Discovery From My Past.

[BlueKota]

Trying to do some basement clean up. There is some of my old stuff that needs to be sorted through.

I ran across my 5th grade report card. I had gotten extremely lucky that year because my homeroom teacher was such a kind person and so was the other 5th grade teacher. The homeroom teacher wrote every semester about how hard I was trying and how much I was improving. She also kept emphasizing how I lacked confidence in my self and was always being way too hard on myself and that I needed more praise and encouragement.
Even the principal who rarely had a good thing she was willing to say about any of us, wrote that I was doing really good work and to keep trying.

Want to know what my Mom wrote? "We have seem some improvement and will try to encourage her to do better, but she still needs a lot more improvement, especially her messy handwriting." I don't know maybe I am still being oversensitive many many years later, but am I the only one who thinks my Mom missed the whole point of what the teacher was trying to get across to her, and in fact did the exact opposite?

The teacher even told her in person and wrote a veiled warning that the homeroom teacher I was getting in sixth grade was cruel and feared she would undo much of the confidence she and the other teacher were trying to instill in me, and that Mom should at least request I be placed with the other 6 grade kinder teacher. Miss L was right on the money. That's exactly what happened because my Mom ignored her warning.

My Mom eventually apologized years later for leaving me in that school and for all the times she made me bad about myself, and I told her I forgave her before she died, and a part of me did. Also a part of me loved her, knew that a part of her loved me, and that she had a really cruel father, which led to her having her own issues.

It still hurts though and yes a part of me is still angry that I was taught a pattern of blaming myself to the point I didn't think I even deserved to exsist, and that my own Mom played a part in that. Even after years of therapy I still haven't shaken the tendency to be over-crtical of myself. I even feel guilty because I still talk to others about my issues with Mom. I mean forgiveness means letting it go right?

[UpInArms]

1. Forgiveness and forgetting are two separate things

You can remember the good and the bad … you can forgive what you can and know you are and will be okay.

[BlueKota]

4. Thank you so much!

[synni]

2. My therapist talked to me about forgiveness

She said that forgiveness isn't really all it's cracked up to be. You can only heal from trauma if you allow yourself to put the blame where it lies: on the abuser. If you "forgive" the abuser (in the sense that people tell us to, as in "forgive and forget" ), you can't heal.

You can accept the apology, but you have to acknowledge that you were abused, and that the abuse shouldn't be forgotten, but dealt with. Meaning, view it as, "My mom said hurtful things to me that aren't true, because she was in pain. I didn't deserve to feel self-critical, because I did nothing wrong. Even she has acknowledged that she is the one who did me wrong. So I have to ignore the things she said, because they're not true, and even she knew it."

When you try to "forgive and forget," you're not processing the situation. And if you don't process it, you'll continue to internalize it.

There's a fantastic book that I often recommend (I'm an abuse survivor), called "Toxic Parents," by Susan Forward. It covers all types of abuse: emotional, verbal, financial, physical, and sexual.

One thing she wrote is important to remember:

You were NOT responsible for what was done to you as a defenseless child.

In other words, you did nothing wrong to deserve the abuse. "Messy handwriting" isn't a sin. Lacking confidence isn't a sin. You did nothing wrong. You tried your best.

Dr. Forward goes into great detail in her book, as to how we survivors can heal from the abuse. Find the book at the library, get it on interlibrary loan, or else you can find a used copy online.

Also, read up about verbal/emotional abuse online, especially the concept of "trauma bonding." That was a real eye-opener for me!

Best wishes, and remember...you are FINE, just as you are!

[BlueKota]

5. Thank you.

I will definitely look for the book. It makes sense that to heal I need to realize that it wasn't that something was wrong with me.

[Clouds Passing]

3. You didn't deserve that BluKota...

My mother was the same. When they make you feel like you don’t even deserve to exist something’s wrong and it’s not with you or me.

[BlueKota]

6. Thank you!

I am sorry your Mom was like that too.

[ShazzieB]

9. I agree with Clouds Passing.

You did not deserve that at all, BlueKota.

I don't think parents realize how deeply they can hurt us without moaning to. I've written about my mother elsewhere on this thread. There were things she said and did that had a lasting negative impact on me that I know she was completely unaware of. I never really tried to talk to her about those things, but I'm she would have been very upset to know just how much harm she did (albeit completely unwittingly).

I've often wondered myself what I may have said and done that affected my daughter in ways I wasn't aware of. I need to get up the courage to ask her one of these days.

[BlueKota]

13. I think the mother daughter relationships

are the most complicated ones in a family. My cousin said his wife is constantly criticizing their two daughters.

You sound like you are a loving Mom because you care about having a positive relationship with your daughter!

[Clouds Passing]

16. It takes years of trauma therapy to reach a point of feeling like we do deserve to be here

on this earth and that we are okay human beings.

[ShazzieB]

7. My mother blew hot and cold.

By that, I mean she could be affectionate and lavish with praise at times but harshly critical at other times. Parents don't realize just how deeply what they say can go - in both directions.

I always knew she loved me, but she made my life difficult in a number of ways she was not aware of. For example, she was extremely extroverted, made friends easily, and loved being around people, while I was an introvert with few friends who enjoyed solitary pursuits like reading. She could not understand my introversion and acted like it was some kind of personality defect.

High school was the worst, because I didn't date (not by choice - no one ever asked me out, and back then, girls did NOT ask boys out). I really don't think she intended to make me feel ashamed of my shyness and my social awkwardness, but she managed to do exactly that. I think she really believed being an introvert was a flaw in my personality that I could change if I just tried, and her attitude convinced me that there was something wrong with me.

