Loss, even if we impose the loss for protection, hurts

This month the topic at church is 'Loss'. That's almost an overwhelming subject from the get-go. Of course the first thing that comes to mind is loss through the death of a loved one. There are many kinds of loss though.

The first to occur to myself was the loss of my Mother. You could say that it is a self-imposed loss so less relevant but I would disagree.

 Deciding to cut off my relationship with my Mother to protect myself after years of physical, mental, and emotional abuse is one of the most difficult things I've ever done. I mourn the loss of that relationship much like someone would mourn the death of a loved one. She is alive but our relationship has ended. With the realization of how truly awful my upbringing was and with the subsequent healing journey I've been going through I have also mourned my childhood. I have mourned the childhood I did not have. I have mourned the ways that I had to change because of her. I have mourned the stunted emotional development. I have mourned what could have been and tried to find a path of what is now. I have felt denial. I have denied that it THAT bad. I have tried to see the good and make it so large that the bad didn't exist. I (This one is a bit funny.) have even tried to deny I was her child. I remember in my childhood and even as a teenager thinking that I was going to suddenly be sat down for a solemn talk and told that I was adopted from a lovely family. It was a fantasy of mine. I am angry. I am still angry often. I don't know if I'm even past this stage. I'm past my initial anger I guess. I don't know who I'd bargain with. I may have tried to strike a bargain with myself in the past that something I did would make this relationship ok. If I just ignored this much or avoided the phone this much or just came to her house for this long that everything would be fine and she'd be normal and it would all be ok. I'm absolutely certain I have depressive episodes. I don't know that I'm never not depressed by the whole situation. I do not believe whatever stages may be lingering that I have yet met acceptance. It seems to accept this means to forgive or deny or somehow undermine what has been the most life changing relationship of my life. I cannot deny the damage and I cannot accept her or it. I'm pretty certain I need therapy.

I just wanted to address loss and the many ways and things we can feel a feeling of loss about. I mourn a relationship that I chose to end. I mourn a loss of a childhood that I never really had.

A Mother's Love

My MIL came to visit and when she did she told me she saw my Mother in Walmart. My body betrayed me in that moment and I felt a little thrill that I was going to get news. What I knew in that moment is no matter how much I can assure myself that the best thing is not having contact with her, that I will continue to miss and mourn her, and that I will be sad. 

She told me that my Mom told her I was in a cult. This isn't the first time I heard this since she also told my cousin this at my Grandma's birthday party that I purposefully missed because of her. A fucking cult. I kid you not. I really don't know what part of my life she feels is cultish. I feel like she may think being an intactivist was joining a cult which is hilarious but I really think she's scared by the changes she saw in me after that. I've been on a life changing journey of acceptance of myself and others, of love of myself and others...Yes, I have changed. I stopped hitting my kids. I've mostly stopped yelling. I decided I was an atheist. I started attending a Unitarian Universalist Church. 

I feel like I'm closer to being the person I was always meant to be. I feel like this awakening would have happened sooner if she hadn't been such a destructive force in my life. 

What happened was that I woke up and realized that she was abusive and that remaining in a relationship with her was toxic. I learned to love myself and to take care of myself and to decide that is not what is best for me and my children. 

What I find really funny is that started spreading these rumors about me and trying to take my sister's kids only after my sister confronted her about our abusive childhoods and why she would kick our brother out of the house. When confronted and asked to account for herself she turned to slander against me and Erica. She's an evil person..

and she's my Mother. It's so very complicated. 

I cried. Great big crushing tears, body shaking, ugly crying on Foy's shoulder. I didn't mean to. I went to tell him and his Mom had already told him. I just started crying. The truth is I wish I could cry more. Some part of me wants to fall into a giant hole of depression but I won't because I have these kids and I have UU and I have purpose.

 I am loved by someone. I am worthy of respect. I am deserving of all the good things. 

When the one person who is suppose to love you doesn't then telling yourself these things is so important. 

Nobody rules this body but ME.

I often write things in private groups but I don't share them with my general Facebook page and I feel sometimes I do my friends a disservice. Sometimes they think they know me but they are only a party to what I have chosen to show them. I try to pick what the material is I want to talk about so where it's an appropriate place to post it. If it's a private rant about my husband then in a off topic baby wearing group of local women or in a private group of close friends. If it's a parenting question then often in a whole life unschooling group since I know they parent similar to me. If it's about religion I often pick an atheist group. Sometimes I have things to say that I think no one wants to hear me ramble and that often arrives here.

Some thoughts I had recently.

I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian religion with lots of rules about women's bodies. Rules about what we could put on our bodies (no makeup, no cutting your hair, no jeans or shorts, no jewelry, etc) and rules about what we could do with our bodies (told where to sit in church, sex shamed and taught abstinence or hell). 

I went from that to what I thought were some unwritten societal rules about women. It's gross to have armpit hair, women don't have shaved heads, and fat girls can't love their bodies among them.

One day I realized I had just traded one set of rules for another and baby wasn't going back in a corner.

Nobody rules this body but ME.

So I had half my head shaved yesterday and I grow armpit hair. That's one finger on each hand in the air for YOU society and a religion that restricts instead of grows.

The conversation that brought about these words was when I was getting my head shaved. The hairdresser asked if I felt lighter. I told her nothing could compare figuratively or literally to the moment when I shed the rules of my religion and cut my hair for the first time at 18. That was a taste of freedom. 

Sometimes I cringe that I feel like I'm still defining myself. I'm still learning myself. I feel like I'm doing things a teen should do, stretching her wings and defining her style, but here I am a woman of 35 still stretching her wings and defining her style. 

Other times I feel like no matter what kind of childhood I had I would still be the woman I am because I get bored easily. I hate the mundane and the unimaginative. 

I read this article on children of narcissist and I can't decide if wanting attention is a horrible thing or a valid thing. I have the same problem that they talk about. I cut my hair into an extreme style or dye it a vibrant color and then shy away when someone makes a big deal about it. It has to be frustrating for others. 

I just want to know the choices I am making for myself ARE ruled by me and not ruled by my past. I don't want all of them to be because I am still trying to overcome or I'm still trying to prove SOMETHING to somebody. 

I wasn't sure how Foy was going to feel. It was rather funny actually. I showed up at the house after deciding to drive all night home when I had planned to stay at my sister's in Houston. I showed up when I turned to the shaved side he was half asleep and was like 'OMG, what happened to your hair?!?" HAHA. I started to say I was set upon by a gang of ruffians ...but it's ok, they just wanted half my hair. WTF did he think had happened? ha. 

He was kind of in a crabby mood all that day and I asked him if it was about my hair. He said maybe and I told him to get over it. I don't tell him what tats to get (He got at least two of them while I was out of town.) and those are permanent. His body, his decision. My body, my decision. 


All of the heavy accessing of my reasons behind it, I like it and I got many compliments when grocery shopping the next day. One woman just stopped and looked at me and said, 'You are beautiful.". It was amazing. I've never had a stranger have that effect before. I like to think it's my happiness or my smile or just my giant FUCK YOU to convention that they admire. 

I also got new shoes and a couple new outfits. Outfits that are terribly inappropriate for a fat girl if you ask some but I also say fuck you to that. Fuck any negativity. Fuck whether you approve of my body. Fuck your opinions. They don't belong on me.