I’m doing this colonomy thing recommended by my wonderful and fantastic naturopath doctor. She suggested it about a month ago and in the first week I really screwed up because I was only supposed to do it every other day but I was doing it every day…and at the end of the week I even did it two times a day a couple times. Oops.
She was okay with that and I didn’t get chastized, she just said, “You’ve just put your body through an intense cleanse.” And I think I really needed to do that. I felt better that week than I had in years and years and years.
So now then I gave myself a break for a week or so doing it just once a week. My bowel movements became much more regular and that was great. It also helped to remove wheat from my diet and then I didn’t have such pain and discomfort after eating. I could see that my body certainly had a hard time digesting wheat.
The strange outcome of this process is the way my nervous system seems to have been re-awakened. When I become nervous now I can feel it all the way from the tip of my spine to the bottom and into my bowels. And when I feel that it reminds me of the way that my thoughts are thinking and my feelings are feeling and I feel more connected with my body than I have in a long time.
It’s a strange feeling and sometimes I feel like I want it to go away. When I’m constipated the sensation does go away but that is replace by cramping, pain and other discomforts.
This issue with D. has caused me so much physical stress and I realize that she has made me feel this way my whole life. I saw her photo today and had such mixed feelings. I felt anger, pain, love, hatred, fear, …and the feelings were very very strong. Mother-daughter relationships are one of the most intense, says my counsellor and when I saw that photo I could not agree more.
I feel like she is one of the most sneaky, manipulative, kaniving people that I know. She is shallow and a liar but you know I think she doesn’t even know …I think she even lies to herself. When I look at her it gives me the creeps.
But my health has created in me a new-found love for my own daughter and I’m not going to let the way that my mother treats me affect the way that I treat my daughter.
The violence stops here!
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Today was a great day. My god mother and god father came to our house early; hubby and gf fixed the brakes on the car while me and gm went shopping, made lunch, knitted — fun stuff.
On Friday I went to therapy and talked about how when I was 15 I felt abandoned by my mom when she left my dad and moved into a one bedroom apartment…and the counsellor told me that my mom’s perception of this event was that she gave me the “choice” and I “decided” to live with my dad and that she felt rejected and I’m still mulling that over in my mind thinking “you’ve got to be kidding me!”
But after talking about it I did feel calmer. My digestive system had been doing a lot better and I was really aware that whenever I thought about my mom, D, then this shockwave of nerves went through my body and I can feel how related to the bowels it is. I never knew until recently that there are so many nerve endings in the bowels and how responsive to nerves they are.
So I’m feeling sensations that have been all covered up and blocked for years because of constipation and wheat allergy and now that I’m healthier I’m feeling actual physcial feelings again. I don’t really remember feeling this since I was about 12.
Anyway, then yesterday D showed up at my house just “happened to be driving by” as we were all getting in the car. She stormed up to me without giving me eye contact and said, looking over at my daughter, “Can I say Hi” I said Yes and then finished packing the car and picked up something from inside. When I came back to the car D was right in my daughter’s face…and she had this mournful look on her face and then seeing that we were ready to go she just kissed her, said good by to her and then stormed away again.
Here’s what I would have liked to have said to her,
“D. You did this to yourself. Remember how you neglected me for 31 years of my life? Remember how when I let you visit my daughter you took her to see your abusive, alcoholic, sex-addict husband without telling me? Remember how I tried to work things out with you in a calm and mature manner yet you insisted on name-calling and vengeful rage? Remember how all I said is that when you want to see your grand-daughter I would prefer it to be in my house?…….”
“Remember how I am your relation too yet I am completely insignficant to you and you don’t even really care? Remember how you have not seen me my entire life because you have treated me as though I was invisible? Remember how I suffered for so long and you don’t even know who I am? Remember how I have become a teacher, a journalist, a mother, and have been alcohol free for 11 years? Remember all that?”
“Well…remember that and remember that you only have yourself to blame for the situation.”
And I would have liked to have said, “Never come on my property again!” But I dont’ say that because I care too much…but I tell you…just seeing her made me feel sick to my stomack – yuck!
She makes me sick, she does.
This flu that I have today makes me sick too…I have the feeling I’m going to be on the couch for the next few days. Boo!
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Whew! Right now I’m brimming over with adrenaline from a conversation I just had with D. She’s my birth mother but has never mothered me thought I lived in her house from birth to 15. She’s a very manipulative and hurtful woman and I’m having to set some very firm boundaries because she has been lying to me and doing very hurtful things to me infront of my daughter.
