Oh um... you shouldn't have...

[Gowest]

I haven't posted for a long time (2 years or so) because things were going great but I think now I just really need someone to talk to/vent to who might have a chance of understanding.

I had a birthday a few months ago and was keeping expectations low, as always, but this year it was actually pretty good. My boyfriend surprised me with some nice things that I actually wanted and enjoyed (cute book, CD) without me having to ask for them or even drop any obvious hints, reminding me that he is attentive and cares. And then there is my mother.

She decided she wanted to do something big this year, as it's one of those "big" birthdays. (I'm 30.) I was all "uhhuh uhhuh" as always (distant, avoidant, whatever) and then there were problems with the post office so I never actually got it. (Someone up there watching out for me?) Unfortunately God can't control email so I've seen part of it now. A photo collage of baby pictures! Great right? I've pretty much quit speaking to my parents entirely, I full on ignored the last two emails she sent which is not something I usually do, and after a few weeks of avoiding the issue in my own head and slowly getting more and more depressed, I believe it's because I can't think of anything nice to say about this collage, and I really do not want to know what else was in that package. My mom has been nagging me to complain at the post office, and I had kind of shoved my reluctance to do so into the "too much effort for $30/too lazy" pile, but I'm pretty sure now that wasn't it at all.

It's really bad. It's like she went out of her way to find the pictures where I looked sad and wretched. There are 3 where I look scared and about to cry... . wait no, 4, missed the one where I am like 14. Just a kick in the teeth. I had asked for copies of my baby pictures awhile ago and first she said she lost them and now I get this "personalized" effort. Which, aside from the subject matter, is... . not much of an effort. Just a bunch of photos put next to each other with no thought.

I had already been feeling low with health problems that completely derailed the last year and shook my confidence in general, last thing I needed was a crying baby in my mailbox.

I've been trying to find a therapist but after wading through a couple pages of "alternative healers" with no training or education on one website I found yesterday (there were also some job coaches), I just gave up. I'll try again today, there must be some filtering option that I couldn't find or I'm using the wrong search terms (second language), had the same problem when looking for a regular doctor.

Thanks for reading.

[lucyhoneychurch]

You've had like an avalanche of concerns suddenly - I'm with you on the health issues hurtful enough, and then the insane uBPD stuff comes a-callin'   :'(

For starters... . anything she mailed you was all about her. Even if it was your "big" birthday, turning 30 (and congratulations on that, it *is* a big deal), she had to mark it. Like a cat spraying its territory.

So of course it trickled back to your existence basically is all thanks to her. I know my abusive mother actually spelled that out a few times. How we owed her for life itself... . obviously, we all get the biology but wow... . bring kids into the world and then proceed to pulverize them the first 20 years of their lives right on into late adulthood - sure we're so thankful!

That's totally sarcastic. Just can't help it.   

The fact that you'd asked for your childhood pix (I did too, for years) and never got them - but here they are in this tragic little film show of sorts... . I love Charlle Chaplin movies... . and sometimes the shots he'd take up close of his little heroine... . I swear that's what us little emotionally starved kids looked like, the big sad downturned face (not a pout, despair written all over) the eyes about to brim over with tears... . and always as the picture being taken harped at about **SMILING** and then they'd come back from being processed and she'd start in all over again about the no smiling... .

Well I got my childhood pix allright - last year (you can read my initial post here from months ago) and it was after her passing, but it was like she packed it herself - enmeshed sibling and my elderly father sent it. Abusive mother's little scrawly handwritten notes along the borders (pix from 60s used to have  an edge) turning it into a lovely occasion, even though the children in the picture looked anything but happy.

Slides from my baby years in a plastic Saran box... . like you'd put a sandwich in.

Sure okay... .

What I did was... . I sat with the pix... . and the ones that turned my stomach, even with me in them... . I pitched.  The ones where something resonated in me... . I kept.

I tried to take an abusive family's "it's all about them" box of MY baby moments and sort of re-assign them.

That was as close as I could get to making them mine.

Throwing most away and keeping the ones that touched me somehow... .

Nothing they do, from their twisted thinking, is about us. No matter what words they decorate their manipulative stuff with - it's doing something THEY need to do... . either tweaking us when we really need just the opposite of what they can give ... . taking positive and making it so so negative... .

And something tells me your mother's radar was way way dialed up if your health has been in jeopardy... . I swear mine would lay low, go away, or the flying monkeys would shut down... . but let me be hospitalized, with no one on my end here letting them know... . and some crazy crap would come in the mail... .

I sympathize with you. I'm so sorry.

Our lives were supposed to be more than window dressing to their disorder. Small children are like pets - they get caught up in adult dynamics, they have no way out, no understanding that it's all SO SO wrong... . and that's why it's so vital for observers to step in, at least verbalize that it's all messed up.

Small kids and poor little animals - trapped in homes where there is no safe zone... .

Armageddon... .

And then we grow up and something like this, where we see our sad little faces and realize the depths of the depravity and despair, look, it's written right there in my little face so long ago -

Grieve for yourself, for that little baby and pamper the little baby now just a bit and tell that baby that she deserved so so much better.

I'm so sorry. I hope you find strength and courage in the weeks and months to come.

I am at a crossroads sort of with my health... . no crises... . but feeling some fraction of myself, very indifferent to beauty at times that's right before me... . gotta get back on track and breathe and thrive, not just survive.

Let's both be well.       

[Gowest]

Thanks for your post, Lucyhoneychurch. Looking at the pictures really hurt, so much so that I didn't even show them to my boyfriend, even though I've told him about my mother and opened up on other things. That poor baby. And then of course, maybe he wouldn't see anything wrong with the pictures and I'm just nuts.

No health crisis (I won't die) just feeling sick and not able to function, and now just out of sorts and like I still can't think as well as I used to. Thyroid problems. I was taking Thai medication I bought from a shady website and feeling great, but it got shut down. I'm doing awful in school, and it can't be the depression because that has never been a problem before. Completely paralyzed on things I know I have to do because I don't feel like I am capable of doing them. I feel like I need help, but don't even know where to look. My boyfriend's father maybe, but he always has everything together and it's so embarrassing to be such a mess. I even told my boyfriend that and he insisted his father is not the judgy type, and even told me about how his brother had to be institutionalized some years ago, which you'd really never know now. (He got better.) But I still don't want to admit how bad things are for me right now.

[spots]

There's nothing to be ashamed of in asking for help - EVERYONE at some point in time will ask someone for help. In fact, good people appreciate the gift of vulnerability you give them and will not abuse it and will WANT to help you. Sounds like your boyfriend's dad is a great person to ask for help. If not him, then a family GP or a family friend. The tiredness is no doubt because of your health issues and stress, which can deplete our energy so fast. When you reach out for help, you will be surprised at how many people will want to help you.