T frees me.....

The complex feelings I'm still struggling with around my mother have been keeping me stuck.

Today speaking, yet-again-about-my-mother - T said right toward the end of session, that my mother was happier not seeing me -once I never saw my mother for 3yrs before I contacted her and this last time, I last spoke to her in 2007 thinking it had been 9yrs to date, only to find out she died in 2012 - I said "really? I'd prefer that."

T said "your mother could shut off all her 'bad bits' by not seeing you. Seeing you brought them all up and as she needed to rid herself of them. When she saw you there was a fear she'd have to take them back and she wasn't going to do that. As much as she made you feel unimportant, you were very important in as much as she needed you to project her bad bits.".

That finally made sense. Her not trying to 'fix us' was about her, not me.

T said, even if you'd been her blood daughter, the daughter she said you could never be, you would have still had a difficult relationship with her. Her envy of you having what she never had -a mother - would always have been there.

I feel freer now. For all the emotional abuse/neglect by her. I never wished her harm. And if not seeing me, made her happier, then I cool work that too. I hope she died happy.

I know its kinda backwards, but i relate to what youre saying about rejecting the bad bits etc. I felt i couldnt see my mother because i couldnt be her garbage bin anymore. I just couldnt. Not and stay sane. She thought i should be able to take all she could dish out. Nope.

I never wished her harm either. I just couldnt take on anymore myself. Her limited understanding didnt change my understanding of things.

And amongst all this, was my fantasy it could change.

Maybe because you had kids, you could see things differently, more hopefully, connectedly. My brother did. But i felt it was impossible. Esp once that biological clock ticks off.

I don't know. As a child, I always had hope. Even now. And she's dead. Maybe that was my survival tool.