Madonna - I Deserve It

Why women leave their children

While browsing for books at the local library, just anything of interest to add to the already growing pile I had in my arms , I found this book and I'll be honest, I was not only happy about finding a book that relates to the very thing that has bothered me to my core but also maybe it could give me some insights to something that I can't understand. Sure, my own kids can piss me off & you can understand why some mothers in nature eat their young but all jokes aside, It will never sit right with me. Never. And I know I've lost respect for my sister now for even doing it.

US & THEM

..This is a book about women who have children & for the most part, expect to live with them & look after them during their years of childhood & adolescence. And yet, either through choice or force of circumstance, or a combination of both, they find themselves living apart from their children, sometimes far away, sometimes in a situation of love, often in one of great pain & conflict.

This is also a book about the rest of us, the people who do not leave their children, the ones who judge & sometimes misjudge, who are hostile or shocked or disturbed by the breaking of preciously-guarded rules concerning mother-love & who because of these attitudes inflict further pain on the breakers of these rules.

'It doesn't seem natural' is the way one man summed it up, & the sentiment rings true for many others, men & women alike. 'How could she?'...'I can't imagine anyone doing it'...are the kinds of responses women give to the idea of mothers wilfully living apart from their children, though we are all very familiar with men doing so.

I embarked on this book as one entering unknown territory. I wanted to know: who are these women? why do they break the rules? what happens to them afterwards? do they really love their children? If I, too, started out half-expecting unnatural women committing unnatural acts, I finished up with something far more complex, often heartrending & sometimes exceedingly disturbing.

The first chapter interestingly enough is called Leaving for a lover

Better out than in

Now I can get on with my day which has been pretty bloody good so far:D ☼

I've been doing a lot of research lately, be it online or in paper form, I'm gathering heaps of information which I'm finding most of it applies to me .
I could have written all these things.

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....Children who grow up 'motherless' see the world in a different perspective than children who have their Mothers. Aside from having to grow up faster, they tend to appreciate the little things more because they realize that the things we often take for granted are far too precious to ignore. For example, when a mother and a daughter are seen at the grocery store shopping together, we often do not think anything of it. In fact, that just seems like a normal, common, everyday thing. However, through the eyes of a motherless daughter, it almost brings tears everytime she sees a mother with her daughter because she longs for that feeling of being able to shop for groceries with her own mother. Little things like that, that we often subconsciously take for granted mean the world to a child who is motherless




^^^^^This one, I have been noticing a lot lately. A couple here where we live have recently had their first baby & it's hard to not notice her Mum who comes here during the day to help her daughter. I often find myself thinking "I hope she appreciates that"..and then I realize what I've thought & stop thinking about it totally. Some people might say "What are you on about you have your Mother shes not dead, snap out of it pull your head in".

What those people don't seem to understand is that yes I DO have a living breathing Mother just down the road, but shes not here for me in any way whatsoever, she never has been and not at all in the way that I need her to be. She'd rather throw $50 at me then drive off thinking her job is done & then we don't hear from her or see her until the next big family 'gathering' but in between that she's somehow (again) caused or causes a lot of chaos. I've also realized I'm probably not the daughter that she wants/ed either.
I don't need her here holding my hand helping me to put dishes away or even hanging out my washing but what would be nice is if she could have been that sort of Mum who is there for you emotionally and actually has your back. The sort that almost everybody else seems to have.


When I think of 'Mothers', I also think about Grandma . That's where I would have this gaping hole in my heart filled. It's as if my heart is in portions. The portion where she lives is empty, red, aching, no life at all it's actually 'drained' & I can see that it's empty and then the other portion where my hubby & kids and other family members 'live', it's overflowing..it's full, vibrant, warm and really beautiful. I've got the worlds best husband and kids I adore them like you'd not believe but nobody can fill what's missing & from what I can see, always will be no matter how much i think she's here with me, she lives in me...or at least I want her to be-.

What I want is her here for real, to reach out to and to be able to touch. To hug and to kiss. To laugh and sometimes cry to.


I will always see Mothers with their adult daughters they're not going to go away and they don't even bother me every time I see it, it's mainly when it's quiet when I'm least expecting it this pang of hurt pierces me & then it goes away again. Which I guess I should be thankful for, (that it goes and not stays).


Note: My brother rang this morning & he now knows why I've been keeping away from them & that it's been his other half sticking her nose in where it's not wanted... & by his own admissions he says 'she needs to butt the hell out '.. if she ever mentions to me again that our Mum is our mum & my job is to love & forgive and be there for her and never replace her (& how would I feel if my eldest child came to me one day and told me he had a new mum..to which I replied that I'd have to look at the situation as to why he is saying that)... she'll be getting her head ripped off pretty fast by the both of us & my brother  will 'understand' as he put it. Just because she has a good relationship with her Mum does not mean the rest of the world does also. She's an extremely narrow minded person that was raised by her own proud admissions to 'never apologize' & if 'someone doesn't meet her standards of an intellectual person that is as 'high' as she is, she de-friends them'. what can I say. Not wasting any time there either. My brother could have done so much better...*sigh*...

