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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Copabanana" data-source="post: 659175" data-attributes="member: 18958">Why do I fear I will never be whole again? What does whole mean to me? Do I fear it?  Is that why I resist it?Still I do not know if the bed for me is a respite or a punishment, or both.So I just looked up the meaning in the dictionary of bed, whole and life, as whole life in bed. These 3 words seem to capture the essence of  things.Whole means all of, entire. And synonyms in this sense are uncut and complete. (Echoes of the castration complex here...I fear.) In another sense it means unbroken, in an undamaged state.We are getting personal here.  So it looks like we are getting somewhere.And going on, definition wise, whole is a thing that is complete in itself as in, all of something, "the effects will last for the whole of its life" they tell us.This, I know already.Whole can give too the sense of novelty, too, of something. Or distinctness, and they show us how, "as the man who's given a whole new meaning to the term "cowboy."Life is the capacity for growth, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.And a bed is not just a piece of furniture for sleep or rest.  It can be a cradle or a crib. Or an incubator maybe?  I spent my first 3 months in one of those, when babies born as tiny as I was did not live. But a bed can be to an area of ground, typically in a garden, where flowers and plants are nurtured and grown. A place of generation and regeneration, I hope. And to bed down can be to sleep or rest for the night, typically improvised. "He bedded down on newspapers" they tell me.They do not mention homeless shelter here. Or on concrete in a tunnel near my house. Or where ever he may be now.I always knew that my son had limitations. Our life together was defined by first one and then another. There was never a time there was not one thing or another.What changed is he could no longer love me the same. Duh. He grew up.My love for him no longer worked to make him happy. That was the change. And when my love did not make him happy, just like SWOT writes about with her own mother, on some level I must have felt accused of being a bad mother, a bad and ineffective person. Because when I met my son, I woke up. I came alive.But still I had my profession. And all of the defenses I had built in a lifetime to convince myself I was not that defenseless little girl.And then it got worse with my son.Because he seemed to be turning a little bit into my father (actually I had first in error written my mother--what does that mean that I could not bear what felt to be rejection and accusation as bad, because he could not love me as he once had), and I could not bear him going down and being unable to save him, like my father. And then it felt just like my life was going down the toilet. That I was being flushed. And that nothing mattered. Nothing at all, if I could not save my son. But I am getting ahead of myself, here.Yes, Swot. I do agree with you about my son. I believe it was a miracle that he thrived with me. And I believe that when he did I felt whole as if I had been redeemed. I had redeemed all that had been broken. And because it worked, I worked, I mean functioned as a mother, I became whole as long as it worked. It was like a magic spell.But then it didn't work any more. My son grew up and could no longer depend upon a mother to function. And it would not have been correct to forever bask in my love or for me to allow it.And for a while, I was still okay. I had my work. I had an identity that I had constructed as a functioning achieving person. And then later, I had M.But then what had changed was that I left that functioning identity that I had built. To take care of my mother, to help her live and then to help her die.And then I no longer seemed to work anymore. At first it seemed like what was supposed to be happening when a mother died. And then I realized that it was as if goblins and spirits and ghosts and ghouls were all climbing out of where they hide and that the person I had been no longer existed. I was being eaten alive and I could not stop it.Until that became my life. My real life. In bed. Being eaten alive by ghouls.  And I kept getting up to try to return to my real life. And I would function for a few weeks or even a few months. Only to fall back. Again to bed.So what would mean for me?  I keep getting up and think I am through this. And I am for awhile. And then I go back to bed. And it first, I am going to bed for a rest. Just to read a book. Or get on the computer. And then, again it has become my life.  I begin defining myself again by being in bed.Now, I have always liked laying down. On the sofa. In bed. Coming home. Lying down. Reading the paper. Watching TV. Reading a book. I like being reclined.  It was never a big deal. I could always get up. I always did things. I had goals. I reached them. I had responsibilities. I met them. Now I don't. Or if I do, it is only barely.Yes, I believe this is the case. Or a version of it. As long as I keep checking the value of her house, I keep myself captive to her system of value. A system of value which I have explicitly rejected my whole life.She always had more than me of everything that did not matter. She knows that and so do I. Much of what she has she has stolen.She is false. Except for her pain and her lack. And her anger and cruelty.  