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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scent of Cedar *" data-source="post: 659394" data-attributes="member: 17461">It's like when we were talking about our difficult child adult kids, SWOT.  And we all concluded that though the kids were so changed, we all took such great joy still in remembering this or that thing about them when they were little kids.  No one can take that away from us.It's the same thing with our moms and sisters, I think.  Whatever they thought they were doing, there were times when they seemed so sweet and funny and brilliant to me.  Those are the places that shine, for me.  I want those times.  I claim those times.  That I also know now that they are sick individuals is just a fact.  A fact that frees me from believing what they did was my fault.  So I feel happy to know they are like, heartless sphincters.  But I had some fine times with them that were mostly times I thought were leading to being relaxed with one another.  That never happened, of course.SWOT I AM SO PROUD FOR YOU ABOUT THE MUSICAL PERFORMANCE!!!I love it that you did that, and that your mom was so proud and happy.  It broke my heart to hear about the hockey incident.  About what your mom said in front of your brother.  She couldn't even let you have your own brother.Why do you suppose she did those things, SWOT?  If you take away why she said she did them ~ which we know was a lie because all abusive moms force their children to believe they deserve whatever it is the abusive mom needs to do.  She must have been very jealous of you, SWOT.  My D H would always say my mother and my sister too were jealous of me.  I just never could see that.  It could be that a twisted kind of jealousy would be a the heart of what your mom did.That was so awful, SWOT.It hurt me just to read it.I don't know what I would have been able to do to recover myself if my mother destroyed me with words I remembered and believed about myself.  I just have the looks and those same things about my thinking not being right.  It's like my mom would go eyeless with rage.  Like she would go to a place where she did not have words to call us.We were lucky in that.  Look what that stupid first therapist did with a label. I couldn't make heads nor tails of that, either.   Why would he say it if it weren't true?  He was a professional person.  I was a patient of a professional person.  So of course I had to take what he said seriously.  But I could not put the pieces together of what he could possibly mean.That is a little like what is happening with your mother's words too, SWOT.If she said it, it must be true.But here is the thing.  Manipulator (in my case) and stupid or selfish or thinking we are pretty or in love (like in your case) those things are all judgement calls.  If I were manipulating through compliments, I would know I did that.  If you were any of the things your mom labeled you, you would know that.  It would not feel unfair, like you weren't getting it.That is what the flavor of leftover abuse is, I think.That feeling that we don't know what they meant and we cannot, for the life of us, figure out what they were trying to tell us that was important enough for it to have been said in such sneering, contemptuous or triumphant (first therapist here) ways.There is nothing selfish in your posts, SWOT.  There is a generosity of spirit.  You are honest when that is what will help the poster and quietly supportive when that is what will help.I remember when it was so hard for me to believe my own mom could be  lying, because that would make her a liar.I kept tripping over that.Cedar</blockquote>

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