My mom just passed away, as I've shared with you here at PC. We buried her yesterday. Mom didn't want a wake or a funeral with "someone preaching" over her, and had asked to be cremated, telling both me and my sister, but my sister ignored this and, because of their Pentecostal religion, there were several sermons at both the funeral and the interment. I realize the funeral is a way for the living to receive comfort, pay tribute, and to say goodbye, and it was beautiful, in it's way.
Mom wasn't a sentimental or particularly religious person, actually mean-spirited a lot of the time, though in her last days while I cared for her, we had a close bonding and healing relationship for me, and I showed her the love she needed. She even asked me, "How are you like this?" to which I answered, "It's my nature, MOM!"
Mom really imbued me with a massive inferiority complex, thru her physical and emotional abuse which extended even when I returned home from college with hittings and verbal abuse. I recall one time when I was very small, probably preschool, my dad telling my mom, "You're going to give her an inferiority complex." Which she did, and which I've battled all my life.
My dad's father, very elderly, born in 1869, used to say, "Don't cast your pearls before swine!" That is what I've done all my life in relationships...compromising myself personally. I married a man I didn't love but to whose demands I acquiesced for 20 years, but relationships with men before and after were full of abuse. Now I see it is time to stop, though I don't know what the future holds. I've seclued myself agoraphobically for almost 4 years now out of fear, but I think there is stil time for living, though I have no desire for a relationship with a man. I do realize my mother instilled a great fear of men in me....emphatically, and that is probably why I have failed so miserably. I look at other successful relationships and wonder why I haven't had that.
Sorry for rambling on so long. Believe me, this is not a "pity party" on my part....just needing feedback and to talk.
Love
Patty