My Mother and I - sorrow, guilt, and regrets

Today I am going to write about my Mom.  Thinking about her always breaks my heart.  Talking to her triggers an array of emotions that I am yet to dissect and understand so maybe writing about her, and my relationship to her will help me to figure out the role it plays in my life.  Here it goes....

My Mom is a very vulnerable individual, so weak, so depressed and sad.  She has some good days but for the most part she appears to be a very sad woman.  She barely walks and has these petite little legs with a very blown up mid-section due to liver and kidney failure mixed with an unhealthy diet full of sugars.  I guess sugar is what she craves all the time which probably has a lot to do with her alcoholism as she spent so many years of her life drinking spirits mixed with coca-cola.   When I was young I remember her drinking lots of beer but in my later years of teenage-hood and early adulthood I only remember it being spirits: rum, rye, vodka, probably triples.  By the end of her days of drinking it would only take one drink to turn her into a different person.  I don't know for sure how strong she would mix them but I can imagine when your liver and kidneys quit breaking down the alcohol you end up getting drunk faster.  Memories of my Mom from my childhood are mixed: good, bad.  I remember her caring for me as a very young child when I was sick.  She was so loving and affectionate.  My Mom loves hugs.   I remember the comfort of my Mom's hugs as a very young child but it must have been while I was a toddler because all my memories of her hugs since about 8 years of age are not so comforting and filled with love.  I know though that the way the human mind works, it is those memories with the strongest emotion attached that are most vivid.

When my Mom was a drinker I remember her wanting hugs to last forever and feeling really uncomfortable at the length she'd hold me for.  I was always the one to pull away.  It was sad for me and the mixture of emotion I'd feel would make me want to get far away from it all.  This mixture of emotion I felt back then is similar to how I feel sometimes when I want to get far away from my partner during one of what he'd probably call one of my "episodes."  To put words to the emotions best I can, I'll say I felt: scared, overwhelmed, panicked, hurt.  It's so hard to actually describe an emotion.  Physiologically I remember my blood rushing, my head spinning with memories of pain caused by my Mom over the years.  I remember feeling anger towards her for all the pain I had to endure, pain I didn't deserve, pain she could have protected me from, pain she didn't remember inflicting because she was drunk at the time she caused it.  I remember the hugs feeling so superficial as if the hug lasting forever would get rid of the pain.  Looking back now, those hugs were probably filled with guilt and yearnings for forgiveness.  

I also remember walking out on my Mom many days where I'd plan to visit her, coming into town from where I live ten hours drive away and being disappointed because for some reason I'd always be hopeful that she would be sober when I saw her and she would almost always be drunk, slurring her words about how happy she is to see me yet unable to hold any type of normal conversation.  She'd tell me how proud she is of me and how much she loves me but it would be the drunk Mom talking and the words felt empty.  "I lovesez you" she'd say, in the language of a baby, her eyes staring right through me as she stumbled towards me.  "I know" I'd quickly reply and then tell her how much I really just wanted to visit her sober, asking her if she could sober up so I could visit her the next day.  Sometimes she'd follow that up with a self-pity speech about how horrible of a Mother she is and how she can't do anything right.  Other times she'd end up in a corner talking like a baby in a way I couldn't even understand, mumbles. And then, I would walk away, tell her I'm leaving and that I love her but it hurts me too much to see her in such a condition.  Sometimes this would throw her into a rage and I'd hear her yelling at me that she loves me as she smashed around her house.  Sometimes this would be accompanied by her crying hysterically.  It was a constant looping scenario.  Every visit.  

