As I get deeper into my recovery and read more and more about A and codependency, I see how it goes all the way back to my mother. Her father was an alcoholic, who died when she was 9 from liver failure in Barbados. She came to America full of fears and raised me, her eldest under a firm controlling and manipulative grip. She wasn't a physical discipline-oriented type but she knew how to wear you down mentally and emotionally until you were sorry you even breathed in her world. Even now I still watch what I say to my mother so I don't have to deal with her criticism or reminders of past mistakes, which she readily has available, especially when it comes to my concerns about my kids. She's quick to remind me of the years after my nervous breakdown, when I wasn't functioning at 100% and tells me that's the reason for EVERY problem I may encounter with my kids and that I should understand everything they do, especially when they were teenagers. It took years for me to undo all she had put into my eldest daughters head about me, so we could even try to have a half-way decent relationship.
I guess that's why when my AH started his gaslighting I was so conditioned from childhood with the criticism from my mother, I took it as his genuine love, concern and truth so easily even in the midst of verbal and even physical abuse. I sometimes have to sit back and cry and wonder just who I am. I went from abusive relationship to relationship, culminating in this 8 yr marriage that brought me to the point of insanity AGAIN, but then again when was I sane?
God lets everything happen for a reason and I do thank God for hearing my cries, my prayers for help. I believe he heard me the night I found out about Al-Anon. I always believed my help came from above, my faith in a HP was all I had to hold on to during my dark days of depression. Now I know my latter days will be better than my former because I've found the road home to finding me. I know it's going to be painful because the process of healing any kind of wounds is, but I'm going to grit my teeth and bear thru it because I know I'm worth it.
