I remember

Now that my Mum is gone I am surprised that I am remembering the good times.  I am remembering how lovely it was to share simple time and not carry the frustration of the past when she found it hard to be present or was extra tough on us.  I spent some time with my oldest nephew this afternoon and he told a story of how he was told to toughen up by Mum when he was in a lot of pain, she yelled at him at a time he was injured really really badly.  I was horrified by the story but it made a lot of sense of why it was scary to be around my Mum at times.  There was never that sense of safety, holding and comfort.  I am thinking about it today when I have decided to give my therapy a break for a time.  To be offered no promise of even a few moments of connection at such a difficult time has hurt.  I have managed it alone and what I am now realising is that I now feel I CAN hold my own pain alone and others too, must be able to hold their own pain, they don’t need me to step in an emotionally caretake them, they are adults.  It seems that this is a lesson that has been slow in coming.   I am also realising that I just need simple connections with others.  I want to share simple, happy times, not talking about trauma all of the time.  I have so much trauma in my past and I really feel it is time to put it behind me.  I don’t want to endlessly relive it anymore.  Could it be that my mother’s death has drawn a big line underneath an old way of being?

I drew a big sigh of relief when my nephew left this afternoon.  Don’t get me wrong I will enjoy to see him again but some of what I learned this afternoon helped me see how riddled with alcoholism his side of the family is.   I am in recovery and I love them but I don’t want the stress of unresolved anger and pain around me any more.  I have done my healing work and I believe I have suffered my own anger and pain.  I see where I also can lash out when I am hurt.  It’s not that it’s only  human to do it, but I no longer want to be hurting others in this way.  There does come a time to draw a line under an old way of being.  I seek serenity now.  I know there is a world out there of trauma and violence and strife but to be honest I dont want a part of it any more.

An old unhealed part of me has been dying over the past few weeks.  I see how when I fought against my Mum’s rejection of my nephew’s visit I would have been better to step back.  I see the price of trying to fill a mother shaped wound of disconnection can catalyse more trauma to it.  I read the chapter on separation in Mark Wolynn’s book on multi generational trauma this afternoon at the market and cried most of the way through.  I see how being disconnected from my Mum and hungering for that connection led me to painful places, now I know where the core wound came from I can address it deep within myself by being present in love with myself.  This is the only way I will not be abandoned in truth.  If my hunger for love drives me out there I am not going to get filled.  It truly has to start from within.   I look at the repeated attempts of my brother over the past week to thwart my need to connect with family and see it may be a lesson for me that I need to pull back within with Mum’s death and seek comfort within.   Maybe I need to stop fighting the lesson.  I heard too much about sad violent things this afternoon from my nephew that I really saw how badly my family was affected by my older sister’s alcoholism.   I cannot deny it any more.  I chose recovery for myself just over 24 years ago.  I am also done with therapy.   I am grateful for what I learned there.  But its now time for me to be separate and to grow and nuture myself from within.