My heart goes out to Jessica. I look in her eyes and I see so much well-deserved contempt. I see a young lady who has taken as much as she can, and more than she could. It's going to take a whole lot for Dana to prove herself, but Jessica needs to try to open her heart. She had this chance to confront a horrid mother, and this is such a step!
I had a Mommie Dearest. She beat me, kicked me, threw me on the wall. I learned to laugh at it, because it's the only way I survived. I grew up with the "I wish you were dead" and "I hate you" from my earliest moments. She excused me from PE quite often so no one would see the bruises. I wore a lot of black tights! She always threatened to send me to the local institution for problem girls, but I would always tell her to go ahead and I could tell my side of the story. I married to escape her, and ended up with just another form of abuse. Both constantly told me how "unloveable" I was. They both said I shouldn't be concerned that they didn't love me; it should just make it obvious that no one ever could. I lived my life with that, and made my decisions based on that.
When my oldest sister was dying, my mother rejected me in front of the grief counselor! She pretended I wasn't there! When I was going through my own personal Hell, I was trying to help mother, who hadn't mellowed. One day, I said: "For your sake, I really wish I had been the one who died." She just looked me straight in the eye and said, "So do I." She lived until I was in my late 50s, and it wasn't until she drew her last breath that I realized it never had anything to do with me.
She's been gone not quite two years, and I have been able to work on changing my life. It started with changing my perception. The pain weighed me down so much I had to learn to forgive her. I stopped asking questions which would never have answers. I will never be able to confront her and find out why she felt as she did. But I'm okay. Better late than never. But there are times I really miss her. I realized that she did the best she could under the circumstances. She did put me through Hell, but I learned to overcome obstacles. She tried to push me down; I worked twice as hard to pick myself up. I learned to survive. Now I'm going through issues that could easily sideline me, but I refuse to be pushed down. I got that survival skill from her. God bless you for that, mother.
Jessica's decision to turn in her mom wasn't easy; it shows she has that that strength. She's young and her mother is still around. You have time to survive, to talk with your mother and to answr those questions I did. But she needs to remember that how Dana feels about her has nothing to do with who she is. She and Dana both need to get help. No matter what we go through, we've only one mother and one father. Try to rescue the time with them. If it doesn't work, at least there will be no regrets.
God bless, and good luck to them both.
(Original Air Date: 04/03/06) Marri and Jessica both want to confront their mothers, who they say were neglectful and abusive during their childhoods. Marri has put up with her mother, Marilyn's, addiction to crack cocaine for 18 years, and she's ready to shut her mom out of her life for good if she doesn't admit she has a problem and seek help for it. Marilyn says her drug use is the solution, not the problem, and she can be a good mother and still smoke crack. Then, Jessica says she had to care for herself when she was a little girl. Her mother, Deana, was never around, and when she was, she was bringing strange men home for sex. In a ploy for attention, Deana committed her daughter to a mental institution -- three times! Tired of holding in her anger, Jessica demands her mother take responsibility for what she's done. Will these daughters get some emotional closure on their painful childhoods? Share your thoughts here.
