A Safe Place To Be Visible

[sanmagic7]

i don't doubt the intensity of the feeling that went along with the stomping simply got overwhelming, so i'm glad you stopped when you did.  i had a similar experience lately with my icky T, and i, too, had to stop.  it made me realize, tho, the amount of rage i had toward her.  it was eye-opening.

i don't believe for a minute you were bad, bach.  maybe you did things that your M didn't like, but that doesn't necessarily make you bad.  people put those kinds of labels on us for their own benefit.  that way it's easier for them to justify what they do to us. 

sending you love and a hug filled with support for all you're going thru.  take your time - it's a lot to process

[Bach]

Thank you very much, Blueberry and san for supporting Middle B.  That encourages her willingness to speak, which is good for me/us. 

The thing that confuses and distresses Middle B so much is that most of the things that bloody woman says are either partially true, or true but without context, or are wild misinterpretations of truth.  I could give examples of this but it would wind me up too much, and poor Middle B needs some rest.

In the letters, she ignored my early development entirely and referenced only things that occurred during my middle childhood (Middle B!).  She said "I may have been a bad parent but she had serious problems that most parents could not have handled well. (Bach), as to be expected, doesn't admit that this was at least partly, two sided".  Here is the rebuttal that I didn't send:

I don't admit that it was two-sided? I was a CHILD. A very young and neglected CHILD. My problems started when I was too young to do anything but react to how I was treated, and how I was treated was mostly with neglect, but also often with hostility which was indeed at times demonstrated physically. I acknowledge that I was not outright beaten, but that is far from the only way that a full-grown, powerful adult can physically demonstrate hostility. And there was indeed emotional abuse. I was yelled at, criticised, punished for things I didn't understand and blamed for things I didn't do. I was given no guidance or nurturance. I was constantly under threat of being suffocated (I have distinct memories of this), or of being "put in a box and sent back to wherever I came from". You often screamed at me "What is WRONG with you?", when I was a toddler who the main thing WRONG with was that I had a father who was hardly ever there, and yelled and threw things when he was, and a mother who deeply resented me when she wasn't completely failing to notice that the things that were happening around me affected me. You told me yourself that you resented me when I was a baby because I had colic. By "two-sided" should I be accepting responsibility for not being in perfect digestive health as an infant? From the beginning of my life, your unhappy life with my father was taken out on me, perhaps not always directly, but perpetually in the form of complete and total disregard for the needs of a very young, very frightened child, way before I was old enough for any of it to be two-sided. My behavioural issues were established by the terrifying environment in which I lived and was a hapless and mostly disregarded bystander. I was not a difficult child because I wanted to be. I was a difficult child because I was traumatised by being in a violent household with parents who seldom showed me any care or concern at all and had no apparent interest at all in actually raising me. Just because no one gets hit doesn't mean that dramatic screaming fights don't traumatise children, especially when those fights take place right in front of the children who are then ignored or treated as burdensome when they react with fear and distress to what they are witnessing. Other things you have told me yourself over the years are that you got pregnant with me accidentally, that my father was upset about the pregnancy and didn't want me, that by the time I was born your marriage with my father was a complete disaster. Most recently, you said that you and my father were both selfish and caught up in your own dramas, and apologised for that casually as if it was just some small thing that hurt my feelings rather than a very big thing indeed that completely undermined my healthy development. My early childhood was so full of neglect and trauma that by the time I became the wild uncontrollable child you complain about, I was in a constant state of confusion, fear and hypervigilance and had absolutely no clue how to react to anything. It's not like as soon as you moved in with (stepfather) I suddenly became a normal healthy child who had been taught and cared for and nurtured, and was capable of consciously deciding to be a good girl and decided instead to be a nightmare. While I understand that creating a monster was not your intent, none of what made me wild and uncontrollable was inherent in me at birth or was the product of any conscious choice on my side. So, you're right. I do not admit that it was two-sided. Because it wasn't.

I will tell her all of this eventually.  Meanwhile, I'm going to try to encourage Middle B to draw more.  She wants to but is afraid.  I think that might actually be my fault. 

[Armee]

It's a beautiful letter full of truth and fairness, Bach. I hope it does help Middle B to know that you see her and what happened to her and that you know it wasn't her fault, and I hope it brings her comfort to know it is written and could be sent if the time is right.

[Pippi]

I'm new here, bach, so you don't know me. But I hope it's OK to say that your words in the un-sent letter to your M were so powerful and inspiring to me, full of the unshakeable, undeniable truth that you (like any small child) are never responsible for the neglect and abuse endured at the hands of the adults in charge.   As you express so well, it's absolutely not two-sided when one side is an infant, a toddler, or even (in my opinion) a teenager.  (As the mother of a teen, I still believe it's MY job - not my daughter's - to be the one taking the lead in modeling the compassion and respect that I hope to see in her.)  Thank you for sharing your courageous truth here. It helped me to read it.

