Today in therapy.. my T asked after a session full of me taking up for my mom, if I resented her for not being ther and not protecting me. Did she know? If she did sorta know, maybe she had doubts? Did she feel threatened? Will answering any of these questions help me at all? Theres no way to know for sure. Reason I wouldnt be mad are: She didnt really know, couldnt know for certain, wasnt emotionally capable of helping. I'm not supposed to blame her or be mad at her.

Reasons to be mad are: How could you even slightly think your child might be hurt, and not take action? Why woulddnt you at least ask? I even had a dr tell my mom I had been abused.. No one will ever hold her responsible! She made me feel dirty and bad, then drew away, when she had clues. She watched my soul shrivel up over time and used it to make me more obedient and dependent on her approval. There were times she too made me feel so dirty.

Yet still..my feelings are so ambivalent.
:/

[lenjan]

((((((EV))))) It is hard to get to a place of being at peace with what your parents did or didn't do. It ticks me off that my mom will never see justice either, and that she doesn't think she did anything wrong, and it took me years and years of therapy to be able to say (most of the time) "oh well -- it is what it is."

I don't have any great words of wisdom or suggestions, but I'm happy to listen if you need to vent.



Love, Candy

[tranquility]

Eathersvirtue

Oh my, is this MY topic!! I almost think the time I've spent in therapy on my mother is longer than the time I spent on abuse. It's such a tangled, complex relationship one has with their mother.

I can honestly say that it took a good 6 or 7 years before I finally gave in to the fact that my mother was not going to be what I envisioned and that I had to take the good and ignore the rest.

My mom is coming for her annual visit a week from Friday and i"m already sick to my stomach and dreading the visit - and that is so wrong! I always get keyed up and then it's not AS bad as I imagine.

As far as her not protecting me when I was abused? I don't believe she knew about the sexual abuse by my grandfather. When I recalled the memories at age 23 and told my mom in a therapy session, she said "well, if he were alive today I would be on my white horse at his doorstep" - so what is that? I was more angry that my brother physically abused me for many years and my mom was well aware and didn't do anything.

It's tough stuff - I think it all comes down to acceptance that it is what it is and we can't change the past. I think we spend alot of time and it's hard to stop.

Tranquility

i too have this dilemma. from the age of 2/3 my mother never protected me, taking meon her affairs, me having to watch, then she had anaffair with apdoc who sexually abused me from 8 -15 when she knew he was a paedophile and had been in court in the past. never believed me when i told her at 15,just went into denial and styedthere til recently. she still puts me secondafter her bloody pet dogs, other people etc. i wish i could give answers, i have this love/hate relationship with her. she is good to me in other ways, maybe to appease her own guilt, but it was her loveand care i needed, not material things. i'k hereto listen and maybe identify with aspects of this problem, i'm hoping twill sort this out for me.

jinny xoxoxoxoxo

[MissCharlotte]

(((Esther)))

I think the ambivalence about our mothers is one of the hardest places to be. We see both side of the coin. Wouldn't it be easier if we were either ignorant or totally angry without seeing the causes of their failures?

I think that we can still be angry without letting go of the knowledge that they are human and that we cannot change them. It's just a really hard balancing act. Unfortunately, I don't think it changes over time, either. I just think maybe we will get used to it.

[littlehands]

********may be triggering**********
It really isn't fair that we weren't given the opportunity to say no when the ones put in charge over us, failed to protect us....I am so sorry you have had to suffer, all you guys that write here in this forum, and I can relate to you all....My story started long before I was born,,,6 generations before me, and I being the seventh of ritual abuse...
abuse that my mom also had to go through, so when I came along she was totally insane....My mom was Indian and my grandfather was a Shaman, who practiced peace, the good earth those things, but the other side was very sadistic, and he liked to induce pain, and my mom was his project, so the story continued...I being mixed half- Indian, half German, My father was German, and his father hated everyone who wan't white get the picture....me...so on both sides was I targeted, and was snatched up and taken away to live with him,,,,,next story, just another face same pain, for 13 years I was taught to hate everyone, especially my mom...who gave up life and committed suicide, and of course I was to blame...for years I dealt with the guilt that I was made to hate her for not protecting me, and then killing herself and leaving me, cause I did love her so much, but at age 6 I was reprogrammed to think a certain way, and was taught about Nazism, and hate and rage is powerful, and I could control my pain etc....needless to say I was DID and very angry at authority figures....I am grown now and am learning pain can be a good thing, I must learn from it, to look at people with compassion, cause if they knew whaty they were doing, I don't believe they would ahve tortured me, man made machines that transform a little girl into a body that no one would want, and it has worked...2 x a widow, 2 lost children need I go on.....so I am sorry you was not protected, so now you tech your children about the evil that plagues your family.....hugs.....

Until therapy my mother was the bain of my life. But with therapy I've taught my mother how to treat me now. The anger is lessoning, the reality of knowing my mothers life growing up made her the person she was sits better with me now.

My anger didn't seem to fit with the mother she is now, shes an elderly lady of 80 that often times now tries to tell me if she had her time again she'd do better.

I dont want to live a life full of anger and blaming, its no good to me, its not where I want to be or who I want to be. I never thought I'd be able to say that once upon a time.

Its like someone else posted here its acceptence of what is and was and what can never be.

Just because I suffered growing up that doesn't make me an angel of a better person then anyone else, its just gives me better insight into human nature and all its flaws.

I'm happy where I am today, I'm happy I can speak with my mother and see her life with sensitive eyes now, and I'm happy she turns to me to help her understand what went wrong with us.

She doesn't know a lot of the stuff I experienced as a child adn I do not wish her to know that. I'm ok with the understanding my T has given me.

I have been heard by another human being in this world and it just happened that it couldn't be neither of my mothers, birth or adoptive, but it really is ok today!

thank you all for the replies. Many hugs for all the pain you have felt over this issue.

I do agree acceptance at some point may be the key, but not right now for me. I've never allowed myself to display any anger or any resentment towards my mom and it feels right for me right now. I just want to be out of the amibilance stage to where i can fully fill it. If that makes any sense. I want to for once not make excuses so i can emotionally feel my anger which is so detached. I'm not trying to change her or our relationship, I just want to step out of denial and apathy and finally feel like its okay socially and emotionally to feel the anger without punishment.