A Powerful Breakthrough
I had a very powerful realization yesterday evening. I was working though the “Courage to Heal Workbook,” and I was to fill out a list of positive and negative influenced in my life. It was an exercise to put the affects to the abuse in perspective with the other influences (good and bad) which shaped me. So, I started filling it out and sexual abuse has by far been the most devastating thing. My mother’s mental illness is right up there at number two and it could be number one except that she may never have had broken down without my dad’s influence and abuse.
So then I got over to the good stuff. How the hell did I get through it? What did I have that pulled me though? I looked inside of myself and thought, “You are one tough girl, you had no one, it’s a miracle you got though this and still managed to become the loving, compassionate person you are. That sure as hell wasn’t what you were taught.” I thought about my grandparents (mother’s parent’s) who came to visit us on the weekends and I thought about my oldest sister who is tough as nails, yet compassionate. She talked me through a lot in my teenaged years. Still, that was not all I had, there was something more…
So I sat there, feeling this amazing love and trying to name it; God. I consider that God working himself through me... But, how did God put that there??? And so I thought back and then I remembered my mother way, way back there buried beneath layer after layer of chaos and pain. Her saying my prayers with me, reading me stories, holding me… I thought about how strong she was, me being her fourth child in an unbearable marriage to a cunning, sadistic, monster. She stayed for us. She stayed until she broke, and even then she stayed for a time.
I wish she had left sooner (and gotten us away from him), but I know she stayed for us. She tried to keep it all together and go on like a normal functional family. My sisters both take after her in many ways, and so do I. Even after she left the home we went on carrying out traditions she taught us and displaying her strength and compassion in various ways. In that way, my mother passed herself along, down the line, through my sisters and through me; even when she was not there.
It’s been so awfully confusing for me, because she utterly rejected me and that hurt me so much. It didn’t help that my dad used there feeling to keep me from her. He didn’t want her to tell me the truth about him. I never really did understand it. My grandmother would always tell me, “your mother is not the same person she used to be; she was such a wonderful mother…” I listened to that, but it offered me little comfort. In many ways the message really never sunk in, “she was a different person.”
To me it was all one person, one person who loved me, then rejected me and abandoned me, but you know what? That woman who rejected me, really, truly, is not the same woman who loved and nurtured me. It is true. She didn’t reject me, she was NOT the same person.
Anyway, because of this, I haven’t been able to accept her love. I’ve felt too angry, too rejected. I’ve said to myself, “she doesn’t love you,” and it is true that the estranged woman in her body does not, but the mother I lost when I was so young; she treasured me. I remembered that last night; I REALLY remembered it. It hit me. I reached down deep underneath all of the rest and I unburied that treasure. The very thing I’ve held onto and had all along; the thing that got me though this. It has a name. It is my mother’s love for me. It’s so deep, and so strong, and I still have it. Oh, how much pain it has caused me…. It’s quite bitter-sweet. This love, it hurts so much.
But… My mother did love me and I do know it and that somehow makes a world of difference to me. I’m not going to reject that love anymore; I’m going to claim it and use it to fix the broken little child that she left behind. My mother gave everything she had, all of her strength until she broke and I’m going to remember her that way and honor her memory. This other woman who lives in her skin; that is not my mother.
Maybe this doesn’t make any sense to anyone but me, but it makes all the difference in the world to me and I think this is going to make a real difference in my life. This is very healing; it’s a break though for me.
So then I got over to the good stuff. How the hell did I get through it? What did I have that pulled me though? I looked inside of myself and thought, “You are one tough girl, you had no one, it’s a miracle you got though this and still managed to become the loving, compassionate person you are. That sure as hell wasn’t what you were taught.” I thought about my grandparents (mother’s parent’s) who came to visit us on the weekends and I thought about my oldest sister who is tough as nails, yet compassionate. She talked me through a lot in my teenaged years. Still, that was not all I had, there was something more…
So I sat there, feeling this amazing love and trying to name it; God. I consider that God working himself through me... But, how did God put that there??? And so I thought back and then I remembered my mother way, way back there buried beneath layer after layer of chaos and pain. Her saying my prayers with me, reading me stories, holding me… I thought about how strong she was, me being her fourth child in an unbearable marriage to a cunning, sadistic, monster. She stayed for us. She stayed until she broke, and even then she stayed for a time.
I wish she had left sooner (and gotten us away from him), but I know she stayed for us. She tried to keep it all together and go on like a normal functional family. My sisters both take after her in many ways, and so do I. Even after she left the home we went on carrying out traditions she taught us and displaying her strength and compassion in various ways. In that way, my mother passed herself along, down the line, through my sisters and through me; even when she was not there.
It’s been so awfully confusing for me, because she utterly rejected me and that hurt me so much. It didn’t help that my dad used there feeling to keep me from her. He didn’t want her to tell me the truth about him. I never really did understand it. My grandmother would always tell me, “your mother is not the same person she used to be; she was such a wonderful mother…” I listened to that, but it offered me little comfort. In many ways the message really never sunk in, “she was a different person.”
To me it was all one person, one person who loved me, then rejected me and abandoned me, but you know what? That woman who rejected me, really, truly, is not the same woman who loved and nurtured me. It is true. She didn’t reject me, she was NOT the same person.
Anyway, because of this, I haven’t been able to accept her love. I’ve felt too angry, too rejected. I’ve said to myself, “she doesn’t love you,” and it is true that the estranged woman in her body does not, but the mother I lost when I was so young; she treasured me. I remembered that last night; I REALLY remembered it. It hit me. I reached down deep underneath all of the rest and I unburied that treasure. The very thing I’ve held onto and had all along; the thing that got me though this. It has a name. It is my mother’s love for me. It’s so deep, and so strong, and I still have it. Oh, how much pain it has caused me…. It’s quite bitter-sweet. This love, it hurts so much.
But… My mother did love me and I do know it and that somehow makes a world of difference to me. I’m not going to reject that love anymore; I’m going to claim it and use it to fix the broken little child that she left behind. My mother gave everything she had, all of her strength until she broke and I’m going to remember her that way and honor her memory. This other woman who lives in her skin; that is not my mother.
Maybe this doesn’t make any sense to anyone but me, but it makes all the difference in the world to me and I think this is going to make a real difference in my life. This is very healing; it’s a break though for me.
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