While I'm at it (purging for me is best lately than not) is not happy with being sent numerous emails all forwarded on from Mum, from her 'internet dating' friends. Not interested at all in getting a VW car with a vagina painted on the front of the bonnet..no Mum it's not remotely funny, at not at least from you.

Maybe from my friends, but not you. I opened 2 emails looked for a whole of 2 seconds at each then hit delete on the lot. I'm no prude but this is not something I am going to encourage or even 'laugh' at with or from her..it makes me sick to read where they came from, all male names I have no idea who they are..& to think shes already out there & getting attention from random men be it on 'her terms' or not, I still find is extremely unsavoury seeing it's not even 5 months after her husband has been dead.


Out of control with no idea how to make her life better & no interest either. And doubly irresponsible for sleeping with one already and using no protection..."He said he knows where he's been in the last 6 months & I'm safe"

BAHhhhhhhhhhhh *not listening*

*..."there is nothing that can be done to unchange it. You can't make abusers apologize, & even if you could, the apology does not change what they did. The change has to come within the person who has been abused. That is the bottom line. You must make a decision to move on, let it go & live"....



* ~If you love where you are in your life (& I do), it's a waste of time & energy to hate where you've been. If you go on a journey and end up rolling down a mountain, falling off a ravine, being dragged by a swift-moving stream, get dumped off a waterfall & wake up to find yourself in a beautiful valley filled with warm sun, nurturing pools, abundant fruit & adoring friends - why waste time cursing the trip that brought you to Paradise?


This I totally get now.....




~You are under no obligation to forgive somebody who has never repented but you are under an obligation to your own self to let certain things 'go' so you can get on with your life. And there is a difference between letting go and forgiveness.
Forgiveness is a 2 party exercise:repentance means that they take responsibility, have remorse, try to repair it and not repeat it. When they do that you are under no obligation to forgive, but you can decide that it is unhealthy for you to keep harboring ill feelings & just get on with your life as a healthy, happy individual dealing with current realities out of the shadows of your past.




~Some of you will be able to handle the limitations, others of you would be better off with no contact. Don't jump into the deep end of the pool when you can't even tread water. If you can never get yourself to tread water, keep away from the pool or you will just keep filling your lungs water and your life will be a continuous experience of small emotional and psychological drownings.

It's as though your heart has a LOT FULL sign hanging over it.


She's talking to me..

♥

Whoever has put this on youtube has put in some of the lyrics wrong ~ lol that makes me laugh when I see it haha

Heeeeeee ^_^


I was a little cranky late last night...


Today was good though, I got to talk about both topics & we went over the hour, often do..it was pretty relaxing this morning, really nice actually.


I started off with saying how I want to talk about my Grandma first and that I'd done as she'd suggested & made the birthday cupcakes & it didn't take long for me to start crying. She said it's ok to feel things as much as I do, you're either a harder person or you're not & it's obvious that I am not. She's the same. She told me that it's emotional intelligence being able to show emotions & allowing them to come out as well as something else but of course I've forgotten..(I forget a lot of things but that's alright it won't be forever).

I'm happy with what she said to me,what she helped me to see & I saw today that it's not just me who gets like that.. I seem to be the only one though in my family who gets this way though, my Mum and sister are the complete opposite. Which yep make me feel like a wussy or in my own words about myself, a sap. I'm a self confessed sap.
But what it is is that I'm just wired differently but its seen as a weakness & I feel like a bit of a weirdo. When really, when I'm not around them I know I'm not.


It's also becoming increasingly apparent how much I really am like my Grandma, and I love it. I love to hear it, I love to realize it in my own quiet moments during the day & I love to hear stories about her through other family, things that I never knew and the way she'd go about her daily life & would do things. True I learnt a lot from her but it really is like she gave birth to me and not actually my own mum. It's also common my psychologist told me that often the 'children' take after their grandparents more than their own parents. And in this case, I feel really happy & know this is true for me.

I also feel in a sense re-birthed. The old me the cranky, stressed out about things, the way I'd have to have things just right, perfect done is being replaced by a more calm & relaxed me..the one who was always there looking out through all of these things that were put in front of me all those years ago when I was a little kid. I really like her.

