Faith,

My mother is a wonderful lady..do not get my wrong..but she had..has a deeper layer to herself that most people do not know about and will never know about..I come from a "Brady Bunch" family where all outside appearances are that everything is VERY kosher and well maintained..when in fact our family was quite the mess..my mother had a secret life growing up..and one that led her to act as two seperate people in her adult life..she was a mother that loved us..and one that could turn on her children in an instant..she was one I loved and one I feared..the outside world never knew of but one side of my mother..and to this day have never believed a word out of my mouth about ANY kind of abuse or misunderstandings that might have resorted with her..MY point is..My mother acted this way because of things in her childhood..and once this was divulged to me in my teen years..my understanding of her began to change..first to anger..then to frustration..then to hurt..and finally in MY adult years to a better understanding of who she is..I have moved on from the things that my mother and I have been through and she and I have been able to build a new relationship..but it took me to know these things about her, to move past my anger and hurt..and to understand her past to gain the knowledge of who she was as a person..not to forgive her actions..that wasn't the point..she knew better..or I always believed she should have..hence my anger and hurt..but I still believed she was just as lost and hurt and damaged as I..so in a way I understood her pain..and I don't believe she was the cause of all of mine..just part of making mine worse. I know our situations are extremely different here..but I do believe in the saying "the truth shall set you free" its just up to you what you do with it..If you ever need to talk..((((HUGS))))