Mothers Day

Not sure what your trigger words are but mine might be different. More than likely I will offend you. I feel like I can't do anything or say anything about a single thing that happens to me and frankly I'm scared of my own self. In 2009, right after Katrina I lost my Mama, both grandmother's, my great aunt, uncle, several friends, and through alot of therapy over the last few years I thought I was able to get through the day.

Until Nov 2024 when my mother in law passed. Most ppl hate theirs and w/o having any other matriarch in my life instead of hate, I loved mine! I even quit my job and was her caregiver until I wasn't able to bc of my own illnesses. Now all the same feelings I had... thoughts about the stupid as I call it....the dark place... Docs call it depression. It has no place and I know this but stopping it and then frickin mother's day dammit mother's day comes. I was told... Lied to by my docs years ago that I couldn't have kids.

I've never been able to get past that. Don't say my husband is a great man to stay with me through all the illness and depression bc we've only had a true marriage for 5 of the 20 we've been together. We live different lives in the same house with him in another room like it's the 1950s. Having his mom here helped keep us together but gave him an excuse to keep pushing an adoption off that I've given up on us having. So I grieve and mourn the loss of being a mother myself and mothers day is nothing but another reminder. Like being on a merry go round I can't stop.

#Depression #Grief #Loss #mom #MothersDay #Motherinlaw #Motherinlaw

“A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.”
Washington Irving

I’ve always felt an odd dynamic about this holiday, after my own Mom passed away in 2001, it felt unusual that my family would celebrate me. I suddenly felt like the matriarch of my own family (even though my Mother-in-law was still with us.)

My own Mom was such a strong domineering personality, and influence. She’d done so many things in her lifetime. I just felt that I could never accomplish as much as she had, in my lifetime. I though she was a good mom. She raised 6 children, she wasn’t perfect, she was human..I did love her, honor her, and respect her always, not just on a holiday.

I do feel that I was a better parent however. I tried to be more present for my children. I know we did many things for them, and with them.We tried to be guiding and giving..and we Love them.

As adults, I thought we had a friendship though we’re still always parents first. I feel I still have a friendship with one of them. I don’t know what happened to change that for, and with the other.

I feel strangely alone on this Mother’s Day. My oldest daughter stopped all communication with us. My younger daughter remembered me, but didn’t call because she was ill, she said: “after making poor choices last night.” So, my husband will take me out for dinner and I guess that will have to be enough.

Mother’s Day, my thoughts on it have evolved in time.I actually like being remembered on this day, and always. May we love, honor, respect, remember,and celebrate our Mother’s, and those would be Mothers, that acted as positive influences, step in Moms, guides, and more in our lives. Happy Mother’s Day!
#MothersDay #Family #FamilyAndFriends #alone

“You have problems.” That was the last text message that my mother sent me. It was after she kicked me out for talking about my wife in front of her while on a week long visit to family back in NY.

It’s absolutely not the last time I’ve heard her voice in my head.

It’s there constantly. The shame and guilt I feel are whispered on a constant repeat in a voice that sounds just like hers.

I have been in trauma intensive treatment for my CPTSD for about a year now.

Today, I’m using one of the exercises I was taught by my therapist when I just couldn’t talk about my present without my mother’s voice interfering.

It’s a container exercise. I am imagining putting my mother’s last text to me, her voice guilting me about not calling her today, her voice shaming me about not having kids of my own yet, and all the other trash my head fills with, and I’m putting it into my “Peace Box.”

That’s what I call the box I imagine putting all of these negative thoughts into. My Peace Box is black, made of steel, has a dead bolt, a number key lock pad, and has chains around it keeping it shut with a heavy duty padlock on it. I do my best to imagine putting all of the negativity from my mom’s voice in my head into this box, put the imaginary box in a hole I “dug” in my yard, and walking away from it all. Leaving all the negativity inside of my Peace Box so that I can have…peace.

#peace #CopingTips

Her voice as a 75-year-old woman is shriveled. Smaller. Crouched on the floor. She says nothing of import. She hears nothing of consequence. She eats. She sleeps. She ambles.

I am aware of her through my niece’s routine—preparing her meals and taking her on walks. I am reminded often that her old age care costs lots of money. But I take these tidbits of news and stack them on a high shelf amongst the tattered memories of childhood I prefer not to peruse too often.

She takes up space in a tiny corner of my mind. It’s small but goddammit, still there. I am grown. I am mostly whole again. I am tethered to this frail time in my life that has ironically made me strong.

My mother hovers over me, a ghosted memory wrapped around a fragile-bodied woman still existing in my family orbit—distant as they are. They are alien—unknown to me but certain in their invasion of my world.

#MothersDay #adultsurvivor #CPTSD #ComplexPTSD #Trauma #Childhood trauma

Mother's Day is right around the corner. The ads have already started and the stores are already full of gifts.

Mother's Day is a holiday meant to celebrate all your mother has done for you and how she is your number one support but what happens when that is not the case?

Mother's Day can be difficult and triggering for so many children and adult children due to a variety of reasons.

Read my latest blog to learn how you can take care of your emotional well-being during this time.

How to Cope When Mother's Day and Father's Day are Difficult...

#MothersDay #ToxicRelationships #abusivemothers #toxicmothers