Lefty
My cat Lefty and I are sitting here watching the birds this morning. She is my partners 3 legged cat and I have been happy to have her cat company for over a year now.
In prior journal I talked about keeping commitment to myself to do something for the 4th of July. But, as it gets closer anxiety sets in. I'm not ready to put myself fully into holidays. It tells me I have more healing to do.
I wonder sometimes if there is something wrong with me...why I can't get close to people entirely, my adultdaughter and I haven't spoken now for years. I have no answers other than I was 16 and far too young to be raising a kid although I did my best with no help from family.
Now I think it would have been more unselfish of me if I had given her up for adoption but my mother was threatening adopting her and I don't want my mother to have her so I chose to keep her. Never in my dreams would I think my daughter and I would have the bad relationship that my mother and I had.
I sacrificed a lot for my daughter because I loved her and would go thru it again. But, today among so many others my heart is empty and hurting.
Replies
Did Lefty, by chance, visit my chicken coop last night? Dagwood is MIA this morning with no forensic evidence of foul fowl play. Sounds catty to me. . . A canine wouldn't have been able to get up in the roost without scuffing up the dirt. Sigh. . . There sure are allot of things in nature who enjoy a good chicken dinner.
I, too, am haunted by doubts of whether I should have tried to raise children while theraputing my mental health issues. . . My middle aged children have every right to call me "Toxic Mom." I doesn't know but I does believe that "Toxic" means "mentally ill" in contemporary slang, I try to let that strictly personal fact be as open as possible. The residents of my designated Toxic People Landfill are trying to get me to run for Mayor.
In my own case, the middle aged cherubs form coup d'etats to take over whatever hidey hole I run to after they evict me from the last one. Even in The Toxic People Landfill, my hidey holes are cleaner than the ones they evicted me from. Can I envy that your daughter is putting her silence where her hate is?
Arfie,
Ive never gotten any answers from her and when I went to the shelter she actually called me and checked on me, that was 2 years ago, I haven't heard anything since. Most say I should feel lucky shes not calling and asking for help while others assume I was a terrible mother. It wasn't like that at all. But, it couldn't have helped I couldn't afford to do a lot for her, that I married a narcissist when she was in her early teens and wound up raising his son from a prev marriage. Somehow, the crack got wider between us. It breaks my heart.
My counselor told me its okay to tell people I don't have children, but, I don't want to be a liar. I think I had a lot to deal with when I was raising kids. I think we get put on the back burner because we are so busy taking care of everyone else and putting out fires.
Just in the last 3 years have I begun to scratch the surface. It took me leaving my abusive husband and losing my daughter. But, I'm finally wanting to take care of me.
As far as Lefty....she seems to like the frogs on the back porch. For 3 years old, she still acts like a kitten.