TheGirlInside

I had what I believe is a breakthrough the other morning.

While driving to work, I left my radio off--something I rarely do..it's about a 1/2 hour drive. My mind started working on a concept, and I let it run to it's logical (???) conclusion...I now understand why I have felt like I've been treated like the Family Plague my whole life, and how my mother has even turned the one brother who used to respect me against me.

She used to tell us stories about how her mother treated her and her younger sister. My mother was the elder sister. She had an older brother. The two eldest were born out of wedlock (in the late '30s / early 40's). My grandmother later married and had the younger sister, youngest of three. The youngest was treated differently and given many more allowances, probably because she was the only 'legitimate' child, and was sickly and had to wear glasses.

My mother had a son, daughter, son, daughter, me being the youngest of 4. She and my father are still married, but it is not a marriage I would ever desire.

She's acting out (from the place of her resentment anger and disappointment) what she, in her childish subconscious, wishes would have happened; that SHE, the elder daughter, got the favor, while the younger daughter was castigated.

I have always felt like my sister hated me. I believe that my mother has done to my sister and me exactly what she used to cry and complain that her mother did to her; breed resentment beyond repair. My sister treats me and has always treated me like a worthless nothing. My mother set this up. She can conveniently tell herself that SHE is not the one being cruel to me; it's just this weird thing that my sister and I have; she has NO IDEA why that is....it's utterly bewildering to her!

I was talking with my mother a couple of years ago, in one of those many futile attempts at having an open honest conversation. She actually had the gall to say that she didn't let her upbringing affect the way she raised us. I had to work hard not to feel really angry and shout at her. She had been crying, upset almost daily, over the way she had been treated up to about 4 years prior to that conversation. My eldest brother was married and had all three of his children by then. I, the youngest, had been married and divorced by then. I wanted to ask her, "How old was my brother when you stopped feeling pain about it?" AUGHGHGHGHGH!!!!

I see it in the way my mother treats my two daughters, treating the elder as though she is perfect, and the younger (same as she treated me) as the little $hi! who is always "up-to-something."

I see them both as great, fantastic, beautiful, sweet girls, who are also fallible.

it seems, as a child, every act of love, kindness, openness from me was treated with suspicion, as though I were using it as a form of manipulation, the ulterior motive being to get what I wanted from them (because children naturally are this way, right??)


I have felt that since her death, that my maternal grandmother has kept watch over me, mourning my painful marriage, hoping that I hadn't made her mistake (marrying for convenience - which I did do).

It brought tears to my eyes to think that maybe that is why...maybe if they are right about being able to "see" everything in the next life which we call death, she understands what she did, and how it got passed on, and wants me to know that she never intended it to be passed on down through generations, and expanded to my girls.

I, of course, forgive her. She did the best she could. She must have had a very tough life, to have ended up in a position to give two births to 'illegitimate' children. I'm sure she was embarrassed with that, and wanted to seek out the "white picket fence" life...just as I found myself doing after experiencing pain and abuse from someone's demented version of 'love.'

It also made me wonder...is that why I had two daughters? Had to have them? No matter how they came into this world? To break the cycle, to treat them as valuable and cherished and to whom I, with clenched, gritted teeth, vowed that neither of them would EVER question how special and loved they are...a promise born from a place of bitter defiance and rebellion.


I figured out last year that I really am seen as the black sheep. I hadn't been able to accept it until then. I am done trying to gain their approval or their acceptance or even their tolerance. I will go into survival mode, I will turn down invitations, I will not invite them if I don't want to. I will not respond with shock or disappointment or even hurt when they joke around with each other or me, and when I joke back, am treated like a bitter, hostile angry psychopath. When I respond with the slightest protestation to abuse and ridicule, it will no longer surprise or sadden me to be treated as an abnormal.

It occurred to me today that when someone acts outside of their normal behavior (that is, the self they choose to show others), they are considered weird or wrong. For example, a sweet, kindly woman suddenly shows up at work one day seeming tired and swears, and says some things like she's just upset at the world. Suddenly, we begin to think she's going funny, when that may be considered "normal" behavior for a different employee.
The same is true for someone who is used to just putting up with other people's b.s. and just acts like a doormat...when that person (me) stands up, stops taking it, objects (even in the mildest way) and refuses to be treated with abuse, she is taken to be psycho...she's "lost it"...she's gone crazy... I guess that reaction can be chalked up to human nature.

If you have made it this far, thanks for reading. I have some good friends, now, who really care about me, but they don't get it when I open up about stuff like this. I think they believe that because we lived in a big, nice house (that I hated with a seething passion and that my parents, after 30 years owe more on than it's sale price), that my life was somehow better than theirs, that I had all these "advantages." They don't get that I'd rather have had poverty and love than pretend wealth and keeping up appearances.

THANKS, SR, for being here; for giving me a means of expressing myself totally honestly.

It's not where you've been, it's not what you've done, it's not what you are or what you know, or who others think you to be; it's what YOU BELIEVE. THAT is the single most important factor in where you take yourself in this life.

Iwanttoheal

Well done you for your breakthrough moment.



Don't be surprised if your family "up their game or negative behaviours" as they sense the change in you. They may do this (wittingly or unwittingly) to try to keep the family dynamics in place.

Please come back often. I find this forum a great source of strength and there are lots of us around here who are working hard to establish more healthy relationships for ourselves, IWTHxxx