Families
 

Well, it's been almost four months since my slip. I am finished with college, passed my exams and have been sending out CVs and looking for work. I won't lie, it is not easy. I have had two interviews so far...actually I have surprised myself by being so calm about the interviews. I remember a few years ago, I was so so shy, and I had an interview to be accepted onto my postgraduate course. My gran suggested to me that I have a glass of wine before I went into the interview...I didn't get the course that time, but I am glad to be free of that crippling anxiety :)

Tonight we had a birthday dinner for my sister. My dad and I were the only two not drinking. I was looking around the table while the fight was going on between my mom and my sister, and I thought to myself "why am I the only member of my family that sees a therapist on a weekly basis? My entire family needs to be in therapy, especially my mom. It took me this long to see that her issues...they are nothing to do with me...and that she has a problem that is quite serious...depression, sadness, paranoia...I did not know until now, that my dad has tried to get her to see a psychiatrist before...he prescribed antidepressants...which she refused to take...she told us that her life would be fine if it wasn't for her "crazy kids"...

It is almost 2am here. I have just woken up after a drinking dream. It has left me scared and shaking as it was so vivid. I am sitting at my desk with a cup of herbal tea...I just needed to vent a little.

Thank you for reading. I feel a bit better now x

Depression, saddness, paranoia. Sounds exactly like my mom!

Congrats on finishing college!! That's awesome!!
Congrats on 4 months sober!! That's awesome!!

My son's therapist has a framed cartoon in his office that shows a nearly empty convention hall, with a banner that read "Convention of Adults from Normal Parents." I love that cartoon!! What's "normal" anyway?

Gotta just accept people how they are, huh? I just moved my mom up by me, in her own apartment (I'm not that nuts!) Boy, talk about disfunctional!! The other day she told me a story about working on a trash truck with her brothers when she was like 16. It was a terrible story!! But she was kinda laughing about it. God only knows what all she's been through. I felt so sorry for her. I just try to love her. Anyway....

We're here for ya!! Goodnight.

Tetra,
your post brought back memories of a horrid letter my dad sent me once; the only letter he ever wrote me. why would he send a letter when we live in the same town? well, to document and tell me EXACTLY all the things that are wrong with me (turns out one of my kids, several of their cousins, and a couple of my siblings have also gotten letters over the last twenty years detailing all their faults and his diagnosis and his prescription for fixing us all).
i kept that letter for ten years, occasionally reading, getting angry, being resentful, being hurt....and then one day i realized that really, ultimately, the letter was all about HIM. his perceptions of people he knows nothing much about because none of us share anything much about ourselves with this "here, i'll tell you what's pathologically wrong with you!" person....and after ten years, i had a little ceremony by myself and burned it.
it really had nothing to do with me.

just as you say. your mom's own issues.
it's great you can see that now and not take it all on.