Mother issues

Totally get your dilemma here @Former-Member - your mother has no concept of how hurt you have been and how her life choices have added to this because she not only did not protect you but it felt like she didn't care about you either - such a tough position to be in - both then and now

Yeah what's harder @Zoe7, is that my siblings don't appreciate her that way because I did all the stuff she should have done and now they come to me instead of her

Not only did you not have a present mother but you took that role for your siblings @Former-Member - that is super tough to have to deal with at any age and now your siblings expect that from you because that is all they have ever known!

Hearing you @Former-Member, and feeling for you so much. I know there is nothing I can say that will make a difference to your past, but I hope our love and care will help you with the future Hon ....

Hearing you too @BabyDragon and sending you hugs and letting you know that I am here for you

I hear you @Former-Member

Your mother is delusional and that is really hard to deal with - at the same time you are feeling all the grief and sorrow about her not being there when you needed her and you attended to her responsibilites yourself which added to your burden

And even now she doesn't get it - and seems to think you feel okay about it - no comment about how rough things were for you and she doesn't know about that

Experience has taught me there is very little you can say about it to her because she has a totally different recollection of those years - I have no doubt she suffered but when so much of her life is not what was really happening it would make you want to snap and I do understand that

My mother didn't want to be upset - and she was always upset - but I found it useless trying to explain this to the people she was okay with - which was the rest of the family it seems - and yet I know the truth and I had to put the whole thing away from myself because I have no intention of carrying her stuff around with me for the rest of my life

So I do hear you BabyDragon - but what to do about it - I don't know - all I can think of is that when she says something to you that causes this understandable reaction is to say

"This isn't how I remember it"

And your memories are your own and people might try and take them away from you but they really can't - so stand firm - you know the truth and you did a huge job with your siblings and that is above and beyond

It's hard though - I get it

Dec

@Former-Member I developed extreme ambivalence about my mother late in life.

Its the most intense and trickiest of relationships even when things are going well.

I also hear her expressing gratitude to YOU.

Bury that somewhere in your heart.

Its some recognition of your loyalty despite her failures in parenting.

I think it is biologically programmed in us as H. sapiens ... bottom line.... despite separations and neglects etc ... we had a few dead bodies too ... between my mother and I ... and none of it appropriately dealt with.

Yet I hear it as a responsible thing for a mother to say and I have said it to mine. When I see my children being mature or showing compassion to anyone (or each other or me) I feel proud and try and acknowledge them.

though my mother never said it to me ... she had the one child who had not been in care...

Your words "its all good" cover so much pain. I dont wont to bring up the pain, but talk to YOUR resilience and strength.

If there is a little bit of good in her, and she is trying to reach out, that is one "snapshot" to keep of her ...a rounded picture to balance out the memories where she did not seem to care.

As women, when we are also mothers, we come to understand the utter imensity of the job.

we sometimes can find inner quietness in a sense of seeing them on their life journey .. outside of our needs as children ... often they do the best they can ... but sometimes they do not ... only you really know .... where that fits in your story.

if I focus on my pain it easily magnifies ...

so I need to CONTAIN my PAIN

and acknowledge motherhood is the greatest job on the planet.

We can never do it so a child has no pain

its not possible ... even the Buddha learned that.

Thinking of you in so many ways. Baby Dragon.

I so loved Anne McCaffreys saga in my early 20s .... did you ever read it? ... its a bit old ....