I M Perfect lady

Acceptance of my abuse.

My name written in that familiar scrawl immediately strikes a cord in me…without even reading the contents, I feel put upon…a small card from my mother.  What does she want…rings out from each cell in my body.  And secondly, why can't she just leave me alone.  This in the middle of a very busy holiday mail day!

Dearest Beth,

I remember all the birthday parties and what a help you were to me in your growing up years. May you have peace and acceptance in abundance and love in your heart for family in these middle years. (a big heart sticker) Love always, Mom

What I love the most is that she is giving me coaching lessons about love!

Really?

My mother who was married to a pedophile until he died, has the audacity to school me on peace and acceptance. She is going to teach me a thing or two about love and family.

Yikes.

I wonder, if she has ever once considered she may be wrong? 

Or that it is possible that I have found peace and acceptance about being abused.

That I now have love in my heart for family.

Love that wasn't learned at her side.

What she wants for me, I believe, is what she wants for herself.

She can't know what is in my heart.

In my heart are the children she deeply affected by her marriage with a pedophile.

In my heart of hearts, I know the cost and damage it has inflicted.

In my heart is the love I have for their journey.

In my heart is the pain of knowing how it is to be where I once was.

I have peace doing the opposite of what she did.

I have acceptance of her, of her husband, of my growing up years…of me being innocent, loving and doing so much for her family…and of my abuse.

I have made peace in my heart that there is no family; but dysfunctional people damaging each other.

By their lack of knowing better.

Somehow she fails to consider that even IF I were to slip back into the family's good graces, the abuse would not end like magic…nor would a loving family emerge.

I am not the one who is the impetus for love in her family.

Nor the one to bring peace and joy. 

I tried that. 

I was the one who worked like hell to balance out the abuse, it did not work.

Her children are showing signs and the affects of what I failed to do.

I could not right the abuse no matter how hard I tried.  No matter my acceptance or peace nor the love I had in my heart. In the end, abuse trumped it all.

What is so odd, is that I am one of the few who are actually living in peace and acceptance of what is.  And, in my heart lives love.  I found it away from her…

And, she is going to tell me about peace and acceptance…but what she wants is for me to accept family no matter what they do, how they act, or say or feel…it isn't about accepting the abusive behaviors, but accepting family even if there is abuse.

She writes like she has the Norman Rockwell family…and I am snubbing my nose…and not loving love.

It confounds me that she is coaching me on love and family…and her refusal to believe, that just maybe she got it all wrong.

I wonder if she will ever have peace and acceptance in abundance about me in her last years.

Acceptance of my abuse.

(And, the acceptance and peace that abuse doesn't make a family)

 

 

 

 

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Published by

bjukuri

Responses

  1. Jennifer Avatar
    Jennifer

    Beth, is there anything she could say that your heart could accept? Has she ever tried to say, “I am sorry that I was not able to protect you?” Or “I’m sorry that I didn’t know what to do?” or “I thought divorce was so great a sin I had to be married at all costs?” or even “I was in denial of how serious the problem was” or even as “I can understand why you might never forgive me but I’m sorry anyway?”
    If she said any of those things, would it make a difference?

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  2. beth Jukuri Avatar
    beth Jukuri

    Jennifer, I am not good at hypotheticals…but I feel that she is standing with her definition of love and trying to teach me to love like she loves.
    Her love and acceptance of my father, is a huge part of the problem. She doesn’t seem to see her own hand in the damage.
    The chasm between the two of us, is her rightness and her lack of accepting how abused we were. She wants me to lovingly accept family that abuses, period. I have no right to set up boundaries. She can’t see that as loving.
    And, I can’t see it as loving to have no boundaries.
    Some will say she is more loving…and accepting of all. But, I question her standards and values when, again, her history shows the cost of her ‘loving’.

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  3. Jennifer Avatar
    Jennifer

    Hi again Beth,
    She can’t afford to see her hand in the damage. She cannot afford to see her part in causing it. And she is not unlike many or most people of her religion. On the inside, they are “right” and everyone on the outside is “wrong” regardless of the situation. I asked the hypothetical question because its a question I have asked myself many times – what would I need to hear? Even though I’ll never hear it. Instead of an apology, what you hear is how you need to “forgive.” My answer is, yes, forgiveness I have done or am striving for and I want to forgive. But I have no assurances I’ll never be flung under the bus again. None.

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  4. beth Jukuri Avatar
    beth Jukuri

    Jennifer, I am not interested in words from her…for I have had plenty and they don’t ring true to form. I actually have no expectations of her. Or, I guess I do. I keep expecting her to act different than she does. Each time it is an affirmation of just how off the mark she is.
    I have accepted her lack of mothering due to her own lack of healing and dealing with her abuse…but that doesn’t mean I want to spend more time with her.
    Forgiveness is accepting that the past could be no different, is a definition I agree with.
    I accept and in doing so release the angst of wishing it had been different.
    What I have the option of doing is returning her notes back, with my handwriting, “Return to Sender”. Not sure why I haven’t done that. For there must be a part of me that waits for her to say the right words.
    I will not help myself get back under the bus. I believe my healing depends upon keeping my distance.
    We all have to work out what is best for each of us.

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