Now, visits are much different.  She is very quiet, and often appears quite drugged up on her many medications.  Some days she is completely zoned out.  She speaks in slurs still and most often has something to tell me about that she is unhappy with.  Nothing is every her doing though, always someone elses.  On a good day she can focus her eyes and have semi-natural conversation with me although I never know what to talk to her about and I feel quite estranged to her.  Its a very uncomfortable place for me.  Before her alcoholism got really bad my Mom was the person I'd call when I had a bad day and I'd tell her all about it.  She would be such a good listener and she'd always have something to say that made me feel better.  I really miss those days.  My Mom's social abilities seem to have deteriorated over the years, lately at an accellorated

I was not the most desirable daughter growing up.  I was verbally abusive and knew all the right ways to hurt my Mom when I wanted to.  I've written about the ways I've treated my Mom in a book I started awhile back.  I won't go into too many details here because I'd like this blog to be the next chapter in the book and I don't want to repeat myself but I was not a nice person at all to her.  I know this has affected the way things are now between my Mother and I.  I am not the only one who is filled with painful memories.  I'm sure that she is too.  I don't know what my Mom thinks when she sees me.  I've made apologies to her over the past few years and she just says she knows I am sorry.  We never talk about it in depth, and maybe we should.  I hold a lot of guilt for the way I treated my Mom, especially considering her condition today.  I feel like I am responsible in a way for how she has turned out.  If only I could have treated her better and been a better daughter, maybe she wouldn't have had to drink so much to deal with things.  I can't change the past though.  I guess I just need to find ways to live with it all.

I have this fear of becoming my Mother, a fear many people probably experience for various reasons.  For me, its a fear of becoming an alcoholic, ruining everything I have worked for in life, and then living in the world of mental health issues.  My Mom has been diagnosed with PTSD and depression which is a pretty accurate diagnoses from what I know of her and the symptoms I've seen develop over the years.  She takes anti-psychotics, anti-depressants and a cocktail of other medications for her many physical health issues.  I worry about my own health, and the drinking I've done over the years.  I'm a binge drinker.  I party.  And when I'm alone and hungover I feel guilt for drinking, for not taking care of my body and drowning it in toxins.  I actually just partied this weekend, my attempt at dealing with my partner moving back to New Zealand.  We are still together.  He hasn't left me (yet?), says he loves me and wants to spend his life with me.  I can only trust that right now this is how he feels, whether it will continue this way or not.  

I am going to make a commitment right now and here.  No more drinking.  I am going to quit for awhile.  No set time frame but I'm focusing now on my health and on accepting life the way it is without having to drown it out.  I start a meditation class tomorrow and hip hop dance on Thursday.  I am finding ways to keep busy that are healthy for me.  I'm hoping it will help me learn to be more stable, emotionally.  Wish me luck

An Emotional Mygrain of trying to understand

Things have been good this last week.  He moved out 12 days ago now but we are still seeing each other every day.  He reports to me that he feels positive about things between us now that we aren't living together.  As for me, I'm still trying to process what's best for "us" and what it is "I" want from our relationship. 

I don't know if him moving out makes me feel better about things or not.  The emotions and fears are still there, haunting me, constantly, and I just can't get away.  Instead I numb myself, unconsciously, then notice that actually I am not feeling anything at all.  The existence itself of my emotions is enough to tell me that something is here, inside of me, living.  The numbing of them on the other hand has me questioning the validity of the emotions themselves in the first place.  How is it that I can feel so many things and not feel anything at all, all in one time.  Does my mind just work at super-sonic speed and actually there is a sequence to it all that I'm unable to keep up with in my logical thought processing. The human mind is a funny thing, so many bits and pieces to it and still research continues on to figure it all out.  

I completed more research online to see about this Borderline stuff.  It says people who are Borderline feel "empty" and "full" all at the same time.  Is that me?  Am I really Borderline in Denial?  The same questions are in my face, only I force myself to look away because if I stare at it all day I will just be one of those zombie-types, fixated on whether or not I am BPD when it doesn't really matter.  Whether some DSM IV Manual sticks me in a particular box isn't the issue here.  It doesn't really matter which box I fall into, or whether I fall into one at all.  What really matters is control; Being able to control the things that go on inside my heart; the intangible things that I have not yet been able to grasp in full.  MAKE IT TANGIBLE.  Attack the things that I can catch in time to stop the pain that they ultimately cause when I react impulsively. 

IMPULSIVITY. 

