Family

[Guest guest]

I know a lot of us had bad or abusive childhoods, and that may be one of the

things that has predisposed us to this kind of pain. Like you, I " did it

all " . I was a single parent for my daughter from 11 months to 13 years, and

she had EVERYTHING she needed and most of what she wanted. I would do

without so I could get her what she wanted or needed.it's only now that she

realizes what I did to get her the computers, MP3 players, music, TVs,

satellite, etc that she loved so much, and she feels bad that I did without,

but I tell her that is what a mother does.

It's one of the reasons my wonderful, brilliant 21 year old daughter has decided

(with her husband, of course,LOL) to wait before having children; Deanna (my

daughter) is up front about saying she's not ready yet.she's still too selfish.

I'll tell you what, it brought tears to my eyes when she said, in front of a LOT

of our family, including my " mother " , that she was going to wait to have

children until she could give them the same devotion that I had given her all

her life.

Because, she said, she wants to be half as good a mother as her mom

was, since that will mean she would be better than anyone else, even at half. It

still makes me tear up.

My family life wasn't great either, for a long time. My mother threw me against

a wall when I was 6 months old, cause a severe skull fracture and hematoma, that

nearly killed me.

My grandparents took me and raised me, but when I was 6, my mother had a new

live in boy friend who had two kids and she wanted to prove what a GREAT mom she

was by bringing me to live with them.

Those three years I lived there were the worst years of my life. I

used to lay on a stuffed animal and cry, singing to myself " The good times are

over and the pain has begun " .

Less than a year after she brought me down, she and the BF broke up. they'd been

together since I was about 3, and though I only lived with him for about a year,

he was my daddy. since I never met my biological father. She refused to let me

see him or my brothers (his sons) and of course, since he was not related, he

had no way to force her.

She got into drugs and serial monogamy. One of her boyfriends molested me and I

told the cop that lived next door. He confronted her, she confronted me, I told

her it was true and she threw him

out..great, right? A week later, she dropped me at his new apartment, by

myself, to " get him to come home.do whatever you have to do. There were others,

but that was the worst.

When she finally married, when I was 9, she and her new husband (who looked a

LOT like the man who molested me, but a different name) were intending to move

to Oklahoma (we lived in California) and take me with them.

I was in the backseat of the car, crying because I was being dragged away from

the only real, loving family I'd ever had..so she has the hubby turn around,

drive back to my grandpa and grandma who hadn't even gone inside. She is in a

rage, she throws herself out of the car, reaches in and grabs me by my arm (I

was 9 and maybe 65 pound, she was about 150) and dragged me out of the car,

THREW me at my grandpa and said, " Take the little bitch, I don't want it

anymore " .

That was the last I saw of her until the year I turned 18, when she moved in

with my grandma and mooched off her for 4 years.

My grandma, the only real mother I knew, passed away in March of this year. I'm

still not over it..how do you get over losing the only person who really ever

loved you as a child?

When my mother met her current husband, he had two children. He's a year older

than I am, his kids are my daughter's age.

She tried her best to convince all her " friends " that she'd raised my daughter

and that I was an unfit mother. She even, at one point, told people that my

daughter was hers. My daughter was about 10 by that time.and she set her

straight. She told them, including the new BF, that this was her GRANDMOTHER and

*I* was her mom.and she'd always lived with me.

Pissed my mother off, because she also told the BF how old my mom was.LOL.

She'd tried to convince everyone she was 15 years younger than she was, which

would have made her like 5 when I was born, LOL.

My mother has said for years that I am a druggie, that my pain is not real, that

it's just lies to get me pain pills. She's gone to my doctors and tried to get

them to get me off the pills and have me put in rehab.

For a while, she had my daughter convinced that I was exaggerating to get pills.

That's why I made the deal I made with my daughter..it makes her feel better

and the fact that I'm willing to be an open book convinces her that I'm

legitimately in pain.

I am honest (as much as she is NOT honest) and I try to be an open book to those

that matter. I'm lucky and blessed to have the support system I have, though

it's not perfect. I'm still the only one who does any cleaning.and sometimes

that pisses me off royally. The rest

of my family is fine living in a PIT, so if I want it clean, I have to do it

myself. At this point, I've had to let some things go, but others I do as well

as I can.

In my opinion (feel free to take it or leave it), if someone in your life is

making your pain worse, or causing you stress, it's always better to either

eliminate them from your life completely, or at least limit the contact. But

more important than that is to let it go.

I know, it's easier said than done, but holding anger, resentment, pain, any

negative emotion is not going to hurt the person who hurt or upsets you. it's

only going to hurt yourself.

If you can't forgive that person, at least let the anger go, because

negative emotions can make pain worse. Those people have hurt us enough in the

past, we don't need to let them continue to hurt us.

Marta