She has destroyed so much of our lives.
She abuses every bit of grace given and then still blames everyone else for her choices and attitude.
I am just void of those feelings for her at this point in time.
That in and of itself is another deeply, hurtful part of this.
By nature I am loving and kind.
Gran, reading this brought tears to my eyes.
The most destructive aspect of parenting a difficult child child is what it does to us, inside. In order to walk through what life becomes with a difficult child child, in order for us to function in the world on any level, we need to become people we cannot, deep down, respect. We are secretly ashamed of ourselves when we interact with other parents, when we interact with parents who, though no different than us, have the respect and obedience of their children. Deep down, each of us believes what has happened to our children is somehow our fault. Deep down, each of us believes we should somehow still cherish our difficult child children, still be a source of strength for them, still be a place of safe harbor. We believe that a decent mother, a respectable mother, would truly and completely forgive the difficult child for hurting us, would forgive them for tearing the fabric of our families apart, would forgive them for spurning our values and destroying our lives.
We need to stop believing these things, Gran.
But we hold those beliefs so we don't hate the difficult child.
We believe we are strong enough; we believe can take it.
But what happens in some little corner of our hearts, is that we turn those feelings on ourselves. Anything, any sacrifice, to protect our children.
We punish ourselves.
Decent ourselves, we rail at and batter ourselves for the necessary steps we take simply to stay sane, simply to function, at all; we condemn ourselves because we have had to numb all feeling, for everything, so the horror that lives in our hearts doesn't break through and make us too weak to do what has to be done, next.
You (and me too, and all of us, here) are living a Holocaust of a whole different kind, Gran. Only, for us, there is not so much as a breath of a rumor that someone will be coming to save us. There are no Allied forces on the way. We walk and live and breathe, sleep and wake up and go about our days in a dissonant kind of Hell we cannot make any sense of.
There are no rules, here.
There is no bright new morning.
And yet, somehow, like the strongest of those taken during the Holocaust, we keep our eyes open, we keep our spirits up; we share what we know, we do what we can; we celebrate any smallest triumph.
We have great courage, Gran. We have strength undreampt of, when we were young girls.
husband and I were talking about that, this morning. We have been going through a tough time, just lately.
We were talking (shouting, actually) about divorce; about just getting the **** out; about being happy, again ~ somewhere, anywhere but here, with anyone but the other guy.
And we really are at that place.
It's just too much.
Too many bad memories, too much loss, too much pain.
We likened what is happening, what has always been happening, to waking up with your house burning. Emergency mode, no holds barred. Get the kids and get out. Build another house. Awaken...to the house, burning. Over and over and over again Gran, we have all been living lives in which we rebuild, and someone destroys, our house. We grab up the babies and the pets, and build again.
And again.
So, once we got that imagery, we took it a little further.
We realized husband has built an emotional citadel. The only people allowed anywhere near that secret core of who he has had to become to survive this are me, the dog, and the cat. And that worked, for awhile. But what has happened over the years is that the citadel's windows have been cemented over. Even the ventilation shafts have been blocked. He has been hurt too many times. Betrayed, every time he let someone past his guard.
He is determined no one is going to get in.
He has become short-tempered. Rageful, even. Has become controlling and distrustful. Has lost faith in himself and in everyone else.
Except me and the dog.
(Note I did not mention the cat, here! :O)
It took us a long time to figure this one out, Gran. I think what is happening to husband is what happens to all of us, in some tucked away corner of our hearts. We build a citadel. A safe place. Somewhere no one else gets to go. Somewhere we can be sweet, and kind. Somewhere we can be vulnerable, and can believe in the good.
We are all using every survival skill we know just to keep our heads out of the river of **** sailing through life with a difficult child child turns out to be, Gran.
But we are here.
Still standing.
You are raising your grandchildren as best you can, as best you know, because that is the right thing for you, the final bastion of decency you refuse to sacrifice to the morals of your difficult child child.
But it is a lonely thing, to never be able to be vulnerable, to never allow ourselves to be open; to keep the barriers up so we never feel the sweetness of honest curiosity or feel we deserve the warmth of the sun.
And that's what I have to say about that, about you and me and all of us here, Gran, this morning.
Rage is a constant for us, Gran. We guard against it. We function.
Where is joy for us, I wonder?
How could we ever be vulnerable enough again, to allow that same joy we all felt as young girls?
Barbara