I was told something that hurt me in chat last night and it is very important for me to talk about.  Someone that doesn't knw me, made some accusations about my personal relationship with mother. 

My mother has always been the alove of my life.  She has idealized me when I did what she wanted & has made me feel like holy hell when she didn't get her way with manipulating me.  So much has happened betweeen she & I ~ I could write volumes of books about my life.  I suppose the way to go about telling this story woudl be to do so chronologically, I dunno.

My mother was abused & she didn't want to beat me growing up, like she had been beaten.  She is the only person in my enormous exteneded family of great aunts/uncles, aunts & cousins that went to college.  My mother has 2 doctorites, so she is bordering on genius.  But she did learn to stuff her feelings, although she was the only kid that had the nerve to make amends with her mom, she did it on her own.  I knew my grandmother until I was 5 & then she died of cogestive heart failure.

My mom never doubted that her mother loved her & respected her cuz she never broke her spirit.  My g/ma would come home from drinking, tear up the house ripping out drawers & turning them over... knocking everything onto the floor, all over the house.  She would go into get my mom - (cuz by then her older sister had already gotten pregnant with her fist child, moved out & married @ 14 to get away from the abuse) - drag her out of her bed by her hair, pulling her like a caveman down the hall, thrashing her into the walls with my mother (b4 she was 12) kicking & screaming. 

"Clean up this mess before I get home or you're both getting beatings!"  If they cried they would get beaten.  My mom's baby sister was 5 years younger.  Today she is "bi-polar" & completely screwed up.  My aunt says she can never remember her mother ever holding her in her whole life.  She looked to my mom to protect her & raise her. 

The 3 girls got beaten in order of age...  imagine waiting your turn, hearing the cries, the terror building, knowing it's coming.  This really shut the baby down.  When the youngest was learning times tables my g/ma would hold her child's hand in her fist & beat it into the wooden table while reciting times tables.  She would cry hystercially & it would go on longer & harder.  This horrified my mother...  she would do her little sister's homework for her, she sd "it was easier than & faster than me trying to teach her."

My grandmother used to tell them when they were out & under her breath stuff like, "Just wait until I get you home I'm going to beat the crap out of all of you kids" and since they were in Catholic schools, "do you think I would ever hit you where the nuns could see?!!"  Meaning that if anyone ever found out about their bruises, she would know it was becsue one of them told or had shown their bodies.

My grandmother taught my mother how to steal & commit forgery to tke money out of their trust funds that were set up for the girls.  By the time my mom was a senior, g/ma had spent all of their funds.

My mom was so terrified of her mother she wet the bed until she was 12 years old.  Nana would make my mother cook & clean, she told me about times when she would be doing dishes & Nana would throw plates at her feet, cutting her legs.  This same year, g/ma stabbed my mother in the back w/ a kitchen kinfe.  (she is 59 now & the scar is about 2" long to this day) My poor lil mother ran 2 miles in her nightgown, barefooted to the police.  In 1959 there were no child protective services.  When the police returned my mother to my Nana, she told her (after a lifetime of physical abuse) "If you ever hit me again the police say they will take me away from you & you will never see me again."  she was a 12 year old child, that was taught to drive those huge cars w/ NO power steering at 9 years old...   forced to steal for ("kicks") cuz they had money & forge from her own trust fund.

All three of the girls had different dad's...  my mom's dad was very intelligent.  Mother's IQ is over 145.  My mom can't sit still either, poor thing & she has classic symptoms of acoa's her feelings are frozen, she's a pefectionist, denies she even has feelings, she just stuffs them.  Being sick or vulnerable would have gotten them beat.

All of my life I would have done anything for her, if I could have disemboweled myself to ease one crum of her pain, i would have happily.  Everything I ever knew about love I learned from my mother & that was to be demanding, never satisfied & continuously giving to the family.  If you didn't give to the family & martyr yourself, you weren't doing your part. 

My mother demanded perfectionism of me, in grades, appearance, obedience.  She didn't beat me but twice & she slapped me twice... (those stories for another day).  But I say I was psychologically abused & emotionally neglected.  She went out a lot in the 70's.  My mother also continued to get an adreneline rush from stealing.  My few memories of my g/ma b4 I was 5, I can recall seeing my Nana putting things into her pants to steal them.  When I was 7-10 my mother would force me to shield her so she could get her jollies stealing.  She did give it up eventually, over 20 years ago but this deranged me & hurt & ridiculed me.  I knew what she was doing was wrong & at the time, I really hated it. 

This is a mere glimpse, a tip of the iceberg of what is in my mom's life & my life.  I have read that being psychologically abused is more damaging than physical abuse.  Wounds heal but mental abuse stays with you forever.

My mother encouraged me in the arts, to be creative & artistic.  My mother's plan for me  was to become a world-class gymnast.  I started to tumble at 2 & over the years took ballet for 5 yrs, tap, modern, & jazz for about 2 years.  All of this dance was to 'soften up my gymnastics'.  My mom tried to kill herself when I was 14 and the next year I quit the sport. 

I went into full rebel mode, as I looked 18 and could get served, I would sneak out at night & drink (or try to) one Long Island Iced Tea.  I would take the city bus to the French Quarter & walk around Decatur Street & go into dives.  The things I saw! 

I ran away from home 4 times & tried to kill myself in March 1983.  I was institutionalized & was "taught" my emotions all over again.  It was immediately determined that I wasn't suicidal, but that I had a lot of emotional pain & it was a 'cry for help.'  I stayed in this private hospital for 4 months, less than half the stay of the other kids my age.

When I was released, all new & raw, we moved un to the NE from the South.  I constantly talked about my feelings.  

