Dear SadSoul:

Thank you for the note, and please do take all the time you need to settle yourself!

anita

Dear SadSoul:

Good to read back from you!

“Seeing as I’ve never had anything to do with my uncle, his opinions are entirely made up of what my mother says to him. Yup, present tense“- when a mother badmouths her daughter, to her face, or behind her back.. she is tearing up her mother card.

“I just walked away from our conversation feeling so anxious. Anxious is a gentle word for it… because him hating me was finally spoken about“- my mother’s hate toward me (that mother card can be torn further) scared me, it’s a cause for anxiety. The child sees a hating mother and thinks/ feels.. what is she going to do to me with that hate?

It could be that this kind of old anxiety awakened in you, coming up to the surface.

“My lovely mother. The one who blamed everyone for her losing her children, blames her children for who they are, twists and turns every story so she is the hero and I’m the villain“- it’s like you are talking about my mother. We should have a tearing-of-mother-card ceremony together, sometime.. in the woods, perhaps, over a camp fire.

My mother too was Hero and I was Villain. She too twisted every piece of information viciously, so to keep the Hero/ Vilain theme going. I recently came across the term crimes against logic. She was a serial criminal when it came to the distortion of facts and logic. From my perspective, she used confusion as a weapon.

“Every move she ever made was nasty, purely evil sometimes, but she tells people I did and said the things she did and said, and she was the victim“- my mother projected into me the real villains in her life and proceeded to exact revenge.. that’s what child abuse is often about, a victim-child turned mother-perpetrator.

“How are you? I read your other post. I agree… Why did they have us?“- tired but fine, thank you. Why did they have us?  One reason that applies to some mothers who grew up unloved, is that they expect to finally be loved by someone, by the baby, that is. At first, they are delighted by the baby’s obedient love, but when the toddler/ child starts saying no, rebelling, asserting herself.. the mother sees it as another betrayal of her love, so.. she expresses her displeasure.

“I know, the answer doesn’t fix the issue. I don’t know how to fill the void. Only one person could and they didn’t. It’s a basic necessary emotion as important as food is for survival“- the void where a mother’s love was supposed to be, is not an empty place, it is filled with repressed pain. Expressing that pain will help. It’s not easy to express what’s been repressed. This is what I’m trying to do in my thread.

“Sorry I don’t have any answers but I’m with you.“- I just tried to fill in that place of pain inside with the thought/ feeling of you being with me. Thank you!

anita

Dear SadSoul:

Thank you. I sure hope that your son finds his way back to you, and sooner than later!

In what I quoted from (page 1 of your thread), it reads: “Although a family estrangement can begin at any stage of life, it often begins during late adolescence or early adulthood… A significant proportion of estrangements involve a third party”, so far perfectly fitting your situation.

Continued quotes: “Triggers for reconciliation include changes in the family situation due to death or divorce, worries about health and death, and developing a clearer perspective about the original situation through the passage of time.” “On average, estrangements do not last forever”, “for the vast majority who do (reconcile with the parent they estranged), it turned out to be a positive, sometimes even life-changing experience… most people in estrangement… feel there’s something missing from their lives”-

– the above is encouraging to read. As to the timing of him coming back to you, according to the above, a change in his father’s health, or yours, can be a trigger for reconciliation, as well as changes in his living situation with his father, let’s say if his father has a girlfriend move in, and your son doesn’t get along with her.

“I keep comparing myself to my mother and wondering what I did that was so awful for him….My whole life I’ve looked within for the answers for why painful things happen, so I can somehow avoid bad things“- you are not your mother. You are a good person. Thing is, painful things happen to good people and to bad people. Sons leave bad mothers; sons leave good mothers. Him leaving does not mean that the fault is in you.

One of the quote above says, “A significant proportion of estrangements involve a third party”- in your son’s case, there’s been a third, a fourth and a fifth party in play:  his father, his friend, and the internet.

“Consciously moving through it, it won’t rule me!”– this is the spirit.. a Spirited Soul!

anita

Dear SadSoul:

You are very welcome!

“surely we essentially stay who we are at our core?“- at his core, he is a boy who loves his mother. A love that’s placed on a pause of sorts, a very painful pause, for you.