I'm pretty sure I have always been impulsive.  Something happens, I react.  I want something, I buy it.  I crave something, I eat it.  I feel a certain way, I say it.  For the most part, I have this impulsivity under control but in situations where I feel threatened it takes over and leaves me acting out in ways that have undesirable consequences.  I say things out loud that most people only think inside their heads: hurtful things, hateful things, things that damage the emotional wellness of people I love.  Things that leave me feeling self-hatred and wanting to curl up and die in a corner.  I think this is where the low functioning Borderlines commit suicide, or harm themselves, which is something that I definitely think about but don't ever act on.  More so its an internal journey that my mind takes into a world of ideas about ways to commit suicide without being detected and without hurting anybody.  Somehow the journey always ends with full acknowledgment of the consequences that come with suicide: the hurting and pain suicide causes your loved ones, and I know I would never act on the impulsive thoughts of death and suicide. 

So what is all of this anyways?  How does my brain operate and how is it that I have become the person I am today.  How does a former youth in care, who comes from a background of trauma, violence, abuse, neglect and abandonment become a management level government employee, successful in completing two University Degrees yet still unable to manage her own emotions and relationships?  Nobody really knows the "real me" who exists underneath my success.

If this is BPD, then how am I ever going to learn to regulate my emotions?  Some researches say this emotional dysregulation is a physiological flaw and that the Borderline has no control over changing his or her emotional experiences.

http://psychcentral.com/news/2009/09/04/brain-scans-clarify-borderline-personality-disorder/8184.html

Given the stress and trauma I experienced as a child/youth, maybe the pathways in my brain have been offset from the normal brain processing that occurs throughout childhood.  As a child or youth an individual's brain is developing an understanding of the world.  Automatic responses are learned by the brain and by the body. Stress and trauma in early childhood affect this process and leave long term effects that are difficult to correct.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzmiZAdjjck 

Am I physically unable to activate the neurological networks in my brain that regulate emotions?  Were the pathways that were created in my brain as a child off-routed and ingrained so deeply that its impossible to reverse and redirect my thought processing?  

My whole life people have told me I am "resilient" and that I have "overcome so much."  I am the shining star to every social worker, probation officer, counsellor, youth worker, or group home staff that knew me from the ages of 12-19.  It's amazing that in recent years I have looked through my "file" from being in care of MCFD and not one page acknowledges the experiences that happened in my life prior to age 12 when I was taken into care.  They completely leave out the most vulnerable years of my life, the years when my "development" was most interrupted, yet all the writers of those documents (Social Workers, Caregivers, Probation Officers) had such great plans and insight into what I had needed during those teenage years.  Maybe those people had asked me about my past, and maybe some of them know more than I think they know about me, but when I think back on it all I don't ever remember talking to them about the brutal murder in my house, or about the sexual assaults that I had been victim to.  This is where the PTSD comes into the picture.  Of course, I have no absolute diagnosis but their are elements of multiple mental health disorders operating within me.  It's all a matter of pinning them down one symptom at a time and taking control over them.  I know I can do it.

I have so much to learn and to think about still.  I'm trying to take this slowly and let it all sink in to a place of rest but sometimes its too overwhelming for me.  I am taking advantage of my work benefits and accessing a good counsellor who has helped me along the way. I also went for massage therapy since its 80% covered in my benefits and tried to focus on relaxing.  Relaxing is something I am not sure I know how to do.  I've been go-go-go for as long as I can remember.  It started out with living in group homes where my house-mates were children being sexually exploited and coming home from bad dates while they came down from hardcore drugs: cocaine, Ecstasy, heroine, crystal meth, you name it, they did it.  The house was always full of yelling and screaming and conflict.  After this I started University where I worked 2-3 jobs while studying full time and engaging myself in all sorts of adrenaline-type social activities.  I'm not sure I have ever "turned myself off" and "relaxed."  It's a goal of mine though, to relax, to spend time alone, to unwind.  The massage I went to was one of my first challenges: spend an hour relaxing. Don't think about things. Just relax. Feel the massage, enjoy it, feel your muscles let go.  My mind wandered about 6 times during that hour and I had to tell it to come back to the moment, stay away from the past and the future, LIVE IN THE NOW. 

I am slowly but surely learning more about myself each day.  I am growing. I am becoming a better person, and one day I can be happy just being ME.

All my relations.



