As soon as the letter went into the mail slot I wanted to reach in and grab it! About the time I thought she would have received the letter my anxiety took control of me and I was completely and utterly paralyzed with fear! I became the young girl who just went against her mother and just knew that the punishment was on its way. It didn't matter to me that I was 40 years old and had not had any contact with my mom in 9 years. I could hear her saying ''how dare you, who do you think you are talking too?" I knew she was going to reply and it was going to be ugly. I was terrified to check my mail and if my voicemail light was blinking I was afraid to check it. I checked the caller ID whenever the phone would ring. I was scared to death and it was affecting my ability to function.!
Roni and I talked through this time and she told me that IF I were to get a response to give it to her to read first. Let her be the buffer between me and the letter. I told her that was a good idea but I hope that I would be able to wait to give her the letter. Between Roni and Dr. L, I was told to keep in mind that my mom cannot do anything to me any longer. I have control over how I react to things. She doesnt have control over me. I am an adult and I am able to have adult conversations with another adult EVEN if that adult is my mother. But I would envision her getting the letter and I would play out this very nasty scene in my mind. Over and over again. Roni asked me to rewrite that script-rewrite the scene to play out differently. But I couldn't. I didn't know any other reaction from her and the anxiety in me was preventing me the ability to see anything else! It was horrible!
Somewhere around this time I had weaned myself off all my meds. I hated the meds, I hated the way I felt with the side effects, I was a walking zombie somedays. I started to feel better mood wise so I weaned them slowly until I was off of them. It was about 4 weeks later that I started spiraling down again. Roni noticed the sadness in my emails to her. I stopped wanting to do anything with my friends Robb and Sandy and opted to just stay home all the time. When I had the kids it was so incredibly hard to make myself do something with them, the slightest activity absolutely wore me out! Roni started saying things to me that maybe it was because I needed my medication, maybe I should restart them. I fought it for 2 more weeks because I just really hated them! When I restarted them I started out very slow, low dosing for a week or so then gradually built back up to the dose I was on previously. I started having the side effects again but this time even worse than before! Heart palpitations, anxiety even worse, insomnia-I would sleep maybe 2 hours a night-when I did sleep I had horrible nightmares and thoughts of doing self harm. So I had to go back to the doctor. He changed the medications altogether. I cried in his office. We kept going up on meds, we finally changed classes of medications but I felt hopeless as if nothing could help me feel better. He told me to stop the one med immediatly because the withdrawl side effects were not as bad as what I was feeling. He started me on another med and we started low but eventually had to go up and it was up to its max point. This depressed me even more. My mind and body were in a war and my mind was winning, my body was failing me. Not only did he max out the one medication he added another one! Such a blow to me! I felt awful because I knew I was maxed on one, needed more to help because I couldn't help myself! I would cry in emails to Roni about the meds and she finally gave me a stern 'get over it' response! Telling me that lots of people need lots of meds and I already KNOW that, so I needed to get past it. Take the meds, stop thinking about them and let them work! After a few weeks my mood started changing again, this time for the good. But the meds were not without side effects! I just had to decide could I live with them.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Friday, July 1, 2011
All my fault
I truly believed it was all my fault. It was because of things I didn't do right and things I did that made me happy, not her. ALL MY FAULT that she didn't love me, that she didn't want anything to do with me. I must have been a horrible daughter. Why else would a mother walk away from her child? Did she ever really love me? Did she ever really want me? Did she ever think about me? How could she love my sister and all her mistakes but push me away when I messed up?
These are things that went through my mind all the time as well as the tremendous amount of heartache that I had to hide in order to survive. I had to hide the hurt and put up a big brave front for everyone. No one could know that deep inside of me, my heart was broken. I was alone. I was scared of so many things. But I had to be the strong person who could handle whatever was thrown my way.
I learned to answer people with 'its her loss' but even though I said those words out loud, I was crying on the inside. I had lost so much I thought. Even though there was nothing but dysfunction in the family, it was still family. Right? It was still my mom?
When Roni and I talked one day about me not being able to read the letter out loud to Dr. L she asked me a question about what would I say to a child who asked me why their parent wasn't involved or stated it was their fault their parent wasn't involved? I said its not that child's fault at all. She said then why is it my fault my mom walked away? I don't know I said. Her response was that I was able to look at the other situation as an adult but when I speak of my mom I am back at 12 years of age and cannot look at any of it as the adult I am today. She was exactly right! So I had to become an adult and quick in order to look at things through different lenses!
This all began a time where I was given a list from Roni that she told me to read out loud everyday as many times a day as I could. It ended with 'its not my fault that...' and it listed many things! She wanted me to read it out loud to hear the words spoken by my own voice in hopes that I would begin believing it! I took the list to Dr. L one day and she had me read it out loud also! She asked if I believed what I was saying--not exactly! I could not get past the lie I had convinced myself to be true, that it was my fault my mother walked away from me.
