You all are awesome people. Your stories break my heart. Thank you all for finding ways to express your pain, sadness, fears, hurts and regrets. I never expected such out-pouring. I hope it has been as healing for you to write as it has to read.
My relationship with my mother has never been an easy one. She got pregnant with me before she was married. Her plan was to give me up for adoption. She would often tell me it was the nurses in the hospital who convinced her to take me home. Before long she had more babies and was living with an insane man who beat her especially when she was pregnant. When I was 9 she left him and me. I didn't know where she was for 3 years. During that time I was sexually abused by my father. Eventually he was arrested and the police found my mother and I went to live with her.
She and her common-law husband were studying with the JWs. When she discovered him abusing me she sent me into foster care. For another 3 years I never heard from her. I ached inside. I wondered where she was, what she was doing. How my brothers and sisters were. Did any of them ever think of me.When I was 16 I went for a visit for the summer... and I stayed. The old boyfriend was gone and I took up caring for my brothers and sister and for her. I was her confidante, her friend, and her maid.I was also her whipping post, the one she blamed for her miserable life, and all her problems in life and with her kids. I got my last beating from her when I was 17 years old just before she found a new way to get rid of me. Within 2 years she found another way to get rid of me. She married me off to a newly baptized brother whom I barely knew.
When things were really bad after only 3 months I begged her to let me come home and she refused. She never wanted me back, not then not ever. I lasted in the marriage for 15 years and when I left and was DFed she finally had her way out from me. She has used that to keep me away. It works for her. She can say she can't talk to me because of the DFing but deep down I know it is an excuse. She has spent my lifetime pushing me away, leaving me behind and forgetting me.
I don't understand how she can reject a child over and over. I ache that I don't see my girls more often. Sometimes I wish I hadn't moved so far away. I remeber how hard I tried to get her to love me. I wahsed her clothes and raised her kids, Made her supper and cleaned her house. I gave up my dreams and joined a cult. I married a man and stayed - all to make her happy. But nothing was ever good enough. ever.
Over the last few years I have come to terms with the fact that my mother is a sick woman. A friend of mine asked me if I ever considered that my mother might be mentally ill. I had never thoguht of it. We all acknowledged that my father had major problems but my mother seemed so good in comparison. That makes me really sad. She looked good in comparison to him. But we all knew he was dangerous. Her hurt was deeper. The scars he caused were easy to identify. Hers weren't. Abuse in the guise of love.
I hate it when people say "She loved me the best she could" Sadly I now believe my mother doesn't know what love is. How sad because I was so willing to love her. But it was never good enough. Reality is that she never felt good enough to accept it..
She is a hard woman to love. I don't know that I do. I do know I wish she was different