Lost memories

My mind blacks out the negative things, maybe that’s why my partner, or whatever he is to me after this weekend, says that he has such painful memories from our time together yet I somehow go through life numb to those things, on to the next step forgetting what happened moments, months and years before.  When you grow up with trauma, stress, and abuse how could you survive without focussing only on the good things in life?  Maybe the blocked memories have something to do with a survival mechanism that my body created to help me get through all the shit I put up with in my childhood.  Bury the dark and let the light shine over you.  Embrace what you can control, because then you won’t get hurt.  By controlling things you can foresee what is next in store for you right?  Wrong.  Controlling things works to an extent and then it just backfires, like a shotgun loaded with good intentions that blasts you in the face leaving you with the bitter taste of hope in your mouth.

Reflections

It’s hard when life catches up with a person.  The darkest corners of closet floors exposed; doors feeling closed and little pieces of the past thrown in a massive heap just staring you in the face. Somehow each piece forms a bit of the whole you have become and the whole exists in fragments, like the inside of an orange with thin layers to keep each fragment separate from the next. Leaking out it got out of control for me, gushing anger: a surface emotion to hide behind.  I am no longer able to see my reflection in the mirror that I try so hard to be truthful to; the truth lost somewhere and the reflection itself seeming so surreal.  Unrecognizable, I ask myself nicely to be patient and remember.  Through emotional dysregulation, denial and fear I search for the real me but the clouds are dark and the weather in my head rains down my cheeks.  

Feeling Rejection and my ever-failing relationships

I can't deal with feelings of rejection.  Whether the rejection is real or only perceived, it doesn't make a difference.  My immediate action is to dissociate myself and bury it deep as I can get it to go but with my partner that doesn't work so well and it is one of those things that is starting to eat up our relationship.

So why do I feel so rejected in my romantic relationships?  For example:

1. I was talking to my partner and we were on our bikes and I was putting my helmet on as I was talking and he rode up ahead of me about 3 meters.  My automatic feeling was rejection and being unloved. 
2. Last night we had a relationship counselling appointment that I was feeling a bit unhappy about and not confident in and was telling my partner this at bedtime.  He didn't say anything to me in response, just laid there quiet.  My immediate thoughts were: this isn't even important to him, and that he is just falling asleep like its not a big deal. My immediate feelings were: loneliness, rejection, unloved.  I was scared that our relationship didn't matter to him and that my fear of him not being 100% sincere in wanting to be with me was true.  I wanted to be alone and run away as far as I could but he was in my bed and so I told him to leave and got fixated on asking him to leave, yelling at him to leave, telling him to FUCK OFF because he wouldn't leave and then he left telling me it was only because I told him to and not because he wanted to. After debriefing with my room mate I did go and lay with him and we both opened up to eachothe rand ended up going to bed together.
3. This morning I woke up feeling still so distant from my partner so after laying there thinking about it for 10 minutes I thought to myself, Okay, you have the power to change this, just roll over and kiss him.  When I rolled over I had accidentally poked him in the ribs so he grumped at me and again, my immediate feeling was that of rejection, then I got up and said to him he might as well continue masturbating and I could continue coping however I cope with not having sex because obviously nothing would be changing as far as the little amount we share intimacy.  I went downstairs to shower and get ready for work and he tried throughout the mornign to ask me what was wrong which made me angry becuase I thought I had been pretty clear on what was wrong.  I didn't feel like fighting so told him to leave me alone, it went on and on and then I just left for work with it left unresolved.

So why is rejection such a big deal anyways.  Like my roomate said last night to me, it only seems to affect me in my relationship with my boyfriend.  For everyone else who doesn't like me or my style I say fuck them all and go on being who I want to be.   And I'm generally happy with that. 

What are my experiences of rejection.....my counsellor is always saying "how did that make you feel"... and "just like when??"

JUST LIKE WHEN:

- always
- my Dad didn't talk to me for seven years regardless of my ongoing efforts to have him in my life
- none of my family would take me in when things didn't work out at home and I ended up living in care of the government
- i spent years living in a "safehouse" becuase not one foster home wanted me
- i got expelled constantly from school and told I couldn't go back
- i never felt i fit in during university because the criminology students all had a tight nit crowd and i wasn't one of them, so i joined in the student's union to make friends there
- i wanted to join basketball but got thrown off the team for getting in a fight, but i was fighting the girl because nobody in basketball liked me or talked to me.  I was the Indian girl who never had nice clothes to wear. Who would want to hang out with me???

