Alot of you know some of the much that I've been through with the mother. I've completely limited any discussion/interaction we have to being about the little man. T and I feel the continuing contact was retraumatizing to parts of me.

She's not helping out much with the little man right now. She's been angry with me because I haven't been "all" to her since getting him and beginning to do what I need to do for myself. She'd only gotten him once in two weeks. She refused to get him again last Friday. I explained to her that if there was any way that she could, I really needed the break. She was livid that I could say that to her, instead of great concern as to why she wasn't getting him.

Well, I called the baby's parents (which made her extremely angry). He's been going over there and staying the night for a few weeks now and doing wonderfully! He's a much more complete little man. In fact, he cries because he don't want to leave! Anyhow, they came and got him for not just an overnight, but for three days! We kept in close contact and they just couldn't have done better. I was so proud of them!

She needs to control. She thought she was "showing me something" by not getting him. She wanted things to be hard for me. When I figured out a solution, and it was better than anything she could offer, then it went so perfectly, she went over the edge.

The mother was livid. I refused to feel bad for taking care of myself. She called me out of the blue on Tuesday, and simply nuked me. She pulled out all of the stops, including lumping me with the main abuser and telling me how wrong that I was for caring when the father died. She actually said that. I should NOT have cared. She brought up so many ugly things for me that it's been hard.

How easy it was to compare, then lump, me with the abuser. It's still so amazing to me that she totally neglected my pain then too? She literally said I shouldn't have cared when my father died, and asked me how I could, then told me that I shouldn't have. That was wrong of me. She said I didn't have a father. She said that also three weeks after his death...that's when I began our second "no contact".

It wouldn't have been nearly as damaging, because I've set up some pretty good, strong boundaries, but during those three days I did alot of work and alot of me was up front and very vulnerable. She caused damage inside.

I'd set up so many protective barriers and boundaries but she still did it. This happened Tuesday afternoon and all of me is still dealing with it. It's caused some active PTSD too... When she finally made me angry and emotional, she literally said, "Ah, there's that anger..." It was the only time her voice had any tone to it during the entire conversation...a satisfied lilt.

Wild. Just wild.

KD