Veritas1

I am so crushed.

My Mom told me tonight, "Don't ever contact me again".

and later...

"I never want to hear from you again."

"I can't be in your life".

~

I call my Mom, and I say I am so sorry for everything, and she turns so completely hostile.

It wasn't like a 5th step call...to make amends...this is a pattern of abuse.

It's awful.

I tried....I was praying before each of her calls...please help me understand, I kept saying I was sorry, and when I told her truth she went ballistic.

I thought I have grown and I tried so hard to listen and kept saying I'm sorry and if I didn't do what she wanted me to do....she said she was done with me.

My own Mother.

This is why I am the mess I am.

All my life...shaped by this woman.

Maybe it all comes down to parenting.

Thank God I can come here to share it.

Veritas1

I feel very sad. I just don't understand, after all I "have learned', and I tried so very hard to communicate all of the fancy things I learned, that it didn't matter.

I feel like all of the self-growth that I have learned in somewhat in vain.

Dee74

Sometimes we do not get what we want from our parents - and sometimes they do not get what they want from us as children V.

It works like that sometimes.

My own parents were not great - I have had many issues with them....but I can't blame them for what happened to me and addiction - I was shown better ways to deal with things, and yet I made the choice to drink again and gain.

Whatever happened to me in my family of origin I'm still blessed because I'm alive, I'm facing my demons and above all I have a family I've chosen for myself of friends and lovers.

I know this must be both shocking and painful but do your best to focus on the good things in your life, V.

D

Jeni26

I'm sorry that you're in pain V. I understand that you must feel horribly rejected right now.

Relationships with our parents somehow transport us emotionally to a place where we are acutely vulnerable. Maybe there's a little bit of us that remains the child in our interactions with them.

You cannot control your mums reactions to you, what she chooses to think or say or the decisions she makes.

Just know this, nothing you have learned about yourself or the steps you have taken to get well are in vain. For me as an observer, I have watched HUGE personal growth in you from reading your posts.

I'm sorry you are feeling so sad, but please do not give up. Time changes things. How she feels right now isn't necessarily how she will feel tomorrow or next week or next month.

You just keep moving forward on your journey, keep doing the next right thing, keep the faith, and know there are people who are willing you on. Me being one of them.

Sending a hug your way xxx

Veritas1

Thank You Dee. Thank you for loving me.

I don't know why my Mom cannot love me.

God save me from being angry.

awuh1

I’m not much of a big book thumper, but this phrase comes to mind, “Self-knowledge availed us nothing”. The program is a spiritual one. It’s not about what we know; it’s about what we do. And it seems like it’s most about what we do when things get really bad.

Not so long ago I was having great difficulty with a close friend. Trust had been severely damaged and I was unable to forgive. It was suggested that I pray for the knowledge of how to forgive. The next day I did so. I prayed with an earnestness that I have not done since I was a child, and I did so for a good deal of the morning. About mid-day I went for a drive. Then got out and walked. I remember saying to myself that I felt no differently than I had on the previous day.

I got back in my car and within the next 5 minutes, while driving, the resentment was completely and totally taken away. I don’t know how it happened, I don’t understand it, but it was totally and completely removed. I say removed because I did not do anything to remove it. All I had done was pray for a way to understand how to forgive. In the end it was effortless, I did not understand anything. The resentment was simply gone.

I felt a little more than a little crazy. I went from obsessing about this problem and feeling very injured to having the whole thing completely disappear within the space of five minutes. I wanted to call the friend immediately and tell them that this remarkable thing had just happened, but I was afraid everything would change back just as suddenly as it had been resolved. The resentment had vanished. It was so weird! I gave it almost 24 hours before I made that call.

I’m sorry to be so long winded. I guess my point is that sometimes knowledge and understanding are not even necessary. This is just an extreme example of that. I hope you can find something similar.

GracieLou

If you have honestly learned and had some self growth then it is not in vain. It is your life. You have to live it not her or anyone else.

It would nice if we could take people that we love on our journey with us but we cannot. They have their own destiny. We cannot control theirs anymore than they could control ours even though they may have tried many times over the years.

It is no different then what they have tried to do. I can't except my mother to understand, she is not an alcoholic. The longer I am sober the more I see she has issues too. Not with alcohol but with other things but she will have to see them for herself if she is going to change. At this time and with her age I doubt she will ever see them but that does not make me love her any less.

I was always searching for acceptance from my mother. I felt I never really got it. I felt most of my life she has tried to control me using lies, manipulation, and threats to get what she wanted me to do so her life would be easier. So she could sit back and think, now all my little ducks are in a row.

I have come to realize that if that is the case, she is as sick as I am. Maybe alcohol is not her vice but maybe power is or maybe she is so insecure that making sure all the players are spinning the way she wants makes her feel secure. I don't know and to be honest it does not really matter. That is her side of the street.