REJECTION. 

Anxious and Unsure

From strong and confident to anxious and unsure. I don't know where the line is but its somewhere between today and a few days ago.  I think it got crossed this morning. 

It's time to take control.  No wonder this thing is called Borderline Personality Disorder. Its an ongoing fight to see which Me will come out on top.  On my "normal" days I feel so normal and then there are days like today where I am questioning my every thought and emotion. Days like today where I don't know which of my emotions are even true anymore.  Days like today where I wish it was yesterday.  I know that yesterday was real, and that the Me that existed there was real too but for some reason yesterday's Me seems so far away now and the Me of today is taking over. 

I DONT KNOW WHO I AM.

Last night I felt so numb laying beside the man I am supposed to be in love with.  He was there, perfectly him, and then there was me numb as can be and no reason to feel empty but still feeling completely empty. And I told him that I wasn't really feeling anything at the time and he he responded with a "why would you say that" and I told him becuase it was how I felt at the time.  I automatically shut down after that and just tried to fall asleep.  I wanted to be anywhere but there.  It wasn't that I stopped loving him or thinking he was absolutely amazing. I just feel that way at times and I don't understand it.  Logically, it doens't make sense but then again, do feelings ever make logical sense. They have got to be the most misleading, confusing things in existence...not that they are things as they are not tangible but I think you know what I mean. 

I FEEL NUMB SOMETIMES

I have this little voice inside my head that keeps telling me he is going to leave me so just get out while you can.  It's a constant battle between the strong, confident me from yesterday and the not so sure of myself me of this morning.  By afternoon, who knows how I'll feel.  Here I am going through immigration steps to move to a new country with him and I dont even know anymore if that's what he wants.  He says its what he wants but its so easy for him when he isn't giving up anything to say he wants it and then later on change his mind. I try to keep reminding myself that its okay if he changes his mind because in the end I only want him to be happy and if thats not with me then we shouldn't be together.  Telling yourself something is useless though if you don't actually believe it.  The fear itself never goes away completely.  No matter how many times I tell myself:

- He wouldn't be with me if he didn't want to be
- He loves me, and tells me that every day
- He does things to make life easier for me because he cares about me
- He is not a pig like other men can be. He is sincere and honest
- He wants to spend his life with me

I AM SCARED HE IS GOING TO ABANDON ME.

MAKE IT GO AWAY MAKE IT GO AWAY MAKE IT GO AWAY!!!!!!!

Denial

Not sure if its just denial but I am starting to feel strong again and remember who I am.  I'm beautiful and smart, and I survived everything the world threw at me: poverty, oppression, racism, abuse of all forms, neglect, abandonment, breaches of trust, and worst of all being surrounded by people who are supposed to love me and care for me and protect me and having very little of that present in my life.

So am I in denial that I have a mental health disorder, or am I just in this moment feeling strong.  What is really true in this world anyways when an individual's perception of something can change so quickly.  One moment I can feel vulnerable, and question the legitimacy of my emotions, thinking so hard about it that my whole body gets tense and my mind goes into freeze mode.  Other moments I feel so together and confident and sure of who I am and what I'm all about and everything makes complete sense in my head.  I don't know what causes these extremes but they come...and they go... as they please.

Today:  I feel strong, and confident.  I am happy with where I'm at in life and no matter where things end up for me, there is no way they could ever be as bad as they have been in my past so it's got to be an okay future on my horizon.

I am currently planning a move to New Zealand from Canada.  It's not the first time I've done this. I've lived there twice before. Once I was on a Working Holiday Visa (12 month stay) and the other time I was on a Student/Vistor's Visa (nine month stay).  Both times I went on my own either to work or go to school and travel.  Both times I fell in complete love with the country: the rolling hills and long beaches.  The green and blue and beauty in the clouds.  Aotearoa they say...land of the long clouds...and it is.  It's beautiful in NZ and when I'm there, I can be me.  Nobody there knows me to judge me, they take me as I am.

