Tags
depression, desperation, fear, grief, history, hopes, invisible, life, loss, loveless, mean mothers, nostalgia, parent issues, sadness, suicidal
I struggled so hard all my life to believe I was loved. Hell, to believe I was even lovable at all. My mother, who introduced me to the distinct feeling that I was so hard to love and such a horrible human being, then criticized me fiercely for allowing abusive people in my life, didn’t actually do any of that, so I have to wonder how I learned to believe that “love” should feel like abuse? Surely, I wasn’t born thinking that, right?
The cruel ironies of my life are that I always wished I didn’t exist. Always. The few brief moments I didn’t wish that were when my children wrapped their arms around me, when DK loved me, and when my dad and I talked.
And now, I’m stuck in existence without any of those three things. My existence doesn’t matter to a single soul in this world, but I’m stuck existing. If I died right now, no one would even know for days…my landlord would probably come for the rent and find me eventually. A few people might wonder why they can’t reach me, but that would be a fleeting thought at best and they’d go on with their day/life.
It is bizarre to think that I HAVE to exist while my existence doesn’t matter. The only thing of interest about me to anyone at this point would be my death. My daughters and their father, my mother and my sister, they would all eventually find out and have to act briefly as though it mattered to them. Simply because it would appear far too cruel and callous to respond with, “So what? She was nothing to me anyway”. They’ll have to hide their sigh of relief that the burden of me is gone at last. And then go about recreating the truth of it all to make it more bearable for them that they didn’t care. It will be easier then, since the last witness who actually knew the truth will be gone. Poetic license for EVERY one!!
I won’t be buried with my father…or my children. I’ll die the same way I spent my life – alone and unwanted.
My mother cheated on every husband she had, was cruel and hateful in general, and lived a pretty wild life while young…yet she deserves love. My children’s father cheated, used drugs and used people, hurting others and living only for himself 99% of his life….yet he deserves love. Hell, Jeffery Dahmer’s family even loved him! Ted Bundy was loved by some. People with the most horrible souls imaginable still had love and mattered to somebody, somewhere…
Then there’s me. An imperfect soul who’s only wish in life since my first memory was to know love, be loved, feel love….and sincerely treated others, even strangers, as though maybe my kindness might be the only they would know in life…and for that, I’ve been crucified and insulted, misunderstood and labeled. My love and kindness was hardly perfect, though. No, I always wished I could be more forgiving and less selfish. Did Mother Theresa care if anyone loved her back? Probably not. She was content just to pour love and kindness out without needing any to be returned. I’ve tried to love like that, but I’m not Jesus or Mother Theresa. My very soul aches to be loved…to matter…to also make others feel they are loved and matter in this world. Why can’t I be less selfish? Why does love and affection feel like a need to me? Why can’t I be content just giving it to others? What is wrong with me that I also wish to have it for myself? And why can’t I fix that about me?
The more I hope to matter…the less I do. And today, there’s not a goddamned thing I can do or say to anyone to try to get them to believe I matter.
The say no one can love you unless you love yourself. My mother took away any chance I ever had to love myself and then set the pace for this empty life for me.
I don’t even know how I got this physical disability…seems so odd because according to others my stroke wasn’t “that bad”. I don’t know why I have all this excruciating pain inside from childhood memories…seems weird because according to others I had a “good, loving” childhood just like everyone else. I don’t know why I’ve always been desperate for love…seems weird since according to others I’ve always had it in “abundance”. I don’t know how I have memories of so many people telling me what a wonderful mother I was…seems weird since according to others I was never a good mother.
The stroke I had, the work I did to overcome that, learn to walk and talk and function again as a person and a mother, praying that I could overcome the disabilities enough to parent my children alone and to not be simply a burden in this world, but be able to contribute….none of that happened in anyone’s mind. Only my dad and I know all the details of that and he is gone and the rest of the people who witnessed it, just change the story to suit their purpose, robbing me of the truth of that experience.
My childhood is the same. I know what happened in my first 17 years of life, but the other people who were there change it all to suit their purpose…robbing me of that experience and how hard I worked to push through it.
