How to detach... again... forever.

[AloneAtLast]

I am fifty-four.  I only really started recognizing the abuse about eight years ago.  I won't go into the back story much because I bet most of you can guess it anyway.

I am having a hard time.  The depression is surely what they would call clinical.  I am tired of it.  My oldest sister, and probably the most abused of us all, died in early July.  She had a pulmonary embolism at home after having a hysterectomy and a severe, wheel-chair binding stroke one year ago. I got the email from my dad that she died.  I ignored the delivery method and was sucked right back into the emotional dramas... .mine included.  I told myself that since I have found God in recent months ... .maybe I had some power.  Now, I wake every morning crying and can find no happiness. I knew when I let myself get sucked in that the strong painful emotions I had over J's death would naturally have a lot to do with my death and experiences of being unloved.  It was impossible for me not to identify with her.  I questioned a lot but I eagerly did God's duty.  Wanted to do this duty thing. I was going to excel at it.  I had starting to heal a little over J but ... .well, J and I both knew our parents didn't love us.  I suppose that has a lot to do with seeing her go.  They killed her and they won't be terribly sad to see me go either.

When J died I got sucked back in and I went with bells on.  I did.  I had God after all.  I had this website.  I had wisdom.  However, I did know, really understand that things on their end may not have changed.  What I did not understand is how much I have changed.  I can't forget when my dad called me a slut when I got my first kiss.  I can't forget all the raging my mother did and when I was at my absolute weakest and that my dad let her.  There are things I can't forget but have the capacity to forgive... .if only the slightest thing would change to give me hope.  I thought J's death might change things.  It did not. Dad is vacant as usual.  Mother is so self-absorbed in her foot I can't be around her.  It brings back all her absorption I grew up with.  J's death changed nothing.  

I wake up every morning in tears.  I cry most of the day and wonder if I need medications except my grief is not baseless. I feel I know what is causing it.  It is trying to live in a den of vipers when my own heart can't take it.  I live happily, really happily, when they are not a part of my life in the slightest way.  The problem is I found God.  Now, there is something you hardly ever hear... .the finding of God being a problem.  It is though.  I understand as much as I can the commandment to honor thy mother and father.  For me, it means to be grateful for giving me life.  It does not mean accepting abuse or pretending things are fine or ignoring how they undermined life.  In fact, I think pretending is sinful because it never gives the sinner an opportunity see the harm they do.  So here I am.  Wanting to cut them off, again, but this time forever.  Except I won't.  It is that commandment thing.  Instead, I am trying to find a way to honor God's way and protect myself at the same time.  

I have questions.  My mother, more than once, told me that dad never visited J in the hospital when she had her stroke.  I want to know the truth.  I need to know.  I sent my remaining sister, who grew up loved by both parents, an email.  I asked very directly ":)id dad ever visit J in the hospital?".  She replied yes.  An hour later she asked what I was pondering.  The Bible talks about gossip.  I am not doing that.  I just want an honest answer.  Now you gotta know that this particular sister told my mother just about the time I was staring to understand the mental illness/evilness in my family. "I just can't love Lisa the way she wants me to."  That is what Laura admitted to saying.  She admitted to me that she said this but that our mother had no right to tell me.  Come on.  So here I am trying to develop this relationship with this same sister because maybe people see the light eventually.  Maybe they do.  She wrote back that yes he did visit.  I wrote back... .gee because mom told me he never did.  She wrote back that mom's memory has gotten really bad.  It has NOT.  She is using this sudden memory crap to get back attention she lost when J died.  She remembers everything bad in Technicolor.  I wrote my sister back and said "I apologize.  I should just ask him myself."

It shouldn't be this painful but it is.  Thanks Satan.  Happy I got the chance to play.

[Lifewriter16]

Hi AloneAtLast,

Just a quick thought for you which is intended to help you but will probably cause you a great deal of conflict to begin with:

When the Bible is taken too literally and legalistically by Man, religious abuse can result.  Over-reliance on the literal interpretation of the Bible for guidance to the exclusion of a prayerful, listening relationship with God can amount to worshipping the Bible rather than God.

Can I suggest that you 'google' Fowler's Six Stages of Faith and check out his theory. Most church-goers and their ministers are stuck in stage 3 of his six stage process of faith development. The third stage is characterised by fear and conformity to the expectations and judgements of other people. People at this stage of faith are threatened by anyone who thinks out of the religious or doctrinal box and will do all they can to keep others stuck in that box with them. They are too frightened to question their own beliefs and so can not tolerate anyone else asking questions that might disquiet them. Such ministers/church goers will teach all sorts of things that keep us stuck in abusive situations, but they are wrong to do so.

