I M Perfect lady

Yesterday a woman who had great influence in my life turned 90.  I did not celebrate.

This woman began programming me as a young child.

Both in religious ways and codependent dysfunctional ways.

She created the daughter she needed and I dutifully followed her lead.

 

As a child I looked up to her and I believed she was a woman of substance and had high morals and good values. I believed she stood against things that were wrong.

 

I grew up to imitate her.

 

Looking back on it now – I was her – in that my life was dictated by a strict religion and my body was owned by the church. My mind was controlled by its programming and my spirit or soul lived silently in the shadows.

 

Nineteen years ago I woke up to a reality that was nothing like our minds believed.

She wasn't of woman of substance of high morals and values and neither was I.

 

Reality was her husband was a pedophile and had abused me and many others. She knew and forgave him of his sins.

My reality held a father who abused me.

My reality was my mother lacked morals and values – she didn't stand up for the child.

 

Somehow reality leaked into my mind – while hers remained untouched.

 

This break in my mind caused us to be on opposite sides. I never found a spot where we could stand and see somewhat eye to eye.  Her mental mind and my open one had nothing in common.

 

Her remaining in the program or mental mind a few steps removed from reality – allowed me to see who I had been  - how it is to be in denial.

I had someone to look at to see how mental my mind was.

Once I knew my mind couldn't be trusted, I began challenging it on every level.

And reality became my new religion. I trusted what was.

 

There was a space between my mental mind and me.

That space grew each time I challenged the mind and found it lacking truth and matching reality.

 

Unless you have been brainwashed and then regained your faculties, you will not understand.

 

The contrasts between living a life as a member of strict religious cult and being free- is quite vast. There are no common denominators. No space where we could share overlapping realities.

 

She had a husband.

I had a pedophile.

 

She had a religion with morals and values.

I had a religion who blessed pedophiles of their sins.

 

She lived as a programmed mind.

I was working to free myself from mine.

 

I began making new choices and trying to rectify the past. More, doing today what I wasn't able to do as a child. Standing up and against abuse.

Regardless who I had to stand up against. 

And making choices with different consequences.

Losing much of what I had – in order to give my children a chance at a different legacy.

 

Nineteen years ago was our last conversation in person. The last time I was in a face to face conversation. 

 

I didn't see a woman there that inspired me.

There was no heart connection.

No warm feelings.

 

Even worse than empty.

She was a mental mind with a body.

 

Blind to reality.

Blind to me.

 

She can only see me when I am compliant with the program.

I know the strength of her mind and I fear its ruthlessness.

 

So what do I do on her birthday. 

A day others celebrate.

Mostly it reminds me of her – and all I lost.

These old family milestones – bring into my reality – the longings for family.

 

Being estranged complicates grief and even the normal family joys.

I am part of – yet apart from.

 

I have a history that is mostly lies.

My fondest memories are tarnished.

I long for the family my mental mind created.

Yet knowing it doesn't exist.

 

She's 90 now.

I didn't celebrate or acknowledge this day to her.

I wasn't even going to here on the blog.

Yet these thoughts and feelings bother me, until I write them out.

 

I am thinking this 90 milestone and the almost 20 years of estrangement has diminished my volume of hope.  

In my early years of being estranged and setting boundaries – a part of me believed that there was hope, that if I could leave the programmed mind, so too could others. 

 

The hope is barely a flicker now – just a spark that ignites for a bit.

 

While many take for granted the family that stands behind them – the familiar shared experiences and memories that create family.  I am very much aware of its absence.

 

This.

 

This is why so many others don't walk way from abusive families. The loneliness and heartache you feel – even if the families you love were all in your mind. They were family.

 

It does feel like a phantom arm – a part of me – that isn't there.

 

My healing and focus began with being authentic and truthful with myself and reality. I began from where I woke up.  Intensely looking at my life, my choices, what my voice was used for, who I stood with and why, or who I stood against and why, what were my morals and values, where they truthful, what is love, what is not love, what brings me joy, what do I feel, what do I not feel – an endless searching for answers.  Answers that became the new me.

The task seemed endless and overwhelming.

To take a mental mind and use it to challenge itself and make choices outside of the program.

 

And in doing so, you go against family.

 

She is 90 and I am 64 – her child.

The child who has nothing to do with her.

 

Not even on her 90th birthday.

 

Some will see me as the bad person here.

Some will celebrate her.

 

I stood by the truth of our estrangement and honored it by doing nothing.

Again.

 

 

This is our relationship now – Estranged – no connection between mother and child.

 

The feelings of being lovingly cared for by a parent feels alien.  

A feeling I have never felt.

 

You cannot celebrate what you don't know.