my_mom x she'll kick your ass no seriously she's crucial 040420 ... Ouch my mom can beat up your uncle. 040421 ... fishawk Kind of sucks. I am grateful for her body growing and birthing me and the little glimmer of good among all the bad and lonely memories of childhood, but really... I find myself back at the same conclusion that she just sucks as a mom. She was always out and gone. She put me down non stop and built up my little hopes just so she could tear them down enough times that I would say it Was a game she played on purpose and enjoyed. She beat the crap out of me for... anything she could think of and threaten to do worse, like tie me to the lit stove, I have scars from an iron on my right hand still. After I was out of middle school I think the physical abuse mostly stopped, then she just tore me down verbally and with random acts of extreme control over my freedoms or lack of. I am grateful for the relative freedom I had to go out whenever for however long I wanted most of the time, but even then i kInd of wished I had a mother, one who cared and wanted to know what I was doing or not doing and who my friends were and how I was and to be my friend as well as well as my mom. When I was 19 I finally left her home, I felt stuck for that long, scared of what she would do if I left for that long... then I realized I could legally Leave and be gone and free of her. Amazing! So I packed a backpack and left at 3 am, I locked the door and left my key under the rock. About tWo years later I ran into her out side of a walmart. She began by insulting my friend and my boyfriend at the time. Then yelling and swearing about how I evaded taxes and that I need to come home... she grabbed me so hard her nails cut into my arm and she bruised me. I twisted free and got away... I called the police to report it and file a restraining order. A few years later we talked again, met at a restaurant With my new and current love and it wasn't so bad, she seemed to want to make amends. She said she would have tied me to a chair and kept me in a room if she had got me into her car that day and she was serious .. she bought me a laptop and gave me a few hundred dollars as a gift. That was nice I guess. I was very hopeful and so happy to finally have a ch ance to be friends with my mom. Now I try to stay in touch and talk, but she still basically just insults my partner and talks (well usually texts) ju st long enough to know if I'm still not doing what she considers well. She never really calls or texts on her own and rarely has a nice or interesting thing to say. It doesn't even have to be interesting, just anything at all... any thing beyond that she's doing good... maybe she's just always been very unhappy. I try to remember that itS likely something she is suffering too, and I feel that I am suffering less in that respect, but it doesn't make it ok. She has my step dad to take care of her, he's nice, but she kind of leads the show. She went to nursing and vet school and worked a little but when she got a good job offer she stayed home in bed for a week until she lost it and never really went back to work, ever. But I'm the failure. I am not the best I could be. I often let emotion hold me down too. I have work to do. But I still feel better at life than her. Is that selfish or mean? Probably a little. I want to be compassionate... I still text and call, I sent her a picture or my boyfriend and I in a tree today. Her response was to ask if he had a "real job" yet... then nothing when I told her he is still working for himself and doing well. And he is doing well, as well as a "real job" and usually even better than most jobs he could work under anyone else. So what's her problem? I do love her. I am glad for the good things and happy memories that do exist. I do hope to someday be friends. It's just difficult. Now I think of getting my own (our own ) life together and becoming a mom in the next few years. Will I trust her to be their grandmother? I honestly would not leave a child alone with her. That makes me very sad. 150414 ... nr i'm so sorry you had to go through this growing up. you seem very generous considering the circumstances, and i always find it amazing when adults turn into good people (as you seem to be) when they had less-than-ideal (to put it mildly) experiences like this as children. it's something to be proud of. 150415 ... fishawk Thanks nr. I feel like most of us go through some sort of negative thing or feeling with our families growing up even with well meaning care givers. A friend and I in high school called it " growing_up_normal " I like to think that such hardships make us stronger and more compassionate, but that there are gentler ways to attain these traits. I guess some.might become like their abusers, maybe it depends on the rest of the experience or how severe or not the negatives were. I feel fortunate, it could have been worse and I had some real and good friends and teachers to show me that humans could also be loving and sincerely good to eachother too. I do feel like I am a good person, maybe because of this experience... but also I have some emotional baggage to let go of and grow out of. I am noticing more recently that I am more affected than I thought I was by my past experiences with my mom and exhusband. Both similar situations and both have been allowed to fester into negative tendencies and habits and excuses in my adult and current life for no good reason. I am learning that it is not enough to " forgive_and_forget " because I won't forget, not really... and I want to forgive, but those feelings shift in and out as time flows through me. I have to do the inner and outer work to really grow out of these things and truly let go of the weight. I am reading about how others have accomplished this and the journey it can take. I am viewing my memories and considering my habits and tendencies. I remember that my dad, who has always been wonderfully loving and supportive but always busy, saying that my mom will likely never change and not to let it effect me too much. I remember that my.mom is kind of mentally ill in some way, or spiritually_lazy maybe... and that she has suffered from her choices as well. I remember that I still loved her through it all and that's why I didn't try to go live with my dad or call cps. I remember coloring in coloring books with her and saving baby birds and bunnies from the fields who were hit by lawn mowers. But then I remember everything else too... It's a balance and a journey. I don't want to whine about it so much, but maybe that's part of healing. I just don't want to throw out the positive for the negative. 150415 ... she had another seizure last night...well something like four or five hours ago. 150416 ... (z) (my mom is the old lady who did not recognize jayz on the subway) 150416 ... (z) (...the adorable old lady... that is) 150416 ... fishawk I hope your mom is ok. 150416 ... fishawk I hope your mom is ok. 150416 ... (z) (she is very well. thanks for asking.) 150416 ... nr will never think of her children as adults. it seems unlikely, anyway. 150417 what's it to you? who go blather from