I've always just been on my own

2:55 AM - I’ve just always been on my own-- Notes about my mother
Well, dang. I spent the weekend getting blown away by my family. Specifically, it has come to my attention that my mother dearest has told me some fairly whopper lies during her lifetime. With my mother, everything and I mean everything had to be a great big secret. When I was little, "Why do you fight with your sisters, Mom?" "That is not for you to ask. Don't talk. There's nothing to talk about. It's not your business," she'd reply. And there was the usual, "Children should be seen and not heard. Now don't talk." "O.K." I'd say to myself, and stuff some more things down deep inside. "What was it like when you were growing up, mom?" "There's nothing to tell. Everything was fine. Don't talk," she'd scold.

My mother and her sisters were always glad to see each other at holidays, funerals, etc. It would only take about 15 minutes, however, for the screaming to begin. It would be so loud, I'd never hear individual words, just screeching. These were college educated women, a remarkable fact seeing as they were born in the 1910s. Any and all cousins of mine who were present were quite a bit older than me, absorbed in their own little personal hells, I'm sure. I never had anyone to ask about this stuff. Nobody. So, I'd just stuff these things away in my mind and heart, and deal with it alone.

The goal of my entire childhood was to move away from home ASAP. I took summer school classes, not because I needed to. I just wanted to get in my credits. Oh how my mother was so thrilled I was so dedicated to school. School was my solace, my place away from home. "Can I go to a dance Friday night in the gym at school, Mom?" I'd ask. "NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT," she'd scream. Nothing would change her mind. My father would read away in his horse books, silently in the living room, apparently ignoring it all. The December month I turned 17 I was finished with high school, and I made sure I was on my way out the door.

I did make it to dances and such anyway. I'd just ask to spend the night at one of my friend's house (friends she approved of), and off we'd go! But I never got to go home and share any details of the fun I'd had with my mother, never got to share any dreams or desires. My desires were only to be her desires for me.

According to her, I was to be an ethereal, tiny-waisted and very slender girl, who would be a concert pianist and most likely an earth shattering scientist who would prove the Creation Theory correct once and for all. Never mind if I was not cut out for such feats. I took my piano lessons dutifully for 9 years and practiced. I could play the notes like a robot, but there was no soul, no joi de vive, in it. Because I was not allowed to have emotions.

So I stuffed it all down and waited and got out at age 17. Not in a good way, but that is a story for another time. Because if I wanted to go to college with them paying for it, I didn't get to leave and live on a campus. Oh no, I'd have to live at home and take courses at the IU-PU extension in Fort Wayne. I couldn't possibly handle that, I mean not even for a year.
Once I was gone, I was really gone. I mean that if I was sick or in need, there would never be any help from my mother at all. Everything I wondered about, how to raise my children, how to be married, how to have a job and family and do it all, I had to figure out on my own. I remember begging her, pleading with her, to help me (in person, not by phone) a few times. She would say no and turn her back and walk away. She would sometimes help with money, but that is a cold comfort when you really need a mom.

I never had brothers and sisters, so I really was all on my own. And people wonder why I made mistakes. Hmmmmm

But now, this weekend, I learned that loneliness was in fact sometimes actually orchestrated by my mother. She kept me isolated from my relatives, and this got worse and worse as time went on.

My question is why? Why would a mother do this? Maybe I'll never know.
In my heart, I have always resolved to do the best I could and I feel I have. Oh, there have been terrible shortcomings and regrets for my various actions. But I learned to go on and be stronger. My career, finances, and health have all turned out pretty bad. I will come to an impoverished end, barring any miracles. I had the smarts, but I never had the emotional stability to get anywhere. There was always too much stuff stuffed way down in me.

Eventually I worked out much of this stuff in therapy, but it took most of my 30s and 40s to do that. (And I must inject here, that I think I was quite insane during my 20s.) My head is straight now, but when you have lost your health, it hardly matters whether your head is on straight or not. People tell me, "Oh, you are such a survivor, how great." "Survivor?" I think. "I just didn't die. I just didn't die." Is that survival really?
So here I sit, most times numbly sitting alone in the living room, with my husband sitting in the other room, doing his own soul searching I guess. It is soooooooo hard for me to reach out and tell people I need help. Because surely they'll say no, won't they? By the time I can get myself to ask, I'm in such a bind that what I need help with is almost too overwhelming, even with help. But I always talk to God, my Heavenly Father, his Son Jesus. That is the key there, why I have made it. When you absolutely have no one else, He is there, and He will tell you what to do in that little voice in your head, in your heart. You just have to listen for it. And you have to be willing to do what He says. I give thanks to God Almighty in heaven for caring for a girl like me.

Well just some notes to myself. Looking forward to going to heaven whenever it is my time. I will have peace then. These things I have written are just the tip of the iceberg, but enough for me to have marked this important time-- the day I found out many truths my mother didn't want me to know. But will I ever know why?