It was decades before I learned that some people just are introverts, that it's the way some of us are wired and not something to be ashamed of. That didn't happen until after she died, and by that that time, the days of her trying to make me into an extravert were long gone. I'm sure she would be shocked to learn the impact her attitude toward my introversion had on me.

[FirstLight]

11. I feel you,

For the most part my parents were genuinely loving and interested in me as a person. And, they also wanted to change me from who I was to fitting the mold better. I don't think that generation had a clue regarding much of child psychology. They were just doing the best they knew, and there were generations of trauma in all of our families bleeding down into that. When you look at it all on a grander scale, you can see where many of us here now are really the pivot points for our entire family's trauma map. I'm glad that you got to have a better relationship with your mother later, my mom and I definitely had our ups and downs too but I loved them so much and I still cry. The other day I had something really great happen in my life and I wanted so badly to call my mom and talk to her and tell her I was so excited, but I know she knows anyway 😞🥰

[BlueKota]

14. It's hard when your family doesn't understand

who you are as an individual person. I have always been an absent minded professor type. I think the best example is I was reading before I even went to kindergarten but the last one to be able to tie my shoelaces right. Instructions about how to do things the require physical manipulation like cooking or driving a car takes me more time than the average person to comprehend. It was always labeled by some others as laziness or incompetence. Where if I'd have been given a few minutes of peace, I'd have figured it out and done it.

[UniqueUserName]

8. I am sorry that you went through that.

I think you can love someone and never forgive them for an action. It's perfectly fine and normal to have mixed feelings about anyone.

You saying that your mom's father* was cruel reminds me of this video from Crazy-Ex Girlfriend, Nothing is Ever Anyone's Fault:

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*If it isn't too personal, is there a reason you said that your mom had a "cruel father", rather than referencing him more directly? Like, "My grandfather was really cruel to my mom. . ."

[BlueKota]

12. Mostly I said it that way

because my maternal grandfather died of cancer before I was born. My Mom recounted an incident from her childhood that made me glad I never met him, and sad and angry at him for her.

He was a farmer who moved to the USA from Italy. He and my grandmother had 8 children. 3 girls 5 boys. One day when my mother was about ten apparently he was up on a ladder fixing a roof on their tool shed. He dropped his hammer. He saw my Mom walking by. He asked her to pick it up and bring it to him. She said she couldn't because Grandma had asked her to go get the cows into the barn and she was already running late.

Apparently he came down off the ladder, picked up the hammer, and smacked her in the back of the head with it. One of my uncles saw what happened and went and got Grandma. My uncle said grandpa just climbed up the ladder and just left my mother lying on the ground. Grandma apparently screamed, "you kill her," and told my Uncle to go call the doctor. Obviously Mom survived, but why would anyone do that to any child?

I also heard if anyone of the 8 were home even 10 minutes late from attending school events, he'd lock them out of the house and make them sleep in the barn. My poor Aunt had to knock on the window when she saw my grandma near it. Grandma opened it and my aunt climbed in, in her prom dress. They didn't dare use the door for fear he'd find out. Also after one of my Uncle had an accident and died, one of my other Uncle's went to see his daughter a few weeks after the funeral and said, "I don't know if your Dad was ever mean to you, but if he was forgive him, because our father was mean as hell, and he was the only example of a Dad we had.

I chose not to get married or have children because I read how whether genetic or environmental abusive behavior can be passed down through the generations. There was no way I was going to take the chance that I could pass it on in any way shape or form.

In my Mom's defense she never even spanked me, she was just constantly telling me I didn't know how to do anything right.

[UniqueUserName]

15. BlueKota, you write so well.

I spent my morning walk ruminating on your posts.

Nothing I can say would be helpful. All I would be doing is re-hashing what you've said. It's funny how cleaning a basement can send us down these memory lanes ---for better or worse.

What I'm most struck with is this: How can some of us go through horrible things and come out good, caring, eloquent, empathetic people like you, and others become bitter and withered? How come carbon sometimes goes into the fire and comes out diamond and sometimes comes out coal? ------well, not really a good analogy ----we know how to turn carbon into synthetic diamonds ----but ---I hope you know what I mean.

[Clouds Passing]

17. We are born this way.

[BlueKota]

20. That, and each individual has different experiences and influences

outside their family structure. I credit some of the teachers who were there to offer the kindness and support I didn't always receive from others. Especially the English department at my high-school. They became a cross between cheerleaders and protective mama bears who let me know they'd always have my back.

[Clouds Passing]

21. I had to learn how to have my own back, no one else would.

[BlueKota]

18. Thank you.

I do understand what you mean. I have wondered that myself. Like how some who are raised by overly critical parents become introverts who struggle with self doubt, while others tell themselves their criticism was totally unfair, and become narcissists who convince themselves they're perfect and it's everyone else who is inferior?

[FirstLight]

10. So much of our parents is a product of their generation

And while the Gen Z kids can scream about people changing and not holding beliefs later in life, our parents generation were not really taught to look within and change their views.
I'm actually really glad that I've done this trauma work this winter after my parents had both passed. I had a wonderful relationship with them toward the end and they are definitely spiritual advisors now. But I'm able to separate what happened back then in a different way and therefore go back and heal it better. It sucks how much that trauma sticks with us not just from our parents but our teachers as well. I still have nightmares about my second grade teacher! Lol she never should have been working with children let's just put it that way...

[BlueKota]

19. There are definitely teachers who should have

never been certified. My kindergarten and 6th grade teachers could have given the Wicked Witch of the West and the Evil Queen ( if they had been real) a run for their money. I wouldn't have trusted them with my pets let alone children.

[OldBaldy1701E]

22. When I read 'The Taming Of The Shrew' in the fifth grade, I thought it was written about my mother. (n/t)

[BlueKota]

23. It's difficult when Mom's are like that.