TRUST GOD NOT MAN. HE WILL LEAD THE WAY.

Love Lifewriter

x

[AloneAtLast]

Oh, thank you so much.  I especially appreciate a new point of view.  Grateful really because nothing else is working.  I am new to believing in God.  I am a baby.  The thing that currently prevents me from leaving forever in order to save myself is also another part in the Bible that talks about not judging lest you be judged.  Walk in someone's shoes.  That kind of thing.  If I knew, really knew my parents loved me, I'd be okay.  I don't think they do but I don't know what kind of shoes they walked in to get that way.  My folks tell a tale of when my father was a little boy and his mother chased him and his beloved dog through a cornfield with a shotgun aiming to kill the dog.  I know what happened to my dad f'd him up.  He never found a way to get past it to love.  Maybe they did do the best they could by us given their upbringing.  Maybe not because why-o-why did he call me a slut?  Why did he slap me?  Why did he let mother make me eat my own tears every night at the dinner table while everyone else got up and left to watch tv?  Why did he tell me I was the dumbest of all his kids?  You can see my dilemma.  I can't find a way to honor God's commandment without killing myself.

[Panda39]

Hi AloneAtLast,

First of all let me say how sorry I am about the loss of your sister, it sounds like you loved her very much and miss her a great deal. 

Everyone has differing beliefs about God.  I have always believed that God is Love and he is everywhere. (Maybe simplistic but it works for me  ) I believe he is with you right now as you mourn the loss of your sister and try to work through your relationship with your parents. 

There is a saying "Let go and let God".  What do you think of letting God take care of your parents?  Could you put them in his hands?  Let him take over?

Then you could get some separation from your parents and focus on you.  Your depression sounds pretty rough are you seeing a therapist at all?  Getting support for that would probably get you to a better place to work on the other issues regarding your parents.  It is important that you care for yourself so you can work on all those things you want to tackle.

Take care,

Panda39

[Lifewriter16]

For those of you who would be offended be Christian ideas, please just pass this post by.

Hi AloneAtLast

I can understand your dilemma entirely.

When I first started having prayer ministry, I was repeatedly told: "He understands". Take these things to God in prayer and ask for him to bring the right people into your life to bring about healing and wholeness. For now, do not worry about taking a 'break' from your parents just one day at a time to enable you to heal. Remember, that the Bible also says that parents are not to vex their children. Also, remember that God created us and gave us each and every emotion that we experience. Why? To help us, to protect us, to heal us, to guide us. God is with you and is on your side, like the truest brother you could ever have, the most loving parent, the most loyal and faithful friend. You were sinned against and I do not think God would want you to bear this situation stoically. A fuller understanding of the Bible in it's entirety rather than sentence by sentence will come with time and will gradually release you into true freedom, but I truly believe that your route to healing will be through prayer.

You may be interested to know that judgement actually means 'to put right' and that Jesus didn't come to condemn the world but to save it and that his task was to ensure that none of those given to Him would be lost. You have been given to Him and He will not fail you. You might find it useful to explore the image you have of God. The Bible portrays a God of vengeance in the Old Testament, but that has not been my personal experience of Him. The very first encounter I had with God at a healing retreat before I became a Christian was of being reassured that God is a loving father, the most loving father possible. Sometimes we see God in the way we see our earthly father and become fearful of what He might do to us, so fearful we dare not approach Him.  

When the Bible says we should approach God with 'fear and trembling', I don't not believe that is because He will punish us, rather it is because we are in awe that the creator of the universe wants to commune with us and we feel so unworthy. We carry so much shame and guilt which arises from the human condition. We gain shame through other's sin towards us and guilt through our sin to others. Sin only keeps us from him because we feel we are unworthy to be in his presence, He loves and accepts us as we are. We may enter his presence at will. We are already 'forgiven', which means that it is gone before it even happens. He takes no note of it, only we do. It is our guilt not His condemnation that we wrestle with.

Love Lifewriter

[claudiaduffy]

Hi, AloneAtLast,

Lifewriter16 has given you some good stuff here. I am a daughter of a uBPDmom, married to a son of a different uBPDmom, and both of us stayed in the cycles of abuse for far too long because of confusion over how to love God's children when God's children - our moms - acted as our enemies. Who we are told to bless and love  .

