thanks for the kind words it is wonderful to have a place to voice how I really feel and get responses and encouragement from people who really understand.

hopeful

I am sorry if I get off topic a bit - but for the entire length of this day so far my mind has been revolving about the motherhood/parenthood issue. I see how concerned we all seem to be about the effect we (or really our conditions)will have on our children and the adaptations we must make in order to not influence them in to negative a way. It is really, really striking me internally about my own relationiship with my mother for some reason today.

I thought I got over our lack of a relationship a decade ago. My mother is an emotional iceburg. It is so sad; she has isolated herself phyically (she lives somewhere in Mexico on a sailboat with her 2nd husband) and emotionally from myself and my family (she and her husband did not even want to be called grandma and grandma). She is very unapproachable, bitter and brittle. My husband comes from a fairly emotionally stable famioly (at least when comparing to mine) and he has worked his bottom off to help us meet in the middle; he has given up as well. She is just to emotionally blocked off and unstable. I have tried through so many methods to reach her, but there has been no way to be close her or communicate with her. So I have left it up to her and kept our relationship just on the surface; light-hearted, friendly, not really deep nor how I want. Intimacy scares her, discussions about the past are not allowed. That is really okay with me now - if she doesn't want to be close. So in the Autumn of the year I developed this condition she e-mailed me a farewell letter "because we were not close". Huh? I wrote back saying I am sorry that she felt that way and what could I do to help and she just wrote a long list back of my faults and critisizing me. It was horrid. my husband went beserk and theatened to have nothing to do with ever again - and this is the man who ignores all problems and never gets mad. I was very patient and wrote back saying that again I was sorry I hoped we could work out, blah, blah. Well it has been 2+ years now, and I really get mad sometimes (and sometimes more than others!) because I would really love to have a mother to talk to about all these parent/child inluence/relationship issues!

Today especially its getting to me. Hearing how everyone is considerate about thier kids - I turned 40 earlier this month and my mother doesn't acknowledge i'm alive. My kids don't have a full set of grandparents, and I would love to be able to talk a mom about my questions and feelings like I talk here.

I don't know why it is bothering me now, she has always been this way. Its just making me sad today.

About two years ago I just decided that I couldn't handle dealing with my mother anymore. She was demanding and self-centered to a degree that was absurd. I too envied people with more normal families. I moved out at 17. Despite having no real affection for her, or perhaps out of guilt, because of it, I did much, much more than my older, legitimate, sisters to make her happy and include her in our lives. She always brought me down, and my husband would say that the worse thing we ever did was not moving far, far away.
I think it was some combination of my health and peri-menopause that made me decide to make a break. I couldn't keep up with her demands anymore, and she would never accept less than 100% compliance. I think that as we get older and more disabled we are struck by two realities- that we will never have a loving, nurturing mother, and that we don't have as much time to waste on it as we used to.
She died this past summer and was buried without a funeral Mass, or any memorial at all. I have never felt so free. It sounds nasty, but I carry a lot of psychological trauma from her abuse and neglect.
Have you ever watched Hoarders? It is the only regular TV show I have ever watched. I am struck by how mean and abusive some of the elderly Hoarders are to their adult children. My mother's house was lovely, but her selfishness and attitude were exactly the same. Sometimes the show makes me cry, it brings up so much baggage. You are not alone in feeling the way that you do.

Great minds think alike

Is this some past life karma , or what ?

Im seeing a real pattern here with mothers

NO i don't get on with my mine she is opposed to me in every way and this past summer even provoke me into defending myself which in turn made the very issues i had almost got over after year being housebound a year - far worse. ( I had actually planned to go out the day she provoked me )

Seriously if it had been any one else I would of strangled them I was so angry and still am.. and as result our relationship has hit an all time low .

It will not matter though , I know she would do it again as people in general dont change

No one asks or wants to talk about my issues so by default its though I - they do not exist which of course just ****** me off even more because it leaves u feeling like its not important or trivial / delusional at best.

Suffering so much for something not even acknowledged by medicine ( in regards to my main issue ) amongst other things and being housebound might as well be some form of ritual abuse, afterall if your life has no meaning on any level you might as well not even exist- and sometimes i wonder if theres any point even do.

m

Some mothers can be "muthas"...
It's (a) taboo in every culture (I can think of) to hate your mother. Likewise it's taboo for a mother to hate a child. Some people have been able to justify/rationalize/reconcile this by admitting, "I love my mother/child, but I don't like my mother/child," particularly when the mother/child is an abuser, mentally ill, or just not a nice/likeable person.

