I’m not very close with my mother either.
It’s like we are, but we aren’t at the same time. The last 1-1.5 years we’ve really made real progress. We have this sorta love-hate relationship, however we have this ‘unbreakable bond’. We’ve definitely said some things to each other we regret. However I’ve always felt this heavy responsibility to provide for her as my mother, even at my emotional expense, burden, I don’t like thinking like that though. It makes my feel bad. Kinda hard to explain. I’m really all she has in the world. She has no friends, and nobody in my extremely small family associates with her other than nieces and nephews, but they’re just kids.
Does any of this resonate with you? Or is it different between you & your mom?
Guilt….Giving/Receiving….
my mother resents us kids. And we resent her. She has said she “sacrificed her life for us and this is how you repay me?!!?”
It was always hard for her to ask for what she needed. Mothers are classically flawed in this way.
It’s a beautiful thing, that they give their bodies and soul to create and sustain life but if they do not also have the support they need it all backfires. And no one is happy or sustained.
It is easier to give but harder to ask for what we want or need and hard to receive when others try to give to us.
Then as children (with such poor role modeling) we adopt the same corrupt script and we over-give, have no regard for our own boundaries and perpetuate the cycle. Guilt keeps the cycle going and we have a love hate situation.
It said something like – when we feel like we are giving more then we are giving we feel resentment
I’ve definitely felt resentment several times where I have exerted myself emotionally and physically for her well being countless times and she either ‘didn’t show up’ at all or didn’t appreciate or see my immense effort. I’ve learned over the years that I always have control of my thoughts, and I needed a different perspective to change my paradigms(love this word). That truly made all the difference. I had to accept that my mother is who she is better or worse, and that only with pure love could I heal. I was fighting fire with fire. Not anymore.
On a certain level, my capacity for empathy is tremendously high(I.E- people that have really been through tough times in their lives) on another level, I have struggled. (The more entitled person)- Brene has taught me so much about this. A debt I think I’ll only be able to repay by forwarding the information she teaches. That’s partly why I write.
Blame = a way to discharge pain & discomfort(wooo!! Brene at work over here!)
Thoughts➡️words➡️behavior➡️
Think about it.