Facing her came as a result of a counselling session that I had with my awesome and amazing therapist, S. She said I should call D. and tell her that “S. recommends no more emails to prevent further communication.” And so I did that.
This is how the conversation went.
Me: Hi, How are you?
D. Good. How are you?
Me: Good. Are you watching TV?
D. Yes.
Me: Okay, well I won’t keep you long.
D. Okay.
Me: I was talking to S. today and she suggested that you and I not use emails anymore to communicate since there have been so many misunderstandings.
D. Good idea.
Me: Okay. So that’s good. And also, I just wanted to clarify that I am not keeping Grace from you. Right now it’s not a predictable or safe environment at your place because of P. (D.’s alcoholic husband with a sex addiction) and until things are a little more predictable I think the best thing to do is to have her over here when K (my hubby) and I are here.
D: Well I never knew you had an issue with him. (Oh my God D! What a lie….I’ve told you for years that I had an issue with him)
Me: Yes, I’ve told you that before and now I’m telling you again.
D: (she was fuming!) Well, and when P.’s not here? (with tone of sarcasm and vengence)
Me: Well, it is unpredictable when he is there or not.
D: (seething) and don’t you think I should be able to take her somewhere outside of the house?
Me: There were times when I let you take her and you would meet up with him and hide it from me.
D: (anger) I’m not hiding anything from you…I have nothing to hide. (mumbling something or other)
Me: Well anyway, just for now, until things are worked out you are welcome to come visit her here.
D: (anger and discust) No, R. I’m not going to go over to your house where you are sitting there and watching everything I say and do. I’m just not going to do that.
Me: I understand that.
D: (srcrambling for words because I wasn’t biting on her power struggle)….Yeah, I’m sure you understand it……Are you going to meet with me to see S.?
Me: Yes. I’m going to meet with her a few more times and then we’ll set up a session with you, so it’ll be not this week but….(by this time I’m getting really nervous because it seems like she is going to burst) within the next couple weeks.
D: Why is it going to take 3 sessions to prepare? I knew nothing about all of this crap. That’s just great…just great…just great.(Exasperated)
Me: Didn’t she tell you about having a preparation session?
D: No, I didn’t know anything about that all I knew is what you told me when you started this whole thing.
(private thought: Oh my good God, D., it was YOUR idea to have a joint counsellor session!)
Me: Okay, she does this for all her family or group sessions where she meets with the people to prepare a head of time and then has the group session.
D: …I don’t really know what she said here something about how fed up she was and sarcasm, then she said, “I sure hope I don’t die in the meantime” and then she hung up.
So that’s how that went. And writing it out here in Purple Chasm sure helps to keep me from holding it all in.
Best thing about this conversation is that I actually did what I never thought I would be able to do…I’ve set a boundary and continued to defend it. I have stopped giving power to the most toxic person in my life. I feel whole for the first time in my life. I feel so great, so empowered, so powerful.
For all the years that I felt helpless and was helpless, finally for the first time in my life I feel powerful.
For my whole life I have feared this woman. I have created tons of negative behaviours in order to avoid her anger and wrath, I have been abandoned and avoided, neglected and abused by this woman; shamed and humiliated and degraded. Now, for the first time in my life, I own my feelings am in control of my feelings and my life.
This feels like the beginning of a whole new opportunity to succeed.
I’m at a place of acceptance of her. I don’t like the way she treats me but I accept that this is the way she is and I feel completeness in this. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe how this feels. It feels full and rich and happy and probably a little what “Enlightenment” must feel like, or Nirvana.
This feels like what I’ve been working towards in all of my therapy in all of my healing and recovery. I have come to a place where I can see that D. has never bonded with me…from the time that I was a colicy baby until now…she has always thought of me as “crazy, over-emotional, dramatic, phycotic, and irrational.”
I believed that too when I was 18 but I’ve since become rational, moderate, mature and responsible and so I can see with a clear lense into the drama that she has created in her own life and I do not need to be a part of it.
And I’m not calling her Mom anymore….She’s D. because that’s what her name begins with. And it will take a lot and a lot and a lot of healing before she can ever claim that part of my heart.
I feel whole for the first time in my life. I thank God. I thank God. I thank God that I’ve been given the opportunity to feel this.
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