I could go on about the fallacy of the ideal family portrayed by media (The Hardys, Nelsons, Andersons, Stones, Bradys....) like the fallacy of the ideal woman portrayed by same (plus fashion models, Barbies, etc.)

I think the real damage comes from the guilt we feel when we think there's something wrong with us, or that we're in the minority, when we come from/live in a dysfunctional family, but I think the dysfunctional family may actually be the norm.

Doc

True, I know a lot of it is just her social conditioning but she has wicked streak too I dont like much like what we call " neds " or chavs round here.

Its one thing to cause misery its another to get off on it belittle you for being too " sensitive " if u dont play along - and that is something i loathe and have little time for.

I do not get off making people feel worse- life is so short and the margins too enjoy it for us so thin , they will never know until they've suffered ( i mean really suffered themselves )

When youve suffered you learn not to take anything for granted, most of all yourself.

m

Aaaghhhh - This is sooooo her!


Back to the topic of the marriage/our-conditions/influence-on-children -

.... I just found out my 13 yro son is failing two of his classes, back-talkng to his teachers, not doing ANY of his in class assignments (he does his homework because at home I am here to check on him), and just goofing off and playing around in his classes all day.

Now two off his teachers have know him since I brought him home at age 6 1/2 and they know he has an extremely high IQ, but is also has RAD (reactive attachment disorder). Peter is adopted and has overcome most of his issues with this disorder. It really hasn't been much of a problem the past couple of years but as you see he is acting out again. One of his teachers wants him out of her class completely. But he also gets a's and b's on the assignments he does do, and is in leadership class, and was on the honor roll last quarter -this is all new and is a reflection my husbands and I marriage problems I'm sure. We hafe reassured that everything is going to be okay, but I know it will take I long time for him to feel comfortable due to his attachment disorder.

For those of you that dont know; in the simplest form attachment disorder occurs when children from newborns to age 3 or so do not get thier most basic needs met regularly. Like getting fed when hungry, held when scared, ect. Those children then ONLY feel compfortable when they feel uncomfortable. Does that make sense? These children actually cannot handle good feelings. Take for example his biological sister; she was 3 1/2 when she moved in and anytime you said "good job", or a likewise positive comment, within 15 minutes or so whe would go hurt an animal, her sister (our other daughter, a bio-child), or break a toy, or worse. So it takes YEARS to get them past thier history and they will always struggle with these feelings. Peter has come along way. We do an immense amount of therapy with them.

But now he is 13.........I know why he is acting out, and we are doing the traditional therapy with him for this. We talk, and a lot of cuddling is the most theraputic for him. Call it a form of holding therapy - we just sit on the couch with him on my lap and we talk or I just hold him and I read a book. He is amazingly respecful about how much pain this causes me, so I know her cares. He also has to really do a lot of physical work to burn off his anger and resentment.

Only now he is 13 and is being smarty pants and just not doing what he is told. How do I get through to a 13 yro when I can't physically do anything about - remember I can't use my arms much without causing severe pain. I tell him to do somthing and he jsut sits there and does ts in his own sweet time. Or not at all.

These new teen-type of behaviors are what I don't know how to handle, and I feel a little water-logged/overwhelmed. I don't know when to stop, when to intervein, when to let it go. Do I call him on him waiting ten seconds to getup to his chores, even though he does this 16 TIMES A DAY. When he takls in a sullen voice how many times do I let it go? I have studied and learned so much about adoption,attachment disorder, gifted children, gate-childre, highly-emotional children,exteremly independent children, shy children - aaaaaaaaghghghghhghg, ........ dgomasnr;oigjae'r gfmnafkvmasdklvm ad;lvmaero geojg'pbvmb mpk
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................... i cant think i cant fit eny mor in mi brane

Welcome to real parenthood! He's an adolescent. He's beginning to think, decide, and choose for himself, right or wrong. Part of him is wanting/expecting to be treated like an adult and have more say in things, but of course it doesn't happen overnight. Another part of him may be looking for boundaries - boundaries he can stretch, manipulate, challenge....

This is one of the epic battles waged in every generation since the dawn of time. (Yes, I know there are kids who somehow missed all this and were complete angels through puberty, but that's rare.)

It's the Parent/Child/Adult (transactional analysis) power struggle at work.

Growing up is a learning experience for both child and parent. There's support/help out there for this too, but like everything else on the internet (or in books, on TV... wherever....), there's going to be good and bad advice/counsel.

Doc

I dont understand the need for kids when we have more than we can handle with ourselves - whats wrong with a new hobby or pets its less expensive ??

Far too many people in the world any way, last thing we need is more to just to deplete our already depleted resources imo.


m