Good plan.
Distracting yourself with another engagement will help.
We cannot control or fix our daughter’s decisions, but we can actively pursue a life with less distress and pain. And that requires us to commit to a better life for ourselves, and take positive acts to make that happen.
Like signing up for an event on recital day!
My former psychologist emailed me a resource from
www.mindpeelings.com titled “Get your daily happiness chemicals”. It listed ways to increase happiness levels by increasing each of the “happy brain chemicals” - dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins. I looked at the activities listed - daily to do list, create something, listen to music, socialise, exercise, sunlight, laughter, eat spicy foods etc.
And something clicked into place in my mind for the first time. I could fight this pain. I did not have to passively live in misery, waiting for my daughter to return to me and praying she would stop doing deliberately hurtful things.
I could decide to make things better for myself and actively improve my happiness. And this chart was as good a place to try doing that as any!
So I packed away most of the photos of my daughter that ambushed me daily and sent me into painful rumination and guilt.
And I selected at least one activity for each brain chemical, and committed to doing them regularly.
I paid for a music subscription and set up playlists of songs I enjoyed from younger, happier times, and listened to them while I did chores.
I walked my dogs in a range of new parks and beaches and gorgeous locations, relishing the breeze and beauty and getting out in the sunshine (or drizzle!)
I made a to-do list every morning of things I could definitely achieve and tick off that day.
I sang, and did crafts, and started playing piano again (still badly) and doing a popular daily puzzle and sharing the results with a friend each morning - a quick daily contact that strengthened that friendship.
I started cooked spicy curries that I love again, but which my husband and son do not, freezing them to eat when they are out or want take away for themselves.
Importantly, I set aside a specific time to Facetime each week with my best friend who lives interstate, and we started sewing together for 2-3 hours - a hobby we both enjoy and didn’t have much time for while raising children. And we commit to that time being for us, and we tell our grown family that that time is taken and precious and not available for meeting their day to day demands. Sounds like a little thing, but it was the first time I had felt able to dedicate set time for my needs alone, and guard it jealously, without feeling that I was being selfish or letting my family down by not putting it off to do something for them instead.
That time has become so precious to us both - we talk and laugh and make something beautiful or ridiculous, and we recharge our happiness meters and our coping batteries.
And I feel happy.
I am so very much happier than I could have imagined possible a year ago.
And the pain of estragement has dulled more than I could have hoped.
I feel like me again. No longer fractured and broken and defined by my daughter's distorted horrible descriptions of me.
Weeks ago, you asked if there were any stories with happy endings.
You didn’t get many responses to give you hope.
But happy endings are not always being reconciled with your estranged child.
Or your estranged child beating her BPD demons.
Being able to make yourself whole again, and live a happy purposeful life, is a happy ending that you can actively work towards. And the only one you have some control over.
Enjoy your event on 1 June!
❤️
