Thank you all for springing forth with your stories. When we suffer, one way or another, we don’t always have our bearings or perspective. It doesn’t come from the distance of reading articles, sometimes not even with counseling, if the other hasn’t been through something similar. It needs another human to share and vent. Your openness helps. Every word of it.
My mother is toxic. And willingly so. If you set up a boundary, change the topic or limit contact, she would up the ante. Each time I try to describe, I stop myself. But not only was it burdening me, but as someone else mentioned, she was threatening my kids’ stability and sense of security and sense of family. I wanted them to grow up knowing there are things we do for others, sometimes from love, sometimes just because it’s right, that it can be important we try. But also that there can be a point at which we have to mindfully weigh the blow-back. Most of that I couldn’t express when they were younger, I tried to protect them. But it also served as a lesson to me, as a mom, how to raise them to be as whole as I could. As they got older, I was able to talk to them, in careful bits. Luckily, DH’s family, though far off, is warm and wonderful, embracing. And my grandmother, though she was also far away, doted on the girls, wanted us to visit when we could, etc.
The pain we’re talking about often isn’t any one or few things we can point to. It’s the cumulative effect of years. And since it often starts when we’re more vulnerable, it’s compounded by confusion. But even when we’re older, wiser, there’s still grief at the loss. We do our best to work around it.
Jym, I don’t “plan” to forgive. What I do instead is try to remember the good things, too. And share them with my kids. There were ways my mother was a good mother and traits she gave me that I am glad to have, memories I enjoy. And I try to understand. But she is toxic.
Thank you all.