Virtually nothing is off-limits.

Sometimes people have a different relationship with someone than what everyone else experiences.

How shitty my Mom was with me would completely surprise a lot of people. It wasn’t the worst behavior that can be imagined it’s just that she was really super nice to everyone else- so far as I know.

I know she loved me and yet she could not help herself (or something) when she “stung” me. And until her old age she never let anyone else see her do this to me.

In her last five years one of my brothers saw it a few times. He was able to ignore it- he chalked it up to something new brought on by her decline in health and temperament. Only his wife, who also saw it happening, understood how unkind my mother was being towards me. She asked me about it. She believed me when I told her it had been lifelong.

I’ve written about this stuff with my Mom and it has helped me to name it and get it off of my heart in that way …but I don’t have anyone reading it that would argue with me about it.

She is dead so it’s my story to tell. I also know my Mom loved me deeply so there’s that. I loved her too. She didn’t always hurt me. But she hurt me.

Before she died she had an episode where she thought she was dying. She called me to her side and spoke to her treatment of me in a circular way, never really naming it, not really apologizing for it. It made me feel…not really better…but that I could move ahead. It allowed me to see her flaws and most of all it gave me a place from which I could forgive her.

In my childhood and until I was 19 (when he died) I had my father as a strong advocate for me. I don’t believe he ever saw my Mom in action. He was a good father who understood that his kids were better served by having a strong sense of their value and worth. Maybe my Mom was jealous of me? I am the only female child and I came along way after my siblings. (that just now occurred to me) At any rate, my Dad allowed me to have great self-esteem so what my Mom did in secret hurt but it didn’t undermine me.

Just wanted you to know I understand your reluctance to “go there” in writing about your relationship with your father.

I hope this isn’t an overshare on your dime. Gonna hit publish anyway in case this helps you in some way…