I never told anybody this but on the morning of Grandmas birthday last week, I was still in bed. The fan was on slow & just a sheet on..hubs was in the bathroom getting ready for work & I closed my eyes and started to drift off I guess not to sleep, but just lost sense of time & where I was exactly in that moment. I started to hear him making noises in the bathroom, just opening the cupboard doors & putting things on the bench..turning the tap on & I was back to when I was a little girl laying in bed in the mornings at my grandparents house, the air was always cool & she'd be out in the kitchen (which was the next room) tidying up from breakfast that Grandpop had eaten (& by this time he had already gone to work), getting whatever it was ready that she'd do for the next time to eat and waiting for me to hop up & then we'd eat together.


What I am saying is, it was like she was here on Friday morning, with me ♥ I might sound nutty & you know what? I don't even care. This all happened on its own. I had a de-ja-vu. It made me feel full of peace & a bigger love that I can't explain & I know that it's happened before, & it was her at that time too.

It's easy for me to think shes gone shes not here because I can't see her, but she is. She's here in me & I can't think of anything more beautiful & calming..she's probably with me everyday & I just don't know it, or even care to realize..I know there have been times when she seems to be 'around' there is this presence I can't really explain let alone share it with anyone..& now there's tears of happiness welling in my eyes but I can welcome it without feeling silly or a sook..it's ok!!.

I adore her & am thankful that I had her. I can say a day hardly goes by without me thinking about her. It's hard to think that she is gone, and what I miss are those everyday things, the things that she missed even the 'nothings' she is missing.

Interestingly enough on her birthday I kept myself extra busy as I was aware that it could be a different day this year after having seen who she really was in my life & her importance to me as a mother, but I also recognized it's not just that day that I feel it is every day..and all of those things I just mentioned...


I know I am going to have to learn how to deal with when something happens to grandpop. I also know it will be an end of an era. The end of something that was so good it's almost unbearable and uncomprehendable to me to think that it won't be here anymore .. And it's all nothing I can do anything about. How do people accept this when this happens to them? Do they just suck it up & move on? I feel like this is a brick wall I can't see over. This is something I am going to have to talk about again, on another day, about Grandpop.

She also told me today that maybe it is Grandma who is my biggest loss in life & maybe it won't be on such a grand scale when it is my Grandpop. I think I get what she is saying... but losing him is going to be something i don't want to think about.

Something I learnt last fortnight..What I need to do is to let go.. if my dad has let go and moved on then I should be able to do it also..afterall, it was him who was cheated on and kicked out of his own family home.
I don't know how he did manage to move on from the things that were being said about him and still are to this day are often more than not, unforgivable. But still he seems to have, or has he? Has he just chosen to 'ignore' it all? I don't know.

And I've also forgotten what else it was that I was going to say. Goodnight x

We made these 'plates' at my brothers Pre-school not long after Dad moved out so I was either in grade 4 or 5 & it's obvious as to what was going on. I remember getting into trouble from one of mums friends and her saying to me in a condescending tone "Why did you have to write that on it"? ...fucking bitch where are you now & did you know the truth? Probably not. Were you qualified to comment? Most definitely not.

So clearly this is the shit kids say and do when they feel in the middle of both of their parents. You love them both, equally. I remember saying they can cut me in half and each side will go live with each parent even though I knew it was not possible but it's how I felt. Equal, keep it equal..no choosing one over the other & don't make me feel like I have to make that choice either. But the constant put downs of my Dad in front of people that we knew and also strangers who then thought my Dad was the biggest arse on this side of the earth was really bad in so many ways. They'd look at you like you were to be pitied and also some sort of freak that had this weird life. Or at least that's how i felt. Fuckers.

Then years later, my sister says.."Why does it bother you so much Mum & Dad divorced who cares". thanks. I care but you were too young to know anything really but you certainly cared when it was ** whom she later broke up with. Weirdo. So selfish just like Mum is sometimes. Well a lot not just sometimes.
She says all sorts of shit, no empathy for anybody ever. Wonder where she learnt that from...

Anyway I have an appointment at 9 tomorrow and I'm a bit annoyed in the sense that 'yet again' it will be my Mum & sister that I talk about and not the things that I had planned to talk about. And if I leave it and talk about what I wanted, I will have those 2 in my head for 2 weeks more. Maybe I can decide in the morning what to do. I want the whole hour just for them to be able to go back & feel & let go & know I've given it my all. This is something I am getting stuck on, letting go of myGrandparents.


I need more than an hour 2 hours would be great. I can see my post is pretty angry again but I feel somewhat calm inside now that its out which is what I need to do..I need to purge.

2 things quickly..

My Mother is 'online dating' which I don't actually care about like I thought I would..the reasons are...


1. It was always going to be predictable that there'd be other fellas in the picture & yes to her credit she has had a while on her own. HOWEVER there is no way in hell I'd be looking for let alone looking at anything if something happened to my hubby, if I ever did even again..who'd be thinking this sort of shit? I'm not her though & she's not me..