Roni had a suggestion to try to help me look at my story from an outsiders perspective. She asked me to write out my story in 3rd person as if I were going to read the story and analyze a patient to try to help them. She was onto something with this because I am a helper/fixer type of person. But this was incredibly hard to do, to write my story as if I were looking in from a window. It took me months before I could pick up this little project and actually complete it.
I finally decided to write a new letter to my mom. I wanted to actually send it this time. But I needed lots of help in writing it! I took back the 6 page letter from Roni to try and piece meal a new letter. She didn't like it, it sounded like I chopped up a different letter. There was no flow to it and it didn't make sense. Plus it was full of emotionally charged language. So I started over. I did this many times until I finally had a 1 page typed letter that told her how I felt and did not place blame on anyone. It told her where I was at emotionally. It was a calm letter.
Now what was I supposed to do with it????
I took it to Dr. L's office and showed it to her. She thought it was a good letter also. Roni and I talked about it and how I might feel if I don't get a response. Was I looking for a response to this or was I just wanting to let her know my feelings? I told her I didn't expect a response but thought I would get one with a negative or condescending tone to it because I was not allowed to tell my mom how I really felt. She wasn't sure I would get one because even though I had been processing this stuff it was quite possible my mom never did and she wouldn't be ready to respond for a long time if ever. Roni and Dr. L left it to me to decide to mail it of course. Dr. L said she could put it in the mail if I couldn't but wanted to. I chose to take the letter with me and pray about it some more because my anxiety over it was through the roof!
I MAILED THE LETTER!
One morning I walked out to the mail box and put it in the slot. I watched it fall from my fingers and immediately I felt as if I could throw up!
WHAT HAD I JUST DONE!
WAS I CRAZY?!
I'M GOING TO BE IN SO MUCH TROUBLE!!!
Yep, all these things went through my head!
These are things that went through my mind all the time as well as the tremendous amount of heartache that I had to hide in order to survive. I had to hide the hurt and put up a big brave front for everyone. No one could know that deep inside of me, my heart was broken. I was alone. I was scared of so many things. But I had to be the strong person who could handle whatever was thrown my way.
I learned to answer people with 'its her loss' but even though I said those words out loud, I was crying on the inside. I had lost so much I thought. Even though there was nothing but dysfunction in the family, it was still family. Right? It was still my mom?
When Roni and I talked one day about me not being able to read the letter out loud to Dr. L she asked me a question about what would I say to a child who asked me why their parent wasn't involved or stated it was their fault their parent wasn't involved? I said its not that child's fault at all. She said then why is it my fault my mom walked away? I don't know I said. Her response was that I was able to look at the other situation as an adult but when I speak of my mom I am back at 12 years of age and cannot look at any of it as the adult I am today. She was exactly right! So I had to become an adult and quick in order to look at things through different lenses!
This all began a time where I was given a list from Roni that she told me to read out loud everyday as many times a day as I could. It ended with 'its not my fault that...' and it listed many things! She wanted me to read it out loud to hear the words spoken by my own voice in hopes that I would begin believing it! I took the list to Dr. L one day and she had me read it out loud also! She asked if I believed what I was saying--not exactly! I could not get past the lie I had convinced myself to be true, that it was my fault my mother walked away from me.
Roni had a suggestion to try to help me look at my story from an outsiders perspective. She asked me to write out my story in 3rd person as if I were going to read the story and analyze a patient to try to help them. She was onto something with this because I am a helper/fixer type of person. But this was incredibly hard to do, to write my story as if I were looking in from a window. It took me months before I could pick up this little project and actually complete it.
I finally decided to write a new letter to my mom. I wanted to actually send it this time. But I needed lots of help in writing it! I took back the 6 page letter from Roni to try and piece meal a new letter. She didn't like it, it sounded like I chopped up a different letter. There was no flow to it and it didn't make sense. Plus it was full of emotionally charged language. So I started over. I did this many times until I finally had a 1 page typed letter that told her how I felt and did not place blame on anyone. It told her where I was at emotionally. It was a calm letter.
Now what was I supposed to do with it????
I took it to Dr. L's office and showed it to her. She thought it was a good letter also. Roni and I talked about it and how I might feel if I don't get a response. Was I looking for a response to this or was I just wanting to let her know my feelings? I told her I didn't expect a response but thought I would get one with a negative or condescending tone to it because I was not allowed to tell my mom how I really felt. She wasn't sure I would get one because even though I had been processing this stuff it was quite possible my mom never did and she wouldn't be ready to respond for a long time if ever. Roni and Dr. L left it to me to decide to mail it of course. Dr. L said she could put it in the mail if I couldn't but wanted to. I chose to take the letter with me and pray about it some more because my anxiety over it was through the roof!
I MAILED THE LETTER!
One morning I walked out to the mail box and put it in the slot. I watched it fall from my fingers and immediately I felt as if I could throw up!
WHAT HAD I JUST DONE!
WAS I CRAZY?!
I'M GOING TO BE IN SO MUCH TROUBLE!!!
Yep, all these things went through my head!
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