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Now, would you ever say that these words sound like they were written by a severely child-abusing mother?
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December 7, 1959 Monday
*Notes: Our Family Is Never Bored!
The children spend many happy contented hours now working on various Xmas projects. Cindy has made individual baskets for each member of her beloved family made out of egg carton sections, each wrapped in aluminum foil with a pipe cleaner handle and a marshmallow (how hard they’ll be by Xmas) and a lollypop in each one. They’re secretly hidden and each day Sharon teases to see hers – it’s a constant thing to talk about, to whisper about and to be excited about for Xmas is coming.
Our Xmas books – we buy two each year — has grown to quite a collection. These are taken out during the first week of December and read each day until Xmas. This year John and Linda can very expressively read them aloud! It thrills me to see the younger two – eyes wide with wonder – listening in rapt attention to their older brother or sister read the magic words to them.
Yes, Xmas is coming.
No mention is made of money – we all know – it just isn’t there. We will do what we can but the days of borrowing money for Xmas presents that we can’t afford are over!! There will be Xmas presents though.
I’ve bought at half price knitting sets – with yarn and tiny needles for two girls and a needlepoint set for one – I hope John will get his skis and Grandma will buy his boots. The girls will get a flying saucer from Santa to share and a tea set. The 5¢ and 10¢ store and ingenuity and imagination and love will make a Xmas – you just wait and see….
What is important!!
More and more every day I realize what’s really important in life!
Being together – being a family unit and being loved and loving – these are the important things.
Health – to be healthy and well and to know that the ones you love are well.
(I hope my loved ones never suffer – how terrible it would be to see them hurt or sick – how terrible to ever think they might need me – and I wouldn’t know).
How thankful I am to be here writing this and know our family is safe and together on this night –
Dearest God in heaven above, I thank you for our family and our homestead and for the opportunities we have here to create a home for our loved ones in a land such as this.
I am content tonight – tomorrow we will plan and work for our future but I intend to fully enjoy each day as it comes – to work hard but to be content to wait – material things are really of such minor importance. I feel we already have what really counts and must never lose it in hurrying and working too hard to get THINGS.
I see so many people – even up here in Alaska – doing just that, living in far too expensive houses – beyond what they can really afford to pay and working so hard to live there and meet the payments that the house as beautiful as it may be, holds no happiness for the occupants and they live separately in it.
No, no – never – we’ve had our share of money worries – no, no, no.
I’ll be content with less – Bill and I are so close now – never, never to be apart mentally and spiritually – nothing is worth that!
Our little hut and trailer mean more to me if we can be all together and happy and close here!!
The other – I pray God – we’ll be content to wait for. If we can manage fine – if not, so what!?!?
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December 8, 1959 Tuesday 10:30 P.M.
*Notes: How quiet and serene and peaceful it is. Everyone is asleep. Even our two kittens, Dixie and Pixie are curled up in Cindy’s bed. I don’t approve but haven’t the heart to move them. One is tucked under her arm with covers pulled up under it’s chin, all the world lie a toy. The second is on the foot of her bed.
The dishes are done and the trailer is tidy and neat.
Everything looks cozy and cute and serene in the light of the single kerosene lamp I am writing by.
Bill went to bed – absolutely exhausted after a 24 hour ordeal of futile attempts to return here which finally terminated in his having to walk the last mile. Even poor ‘Oliver’ our faithful tractor found this 10° to 20° below zero weather too cold!
I just went outside for a moment and it’s really cold and really beautiful. The stars are so close looking you feel as if you could pick them out of the sky and the moon is so bright that you can see all the Mountains and the valley below.
How I truly love this place – no words can aptly describe how I feel about this land we hope someday to own. It’s really an almost HOLY feeling. I know it sounds silly but it’s the way I feel. If only you could see it – you would see what a Shangri-la it is! – and what’s more we have created a home – be it ever so humble here! It’s quite a grand feeling!!
Time for bed. Good night!
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IN MEMORY OF MY BORDERLINE MOTHER:
From Kristalyn Salters-Pedneault, PhD, your Guide to Borderline Personality Disorder You may not be familiar with the term “splitting,” but it is a phenomenon that many people with BPD, and their family members, will recognize. This week, learn how to cope with splitting when it happens.
