Topic : 07/17 Mommy Dearest

I remember all too well my days as a child.  My mother was a pill addict in the 60's.  The valium housewife.  Valium, demerol, morphine etc...  My mom was a hypochondriac,she had 12 abdominal surgeries, and more drugs.  She hit, screamed, cursed, lied, and was very selfish.  It was always about MOM.  She called me a "worthless bitch" most of my childhood.  We had the ambulance at our house maybe 3-4 times yearly for drug overdoses.  Life was miserable.  My grandfather molested me from age 9-11, and my mother was not available to save me.  At age seventeen I left home.  What I learned from my childhood was, adults were mean and hated children, or more personally, me.  Something was obviously wrong with ME.  I learned that if you take pills you feel better and if you take too many you get alot of attention.  So at age 10  I started taking my mom's pills, at age 11 I had my first suicide attempt.  By age 12 I was drinking and taking pills.  By fifteen I was a heroin addict.  My life was awful.  No one to talk to, no one to support me, I felt so alone.  My parents thought I was using heroin for attention, that I wasn't an addict.  Anyway, years of bad blood between me and mom.  Talking to her as an adult made me crazy.  She never had anything good to say.  A very negative spirit.   She never told me who my real father was, said he was killed in an accident when she was pregnant with me.  I finally got a name out of her last year and had someone look for his name, birth, death, anything.  NO such person. 

      Well she's seventy four, and I'm 53.  The war is over.  I started drinking heavily in my  mid 40's and ended up in treatment.  In treatment they asked me why can't I accept that this is the way my mother is.  Why do I keep expecting her to be different, expecting her to be concerned, if after 40 years of dissapointment.  I wanted my mom to love me.  Now we are mending our relationship.  We know we can't go back, but we are trying to salvage what time we have left.  She comes to my home in Montana for 10 days at a time.  We are going on our third year, and believe it or not we actually had a good time together this last visit.  It's a miracle.  We can gab on the phone, I can finally say I love you, sometimes she'll say "love you too", not very often but it's starting.  It started when I quit expecting something that she was not able to give.  I thought it was too late, but it wasn't.  The important part is to move forward.  Just because they admit guilt and apoligize, trust me the wounds were still there.  Put on a different pair of glasses and you may find something you didn't see before.  Good Luck  (start with boundaries, boundaries, boundaries) 

Janet 

     I started therapy a couple of months ago because I was still so traumatized by the abuse my mother did to me as a child. I am in my early 30's and have confronted my mother several times since I was a teen; she either denied the abuse ever happened or claimed she couldn't help it because she was so depressed and felt trapped in her life as a mother and wife.  A few years ago I confronted her again; again she denied the abuse, but this time she wrote me a letter after our fight and mailed it to me.  Her letter did not contain an apology or acknowledgement of her behavior but I read it and kept it as evidence of her state of mind and her attitude towards me.  

      When I started therapy and started talking about my mothers denial I remembered my mothers letter.  My next session I took that letter in for my therapist to read.  In combination with what I have told him about her abusive behaviors and his sense of her state of mind from that letter my therapist thinks she may have Borderline Personality Disorder.  This is not a diagnosis of her but it is a point of reference for me as I find out more and more about this disorder.  BPD makes mothers do some of the most horrible things to their children as the mother reenacts the abuse she suffered from when she was a child.   

     I do not believe this is an excuse for what she has done to me but it does help me to connect the different aspects of her abusive behavior and understand it better so that I can heal myself.  I have just finished reading a book titled "Understanding The Borderline Mother".  Even if my mother does not have BPD this book has helped me understand how her abuse has effected me and I would reccomend reading it as a way to understand the true effects of the abuse by your mother and begin to heal yourself.  Do not wait on an apology to begin the process of forgiveness and healing; you may be waiting forever.   

     Good luck to all of us that have been through the trauma of feeling our mothers rage. 

I was, also, married to an alchoholic - an abusive one at that.  My breaking point was when my daughter started seeing and hearing the abuse.  That in itself, is abuse for the child.  I made the decision that I did not want my daughter growing up thinking that the behavior was normal - that fighting is what it is about between a husband and wife.  I wanted better for my child.  I moved out, divorced and never looked back.  It was very difficult surviving on my income but, the peace of mind was worth all the sacrifices we had to make.  Even though we left when my daughter was only 5, she has not forgotten and at 29, still has yet to marry. 

Get your children out of that life style and into a stable, optimistic household.  It may even be just what he needs to get help. 

it was painful for me to watch today's show as I was reminded of what I put my own daughter through. I've been in recovery from drugs/alcohol for over 2 years now and am trying to make ammends for the damage I've done. It took losing custody of my daughter to DCFS to finally wake me up. It is abuse and neglect when a parent is under the influence, period. You just may not realize it at the time.  I was disgusted with Marri's mom, but I also realize that she is sick and I hope and pray that she gets into treatment before it is too late. I could also relate to Jessica's story since my daughter was admitted to a psychiatric hospital on more than one occassion due to her being sexually abused (at her father's home) and due to behavioral problems. It was not for my benefit for her to be hospitalized although I can plainly see now that if I had been clean and sober at the time, there may have been other options. 

Recovery is hard work and trying to repair the damage done can be overwhelming, but it is worth it. 

I had a horrible childhood myself, but you can only play the victim for so long and then it's time to hold yourself accountable.  My thoughts and prayers are with both families. 

Hi Peanut, 

It would be nice if your mother would participate sweetie but if she's not acknowledged her toxic part in your life thus far it's not likely she will be doing so any time soon and you shouldn't hold up your happiness for a moment because of her.  It's not up to you to heal her side of the relationship which means the only person you are responsible for taking care of is yourself.  I can't say that it doesn't matter that she owns up to her role as your mother but the reality is even if she does somewhere down the line you can't put your life on hold waiting for it to happen.  What if it never does?  Some people just should never be parents and simply don't have what others of us feel to be the natural instinct to love, protect and nurture our children.  It takes so much more to be a parent, to nurture and love a child, than some have the capacity to give.  Some behave as if they are no more than vessels in which offspring are formed and they have no tangible connection.  In any case you have to take care of your own heart and spirit.  How sad that your mother has missed out on having a relationship with such a wonderful woman like you!  Her life is less for not having shared it as she could have knowing you.  Surround yourself with love, acceptance and positivity.  It won't change your mother but it will help you put enough emotional distance between yourself and her to be able to find the goodness in your life in spite of her.  Mourn the relationship you wish you might have had with a mother had she been able to fill that role then give your own child and yourself all the love you missed.  What an incredible gift that will be to your child and to you!  Don't allow a poisonous legacy to continue to mar your life or color what you will have with your own child.  Know that at least from here I send you hugs, heart, and wishes for the brightest future there is to have!   

(((Hugs))) 

Vicki 

Unfortunately, he probably knew, like others who have dealt with addicts, it wouldn't have done much good at all, her mind was tooooo fried, though I did NOT agree with her seeing the children for even an hour.  The problem is, addicts are great actors, it is a skill they learn to develope early on, manipulators would be a better name I suppose. 

Also, with the way she was acting, he might've been avoiding a violent outburst (violence is NOT what put the Dr. Phil show on television ) she looked like she could've gone off at any moment, yes I would've liked to see his no nonsense approach, but I think like the viewers, he realized there was nothing he could say or do to make that woman see what she was doing to her family. 

I'm sorry, I sound blunt, I don't mean to, but that is my two cents 

This goes to Mari, Jessica and all of us who have lived this sad experience with the one person in our life who was supposed to have loved us most...  (((HUGS))) 

Vicki