Growiang up, it was always my mother & I against the world, when I was a little kid we were so close & affectionate.  By the time I was a teenager, my mother had married her present A (when I was 11) and we grew apart.  I alwasy fought with him, we were only 7 yrs apart in age.  She had raised me to never listen to her husbands or boyfriends anyway.  She raised me solely and was not going to have anyone interfere with our relationship.

Over the yrs as a young adult in my 20's we grew close again & I did my best to mend all of the rebellious & hateful things I had done to hurt her over the years.  I was a very angry teenager.  When I was 16, right after we moved up North, I got emancipated & changed my last name to my real father's l;ast name.  When I was 3 her husband at that time had adopted me & we all had the same name.  But I was trying to cut mysel free from her & assert my individuality.  It was like a divorce for me & to this day my mother is still extremely hurt that I did this to her.  She went back to using her maiden name.

But over the years & having found al-anon at 17, I released a lot of what happened.  When I was in the hospital those 4 months too, the treatment was so intensive, 2 90 minutes group therapies a day & 2 or 3 sessions with my doctor each week.  I forgave a lot.

My mother always told me she forgave her mother for all of the beatings & knew that in spite of it all, her mother did love her.  She told me she did the best she could with what she had.  My Nana had a 6th grade education & 13 siblings.  She was one of the younger kids.  Nana knew their dad had molested & raped some of the older girls.  One day, her father gave her a drink & an older sister whispered, "don't"  ~ so she poured it out onto the dirt.  The chickens ran up & the 2 or 3 that pecked at it went into convulsions & died instantly.  She was 13 - her b-day in March like mine & soon after turning 14, ran away from home to avoid being molested & raped by the dad.

I have spent 7 months in the chat room since 7-25-05... talking about my step-father's infidelity, verbal abuse to us both, his alcoholism & gambling addiction, for anywhere from 2-12 hours virtually everyday working on my serenity & recover from this awful tragic disease that  destroys love, stunts & wounds souls, & kills the victims.

Tonight someone in chat told me that I did not forgive my mother & was I going to take my bitterness with me to my grave?  I have seen this person the whole time I've been around since July, how could they not know that I have been working on radical forgiveness all summer long.  That I have struggled through terrible guilt over being able to even consider myself worthy, let alone how to love myself?

I was so distraught ~ in March of 2005, i tried to OD & took enough Rx to kill a horse & that I was depressed for 20 years.  How could this person, who is fairly older than myself, a mother,  not know how deadly & painful this disease is & how hard it is for all of us who are learning to cope & recover from it's brutal effects in all of our lives that come to this (life-saving) Board & site. 

I am a healing soul & have done body work for 18 years.  I had horrible guilt when my parents would yell at me & say, "Heal yourself!" or "stop complaining" when I was in emotional, spiritual & physcial pain. 

So when I found out that my step-father who I worshipped & adored had been cheatting on my mother, who I was hoplessly co-dependently stuck in sick love on, had been cheatting for 15 of their 26 year marriage together...  well I am here to heal.  For 7 or 8 straight weeks I wanted to kill this man, but he's not my husband to kill.  So I vented & ranted & raved for hours, days, weeks on end.

Then I went through 2 months of guilt getting over - just beinga ble to consider *me* - 'cause I didn't know who I was anymore.

I married & divorced an addict & I've been back in my parent's town for 6 years now.  My ex husband kept every single thing I ever owned, in 32 yrs, not only did he try to steal my soul, threaten to kill me & my entire family but also encouraged me to commit suicide & psychologically abuse me for 4yrs & 2 months.  He even held out sex to punish me.  So one day out of the blue w/ Divine Intervention I ran away from him on vacation w/ 3 bikinis.

I couldn't tell you how many times I have told this story but I have over & over in posts, in shares & in open chat.

How could another al-anoner tell me in open chat hateful & cruel things that were witnessed by many others.  I was hurt, disturbed & angered.  I asked this fellow member in PM how could she say such things to me & she acussed me of not fogiving my own mother & taking bitterness with me to my grave.  I sd, "so you can read my heart & you're taking my inventory?"

Well, I know after being around Al-anon for over 21 yrs, we do not take each other's inventories.  I am in Al-anon to get well in my head.  I've been abused in strange & unusal ways my entire life.  Now at 37, I am no longer going to tolerate abuse.

Why would another member of Al-anon abuse me so?  I don't know & I honestly don't care.  I am healing for me, not my mother, not society, just for myself.  I am not here to be criticized or judged.  I have worked very hard on healing & forgiving & loving myself this year.

I have brutally, fearlessly & honestly shared my story over & over & over.

I have a strong enough will, not to allow myself to be abused anymore.  I am also enough of an individual not to be run off by a bully.

We have all been hurt that's why we're here.  IMHO, if you don't have something useful, healing or understanding to say, you are in the wrong place.  I will heal my life, in spite of the obstacles & abused people that attack me for no reason.

I couldn't kill myself twice becasue God interveined.  I know I am here for a reason & I am sticking it out.  Obviously HP lead me here & here I will remain, working diligently & faithfully on myself & spreading as much love as I can without depleting myself of the self-love that is so new to me, I have managed it for about 3 or 4 months now & it has caused a huge rift between me & my mother.  I am no longer being the sponge & I guess she is having to experience some of her own pain these days, since I have removed myself from her verbal attacks & threats of my financial well-being, since I work for my family.

Out of HP's compassionate love we are here. 

My own Priest would never even say such a thing to me...  as to "read" my soul or heart & tell me how I think or feel.  Well, that would be assuming to be God or something!