[Bach]

Do those crying storms I keep wanting to have but can't come from Middle B?

Are all these tears that clog me up and strain against but cannot break the barriers that hold them back Middle B's?

[dollyvee]

Hi Bach,

I read your unsent letter and I think it makes perfect sense. You are right in that no child should ever be blamed for their behaviour after living through a situation like that and it's not ok for your M to be "unaware" of her part in it and to try to make you responsible (again!!). It sounds like one of those "yeah, but" apologies which aren't really an apology.

I wholly relate to being in a situation with someone like that and the frustration it brings up. I tried to bring my mom to therapy once to tell her how I felt, and she didn't hear a word of it, only that I was telling her she was a bad person. Sending you some support and a hug for middle b if that's ok 

dolly

[Armee]

As someone who has tears to cry but never feels them and never sheds them, and when a tear trickles to my eyelash it isn't mine and I'm not crying, all I can say is: I don't know but i hope one day Bach and Middle B are free to cry when they want to.

[sanmagic7]

 

i totally agree our childhood experiences are not two-sided.  imbalance of power, for one. lack of life experience for another. brains and minds aren't grown enough to understand about relationship dynamics, personal boundaries, or anything about individual freedoms and world perspectives.  none of it was our fault - we were manipulated and groomed to be what others wanted us to be for their own advantage, to make their own lives easier at the expense of our well-being.

i believe the tears will come when both of you are ready, when both of you feel safe enough to allow their escape.  for now, the idea that you're questioning seems to say you are on a positive, healthy track.  love and hugs

[Bach]

I should have sent that letter when I had the chance. Instead I toned it way, way down, then backed down entirely when she played the recent widow card. Now I want to go after her. I want to tell her the whole story. Recent widow be blanked. I should have compassion for her when she has never had the least tiny little bit of it for me? What I wrote in that letter was only the beginning of that story, why it wasn't "two-sided" and how I became such a "wild, uncontrollable child". The problem, of course, is that if I go after her I have to be prepared for the reaction. I don't really want to have to spend the energy to stand up for myself against her but I've begun to suspect it might be the only way to break myself out of the disastrous emotional flashback I've been in for the past month.

[sanmagic7]

bach, i think, my opinion only, that if sending such a letter is going to help you get to a healthier place, if it's in your best interest, then do what you need to do.  i'm concerned about fallout from it, tho.  weigh possible outcomes, if that helps to make up your mind, as to which course will cost you less in energy and well-being, ok?  i just want what's best for you, always.  love and hugs, my dear.

[Armee]

Just you and your therapist can even come close to figuring out if a letter, more direct and complete, will help or hurt you and Middle B. You certainly won't get understanding, compassion, apologies, or change from that woman. But perhaps standing up to her will help you and Middle B feel heard by yourself and to feel stronger in your right to be free of her.

I used to pay the price for days just silently driving my mom to her appointments. Just seeing her eyes was all it took, or even being in her house alone without her. Very very bad dissociation for days. Shame. Self hatred. Self harm. Loss of awareness to the point of cooking outside of awareness and risking house fires.

I've seen how interactions with that woman have also had very very serious backdraft for you, and I would just want out of deep care for you to know that you have the right to proceed with caution and self care. To know what the cost may be. And to know that just walking away from her is also acceptable. Your truth is truth whether you spell it out for that woman or whether you just spell it out for you and Middle B. We all see your truth and it is true.

[Bach]

Armee, Pippi, San, Dollyvee, thank you very much for being here, for reading and responding.  I'm in a million tiny sharp jagged pieces here right now.  The other day a chat friend asked how I was doing and I said "Struggling through a bad patch which I am bearing with as much grace and as little excess self-destructiveness as I can."  That's about right, and about all I can do right now.  Maybe it's enough but it sure doesn't feel like it.

I'd really like to be able to be satisfied with knowing my truth and having it recognised here, by My Person, by my brother, by my friends, by whoever...but I don't think I can.  Not while she's still alive.  Not while she's basking in her smugness stewing in her invented tragedy.  She got her Covid booster the other day and I didn't really think or hope that it would kill her, but...

[sanmagic7]

 

[Bach]

san   

Really heavy stuff in therapy today when I realised that part of me wants to torment that bloody woman emotionally, and that if I gave into that urge I would know exactly how to push her buttons, and worst of all, that if I did push those buttons, it would do what no amount of empathy or kindness ever will:  Make her want my attention.

[rainydiary]

Bach, that is heavy.  I appreciate you sharing.