++++

Although I cannot speak for my siblings, I will say that for all of us we spent our childhoods having to pretend we loved our mother.  I am sure that Mother’s Day was one of the holidays where that pretending took us full force as we tried to give to our mentally ill psychotic mother what SHE wanted us to give her — unconditional love, praise for her mothering of us and our adoration.  Of course we knew nothing different.

As the targeted all-bad child of our Borderline Personality Disordered psychotic mother it would have been the widest possible spread for me to express loving adoration to the woman who had hated me (as her projected all-bad self) and caused me great pain from the moment I was born.  I didn’t know I had to pretend I loved this woman.  I did my very best TO LOVE her.  How could it have been possible to LOVE this personification of evil intention and action?

People who as adults really DO love their mother had/have a mother than can be loved.  They are most fortunate.  I wonder if they know this?

There are mothers such as mine was who can only be truly loved by God, although I do suspect that our father really DID love her.  But that love was so distorted as to be impossible to recognize for what most people call love.  For my own sake I do not judge her, my father, or their relationship.  What I do is assess the facts of my experience with the woman from whose womb I sprung — into an insane world of her brutal madness.

Mother was my devouring predator.  Her version of love for me could be matched, I suppose, to that of a female Praying Mantis who snaps off the head of a succession of males who mate with her, devouring their heads to give herself necessary sustenance as she goes on doing what she was essentially created to do:  Make offspring.

I LIKE Praying Mantis!  They intrigue and fascinate me, beneficial garden insects that they are, beautiful in their elegant shapeliness and gracefulness.  There is nothing about my mother than I can think of that I like — and certainly absolutely NOTHING that I can find to love.  Yet Mother demanded love — and I complied as I in reality BEGGED for her to love me.

To me, it doesn’t matter.  This is the reality of my life with that particular mother.

I think of her today in relation to the book writing I intended to return to May 3rd.  I accomplished some of my own writing, but find I cannot return to reading any of her letters.  I would rather eat a live rattlesnake at this point that consider one single thought she expressed on paper.

That’s OK.  I am still plodding through the creation of the book cover art that needs to be done next, anyway.  There are many small steps in this process, and as I have mentioned all of the different gluing steps require time and patience.  I am making a small plaque that duplicates the title of this book – only this will hang on the bedroom wall of the image itself:

I, along with many others, live a life formed during traumatic abuse that we could not put into words.  I am making cover art for such a story.  This step isn’t finished yet – but soon will be.  It will be seen from a distance, so small details will fade into the cover of the book itself.  Well, time for some more gluing….

++++

Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

++++