And those she either blames me for or uses against me.During the years before my mother's death--many, many years, I cared little.Zillow is the last link to the past except for my mother's cremated remains which are in the closet.My Mother had expressly requested in her will that her cremated remains be put in the garbage.  Imagine that. But that was my Mother. Really, essentially her.  So for the longest time she was in a beautiful antique bronze urn on our chest of drawers until my son came and we hid her in the closet.People suggest that I go back to work. That this, will change me. And I believe them. But I don't want to. I don't want to drive where I am afraid. I don't want to be anxious. I don't want to be afraid at work. Because at my work people are mean. And I don't want people to be mean to me anymore.So what would mean for me?  I keep getting up and think I am through this. And I am for awhile. And then I go back to bed. And it first, I am going to bed for a rest. Just to read a book. Or get on the computer. And then, again it has become my life.  I begin defining myself again by being in bed.Now, I have always liked laying down. On the sofa. In bed. Coming home. Lying down. Reading the paper. Watching TV. Reading a book. I like being reclined.It was never a big deal. I could always get up. I always did things. I had goals. I reached them. I had responsibilities. I met them. Now I don't. Or if I do, it is only barely.Yes, I believe this is the case. Or a version of it. As long as I keep checking the value of her house, I keep myself captive to her system of value. A system of value which I have explicitly rejected my whole life.She always had more than me of everything that did not matter. She knows that and so do I. Much of what she has she has stolen.She is false. Except for her pain and her lack. And her anger and cruelty.  And those she either blames me for or uses against me.During the years before my mother's death--many, many years, I cared little. This is the last link to the past except for my mother's cremated remains which are in the closet.She had expressly requested in her will that her cremated remains be put in the garbage.  Imagine that. But that was my Mother. Really, essentially her.I think I can see it as this:  I sought to make myself whole as a person through love of my son. And it worked as long as he mirrored back what I needed. And when he didn't it still worked as long as I had the supports of my identity that I had made in part to escape from my life as a child. And when I had to return to and re-enter that life I had run from to care for my mother, I left behind the supports on which I relied. And after my mother died, I was alone. I was that tiny child without a mother and without those other supports I had built to give me strength.And then my son more and more enacted parts of both of my parents. Rejecting and cruel.  And unwilling or unable to live conventionally had lived my father. And this I could not bear.It was not that I had been unable to tolerate my son emancipating. The deadly change occurred after my mother died.While my son was away from me, living a few hours away with family friends, or in residential treatment, I had still been OK. More or less OK. What changed was when he left a protected space and began wandering around. And the worst was when he came here.  And I had no defenses.What had been too much was when all of it came together. That is what I could not withstand. Where I had been with my mother, and what I had to do to go there. And then, her death. And still I think I would have been okay.But what I could not bear on top of everything was not the vulnerability of my son. But that I could not fix it. There was no where to go. Nothing to do. To fix it.And what that meant is that I could not fix myself. The broken pieces. The hurt. I was broken and vulnerable and I could not fix myself. Because my loving him no longer worked.  All of the love in the world did not work.And that was what broke m. I had been left by my mother and son, with the ugly truth of my love that all of the love in the world could not put Humpty Dumpty together again. All the kings horses and all the kings men couldn't put Humpty together again. The French King enters.Is it because I am not the broken one? Is it because I was always whole, but I could not fix them? And because I felt that I could not be whole if I didn't fix my parents.  Or my son?  Maybe.People suggest that I go back to work. That this, will change me. And I believe them. But I don't want to. I don't want to drive where I am afraid. I don't want to be anxious. I don't want to be afraid at work. Because at my work people are mean. And I don't want people to be mean to me anymore.I never belonged where I worked so long. I did so many things that I was never meant to do.So this is putting things in a new light.Maybe I can redefine everything. Maybe I can start all over again. Maybe I don't need to be Humpty Dumpty. I was never meant to be and don''t want to be. Maybe I can pick and choose.Maybe I can redefine the bed. Make a salon. Write a memoir laying down in bed.  Maybe I can allow myself a week a month in bed. Or 3 days a week. Just because I want to. Just completely turn everything upside down. Forget the judgment. And start over.What do you think?</blockquote>

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