[eskielover]

I have been feeling so down for over the last week. Anxiety attacks & depression have kept me under the covers only to get out for my pdoc appointment & to have a nice hot shower to wash away all the horrible feelings. I have been striking out at everything & everyone around me so I have felt it much safer to stay in bed & away from everyone & everything.

It wasn't until Friday that I realized that Saturday would have been my Mothers birthday. It has only been 1 1/2 years since she died. The worse part of it all is that I feel so guilty about the way I feel about her. It doesn't seem right to have the feelings I have about her. She wasn't a bad Mom.....geeze, she was always there for me.....everyday. She was the stay at home housewife......the dream of every child except for me.

The sad part was that in her death, I wasn't able to look at her any differently than I did all her life. Everyone else always saw her as such a nice person. She was definitely nice, but for some reason, she couldn't deal with reality. She refused to deal with reality. She thought that if she didn't think that her cancer surgery was any more serious than the hystorectomy she went through that it would all be over & she would get well. She refused to have me asking her Dr's questions......."it took their attention away from her"?????

I am still getting the records from her hospitalizations so I can finally know what really was going on & why it seems that no one was honest with her or me????

I know that the final conversation I had with her surgeon was when he told me what a horrible patient she was. When she came to him, she "didn't give him anything to work with" (because the cancer was already at stage IV). He told me that she didn't care about herself otherwise she would have done something about the cancer much sooner. She wouldn't follow directions about wearing the stockings that were needed to control the lymphodema in her legs. I told her to wear them too but it was always "It's too hot". The fluid is coming out of my legs & it will get the stockings wet & they would have to be washed all the time......duh.....that was why they were needed. The tube they put in to drain her groin area after the surgery kept pulling out. It probably wasn't all her fault, but he blamed her for not paying attention to that either. For one thing, she wasn't supposed to be going out like she did.....but she wasn't willing to believe that anything was really wrong with her.

I hate her for not being honest with herself of me & just letting everything just go on as if nothing was going on. She was never once in her life willing to make up her own mind about much & I even had to finally tell her that it was ok for her to die.

I have to admit that I do feel a little guilty that I feel this way about my Mother. When I look back at her life.....it is very sad to realize that from her, I learned how not to live rather than how to live. Her religion was supposedly the center of her life. I guess that was why she believed above everything that her prayers & the prayers of all her friends & people from her church was going to make her better. She didn't let go of that until I finally told her that she needed to let go & let God answer her prayers the way he wanted to do.....not the way she expected them to be answered.

I wish my tribute to my Mother on her birthday could be much nicer, but I just can't find it in myself yet to let go of how I really feel about her. Maybe with years, the anger will fade away.....maybe with more knowledge found in the records will help me (maybe it will just reinforce my feelings)......only time will tell.

Debbie

[lenjan]

I'm sorry you're struggling with your feelings about your mom, but I understand. I don't have very good feelings toward mine either, and while she's still alive, I know that when she dies I'm not going to feel anything but relief.

I know what you went through with your mom's death and I hope you're able to find some peace eventually.



Candy