Success, I guess

[Blackbird]

Hey guys. 

So, I took up the opportunity that my mother was in a good mood and decided to have a serious talk with her about my childhood, the abuses or lack of them, the neglect, etc.

I think this is important to lay in writing so I don't forget to bring it to my T, and bear with me because timelines are a mess in my head, it might seem a little jumbled.

She has a hard time believing my father did anything to me, mainly because she says she was very attentive. That, in my book, doesn't mean much. My father was good at make belief that me and him had a good relationship, with me even, having secrets between us, giving me gifts all the time, and all that. I still don't remember anything specific, but I'm trying to connect the dots. She told me that I slept in his house a bunch of times, which I also don't remember happening, and she also told me that I stopped wanting to go there, crying. So, she said she made a deal with my father with my permission to only be allowed to be with him with my grandparents (his folks) present.
By that time, I have a vivid memory of hurting badly in bumper cars on a fair, and him laughing. After that I was no longer allowed to see him. 
We did agree that he was highly inadequate in his behavior with me and that he was emotionally abusive since I was born, even to her. This was something that she never told me before, so I guess this is where it starts to get "interesting".

I was born on a different country, and both my parents are from the country I'm residing now. I came to live here for one year and a half when I was 4 or 5 and that's when that all happened. My father left to come here to treat his alcoholism supposedly when I was 3, me and my mother stayed there, came here for one year and a half, then went back there where we stayed for another 3 or 4 years.

During the time that I was here, those one and a half years, I developed a deep hatred and fear of my father. Neither me or my mother can pin point exactly why, but from a broad analysis we can certainly say his behavior and inedequacy greatly contributed.
Then, when I went back there, I became incrinsingly sad. I didn't belong with anyone but my best friends, since I knew from birth. I developed few friendships and cried a lot, alone in my room. She doesn't remember this, but I do. Although I wasn't exactly the poster child for a happy life, we did lead a good and stable life there, she was present and when she wasn't I had a nanny I cared deeply about.

Then, we had to move back here because she her contract ended. I ended up in a school with gangsters, being bullied every day. By that time, my mother got a job on another city and she now, finally, admits she was very neglectful. Apparently I was very vocal about it.

I tried fighting the bullies, ignoring the bullies, and telling, but nothing worked, so I joined the bullies. I didn't bully myself, but they were a tough crowd, messing with hard drugs and stealing stuff, I started smoking pot and drinking, I was 13. I had a period of agoraphobia by that time, and my mother sent me to a therapist. I, now, was able to tell her that that was the first sign that I needed help, but she didn't exactly see it and the therapist sucked, so he didn't help. The anxiety remained, but the agoraphobia passed.
A few months later I was sexually abused, and expelled from school all in the same month. I was expelled out of pity, and safe guard. More to save me from that crowd than from my own actions. During all of this, my mother had to deal with my grandma being ill, my NPD uncle not doing anything to help and only asking for money, and a bunch of other stuff, including deaths in the family and family spites.

I was sent to live with my grandma that had Alzheimmer's, and here lies the second abandonment from a parent. She says she understands now that maybe it wasn't the best choice, but told me it was the only way to get me away from the gangsters that began circling our building and waiting for me and for her.

When I moved to my grandma's, first I gave up on school as an act of "rebellion", then later got my head together and started getting good grades - by this time a teacher held me close and helped me a lot, without taking advantage of me, which was nice. I still hung out with bad crowds and had abusive boyfriends, though, and only in my last year there, before going to highschool in the city, living with my mother again, that I started having actually good friends. I didn't want to leave, but I did return, this time to a hippie school of my choosing. During all of this, my father sobered up and relapsed around three times.

In hindsight, my mother being a hippie herself in her younger years, and still a bit today, she did give me a lot of choice in doing whatever I wanted, acting only when I behaved badly according to her standards. Sometimes she was right, sometimes she wasn't. But I guess in light of all of this, and the abuse she endured as a kid, that I can actually forgive her for some transgressions. She does have a lot of narcissistic traits, and low empathy, but she is in fact trying very hard not to make more mistakes and being there for me in her own, low empathy, way.

So, in the last minutes of the talk, she did admit to being manipulative, putting herself first when she was depressed and not tending well for my needs when I needed them the most, she admitted to acting out and playing the victim, and that her memory cannot help me much, that I need to deal with my therapist to what actually happened between me and my father.
I don't want to believe it was sexual abuse, but the signs indicate that it was.

We came to the conclusion that, even if there wasn't direct sexual abuse by the part of my father, all the emotional abuse and neglect from both my parents were more than enough to give me CPTSD, not counting the remaining abuses I endured later in adulthood.

I think I can rest for a bit now and stop circling around this issues and focus only on recovery. I don't want to keep retraumatizing myself by replaying the stuff over and over and over in my head.

I can't say I forgive her, but I can understand that she wants to be better, and I respect that.

What do you guys think?

[Three Roses]

I think it's wonderful that you were able to have an honest conversation and that she validated your feelings and memories. Good job to you, and to her! 

[Blackbird]

Thanks Three Roses, I guess I got lucky too, I never expected her to admit to anything.