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dani_meowsThere was only enough coffee for a short glass for Ian and I this morning and I'm already feeling sleepy again. It's tempting to take a nap but I have a lot of things to do today.
Mostly to finish putting the house in some order and to start packing up Christmas presents. I also bought some new sheets this morning but I still need to purchase some more organizational packages I think. I also want to buy some new spring decor.
So let's start with my therapy assignment which I'll either link to my therapist, Hi Ally or I'll copy and paste it over to her later.
I've been thinking over the therapy assignment in my head for almost two weeks now and I don't know that I have a concrete answer.
As I tell Ian when I tell him that I like him as well as love him. Loving is different from liking it's possible to love someone and not like them very much. My entire childhood has taught me that.
I love my father very much but sometimes I don't like him very much. It was easier by far to distance myself from my mother because she abandoned me first and multiple times. That it was easy to just stop putting myself out there for her to keep hurting.
Nowadays, I only put as much out there as she puts into the relationship first. Do I get envious when other people talk about there close relationships with their mothers. Yes. But I will never have that and it's the height of stupidity to keep giving her my very vulnerable self for her to keep lying to and hurting.
Besides I could be like Bri, my best friend, practically sister, and room mate who's Mom Penny was everything a Mom should be. Penny was a great Mom. Stern when necessary, loving gave good advice. A great surrogate Mom figure to me and Bri's only parent. In 2002, she got Uterine cancer from the Progestogen she was on, be careful with hormones folks! And 2005 she died. Bri is still and always will be in mourning.
So I feel selfish sometimes having a living Mom that I don't interact with. Although Bri is the first one in line to tell me that my Mother, Father and Stepmother are garbage people that I owe nothing to and that I should tell them to go fuck themselves and keep myself far away from them.
My father, is more complicated. My father didn't have to raise me. As he told me on Father's Day when he was drunk when I was 13 he isn't biologically my father despite what it says on my birth certificate. He didn't have to raise me. When the state of Florida took me away from Mother on Father's Day Weekend when I was four he could have just said you know what I don't want to raise a child. They only called him after my Mother's parents refused custody. They then called my dearest Grandma who said her father wants her and put the state in contact with him. He was a truck driver and this was before cell phones. He only had 2 hours to make a five hour drive before they would put me in foster care. He made it in time.
When the state tried to make him give me back to the alcoholic woman who'd only completed one of those quickie rehab programs... he could have given me back. He could have been an absentee parent but instead he negotiated a new custody agreement where he had primary custody of me and where my mother had to pay zero dollars in child support. And she never paid anything which is why I still have a severe underbite because Vicki and Daddy couldn't afford to pay for the retainer when I was young and by the time they had money when I was in my teens they would have had to break my jaw to fix it. I'll keep the overbite thanks!
Am I saying that I only keep in contact out of obligation? Because I feel like I owe him? I don't know.
They hit me and they damaged me. I'm afraid of them as an adult. They weren't good parents. But they were the only parents I had and they didn't have to parent me.
I love them. They tucked me into bed. Taught me how to read. Taught me how to cook. Tried to teach me to drive. They soothed every fever and nightmare. They rocked me back and forth when I had the ear infection so bad I nearly lost my hearing when I was six. They made me feel safe and loved. They did their best to raise me.
They were raised in a time when it wasn't known that childhood trauma can have lasting effect. When spanking a child wasn't seen to be damaging. From how my uncles raised their children and stories about how my grandpa handled disobedient children they were only doing what they knew.
They love me and I love them. I just don't know if they like me very much. I don't like them very much. They gaslight me. They minimize how I feel. They hit me. They hurt me. They cause me pain. They are a strong source of the negative voices in my head. They make me feel like I'm always in the wrong. They are a source of anxiety.
I don't want to minimize how feel. I don't want to hurt anymore. I don't want to deal with feeling like I have to walk on eggshells.
But they raised me when they didn't have to and I feel like I owe them for that.
I don't know if I can just ignore them. If they die when I'm not speaking to them will I feel the loss more keenly.
My grandma has been dead for more than 20 years and I feel her loss keenly. I still grieve for her. I may grieve for her too much. Is there such thing as too much. Is it normal to still feel a sharp and aching sense of loss when you think of someone who has been gone for a long time. She's been gone from my life longer than she was in it but she was the only adult in my life that gave me unconditional love.
I'm afraid. No matter what choice I make. How will I know if it's the right one.
By responding to my dad's glossing over of the Christmas incident by ignoring my response and attempt to connect emotionally... by sending a gif back to his New Year Greeting... I'm in essence saying that it's okay to attack me and then ignore my feelings about it...
But I don't know what is the correct choice or how to process how I feel.
That was fun. Therapy Tuesday is complete. I don't remember which afternoon I actually have therapy but assignment complete.
I think I'll go snuggle a cat now
Mostly to finish putting the house in some order and to start packing up Christmas presents. I also bought some new sheets this morning but I still need to purchase some more organizational packages I think. I also want to buy some new spring decor.
