than see it as you said evil, accept it, and realize I am not alone in that experience.....disconnect totally from her and try to build a life for yourself.

I'm so confused myself now..........That i'm not sure that is good advice..But the alternative to try to understand eveil people and somehow have them look for their redeeming qualities IF they had any gets me nowhere.

You seem like a person that has a lot of good qualities.Even in your pic, You look like strong but yet kind you portray that.