Though I know a lot of great mothers, I'm not exactly sanguine on this holiday, which is this coming Sunday in the USA.
My uBPDx moved out to be with her affair partner about 14 months ago. We have joint custody of S5 and D3. They're getting married any week now, or they already are. Ex and Homewrecker, not the kids
Last MD, I was out of town with the kids, my weekend, as is this one. We were sitting as guests in a friend's church. My mom was there. I was still very fresh and angry at my Ex. They showed a short video meant to validate moms, but I felt it poked just a little too much fun at men/dads. I got angry and almost walked out. That it was made by two dads (popular in Christian circles for their humorous videos) made me angrier. I won't go into the details of my Ex's detachment from not only me, but then D1 and S2. Those were Leaving Board Tales. Suffice to say, I took up the slack. She's doing better (gf half time and mother half time... .can you tell I'm still angry?).
That, is why I landed here.
Turkish!
After posting in Leaving for many months, I started to read and post here, thinking about my mom. I moved out on my 18th bd,.25 years ago, and haven't spent a night back since. It's impossible now, given that my mom is a hoarder who would make a good episode on the tv show. Very bad. And filthy. Being gone, I removed myself from the abuse. In a breakdown which started when I graduated high school at 17, and suffered through a long summer until, I turned 18 the following mid-fall, she was diangosed with depression. Put on Prozac, which was initially horrible; I felt Parentified, but maybe that doesn't qualify since I was almost 18. She shared the story of what came out in therapy: inscest from age 7-14 by her dad (I'll call it rape since incest seems to little a word), and severe physical and psychological abuse. Just this past summer, she told me that before he dropped dead when she was 14, fully orphaning her (her mom dropped dead when she was 12, leaving her alone with a monster), that he used to bring prostitutes home to live with them.
She always told the stories in a matter-of-factual way, without a tone to elicit sympathy.
Back then, it sotfened my heart and I felt mercy towards her, despite moving us from 1983 to 1883 effectively overnight back then. No electricity, no running water, not even an outhouse. I comiserated with the bears in the woods. I got through it, my mom being chasex by the sherrif, the DA, and CPS almost taking me back to foster care. It was so long ago, but despite it all, the stories I have put a smile on my face. I survivex some weird | please read |
This past summer, while talking about my Ex, my mom admitted that one of her 7 (or 9?) therapists suggested that she had BPD. My mind: Blown. One might think that this was validation (soon after, I learned that a long-time family friend was dBPD... .they're coming out of the woodwork!), but it wasn't. I've felt frustration over the years towards my mom, but not anger. Maybe it was resentment. O resented that she never told me so I could have studied BPD, and avoided the unhealthy women I hung around, culminating with the mother of our children. I started calling her less after that. She hasn't seen me or her grandchildren since Christmas. She's only 130 miles away. Now, to the present... .
I'm a bit cynical. I don't put too much stock in any holiday, even my birthday, though I do enjoy Christmas, mostly due to the kids, those greedy rascals. Father's Day means nothing to me. I never had a father, yet I did once. He, like my bio mom, gave me up for adoption. They were alcoholics and addicts. She was born on an Indian reservation, and was most likely FAS. We talk about the inborn biogenetic sensetivity which can contribute to BPD, but with with FAS, her brain really was different, radically. It gives pause to think about the notion that my mom and later doctors though my nose was broken as a baby. Who knows? Intelectually, I don't remember it.
So despite that the three most important women (leaving aside my daughter: CUTEST BABY EVER!) in my life abused and abandoned me in various ways due to a mixture of their addictions and mental illnesses (like my mom, my Ex is clinically Dx'd with depression). I don't split all 3.5 billion women on the planet as my Ex (and maybe my mom) does men. I have a daughter. How can I raise a healthy young woman with thoughts like that? I confess that based upon my life experiences, that there are thoughts like that which flitter and haunt the back of my mind. I'm not ashamed of them (to paraphrase Walt Whitman, "I validate a song of myself" yet they exist.
So despite all of that, and despite what I and my Ex in a way view as emotinal incest by her mom, even though I intuited her dad as being the main BPD at first, I'm going to celebrate Mother's Day.
I'm going to get stiff to have the kids make cards for their mom (I did this last year and she never thanked me, though in a visit to her place, I noticed that she had it on her fridge), and both grandma's. Part of me feels that it's out of obligation (I.e., not charitable), but the other part of me feels that it's the right thing to do, so I'll do it.
