There is a vein of truth to the saying "Sarcasm gives you a lot of unhealthy coping mechanisms"; though in my case it is a whole ass body's worth. For years, and continues to be, my preferred method of not only describing the crazy shit that has happened in my life, but also how to cope with it all.
Today I had another session with my therapist (which I am really liking) and of course not everything is going to be easy or comfortable to discuss, much less admit or discover about oneself.
There were a couple of "revelation" moments, and the worst was that not only it was obvious that I have been in "non-stop survival mode" due to the choices my mother had made for me and/or the both of us that I had no say or consideration in, as well as being made to feel like I was an "obligation."
That one hit like a bullet to the chest. It hurt.
It still hurts to admit that my mother abused me in multiple modalities throughout my childhood, and even still well into my adulthood. That part I could have handled much differently as I could have easily told her off, or cut her off completely, but as I have been getting educated on the tactics of these toxic parenting methods, I realize that these only serve to keep the victims right where they are.
Now that there is no threat of my mother's toxic behavior, it's "safe" to heal from it. Or at least begin to.
What they don't tell you is how upsetting, hurtful, and downright CONFUSING it is to allow someone else to describe and diagnose you with any sort of "trauma" or "abuse" that you sustained from someone that was supposed to love you. That the love they showed you was indeed: WRONG. The confusing and hurtful part was that even knowing and agreeing with everything that was described to me, I still felt empathy for my abuser and also wanted to protect her. She is my mother, and she is no longer here to defend herself.
I feel like I'm betraying her and stabbing her in the back. But I have no choice if I want to get over and heal from what had been done to me.
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It's hard to see in print the discretions of your parent that had such a negative effect you. But damn, here we are.
None of this changes the way I feel about my mom, I love her. I always will.
If anything, I have much more empathy (to a point) and understand why she did the things she did. It was all she knew. It was what she grew up with.
However, she would be the first to tell YOU that while you couldn't control what happened to you in your childhood, YOU DO have control over what you can do as an adult and go get some help.
I can say that she was in therapy a couple of times, but she never stuck with it. I'm not sure why, but if I had to guess it was because her therapist showed her where she was going wrong, and how to work on fixing the issues. If it was work, she wasn't about to do that.
She would rather find someone who would just "put up with her behavior" than to actually fix what's wrong with her.
Much like how she handled her cancer diagnosis.
She ignored it. Thought it would just "go away" if she ignored it long enough. Once again, she was wrong.
The irony here is that she kept telling me to take care of myself and not to "let things go" in her last few months of life.... Of all the things I CAN say she was that was not very nice (the truth rarely is), is a Hypocrite.
Humans at one point or another in their lives are all hypocrites. But this was somewhat a way of life for her. Do as she says, not what she does. Ugh... enough of that crap already!
I really wish I would have started therapy earlier, and with the one I go to now. Maybe things wouldn't have been so hard in these last few months, to the last few years...
As my cousin told me repeatedly, Things happen for a reason. There was good reason to believe that it wouldn't have been the right time for any of this back then. Maybe my mother wouldn't have appreciated experiencing her daughter's change in behavior and 0 tolerance for her bullshit.
I haven't been a total "doormat" but it has come close. I kept getting the "honor your parents" speech for years. To that I say, "only if they are honorable." Of course, I'm not advocating acting like a 5-star asshole to your folks, just don't take their shit if it's unwarranted.
The weird part is, even now, I'd give just about anything to hear my mom again. Even if that meant her yelling at me, blaming me for things I didn't do, etc.
Even if that meant being "abused".
And this is why I'm in therapy. That is not a healthy "desire." And I'm happy to now be able to recognize that.
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