They know not what they do.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this one, I suppose if I really thought of it, I could get pretty upset, but thanks to a new friend, I'm learning to look at this through a different filter. A young lady and her two children have moved in with my mom temporarily. I really know no details since my mother and I are not talking. However, I felt that similar bitter taste in my mouth when I heard. I felt that same pang of rejection- I am being replaced. I didn't meet her needs so she is looking to someone else. I have allowed myself the necessary grief of feeling the feelings: I'm not good enough for her love, I'm certainly not worth fighting to keep. I was too much and not enough all at the same time. I have to feel it and get it out otherwise it festers. Once I let that out, then I realize that is not true of me. Also, I'm the one who chose to separate from her because of her toxic behavior and her uncanny ability to bring me down faster than anything I've ever known.

My mother is not well. She doesn't think and process things normally. This doesn't make her less of a person, nor does it make her invaluable. This makes her a wounded person who is just trying to get her needs met. I am coming to a place slowly and hopefully for good, where I realize everything she ever did or said that negatively affected me wasn't even about me. It certainly wasn't for me, but had little to do with me at all. I've heard a phrase that says something like "how people treat you says more about who they are than who you are." So, for example, if someone belittles you, mocks you, rejects you- it shows more about their character than your value. But it's taken me a bit of work to realize that how my mother views me is inaccurate and based on faulty information.

This is what I have learned: a person with Borderline Personality Disorder (or anything along that spectrum) operates mainly out of shame and fear. Fear of rejection, and shame at perceived rejection. It is the "I hate you, don't leave me" complex. They manipulate out of a desperate need to feel in control, and often have no idea they are being manipulative.They cannot own their own negative actions and behaviors because that would mean that they are bad, and since they cannot handle that information, they rewrite history so that they are perceived in a much better light. This is where narcissism comes in too- grandiosity of thinking. Thinking that they are greater than they are so they don't have to face the reality of the things they have done that have caused pain. This is a very simplistic description, obviously, there is way more I could write about this but I'm trying to keep it simple.

I cannot trust my mother. I don't think that I ever will. What I want and what I have in front of me are two very different things. What I want is a mom who I can trust, who I can share my secrets with, who I can LAUGH with and cry with. Short of a miracle, this is not going to happen and I have to let that rest on the alter. What I have is a mother who does not know what she has done. She does not value me as a person, because someone who values another person cares about their feelings, cares about earning back their trust, and has a respect of other people's boundaries even if they don't like them.

A conversation with my mother would go like this
Mom: "Why don't you want to be around me?"
Me: " Because I cannot trust you. You hurt me"
Mom: "Well you hurt me to. I don't trust you either. You're being selfish. Why are you always rejecting me?"

A healthy parent would understand their responsibility and role as the parent to reestablish trust and would say "I'm sorry. Can you be more specific as to how I lost your trust and what I can do to earn it back." Which then sends the message "Your feelings are important to me. I love and value you."

All relationships are built on trust, so without trust, where can we go? I realize this post seems perhaps lacking in compassion, but it's really not. I care deeply for my mother. I want her to experience wholeness and joy just like God intends for her. And I know that as her loving Father, He will take care of her as only He can do. It was a burden I was never meant to carry in the first place, so now I am leaving her in His hands, along with the remnants of the relationship. I am willing to do whatever He asks of me, and right now, He has asked me to lay it down. Until He tells me to pursue it again, it's not happening! And I'm okay with that.