“I’m praying for the best outcome.”- that’s all you can do at this time: pray. May your son return to your life soon!

anita

Dear SadSoul:

“Lolll… Isn’t it interesting how words are spelled differently from one country to another though?“- theater/ theatre, realize/ realise, color/ colour, license/ licence, and relevant to our discussion, analyze Mom/ analyse Mum. My autocorrect underlines all the British spellings in red, for correction. (There is probably a way to turn it off, but I wouldn’t know how).

Your post on my thread was perfect, it was an I-Me-and-My statements post, talking about your experience, same as what I do when I post there. So, anytime you feel like it, please continue to share here and there about your experiences.

I can’t comment on your post there, because in commenting, I will be talking about your experience (in addition to mine), so, I’ll comment here, since you don’t mind that I do:

“My mother used to tell me… she couldn’t leave her current husband, for fear of more punishment. She used to say, ‘He won’t live long though because he puts so much salt and butter on his food, and he already has deadly high blood pressure. He’ll die and ill be freed from this.’“- In her mind, God was not going to punish her for placing plenty of salt and butter on the table for him to use (assuming she did), with the goal, in her mind, to kill him, or to help him kill himself. In her mind, she was going to be punished for leaving him alive behind her, and moving on.

“I felt like a spectator watching a horrific crime and doing nothing about it“- attempted homicide by salt and butter, or attempted assisted suicide by salt and butter, crimes that would be hard to impossible to prove in a court of law.

“when I was young listening to the hours of her speaking like this. I felt so guilty and churned up, but those hours were the only hours I felt like I meant something to her, guilty evil hours where my mother was focused on someone else“- I remember very well that person‘s (formerly referred to as my mother) tirades about other people. I heard them when she was talking to me, or when she was talking to others, a lot of it done on the phone. I hated the almost constant, ongoing negative judgements of people. I hated hearing her talk and talk and talk.

Her tirades against others cemented, within me, a deep distrust in people.

I tried at times, to get that person‘s approval by siding with her and talking negatively about the people she complained and gossiped about, but alas, she rejected even these efforts. She denied me any sense of togetherness with her. There was just no way that she allowed for me to be with her.

I can’t say that I ever felt like I meant something to her, other than someone (some thing, more precisely) to vent to, some thing to direct her rage at, and some thing to brag about me to people, in regard to just one thing: me being a good pupil in primary school (British)

“I turned myself inside out trying to tick all her boxes so she’d love me, or even approve of me, or at the very least not yell and degrade me“- ditto.

“I made mistakes in my life obeying her instructions on what I was failing in; mistakes that so far I’ve failed to fix“- I wonder what you are referring to, but as always, you don’t have to share.

“But not many people believe who she is because she’s very different with others“- that person was very people-pleasing with others, almost all of the time, flattering them a lot, syrupy sweet.

Back to your post on this thread: “I am sitting in my lounge room with my pets thinking how lucky I am to have them. I hope your day is shaping up to have some special moments in it too“- Boe the beagle jut came for a visit. He went straight to the pantry for kibble.

“Letting go of the need to have mother love, how that’s even done I don’t know“- I am not trying to let go of the need to have a mother’s love, but of the need to have that person‘s love.

“but on the days it’s not as important to me I find the sun shines just a little bit more… also, biscuits help“- biscuits with salty butter and syrup on top, one of my last-meal choices, if I was to get to chose a last meal. Other choices: Pizza with LOTS of melted cheese, Melted chocolate and cold vanilla ice-cream on top of German chocolate cake, and after a couple of hours of rest (if I a afforded a couple of hours), Tiramisu.

anita

Dear SadSoul:

“My mother wished death on him… she was afraid of him dying. She started taking really good care of him. Still hated him but dependent on him“- hate & dependence, what a combination.

“I made pizza on the weekend“- I just had a visual of you offering me a slice of the pizza you made, and coincidently, the sun came out of the clouds, shining through just now, first time this morning!

“Oh how I love him so very very much.“- may the clouds dissipate in his mind, so that he can feel the sun/ your love shining through! (not too poetic of a thought, I hope).

anita