[Linda note: IMPORTANT – THIS IS WHAT MY MOTHER DID – What you just read above was from the ALL GOOD side of the split!]
| What is Splitting? Splitting is very common in people with borderline personality disorder (BPD), and it leads people with BPD to view others and themselves in “all or nothing” terms. |
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| How to Handle Splitting What should you do when a loved one is engaged in splitting? There isn’t always an easy answer — the best way to manage the situation will depend the nature of your relationship with your loved one, the intensity of the splitting, and the impact it is having on the family. |
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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Divorcing a BPD Spouse |
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| Family Therapy for BPD Can healing from BPD be a family affair? Must Reads
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Stop the Storm 
Well, you could always warn in the intro that this could happen…but people who read this book are doing so because they want help or maybe even help in ways they don;t even know. Triggering sometimes can open the door to move forward if we choose to face our pain. And I really think that if people werent interested in facing their pain…they wouldn’t be purchasing the book.
xoxoxo
I guess I could ask her…but sometimes I feel like I dont want to know because I dont want to feel.
Yes, we have a body-memory and a body-wisdom about how to proceed. I worry about the ‘triggering’ this book might/could cause people…..
no,not really. I do know that when she does admit to the terrible abuse of my brother..I know it was when he was the age I was born. I know more about his.I know she had “wanted a girl”When i think about that time…I think of sadness,pain.I almost feel like I hear hear the abuse but I don;t know if those screams are my imagination of what I think happened or not.
I haven;t seen the movie.
I was afraid to look so intensly at her because she was so frightening. Sometimes…when I have heard myself share some very personal times that caused me great pain…I explain how my mother would become enraged and I felt completely out of control and could do anything. Her screaming used to shake my insides to the core. But when I explain how frightening she was I can tell from my insides that “they” have no idea what I am describing when I say she was out of control and scary. They probably picture a mother yelling in a really angry tone. I know that they will NEVER understand because they did not experience it..therefore I always feel somehow like they just don;t grasp the intensity of what she was like and what impact that had on me.
And for those of us who did not experience this a select few times but on a daily basis …think about what that does to a person’s soul? i know when I have tried to explain it to my husband…he just doesn;t really get it. I always wished he could but I am starting to believe that experiencing that kind of intense fear …from a mother, can;t be understood.. only experienced. Maybe because for those who haven;t experienced it..its beyond their comprehension..since the the word MOTHER and TERROR just don;t fit together.
In our case,it does.
In this blog, I have finally found a place where someone understands my experience…and not just intellectually like a therapist or a friend but as a survivor. I am so grateful for that.
Do you know ANYTHING about the circumstances of your birth itself?
Watching this movie ‘Frances’ (1982 – story of the life of actress Frances Farmer) was the first time I encountered anything on the ‘outside’ that resonated with my insides. My reaction to the movie was intense – and I could not explain it to myself or to my husband.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083967/
you are right…from the words she has written she seems so kind, and you would never think that she is the same woman who abused her daughter. I know she said that you were “possessed by the devil” or something related but it is such a severe twist…that it makes you wonder if she was??
To write about wanting safety for her family and to be available if they need her and yet act like a monster to her daughter. Splitting? Her mental illness is much deeper it seems.
You have said that your mother is incapable of recognizing when she has done wrong to others(particularly you). We know that in BPD denial is their middle name. But denial because it seems they really can’t perform an introspection of themselves because I think they really do not have a self to introspect!
yet…from the readings…she could have fooled me! and like u said..she was a good actress especially in front of others.
I have never heard of a piece of work like my mother was!
I have heard that BPD lacks the ability to use self-reflection – but I am with you, I don’t think she had a self.
It has been very confirming to me to have found two women who knew my mother in Alaska who each speak of her without ‘being fooled’. Oh, she was……. well, can’t say here ’cause of the book writing!!!!!!!!!
Perhaps you have read some of my mother’s writings at different places on the blog, but this is where they all are – all of them:
http://hopeforamountain.wordpress.com/
The second half of the last section – four – (read past the last 1965-66 entry) contain her diaries, childhood stories, etc.
http://hopeforamountain.wordpress.com/hope-for-a-mountain-mildred%E2%80%99s-alaskan-homesteading-tale-%E2%80%93-volume-four%E2%80%93-title-to-the-homestead-and-beyond/
Also, I believe the interviews we did with JV are here….
There was a time I certainly considered ‘possession’ for her — did your mother get that LOOK on her face – switch – MONSTER?