In my Heart Out of my Life

This ought to be a kind of second nature, since much of relating with my family of origin was indeed a forced out - kept away kind of hit and miss acceptance, depending on the value/ devaluation process in which the NM was engaging at the time.

Even the great love I had for my dad and he for me was kept in this limbo like place all the years he was alive. It was only allowed to blossom when I'd arrive on the scene, blasting past intercepted mail, now bearing gifts for the NM.

The price of admission.

Then, Dad and I picked up where we'd left off from the the previous visit, after which the NM went to work to disassemble every single gesture, emotion, and understanding we'd built and enjoyed.

So now that I have gone no contact with my toxic family of origin, all but one sister, I find this learned practice a kind of interesting way to love a difficult person.  For me, if I love someone, I love them. I don't just throw love and people away. Love doesn't work like that for me. It's kind of an intangible thing over which I have no control - nor would I want.

So like probably most people, I have a few "loved ones" in this category, tucked safely in my heart.

Strange though, how in our lives, for our mother (NM) in dealing with her own children, she kept us all wedged against each other. She didn't stop there though, NM 'tried' to keep our father's love from us and ours from him in a myriad of ways.  All of the above was done with lies, manipulation, triangulation, and controlling every single setting and situation, communication, and visit with our Dad.

As we became adults with our own lives and families, NM. enlisted the same with us, to the degree she could manage.

This resulted in a constant chase for love on my part. I was under the impression from such a tender age that love was something to be acquired through being good enough, loving enough, kind enough, forgiving enough, pliable enough, and understanding. You could call this the perfect preparation for the people pleasing personality.

As a child, everybody loved me outside of my family of origin. My Aunts and Uncles, cousins, neighbors, school friends and their parents all loved me so easily, so it served me to a degree as a learned way of coping in an unloving family for how to garner acceptance in the world.

I knew that - I knew people liked me and accepted me, but there was this underlining sadness, this realization that in my own family to achieve such acceptance seemed impossible. Yet I chased that love and acceptance for fifty years.

In the end of my childhood, I married at 20, a man who didn't love me. I chased him and his love mercilessly. I even recall during the short three year marriage, once begging him to at least pretend to love me. Poor guy. Where there is no love, I mean, what did I expect?

Then, when I decided that this man just did not love me. Period. I radically accepted it and made the decision to strike out on my own and leave a life of non love for I didn't know what, but even being alone with a job and my own security would have been a welcome change.

When I look back at that last year with my first husband, when I came to such a conclusion and made the decision to leave, I see a very young person with very little self worth - but still - I was able to correctly put the puzzle together and move on. It is amazing since I had no one in my life with whom to lean on or even discuss the matter. I was isolated really in the world - but I did have myself.  So far in my life, NM hadn't yet managed to destroy me and my sensibilities, threadbare, though, they were .

I took this giant step forward and continued on this path, coming across who is now my second and last wonderful, loving husband Khaled.

It occurs to me now the strangeness in doing such a brave and right thing. It could be this show of confidence that set off  the NM's campaign right then and there to destroy me. I can see now that probably my dad was proud of me for this and surely he made the mistake of sharing his thoughts and feelings with the NM.

It was after marrying Khaled and having a home and starting a family that I was able to travel twice a month back home and try to build the relationships with the NM and my dad.

I always cherished the times I did get with Dad because our conversations were so rich and colorful - just fulfilling. He felt the very same way, and we shared a similar sense of humor which was not only enjoyable, but actually now that I look back on it, a comic relief as it were. Laughter releases hormones called Oxycontin in your brain which destroy the chemicals released by stress.

Humor in that family dynamic was essential because NM's very presence was stressful. Her every breath was a negative force - a constant looming threat. You never knew exactly why (but you knew you would later be told) you were feeling stressed, but you thought it could be the time you arrived, the subjects you are discussing (something you said), what or who you brought with you, what you didn't bring with you, where you are sitting, how you are sitting on NM's furniture, what you touched, did you take your shoes off, what you ate, what you said and how you said it. Oh, where you parked your car and what door you came in on arrival.  Yeah how about that one.  She's a piece of work.

The possibilities for the negativity were endless but they were always perceived about you. If not, she'd remind you. Often she'd blame the negativity on Dad (but it was about you anyway) and tell you, "Dad doesn't like this and Dad doesn't like that.. and You should know your dad doesn't like such and such."  Oh, and, "Your Dad said..."   When I left, now I know anyway, that she'd tell him the same about me.  I guess it only made the both of us sad and sick. We never did blame each other or love each other less as she'd hoped. But it sure was a mean way of life for decades.

We were fools not to pin her down on all of this until Dad's death. But we didn't. It's not uncommon where narcissistic mothers are concerned to avoid doing so.

People, children, adult children, and spouses just do not want to rock the boat.

Here I'd like to give myself the love, respect, and attention that I deserved all those years ago when I was all alone with an unloving husband. Those few years, in which once I called home for a meal because I was hungry and the NM refused. There was only enough she said, for her and Dad.  My dad would have rather cut off his right arm than refuse me -... had he only known.

I'd like to actually give myself credit for being the person I am and always have been - the kind of person who admits to mistakes and strikes out to do something about them.

To face adversity without support or weaponry, yet come out on top is kind of an amazing fete. It was brave and right to leave that first husband, and at the time I didn't know anything for sure except staying with him was to suffer.

I wanted love. Now I am loved. I didn't want to suffer and so now I do not suffer. I wanted to remove from my body and soul the pain of past abuses by the NM and I have done so. With this, all anxiety has vanished from my mind, body, and soul - and I am so grateful.

And I am still me. I am the me that my grandfather loved so much, that made her way through secondary school, that survived a failed first marriage, that was blessed with my husband and three wonderful children and extended family of choice, that graduated from university at 43, and the same me who has nearly fully recovered from all of the conditions resulting from decades of chasing the love of a non loving mother.

I always said that people don't change.  We may grow and evolve, but we are still us in the end.  Here's to being me. It's good to still be me and frankly, at this point, it's good to be alive and well.