I am so sorry Dracona! You are rising above her narcissism! You are an important person; to me and your children! You matter to them! Hugs to you!

Dracona the good thing about this is that we still have time to change and be better. It is so horrible the way your mother treated you...I really hope that you are doing so much better as a mother. Your little one has the right to have a wonderful mother. I hope you could sort out your problems step by step. And your daughter could make a big tribute to you.

My mother was never bother to teach me how to read or write. I was about six or seven when I started going to school all by myself...I learnt to take the public bus.

My father used to work and my mother was a housewife. She never made the time to come and see me for special events at school either. I was the only child whose parents were never around.

I think my parents were embarrassed of me. I was not the best student and I often had low grades. I still managed to get a degree with distinctions in South America and another in Europe. I forced my father to come and see me on my graduation day. He did not say a word...as usual! Well...he said that he was done with me!

When I was a little girl, I had to stay all day long in a tree to protect myself from my mother. She was waiting for me with a massive belt... Mum used to hit me badly. It was such beastly thing to do! That was her way of teaching me to be a good girl in order to get good grades and be a good person.

She often treated my unavailable father badly too. I often heard both of my parents fighting and shouting at each other. My mother would not allow me to come in to the kitchen either. I think I was brought up like a man. She wanted to have an independent daughter!

Both of my parents were poor and could not eat everything I needed. I used to be worry about money...that was not a nice and happy childhood...sometimes we did not have enough food on the table and had to starve. As a child, I never had breakfast because lovely mother used to sleep until late or most of the time she was ill. She suffered of epilepsy and died when I was twelve.

I only had one holiday with my parents and that is the only good memory about my parents.

I just think that we are both survivors.

Thank you docruth, that was really a great thing for you to say. you are wonderful too!

We are survivors, i could be laying in a ditch right now, but somehow i keep fighting, no matter how messed up and hopeless i feel.
i try really hard, to be good to my daughter. and for the most part i am. i already teach her to read and write. we play games, she is a VERY good colorer, she has her own boxes of crayons at 18 months old, and is allowed to color as much as she wants, and she askes me for what colors she wants. i let her have the whole box today, and i fell asleep woke up to her with her back to me, coloring, i thought i would find crayon marks all over the house, but nope, she just stayed on the paper, while i dozed for an hour! i hang them up,
i write her name on it with her, and make circles and shapes of whatever color she likes. but sometimes, when i am down, i have a really hard time with her, and its really hard on me when she cries, cause i dont knwo what to do. kids are suposed to cry, but how much? when is enough? i remember being little, and having similar scenarios and remember my little heart breaking. i dont ever want to break her heart.
crying for naptime is hard, or bedtime, cause i dont want her to feel abandoned, but crying is good too, its really hard for me, it brings back all those old childhood feelings of hurt and abandonment.

i fight my emotions EVERY DAY. every minute. from what she did to me. i need to be a whole person again. maybe when she dies, i will be free from her manipulations. i never know how i feel about her.
she can be good for a while, and i start to have fond feelings for her, but wary, then she turns into a crazy bitch again... and blames me, tells me how negative i am... blah blah blah... oh wait, does that sound familiar or in tune with my relationships with men? yes, yes it does.

Please research "forgiveness". I too had someone in my life who mistreated me. I held on to the hatred all my life. It NEVER hurt the other person, only me. It took almost 35 years to let it go. I did not forgive her, I forgave myself for carrying around the baggage, for continuing to let her victimize me in the present.

The letting go was easy. I simply said "God, I am done with this. I'm giving all this emotional energy back to you. I know that you will make things right."

I felt a huge weight off of me. My life was no longer clouded with negativity. I was amazed at how easy it was to just let go. I had conned myself into believeing it could not be done.

I am soo glad you want to be a better mom to your daughter, your story sounds a lot like mine. my kids are grown now, three of them, my daughter is 28 my two sons are 21 and 22. i remember being scared to death when I was pregnant with each one of them scared I would not love them and hurt them like my mother hurt me I would tell them I loved them while they were in my belly, and when they were born I held them a lot and was worried like you about how much to let them cry. I would listen to their cry and be by their side as soon as they started. I had people tell me to let them cry because I was spoiling them, i did not listen to the people. When they cried that meant that they needed something and I was there for them. there is a difference between crying and fusing, I learned to really listen and went with my gut feeling, like a new born fuses when they first wake up but then their voice changes and you can tell when they are needing you.

My mother also use to tell me stories how she would jump down the stairs to try and kill me and my bother when she was pregnant, she blamed me for ruining her life, not getting my dad to love us and having to move because I wouldn't go ask him why he didnt love us any more. so when i would cry because i hated where we moved and was sad, missed my animals and friends she would say 'it is your fault if you would have asked your dad why he didn't love us any more this would no have happened' of course I believed her for gods sake she was my mom. I was sad because someone in a big green car came and took our cats (about nine of them put them in gunny sacks twirled them around and threw them in the trunk. when i cried that time i think she hit me in the head and know for sure she said for christs sake they are just cats, stop crying or i will give you something to cry about. I still feel dizzy and crazy in the head when I think about hearing the cats meowing (yelling) it was horrible.

that was 36 years ago and still haunts me.... my mother has been dead for about 3 years and she can still haunt me from her grave. I am learning not to let her and now that I have found this group (last night) know my healing will progress more and faster and I won't believe all the horrible stuff she taught me about myself.