So let's start with my therapy assignment which I'll either link to my therapist, Hi Ally or I'll copy and paste it over to her later.
I've been thinking over the therapy assignment in my head for almost two weeks now and I don't know that I have a concrete answer.
As I tell Ian when I tell him that I like him as well as love him. Loving is different from liking it's possible to love someone and not like them very much. My entire childhood has taught me that.
I love my father very much but sometimes I don't like him very much. It was easier by far to distance myself from my mother because she abandoned me first and multiple times. That it was easy to just stop putting myself out there for her to keep hurting.
Nowadays, I only put as much out there as she puts into the relationship first. Do I get envious when other people talk about there close relationships with their mothers. Yes. But I will never have that and it's the height of stupidity to keep giving her my very vulnerable self for her to keep lying to and hurting.
Besides I could be like Bri, my best friend, practically sister, and room mate who's Mom Penny was everything a Mom should be. Penny was a great Mom. Stern when necessary, loving gave good advice. A great surrogate Mom figure to me and Bri's only parent. In 2002, she got Uterine cancer from the Progestogen she was on, be careful with hormones folks! And 2005 she died. Bri is still and always will be in mourning.
So I feel selfish sometimes having a living Mom that I don't interact with. Although Bri is the first one in line to tell me that my Mother, Father and Stepmother are garbage people that I owe nothing to and that I should tell them to go fuck themselves and keep myself far away from them.
My father, is more complicated. My father didn't have to raise me. As he told me on Father's Day when he was drunk when I was 13 he isn't biologically my father despite what it says on my birth certificate. He didn't have to raise me. When the state of Florida took me away from Mother on Father's Day Weekend when I was four he could have just said you know what I don't want to raise a child. They only called him after my Mother's parents refused custody. They then called my dearest Grandma who said her father wants her and put the state in contact with him. He was a truck driver and this was before cell phones. He only had 2 hours to make a five hour drive before they would put me in foster care. He made it in time.
When the state tried to make him give me back to the alcoholic woman who'd only completed one of those quickie rehab programs... he could have given me back. He could have been an absentee parent but instead he negotiated a new custody agreement where he had primary custody of me and where my mother had to pay zero dollars in child support. And she never paid anything which is why I still have a severe underbite because Vicki and Daddy couldn't afford to pay for the retainer when I was young and by the time they had money when I was in my teens they would have had to break my jaw to fix it. I'll keep the overbite thanks!
Am I saying that I only keep in contact out of obligation? Because I feel like I owe him? I don't know.
They hit me and they damaged me. I'm afraid of them as an adult. They weren't good parents. But they were the only parents I had and they didn't have to parent me.
I love them. They tucked me into bed. Taught me how to read. Taught me how to cook. Tried to teach me to drive. They soothed every fever and nightmare. They rocked me back and forth when I had the ear infection so bad I nearly lost my hearing when I was six. They made me feel safe and loved. They did their best to raise me.
They were raised in a time when it wasn't known that childhood trauma can have lasting effect. When spanking a child wasn't seen to be damaging. From how my uncles raised their children and stories about how my grandpa handled disobedient children they were only doing what they knew.
They love me and I love them. I just don't know if they like me very much. I don't like them very much. They gaslight me. They minimize how I feel. They hit me. They hurt me. They cause me pain. They are a strong source of the negative voices in my head. They make me feel like I'm always in the wrong. They are a source of anxiety.
I don't want to minimize how feel. I don't want to hurt anymore. I don't want to deal with feeling like I have to walk on eggshells.
But they raised me when they didn't have to and I feel like I owe them for that.
I don't know if I can just ignore them. If they die when I'm not speaking to them will I feel the loss more keenly.
My grandma has been dead for more than 20 years and I feel her loss keenly. I still grieve for her. I may grieve for her too much. Is there such thing as too much. Is it normal to still feel a sharp and aching sense of loss when you think of someone who has been gone for a long time. She's been gone from my life longer than she was in it but she was the only adult in my life that gave me unconditional love.
I'm afraid. No matter what choice I make. How will I know if it's the right one.
By responding to my dad's glossing over of the Christmas incident by ignoring my response and attempt to connect emotionally... by sending a gif back to his New Year Greeting... I'm in essence saying that it's okay to attack me and then ignore my feelings about it...
But I don't know what is the correct choice or how to process how I feel.
That was fun. Therapy Tuesday is complete. I don't remember which afternoon I actually have therapy but assignment complete.
I think I'll go snuggle a cat now
no subject
Date: 2022-01-18 05:59 pm (UTC)That's such a difficult thing to go through and I hope you find a way that works for you. I wish I could give you any kind of advice, more so good advice, but I don't think I can even begin to understand your situation outside of the fact that you are hurting.
With what I've read on here, I'd agree that you don't owe them anything. It's okay to take a step back. Understanding where they come from might help you put it into context, but it won't change how they make you feel and at the end of the day, how you feel is what matters. Because nobody should make you feel bad or scared.
If nothing else, just know that I'm willing to listen (or read as the case might be) to whatever you need to get off of your chest without judgement. *hugs some more*