This trip is different.  Its not a trip at all.  I am applying for a work visa but the intention is for me to gain residency there.  And this time I am not going alone.  I am going with my partner who I met last time I was there and brought back to Canada with me.  The difference in this trip is that I am not just being ME.  This time it is WE who are moving and I am not alone on an adventure into the world. I am part of something bigger, something that is supposed to be the begining of the rest of my life.  A partnership.  One day maybe a marraige and kids, a farm.  It's intimidating, and limiting, and it's settling down.  I don't know how to settle down.  I am a person who goes and goes and goes and I rarely stop.  I am intimidated and I am experienceing fear when I think about this whole settling down in one place with one person thing.  I feel a loss of freedom. A loss of part of myself, and its an integral part of myself.  It's no wonder all these crazy emotions have come out over the past year.  It's not mental health. Its not a diagnosis.  It's a reality that maybe I'm not ready to enter.

On the Borderline this morning, complicated with depression, PTSD aside

They call it Borderline Personality Disorder.  I didn't match enough of the DSM's criteria for a diagnosis but the medication they suggested was to deal with the "symptoms" I have. I'm still processing this all, even three months after my meeting with the psychiatrist.  I keep going back and forth between acceptance of it and complete denial.  Part of this might be my fear of my own past.  Part of it might be that in fact there is nothing wrong with me, asides from my anger problem. 

Risk factors that can lead to Borderline Personality Disorder include: abandonment, disrupted family life, sexual abuse, poor communication in the family.  Treat your kids right or they'll end up fucked up. That's what I have to say about it all.  If these are the risk factors then I'd be considered high risk.  I'd like to round up all the adults from my childhood who have contributed to this monster I feel like today and give it all back to them.  But nope, they never have to live with it. It's not their problem. It's my problem. 

Emotional dysregulation.  Frequent displays of inappropriate anger, feelings of emptiness and boredom. A severe fear of being abandoned.  Repeated crisis or self injury. Intolerance of being alone.  Impulsiveness with money. This is my life.  I don't like it.  "Complications" include: depression, problems with work, family and social relationships, suicide attempts and actual suicide.  I must be complicated on top of it all because depression and suicidal ideations have been my rivals for years.  A constant battle to be in control. Don't let them win because the people who love you will loose the hardest. 

I used to be happy.  I used to be one of the happiest people I knew. I was alive and charismatic and people loved me.  I had so many friends that I'd be double booked at least one night of the week and have to make it work somehow.  I was always busy and involved in my commnity, volunteering, supporting local initiatives to make the world a better place.  Life was good, until I fell in love.  Apparently this shit comes out the strongest in relationships and this falling in love that I've gotten myself into explains so many things.  It explains why I couldn't keep a relationship over the past 8 years and why I was who I was in my past relationship which somehow lasted four years. It explains the anger outbursts of things that don't matter and the loneliness that I feel even when I'm with someone who I love and who loves me back. 

I feel like shit this morning.  Yelling at him, telling him to disapear out of my life.  Calling him an idiot.  It's the perceptions I have of myself coming out:

• I'm stupid
• I don't know what I'm talking about
• I am not worth being with
• I am going to be alone forever

There are so many more.  They swirl around in my head like a big nest full of wasps that I'm afraid to approach. 

I know, address it or it will always be there right.  I feel so trapped.

My Stats

On this day I am 28 years old.  I am female and I live in Canada.  I have a University education and completed law school but haven't pursued the life of law which is something I may one day get into on here but it won't be today.

I grew up in care of the government and somehow learned to be resilient enough to make it out alive.  So many of my "roommates" or other "residents" in the homes I grew up in weren't so lucky.  The problem is that now I live in two worlds and they don't mesh so great.  I am lost somewhere between my past and my present and still trying to find that path into the future.  I feel a great sense of disconnect in life, and as Michael Franti sings in one of his songs "the more I see the less I know."

Where trauma meets triumph I sit with an open heart and a bogged down brain. Too many things to think about tonight but this is only a beginning.