It's taken a long time, lots of good counseling from mental health professionals and above-average-life-educated pastors, and lots of prayer to feel our way towards the freedom in Christ that he has for us in regards to our abusive homes and our parents in particular. I want to encourage you that, while the way to follow Christ is to "deny yourself and take up your cross and follow" him, that does NOT necessarily or always mean putting yourself in abusive situations. What I had to learn was how much my misunderstanding of grace and forgiveness was making me help my mom sin and abuse more. This does not mean that she is not worth loving and forgiving; it does mean that loving and forgiving, from me to her, does not and can not look very normal or very nice. Here's the thing, though; even with all of her awfulness, manipulation, hatred, fear, et cetera, she is still a child of God and needs his grace, just like me. However, that's why we need others in the body of Christ - the Church, and I mean all Christians in all churches - to help with this.

I can't be the one that shows my mom the daily, physical presence of grace. I am like a drug to her, and she actually can't turn to God fully when she is turning to me instead. However, other believers - ones who weren't abused by her in their childhoods - can do for her what I can not. And when I stopped submitting to my mom out of fear that God would somehow drop out of her life if I cut the ties of abuse, I started to see that he can take care of her without me being the instrument that he uses.

It helped me a lot to hear a definition of forgiveness which I paraphrase here - "Forgiveness does not mean saying the offense meant nothing. Forgiveness does not mean offering the offender the same access to you as before. What forgiveness does is cut the cord that ties the one who hurt you to the wound in you that they caused. When you forgive, you can begin to heal, because the wound is no longer within that person's reach."

I am still in contact with my mom, but it is limited. I love her primarily by trusting God to do for her what I cannot. I pray for her with compassion, but with little angst. I speak to her once a month or so, but when she attempts to abuse me, I stop our conversation firmly but without anger.

It was NOT easy to get to this point, and it is not easy to stay at this point, but my heart is softer and my conscience clearer than it's ever been before. I am not afraid that God is somehow going to trick me into being hurt by my mom. I am not afraid that my refusal to be intimately involved in her life is keeping her from her only chance at a good and full life. Don't forget, "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." (Galatians 5:1)

I'm praying for you today!

[Glenna]

Don't forget about 'and a man's enemies shall be those of his own household' Matthew 10:36

Glenna

[fernRunner]

I am also in my mid-50s and am still not good at staying 100% detached.  After reading several entries on this site, I am including sons and daughters of BPD parents in my daily meditation/prayer.  I would encourage you to continue counseling and continue to detach.  Find a good grief support group and share your feelings.  While the commandment to honor parents is real, I do not believe God intends for us to allow ourselves to be hurt.  I have one sister and we lean on one another as needed to traverse this difficult path.  It would break my heart to lose her, so I extend my deepest sympathy to you on your loss.  We all expect to be able to bond with family during times of loss.  After 3 significant family deaths, I finally understand that my BPD parent does not experience loss the same way I do--it is simply not possible for her to do so.  My job, I believe, is to make peace with the family I was dealt.  I see now how ridiculous it is to expect my BPD parent to act and feel like others... .  I encourage you to do something similar.

[AloneAtLast]

Thanks everybody.  I know folks here understand.

I spoke with her this morning for a little while.  I told her I really need someone to talk to.  I told her I just needed someone that wanted to listen to me for a little while.  Exact words.  She took over and started talking about a neighbor.  I told her I had to go and I hung up.  I can't do this.  I can't talk to her because it sets off a depression  deep and severe in me.  I've been asking myself why that is and can I find a way just to do a once a month obligatory call to check on them.  I don't think I can.  It is too much of a reminder that I am unloved.  This pain is keeping me from knowing God.  I can't let that happen.  He will just have to deal with her.  I don't think I am going to ever call again.

[Kwamina]

Hi AloneAtLast,

This is a particularly difficult time for you as you just recently lost your sister. It's very unfortunate and sad that your mother behaves the way she does and isn't the mother you would like her to be. Whether she's unable or unwilling to behave differently, based on your experiences to this point you probably know very well what to expect from her. This doesn't make it less painful of course, accepting the reality of who your mother really is, means letting go of the hope that she'll ever be the 'fantasy' mother that you deep down inside might still long for.

You are still mourning the passing of your sister and my advice would be to be extra gentle with yourself now and shield yourself from possibly harmful influences and environments. Losing a loved one is hard and will often leave you extra vulnerable to other negative triggers. If you go NC or not is your decision to make and yours alone. My only advice to you is to be very mindful of how you feel and to take good care of yourself as you mourn the loss of your sister.

Take care AloneAtLast, we are here for you