I was my mother's emotional slave until she died. I was responsible for her happiness. I was her sounding board for
all topics whether good or evil. She totally controlled my life and made me believe she would die without my total
devotion to her.
The things I was required to do were sickening as I remember them, now. To pull the facial hairs out of her chin; to
smell her awful breath and be so near... To lay in bed and listen to her sorrows of a bad marriage; to hear of her
kissing times with her brother...
She went on every vacation with my family. She demanded I be there for every ache and pain. Until she died, I was
made to dote on her; it was my job/responsibility.
"I can be changed by what happens to me, I refuse to be reduced by it." M.A.
One Step Up From Bottom
Teddy
I read once that someone related adoption to a form slavery, and I remember wanting to shout out-loud "YES! EXACTLY!!"
It was my assigned role/duty to take care of my Amother when my adad couldn't or wouldn't. Her demands were many, because her grief and pity-parties were all so huge.
I would beg her to talk to a professional therapist, but she would say, "But no one makes a cup of tea or rubs my back, feet and legs like you do". True, I was the best unpaid child massage/talk therapist the world has never seen.
When I became a mother myself, I realized I couldn't take care of her needy needs on top of the needs I had to fulfill with my own four children. There came a day I asked for for some motherly-help from her, and she said she had a part to go to. [I remember I was in tears, begging for her help, because I knew she had already complained about this party she felt obligated/forced to go to. I needed a mom, and she was all I had, but she had an in-laws party to attend, instead.]
That's when I knew my role and place in her life, and when she slammed the phone down on me, I decided it was finally time to walk away. When I did, there were no more tears. When I look back, it's with a smile and a wave.
Words cannot express how much better my life has become since I am now without all her added complaints and miseries.
Comments
Until she died...
I was my mother's emotional slave until she died. I was responsible for her happiness. I was her sounding board for
all topics whether good or evil. She totally controlled my life and made me believe she would die without my total
devotion to her.
The things I was required to do were sickening as I remember them, now. To pull the facial hairs out of her chin; to
smell her awful breath and be so near... To lay in bed and listen to her sorrows of a bad marriage; to hear of her
kissing times with her brother...
She went on every vacation with my family. She demanded I be there for every ache and pain. Until she died, I was
made to dote on her; it was my job/responsibility.
"I can be changed by what happens to me, I refuse to be reduced by it." M.A.
One Step Up From Bottom
Teddy
...untill I walked away
I read once that someone related adoption to a form slavery, and I remember wanting to shout out-loud "YES! EXACTLY!!"
It was my assigned role/duty to take care of my Amother when my adad couldn't or wouldn't. Her demands were many, because her grief and pity-parties were all so huge.
I would beg her to talk to a professional therapist, but she would say, "But no one makes a cup of tea or rubs my back, feet and legs like you do". True, I was the best unpaid child massage/talk therapist the world has never seen.
When I became a mother myself, I realized I couldn't take care of her needy needs on top of the needs I had to fulfill with my own four children. There came a day I asked for for some motherly-help from her, and she said she had a part to go to. [I remember I was in tears, begging for her help, because I knew she had already complained about this party she felt obligated/forced to go to. I needed a mom, and she was all I had, but she had an in-laws party to attend, instead.]
That's when I knew my role and place in her life, and when she slammed the phone down on me, I decided it was finally time to walk away. When I did, there were no more tears. When I look back, it's with a smile and a wave.
Words cannot express how much better my life has become since I am now without all her added complaints and miseries.