Raising my children, being the best mom I knew how even though I never had a loving mother, making the choices, right and wrong, to be the mother I never had, suffering through the pain of watching my child be sick or scared and wishing with my whole heart I could take that on myself to protect them. The mistakes I made that I regretted, the times I prayed I was doing the right thing when I just didn’t know for sure, the boo-boos I kissed, the bad dreams I chased, everything…right and wrong, good and bad that I did…none of that is real because the only witnesses to the truth of all that have changed the story to suit their purpose. So none of that was real. I’m robbed of even that.
I swear if someone could get away with trying to say I didn’t even give birth to my children that would then become the next bizarre “truth” I’d have to live with…while knowing it’s a blatant lie. I would remember the pain of childbirth…and wonder how I could remember it so vividly …when according to others, it never happened. Hell, I’m truly shocked no one has attempted this distortion yet! They’ll probably wait til I’m near death and THEN tell me I never gave birth to any children in my lifetime, leaving me confused and bewildered as to how I can possibly recall doing it twice and those 15 years I raised those children alone…they’ll say, “poor sick thing, can’t remember the truth of anything about her life anymore.”
I was never abused, I was never a good mother, my stroke wasn’t “that bad”, I had a million friends and millions of childhood joys… It’s so very strange I can’t recall ANY of that! I was petrified of my mother(I’m talking sheer terror here)…I wonder why, since she was so kind and loving to me.
And yet, I clearly remember the pain I endured the first 17 years of my life. I recall vivid examples of things that really happened. I still feel the pain of it all even. I recall wishing I could play with other kids or have sleepovers more than once every three years, wishing I could go to dances or go on dates. I recall praying fervently that I could have a life like other kids seemed to take for granted. I even recall wishing I could make a mistake and get punished for a week or two like everyone else I knew, instead of a year or two like I always was. I remember crying my eyes out quietly in my room, desperately wishing someone loved me. Yet, if I’m to believe the witnesses, apparently I WAS having these things…in abundance even…and just didn’t know it.
I remember every wonderful thing I did as a mother and every wrong thing I did as well. I remember the struggle of learning to walk and breathe, eat and go to the bathroom, wanting to hold my daughter but being unable physically to pick her up when I had a massive stroke. I remember yelling at my kids on days when I shouldn’t have. And NOT punishing them at times when I should have. I recall all of it. And yet it never happened. My stroke wasn’t “that bad”. My childhood wasn’t “that bad”. According to the witnesses I had all of these things I was praying EVERY day for….wonder why I was praying for them so hard every day then? I must have been insane all the way back then too.
Because none of it happened.
What does it even mean when your entire life was something you don’t remember or even know? That’s so confusing on a reality level.
Your pain is not your pain. Your struggles were not your struggles. Your successes were not really successes. Your good qualities never existed. Your every memory is incorrect and false and somehow you have to force yourself to accept other people’s misconstrued memories of events…even though you can’t recall ANY of that because otherwise you’re just creating conflict…further proving how much you just sucked your whole life.
Everyone can tell whatever story they like. They can make the villains the heroes, the good people the bad…they can tell it any way they want and THAT will be accepted by all (all who matter at least) as the “truth”. No one’s interested in the actual truths…why should they be when they can just recreate everything to make themselves more comfortable with it all? I wish I could do that. I wish I could recreate my every mistake or pain or wrongdoing in life and color it something else entirely so I wouldn’t suffer any more from it all…so I wouldn’t suffer the pain of guilt or regret.
How do you do that?
But then again, that only matters about people who do matter in this world. When your existence doesn’t matter to ANY one, then what difference does the reality or truth of your life even make?
It doesn’t.
And the sorriest part of this whole pathetic pity party of a post is that it’s just true. Wish I could smack myself into seeing that none of this is the case, so I could shake off this garbage and embrace some good and hopeful truths. Truth is, this is true. And my wild fantasies must not be working today because try as I might, I can’t find that alternate reality where this isn’t the naked reality of it all.