I told her a cousin manipulated me and made me do crap with him when I was 16, of course she took his side, blamed me cause I should have been old enough to know better. He mentally raped me with telling me he loved me then got me to go in the woods and fool around, sometimes he would take me to his friends house get me high and have sex on the friends dinning room floor. one time he even took me to his girlfriends house right after.. I was sooo sick and humiliated when I went in the bathroom and realiazed i was bleeding because he popped something that should have been saved for real love.

I would also get chores to do but never did them good enough she would find somethings wrong and do it over after she told me i was stupid and no good, wished i was never born (I remember wishing I was never born myself). I did not get beat but got hit in the back of the head a lot, 'want me to knock some sense into you' she and others would say. I never knew what I said of did wrong during those times just realized I must be super bad and must have deserved it. She would embarass me in front of my friends, family out in public, where ever by yelling at me for things like having to poop while we were shopping pull me to the bathroom saying things like 'i cant believe your are doing this to me, and then yell at me the whole time to hurry' ouch i remember my little belly hurting soo bad and i coulnd't stop it.

she also took my friends away they were either not good enough or didn't really like me any how. She was always mad at me because I didn't like wearing my cousins hand me downs because the cousin and aunt would act smug saying things like 'they looked nicer on her but look o.k.' 'dont you wish your parents could afford to buy you nice things. dont you wish you had thick pretty hair.. horrible horrible people...

my mother always treated other peoples kids sooo nice telling them how cute they were while she was telling me and everyone else how stupid i looked, big my ears were, letting uncles and aunts cute me down and be mean to me saying things like 'you little bastard you are just like your father no good'

I was told I would never be anything, when i took drum lessons and got frustrated she said just quit you are no good anyway and will never be able to be a drummer. I didnt understand any of it then but also believed them, and have managed to destroy everything good in my life thus far and never complete a project. I was taught that with love there should be pain, so i seek out pain, so that i can feel love and attatchments.
I have two degrees an associate and bachelor and still keep screwing up my life, i feel like it was a joke to get them and that I dont deserve them and to be proud of myself. If I was ever proud of something I would hear 'well there is no conceat here Kerri has it all' or just be told to shut up or was completely ignored.

I also might be happy but instead im here, struggling just like she taught me, hurting just like i have always known because peace and relaxation elude me too. i might have had self esteem, i might have liked who i saw in the mirror, i might have wanted, actually wanted to succeed in life, instead of floating through it waiting for something great to happen, existing/surviving instead of living and dreaming of things and never acting on them. Chasing disaster and reliving my childhood over and over and over again. ick!!

We may never have complete closure with the deep wound from the crazy bitches, but we can find peace, love and acceptance. and be better parents than they ever imagined. I always did the complete opposite from what my mother would have done or said to me and it worked. well there were times when i was not perfect but I would tell my kids I was sorry if I hurt their feelings and my actions were not their fault. was honest with them about why I acted depressed or yelled at times. my kids also knew the limits with me and had the right to tell me when I was crossing the line, and believe me to this day they are still honest with me (in a loving way) and know I love them with all my heart, am proud of them and would do anything for them.... and they love be back... so my fear of not loving them and being loved did not come true... so i guess my mother didnt/doesnt have as much control over me as I thought she did, maybe I did put closure between us and didn't even know it.... YAY!!

My mother never admitted what she did to me I took her to counseling once when i was about 28 she told the counselor 'I love her and am proud of her' she was a great actress my councelor told me that i was to blame for part of why i hated my mother.. wow after she heard my stories she still had the gall to blame me, I do blame my mother the way i am with relationships, i never had an example,. love was always drama, always a price, there was never down time, it was always intense, and never her fault.
no wonder im a mess.

Getting out of the bad relationships is good i've been out for only two weeks hope i don't ever do that again, now i just have to get out of myself and my past, and move on to be the person i know i can be, thanks to awesome women like you guys on this sitel

thanks for your story I kept some of the things you said in your letter to your mother in my post because it is exactly what I would have said if I came up with things on my own.... Hope you don't mind!!!! keep up the good work,,,, thanks again I had an awesome counselor tell me that she knew I was a great mom cause I was sooooo petrified of being a bad mom and admitted I wanted to do better, she said bad moms never admit it. so I know you are a good mom also, we truely love our kid/s and that is the best and first step....

There is so much pain on this board. So much pain that has to be worked through. But that is our legacy, to OVERCOME the abuse and not pass it along like they did.

peace to you D

Thanks everyone. i cringe when i think of my daughter with people like i have been. and if that happens, i know it would be my fault. i dont want that for her, and i dont want that on me, i would never forgive myself if i allowed that to happen, i would rather her be adopted to a good family, than for that to happen to her. Its another reason the relationship i am in is so good. He is stable. and if he wasnt here, i cant honestly say i trust myself yet when it comes to men. and the last thing i want to do to her is bring in different men.

and the comment about how you worry about being a bad mom makes you a good one, just maybe that is true, because my mom, always portrays herself as a strong willed single mom who raised 4 kids on her own. she uses that against me with my own daughter. and i tell her, and we all came out just great didnt we? she is always trying to tell me what to do, i guess moms are like that, but this from a woman who thought it was ok to let my daughter play with a plastic bag because she was right there holding her.
she didnt get the concept that i didnt want my daughter to view plastic bags as a toy, she took it as an attack on her and her mothering skills, she thought i was saying you cant save her, youll let the bag choke her. my boyfriend, walked over to her, took the bag, and said WE DO not ALLOW OUR CHILD TO PLAY WITH PLASTIC BAGS! its great. my bf will stand up to her! ive never had anyone do that for me, whether they liked her or not. My Bf now, actually will tell her, to go outside and stay there until she can knock like a proper adult or call before coming over! i like it.