What I can do is work on me and my life. I can stay on my side of the street and work my sobriety program with AA and the steps. I can pray to my HP to give me guidance and strength. I have to accept the things I cannot change and find the courage to change the things I can.

tomsteve

veritas, did your mother really say she doesn't love you?
how bout tellin us what your part in it all is? were/are you a model child?
the 5th step isn't calling people and saying, "im sorry." neither is the 9th step. people had heard "im sorry" from me so many times that the common reply was," dam straight yer sorry."

"This is why I am the mess I am."

is that the real reason or is it because yer not putting in the footwork to change you?

maybe its time to turn it over.



sittin in the garage all day wont make me a car.
"

yeahgr8

This is a great post. It took me a long time in sobriety to move on from my sick relationship with my mother, she was and is (to a certain extent) well and alive in me as she was when i was a child let alone as an adult. It is an issue that i could not overlook and it still raises its head in counselling sessions.

I can happily say now i am not bothered in the slightest if my mother, or father, are proud of me or agree with what i am doing and thats progress. Quite honestly if my mother said what she had said to you i would not be unhappy at all and it would come as quite a relief, which is pretty amazing as i find the ongoing relationship with her quite tiresome.

Keep working on yourself! And yes you are right it all comes from childhood but the program is to focus on us as adults today if you want to delve deeper and move even further onwards then counselling will help with time.

grammydeb

sometimes people will disappoint us
my grown daughter and I have had several issues over the years as do most parents and children I will not relay the whole thing but I needed to step back I was quite angry with her and told her so then I said I do not want any more contact not a call letter e mail or text
I needed this for me to reflect and allow God to do what ever he needed to do in my heart
and then it passed
with my own mother my sponsor told me I am not to correct her by pointing out to her what I thought wrong and we had a lot better relationship after that
she passed away on Christmas eve almost 2 years ago
I miss her but I also have a clean slate
it is not my place to try and hold a hostage it is my place to deal with me and I do that in the steps through inventory and amends when I need to make them
I have to see what am I doing
not what the other person is doing or not doing that I want them to
my self centered fears crop up and I have to not stuff them but deal with them there is pain in recovery but I have learned the difference between self inflicted pain and the pain of facing me
this is impossible to do it without the trust of God to show me what I need to do
deb

paul99

I am sorry to hear things aren't going well with your mother, V. Our parents did the best they could with what they had. I don't blame my folks for anything - they were equipped with what they were equipped with and the same way I am doing the best I can with my kids as I can.

I agree with tomsteve in that saying "sorry" doesn't cut it for many people. I too have said "sorry" a million times, meant it with all my heart at the very moment I said it, then went alone my alcoholic way a moment later. Glug Glug. Or wrecking more damage. Sorry isn't what others want to hear, nor is it what we do in amends.

Remember that the steps are in order for a reason. If we're not clear on the first eight steps, amends don't always work. In fact, they can cause more damage. I understand you want to clear the air with your mom, have her a part of your life, etc. But as mentioned, it's her own journey. We don't know the whole story, but relationships are two ways. Who knows what hurts she is harboring , what resentments she carries, etc. Who knows the whole deal here.

My parents aren't the reason I am an alcoholic. The kids that picked on me and bullied me aren't the reason I am an alcoholic. The non-relationship I have with my brother isn't the reason I am an alcoholic. I am an alcoholic because I have a physical allergy to booze and the mental obsession and spiritual malady that comes along with the illness.

And finally, it wasn't until I started to make the changes in my life - getting a sponsor, working the steps, working with others, practicing principles in all my affairs, etc. - that people started to see the changes in me. I was the last to see them. And in seeing action, then people who I had previously written off came around. I didn't do it for them. I did this for me. and whether Bob or Jane or Martha wanted to be part of my life, it wasn't up to me to decide. And I had to let go of a lot of people (or vice versa) in my life to be in a safe place, a new space, a different place to land. I have no control over how others react. In the end, I had to stop assigning blame on others and take a good look at myself. Because I can't change others, but the great news is that I can change myself.

Kathleen41

Veritas, you are in victim mode. You say this is a pattern of abuse. It's up to you to break the pattern. Stop allowing yourself to be victimized, if that is what is truly going on here.

Why would you keep saying your sorry for not doing the things she wanted you to do? You aren't obligated to do anything just because someone wants you to. Do you really owe her apologies? Did you harm her? Or just not do what she wanted you to do? These are patterns of an unhealthy relationship, consider detachment from these patterns.

I have one question for you, you don't have to answer it. Have you relapsed, are you drinking?

Threshold

One of the first things I heard when I came to 12 step is that many of our resentments are the result of unrealistic expectations.

