The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
My mom is my bloodline qualifier in my life. To this very day, I still struggle with some part inside of me that just does NOT want to open up and forgive. When I look at it, I think I see a very scared, confused child that tried to understand what on earth was going on with Mom.
My mom got sober when I was about two. She's been sober since. But she didn't always attend AA meetings, and eventually, she shifted her addiction from alcohol to food. I've heard some AA members say a person doesn't get to say they're sober when they've shifted their addiction - I think a lot of them maybe think about people shifting from alcohol to drugs. Wonder in the grand scheme of things if that applies to shifting from an alcohol addiction to a food addiction. Honestly, there really wasn't a lot of recovery in her when I was growing up with her. She's working a recovery program now, which is great for her.
Growing up with Mom, she wasn't an abusive person. She was more along the lines of the frail, tip-toe-around-her type. When I think back to my childhood, the feelings I get when I think about her are those of someone trying their very hardest not to upset Mom and make her cry. Or offend her in some way, which would lead to cold shoulders and silent treatment. She was just "not there" a lot of the time as she dealt with her own demons - alcoholism, food addiction, and being the adult child of an abusive alcoholic herself.
The logical part of me knows the following: she did the best she could at the time she was doing it. She's always loved my brother and I and always had our best interests at heart. The hard thing is that for some reason, it will not move from my head to my heart. And it makes me cry that it won't. It brings back all these awful feelings yet again about being an awful, ungrateful child who should treat her mother with love, reverence and adoration.
So, Mother's Day is a hard holiday for me. I get along with my mother fine most of the time. I know I do love her, but for whatever reason, there's this hard stone around my emotions that leaves me guarded and unwilling to open myself to a more deeper, compassionate love for her. I
One more thing to bring to my HP. I know right now I can't "will it" myself.
Mahalo Aloha...Yes I also "graced" my Mom in program with "She did the best she could with what she had" and I got that past my head, past my heart and into my gut. When that grace came I was freer than the day before and one inch closer to serenity. I was holding her in an accepting and positive light rather than the dark sides of my memories. When I gave grace I began to see the hope and love she had for me. I made apology to her for the stuff "I" put her thru because she couldn't control me and I wouldn't cooperate on her value systems. I made the apology and the amends after I saw the picture "Mommy Dearest" which put me into panic and fear as I sat in the back of the theater with my eyes closed moaning from the pain. Al-Anon gave her the son she could never create or mentor...and it is okay that I found the program while she went without it except for the influence she got from my wife and I. Giving my mom (and step-dad) grace took another ton of sadness, anger, resentment and rage off my spirit after the alcoholic was let go of and they are all turned over to my Higher Power...everyone is now. Loving unconditonally is the door way to freedom.
Have a good one (((((hugs)))))
-- Edited by Jerry F on Friday 6th of May 2011 08:03:39 PM
I understand how you feel, Aloha. I see tears on the horizon for me---probably. If I have contact with my children, they will most likely be "quacking."
Like you, my mother has always been---lets say, "difficult". So, I make the best out of it that I can. She is 90yrs. I send flowers and make phone calls, etc. A lot of walking on eggshells to keep her happy. I am glad to bring her the happiness I can and try my best to remember any of the good things she did.
I honor the spirit of my grandmother---who, really, was the mother to me. I think a lot about her on mother's day. Other than that, I try to have as little expectations for mothers day as possible. I try to remind myself that it is an artificially concocked day which benefits lots of commercial interests and causes the disenfranchised (us) to feel like crap.
This probably sounds like sour grapes to others. THAT'S BECAUSE IT IS! But, it helps me because it keeps my expectations low.
Aloha, when I pray to my hp tomorrow, you will get special mention. I always do pray for the ones that are hurting on the nostalgic holidays.
Thanks for posting. Love. Otie
-- Edited by Otie on Saturday 7th of May 2011 06:28:40 AM
As a mother myself I know that some day I will walk with God and he will show me moments from my life where I wasn't a very good mother, moments that could allow my children to harbor hate and ill will towards me for the rest of their lives. Putting myself in my mother's shoes - looking at HER childhood, feeling her pain and understanding where she came from helped me to understand that nothing she did to me as a child was personal. She did the best she could with the tools she was given. Putting myself in mom's shoes and seeing her as a real human being with the same wants, needs, problems, and faults as I have helped to open up my heart towards her. She didn't have it as easy as I do; she had a spouse that abused her, she lived in physical fear of him, and, when finally divorced from him had three girls to raise alone on minimum wage (which wasn't much that many years ago). I know she was on food stamps for awhile, had never worked so had to take menial thankless jobs with witchy younger bosses, never drove so had to bus it (ever take a bus when you're dead tired?). Thinking about my mother's childhood, my mother's life as if it were my own humanizes her and makes me love her more because I can understand how much she went through to hold things together for us. She could have left us, or ignored our needs for her own. She did the best she could and is human - just like me.
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I am strong in the broken places. ~ Unknown
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another! ~ Anatole France
