Seams,
I am new to this site too and I intend to stay here and get the support I need from unbiased people who we all have common links. LIFE AND ILLNESSES!!!
I am so glad that you have had the wisdom over the years to understand the things you do about your mother. I am sure that she loved you, but what has love got to do with it, right? She was taken from you by an illness, even mental, which is to me almost worse than physical. I hope you know that the mentally healthly mom loved you dearly.
Mental illness is such a complex ugly demon, and I believe that most of us are step or two away from it. There is a fine line between mentally competent and not.
You sound like you have learned about who your mom was and why she did what she did. You are right, no one could have stopped her and I hope you have put that notion to rest first and foremost. You did not make her ill and I also come from a family with a parent who did awful things to me. I forgave and learned in my adult years about my dad and I look at the way he was raised and I can almost understand why he became so dysfunctional. My grandmother was pure evil and I can only imagine what his life was like.
But like you said, the buck stopped with you. You are raising your family entirely different than you were raised. Not everyone realizes that the chain can be broken. Doesn't mean we are going to be perfect, no one is, but like you, I raised my boys to the best of my ability and I cannot live beating myself up for mistakes. I am more Roseanne than June Cleaver, but I think that is better anyway. LOL
Be very proud of yourself. You sound like an amazing woman. It will be very hard for you to go back, but maybe you can face some more demons and then bury them in your home town. That is were they belong.
Suicide is a horrible thing for the survivors and there have been times in my life that I would would haveliked the easy way out, but that is were the fine line comes in. I do not want that legacy for my sons.
But your mother sounds like she was a very sick woman who just couldn't bring herself to get the help she needed and then just buried the pain in alcohol. How sad for all of you. But you have learned from her and forgiven her and those are sure signs of a brave, intelligent and loving human being. Remember that you will not be alone when you go home.
God bless you and give you the strength you need to continue growing
Judy
please post when you return and vent to us or me if you need. You will definitely be in my thoughts.