It was a little while in that I realized I had a LOT of unrealistic expectations about what would happen when I got sober, and worked the steps. I thought people would change. I thought, because I wasn't drinking and using everyone would love me, I thought life was going to stop asking so much of me...stop "punishing" me.

I learned that was an unrealistic expectation. The 12 steps change how I understand and relate to life and other people, it had NO effect on them.

In time I came to realize that pretty much all expectations, including the one's I have for myself are unrealistic. This still seems unfair to me.

This morning when I woke up and went outside I found a mouse had drowned in a container of water I had put out there. That mouse went there thinking it could get a drink. It fell in and was unable to get out. It's expectation....which seems totally reasonable...was not realized. That mouse did nothing wrong, was not being punished, the water and the Universe have no particular grief with that mouse. Life happens.

birds found that container of water and have had a heyday with it, it is their oasis in the desert. Their unexpected joy, a free, safe water bath! They spend a good part of their day here. The water and the Universe have no particular favor for the birds. They are not being rewarded for some heroic act. It just is.

I so often frame the events of my own life with absolutes, assign meaning and intent, blame and favor where there really isn't any. I WANT to make sense and reason out of things that just are.

My wanting to explain things is me wanting to figure them out so I can control them. Me wanting to explain things to others is me wanting to get them on board with MY way of thinking, so that I can control, or at least anticipate their reaction.

I'm on step 11 right now, and I thought it'd be easy peasy...but it's kicking my butt and blowing my mind.

deeker

I no longer look too other people to fix me, heal me, to change the way I feel, to forgive me, or to understand me.

If my happiness depended on other people I would have killed myself a long time ago. Most unhappiness comes from having to high expectations of others. No one owes me anything even if they are my own Mom. I have not walked a mile in anyones shoes so I can not possibly know the pain in their own hearts and why they feel or react to life the way they do.

My apologies also don't mean a thing. My families have heard My " I am sorry a million times. They got tired of it.What they needed and if I wanted their forgiveness was to see me consistently changing and doing the next right thing"

True Joy comes only when we are focused upon walking with the Lord and esteeming others (Phil 2:3-5 KJV).

dripdry

Veritas,

I am so ashamed when I read your post.

I have said those things to people. When I was drinking and even in early recovery I told people I never wanted to see or speak to them again. I never considered for a moment how that might feel to them.

I also never really heard their apology. I felt like I was the wronged one and no matter what they said, I didn't hear it. Their words just felt like arrows on my skin and I kept telling them to go away, because I didn't want to hear them and have to think and consider what they were saying.

I had chosen how I was going to react and nothing was going to change that.

I don't know if that is what your mother is doing.

Reading your post really opened my eyes, and broke my heart.

neferkamichael

Veritas so sorry you are going through this, certainly don't wish it on ya. Self-growth is what living s all about so stay strong and steer the course you are on. Do your best to get over the awful things she said to you and move on with your life, clean and sober. Mothers aren't perfect. Rootin for ya.

Sugah

Dr. Paul O's story may be helpful to you, Veritas. It's the one entitled, "Acceptance was the Answer" in the 4th edition, and if you have a 3rd, "Doctor, Alcoholic, Addict."

Peace & Love,
Sugah

Veritas1

Thank you everyone. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me.

paulokes

OK, this one is fresh about two hours old.

At mum's house helping her move and my adult brother "squared up" to me, as if to hit me. Basically because I told him I didn't need directions on how to move furniture...because he was already angry and I wasn't doing things his way. Mum dealt with this in her usual way...by asking me what I did to upset him

I walked away...I don't need to be around unreasonable behaviour today and I'm learning how to set healthy boundaries...even if that means not spending time with family. Hard for some reason....

Echoes here again of that abandonment thing V...maybe time to learn to walk away and be OK. Who do you still have in your life? What's a constant? God/AA - can be a pretty good substitute for fallible family

P

Carlotta

I am very sorry this happened to you Veritas.
I am not only an alcoholic but also a recovering codependent and I will share with you from that perspective.

Alcoholism affects the family and chances are your mom is very sick too.
It is difficult to explain the roller coaster og emotions we go through when a loved one is constantly relapsing. The loss of trust and dashed hopes can be a soul killer. At some point, we need to let go or be completely neurotic and miserable. I know that personally, I was much crazier as a codie than as an active alcoholic. Al Anon saved my sanity.

It looks like you mom went "no contact" on you.
This is something that sometimes us codies have to do in order to keep our sanity if we are not able to "detach with love" or if the other person has been abusive to us. Basically, going "no contact" is a tool that we sometimes have to use in extreme situations.

The best thing you can do right now is let her be while you work on your own recovery. As you two get healthier, you might be able to have a relationship again or maybe not. But whatever happens, do not let that setback lead you to a drink.