Can't seem to let the past lie.

[Tireddaughter]

My mother and I have been on speaking terms for the past 3 years.  I live hours away and only see her in person once or twice a year.  Before that we had various 3 year or more stretches of NC.  I went to visit my sister in another state and by coincidence my mother was visiting at the same time.  We would be sharing the living room as a living space for almost a week. I was nervous as I haven't spent alone time with my mother in almost 10 years. 

Things went well for most of the trip until the night before I was supposed to fly back.  She started a conversation with me right before bed that spiraled into a discussion about gay marriage.  This has always been a hot button issue for us.  Which of course lead us into talking about the various terrible things she had done to me when I came out, including physical violence.  She denied her behavior and denied cutting me off from our family (I was 20 and my 5 younger siblings were 4-18yrs old living at home).  I was enraged and left the room to shower. 

After cooling off I decided that even though it was 3am, I didn't want my trip to end like this, so I went outside and found her sitting in a chair.  I decided to do something I had never done with my mother - I walked up to her, opened my arms and hugged her tight.  I kissed her head and told her I didn't want to leave like this.  She cried with me for a few moments.  Then she started asking me questions about my sexuality.  We had never talked about this, so I decided to try and give her some understanding.  She was a great listener and I thought we were making progress, until she brought up my childhood sexual abuse. This opened up a conversation about intimate details we had never discussed about what exactly had happened to me at 5.  She attempted to blame my sexuality on all this, and I disagreed.  I asked her kindly and calmly, knowing that she was a sexual violence survivor herself, why she had reacted angrily and blamed me when I told her about the abuse at 8.  She ended up mocking me and blaming me for the abuse, the way she handled it, and for never getting me help after.  Again, I was past rage - I had stupidly opened up to her again and she jabbed my deepest wounds.  Knowing I had let my boundaries be crossed - I decided to politely end our conversation, hugged her and went to bed. 

It's been months and I can't shake all of this.  The ghosts of the past have come forth and I can't help but see/feel these things again whenever I talk to her.  I can't shake feeling like I'm humoring a person who has abused/neglected and mistreated me my entire life.  I don't love her and haven't since I was a child.  It hurts to say that because I am involved in the birth community and work directly with mothers, even run a motherhood group in my community.  I WANT so badly to love her, to call her when I need a kind word and some advice.  But I can't.  I won't ever be able to. 

If I can't have a mother, then why do I have to pretend to be a daughter?

There are so many horrendous things I have suffered at her hands - for which I am blamed for or it is denied.  SHE brings these things up and I can't help but feel like it's her only way of controlling me again. 

I don't like who she is as a person. A relationship with her has no real benefits to me.  I feel like a PR person for Lindsay Lohan.  Constantly trying to convince my partner she's not THAT BAD.  Trying to convince myself I shouldn't feel guilty for not calling, for only sending a bland card on mother's day.

How can it be that I feel so bad for not giving such a terrible person more of my time and attention.  She is one of the ghosts of my past.

Big events like marriage and having a baby are right around the corner for me and instead of being excited - I feel as though I'm ready to weather a storm, I'll be handling everything from the vantage of whether or not it will upset my mother.  I know my choices will and I don't look forward to dealing with any of her scenes or temper tantrums. 

I don't know if I need advice or if I just needed to rant to people who get it. I have no friends who have these issues with their mothers - I just feel alone in all this.

[schwing]

Hi Tireddaughter,

It's been months and I can't shake all of this.  The ghosts of the past have come forth and I can't help but see/feel these things again whenever I talk to her.  I can't shake feeling like I'm humoring a person who has abused/neglected and mistreated me my entire life.  I don't love her and haven't since I was a child.  It hurts to say that because I am involved in the birth community and work directly with mothers, even run a motherhood group in my community.  I WANT so badly to love her, to call her when I need a kind word and some advice.  But I can't.  I won't ever be able to.  

If I can't have a mother, then why do I have to pretend to be a daughter?

This is one of the harder aspects of accepting that we are children of people with borderline personality disorder (or any other personality disorder for that matter): that we did not grow up in the nurturing environment that we needed (or perhaps that we imagined we had).  This is to say that we still *need* to have the connection that others have had with more healthy parents -- we just need to find it somewhere else.  Ideally we come to find it within ourselves.  

Before that, I think we need to *grieve* for our lost childhood/innocence.  I think this is why you "WANT so badly to love her, to call her when [you] need a kind word and some advice."  This is clearly your need.  You just need to accept that you will never truly get this need met from this woman.  You *can* get it somewhere else.  And in time you may find that you yourself are your best source for this kind of (self) support -- but it may take time and effort before you get there.

Why do you have to "pretend to be a daughter?"  Probably because you want to keep your other connections with family.  This means for the other family members' sake, you may need to play the role of this woman's daughter.  What might help you is to keep your relationship as formal and distant as possible.  She can never be the mother you need/ed.  You do not have to be (with her)  the honoring daughter you know you can be.

There are so many horrendous things I have suffered at her hands - for which I am blamed for or it is denied.  SHE brings these things up and I can't help but feel like it's her only way of controlling me again.  

Perhaps it might be better *not* to think of her behavior as an effort to control you.  But rather as an expression of her disorder.  Because of her disorder, she cannot see reality as it its but only as she imagines and *needs* it to be.  Her emotional needs has always taken priority over everyone else's.  All the horrible things she *did*, she did it for her reasons.  And at the same time she *needs* to see herself as the "victim" or the "martyr" so she *imagines* that someone else (i.e., you) did all these horrible things to her.

If you subscribe to her delusions, then you will be allowing yourself to be "controlled" by her distortions.  :)on't.

How can it be that I feel so bad for not giving such a terrible person more of my time and attention.  She is one of the ghosts of my past.

Probably because she had spent most of your early life telling you that you would be a bad person if you do not... .[fill in the blank].  She's always required that you do as she says, not as she does.  It takes time to unravel a lot of this programming -- or a least accept that your needs are every bit as important when it comes to these relationships of family.  A relationship based only on fear, obligation and guilt is not a relationship worth keeping.

Big events like marriage and having a baby are right around the corner for me and instead of being excited - I feel as though I'm ready to weather a storm, I'll be handling everything from the vantage of whether or not it will upset my mother.  I know my choices will and I don't look forward to dealing with any of her scenes or temper tantrums.  

I don't know if I need advice or if I just needed to rant to people who get it. I have no friends who have these issues with their mothers - I just feel alone in all this.

You are very much *not alone* in all this.  Maybe you need advice.  I think it wouldn't hurt to first feel heard.  I hear you.

I hope some of what I have written is helpful to you.

Best wishes, Schwing