2. She will leave me alone now. Her social life is becoming too full..




= WIN ;)

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Blah, blah, blah continued...

☼FEAR ☼ANGER ☼SHOCK ☼SHAME

☼DISGUST ☼SADNESS ☼GUILT ☼CURIOSITY

☼COMPASSION ☼LOVE ☼JOY ☼GRATITUDE



Which of these emotions are good or bad OR positive or negative?

What makes then positive or negative, good or bad?

WHICH OF THESE 'STORIES' ABOUT EMOTION ARE TRUE FOR YOU?

*Anger, guilt, shame, fear, sadness & embarrassment and anxiety are
negative emotions
*Negative emotions are bad, dangerous, irrational & a sign of weakness
*Negative emotions mean I am psychologically defective
*Negative emotions will damage my health
*People should hide their feelings
*Expressing feelings is a sign of weakness
*Strong emotions mean I am out of control
*Women shouldn't show anger
*Men shouldn't show fear
*I must keep my emotions in tight control
*If I don't control my emotions, something bad will happen
*Negative emotions mean there is something wrong with my life




Where did those stories come from?





This was particularly interesting to me the topic of 'Emotions'. You might remember reading back I had no idea what this one would entail mostly because I do find it very easy to express myself. Really interesting..


I naturally said the words in the first 2 lines were all negative words and the last line were positive workds..right? No, wrong actually..


Fear is what our body alerts us to when something that's not good is about to happen..so it keeps us safe (tick!)

Anger is our internal 'alert' when something is not right also...

Shock is there to protect us ..

Shame...to be honest I can't remember this one I will have to ask again tomorrow..



So basically, negative words are there to help us, not be taken in the context to which they actually are..



Out of those options of which 'stories' about emotion are true for me would have to be...

**Anger, guilt, shame, fear, sadness & embarrasment and anxiety are negative emotions**....

But I now know they are not..

What was your childhood programming?

(Edited to simplify this)

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As you were growing up, what messages were given about emotions?

This was one thing that my Mother did do right, she displayed a broad spectrum of emotions.

Which emotions were you told were desirable or undesirable?
Anger (which was directed at her)What were you told about the best way to handle your emotions?
I wasn't told or hardly 'taught' anything, what I learnt was either from other people or I figured it out myself.
What emotions did your family freely express?
Anger & then happiness when it suited or when others were around.
What emotions did your family suppress or frown upon?
Loyalty to my Dad
How did the adults in your family handle their negative emotions?
Openly and with alcohol
What emotional control strategies did they use?
Yelling & screaming, reversing situations to make you feel like the guilty/wrong one
How did the adults in your family react to your negative emotions?
I was told to be quiet and to respect my Mother. One day that stands out was the day I confronted her about my parents breaking up . I'd found from family members of her own that she cheated on Dad & then I was told that I was wrong and how awful to upset my own mother like that & how could I hurt her
What did you learn by observing all this as you grew up?
To not repeat the way that I was parented. Or not parented really. Not to repeat those mistakes I watched the adults around me making.
As a result of this programming, what ideas are you still carrying around today about your emotions and how to handle them?
I think that if there is an issue with anything it's better to address it and deal with it in an amicable way. There is no point sweeping things under the rug, they're still there they're still unresolved issues.
If I feel happy I express it, if I feel angry I let it out too but I try not to hurt people and if I do I apologize rather than be a stick in the mud . Try to be the bigger person & see my own downfalls & know I do make mistakes & that is ok. So long as you learn from them. I'm not perfect and never will be nor never want to be but its better to admit when you are wrong in a situation instead of just not ever saying 'sorry' which is one thing my Mother will never or has to this point done.

Happy Birthday..

Happy 85th Birthday Grandma ♥...


Yesterday was her birthday, & to be honest it wasn't this awful upsetting day like I'd anticipated it to be..but having said that I made sure I kept myself extra busy. Sure I cried in the morning but that was it, which is good. This year certainly feels different knowing that shes the one who was my Mum so I naturally assumed that this time would be a little bit harder than most.

I told my Dr this date was coming up & she suggested I make it a celebration of her instead of feeling down, which really, is what birthdays are supposed to be. I can see that I often choose to be upset that shes not here instead of thankful for what 'once was' but it's not easy & some times or occasions are worse than others. So I made her these, & yeah it was pretty nice to remember her this way..

-Bad Childhood Good Life.. by Dr Laura Schlessinger

When you come from a bad childhood, I think it makes you less sympathetic for anyone who uses it as a crutch for every poor decision they have made with their lives. I do think of myself as a compassionate person, but I always find myself asking the question, 'What is the difference between me & him (her)?' The difference is that I have a memory when I was about 10 years old & making a somewhat conscious promise to myself that someday I would 'make' a good life for myself. I hung onto that promise. I made it happen- and I don't look back'.
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