Messed up Moms part 2

Interesting thing...I find it easier to write about myself than I do my mom.  When I started counseling over 7 years ago I thought I had an OK relationship with my mom.  I figured everyone had problems getting along with parents.  When I finally started talking, I talked for 2 years once a week trying to wrap my mind around my relationship with my mom.  Memories were so fragmented.  Emotions ran high.  Only a few things really stood out in my mind.  One thing I do remember is my mother's mother came to live with us.  After meeting her, I became a lot more impressed with how well my mother treated me in comparison.  BUT... there is that nasty word.  After talking so long to my counselor he explained several things to me that rocked my world.  (Please note, in my opinion, counseling is not for the faint of heart.)  I would remember what I thought was a fairly 'normal' childhood memory and KavinCoach would try to draw out exactly what I could remember.  I learned to recognize a certain look of what I was saying really bothered him.  I became careful not to look at him so I would not apologize for telling him what I remembered.  He used words like enmeshed, treated as a second class citizen, neglect, and a whole lot more that I wanted to put my hands over my ears and scream, no My mother loved me.  She said so.  Reality doesn't always match fantasy.  Feeding a child and giving them a place to sleep does not constitute nurturing.  From the age of 5, I was on the look out for a new mother.  The reason I know this is my mother complained bitterly at my rejection.  Fragments and pieces are still unclear to me.  The bottom line for KavinCoach was that if I was a child telling him these things he would not be teaching me how to cope, he would have arranged to take me out of my home.  Why should I feel hurt that I was neglected enough to have a pro-family counselor wanting to take me out of that environment?  Then next thing he told me was the story in the New Testament of the Widow's mite.  Christ is at the temple and points to a widow that drops the tiniest bit of money in the offerings plate.  Christ praised the widow for giving all she had.  The Levites, lived off the offerings given.  KavinCoach asked me,  "What would happen to the Levites if the only offerings they received was from the widow?"  I responded slowly, "They would starve."  I recognized that my mother felt she did the best she could, but with her own impoverished state of not being nurtured, she had very little to offer me.  So why do I still struggle?  My mother was told repeatedly that she needed to get counseling by her medical doctors.  She would go once or twice and then quit.  When I asked about it she has given me a variety of reasons and excuses.  I asked KavinCoach why he was trying to help me understand from my mother's perspective.  I didn't understand for a long time.  Recently, I think finally got it.  For years, KavinCoach has tried to release me from the responsibility I felt I had to make my mother happy.  After all, I was her daughter, so that meant I should help her and take care of her.  I didn't see what KavinCoach saw that I had to let go of pleasing a person that was so unhappy within herself.  It was an impossible task.  I started to grieve for a mother I never had.  I am working on accepting the person that did the best she knew how.  But she does not define me.  I decide who I am and what is good enough.  I decide if what I do is a caring, loving approach.  KavinCoach released me from the distorted burden of parenting my mother. 

Now when I read about others choosing to go No Contact with a parent, I see both sides now.   I see my side of struggling so much to become a mother that my kids could be proud of and want a relationship.  I see my mother leaning so heavily on me that all I want to do is run away...far, far away.  I have a responsibility to take care of and protect me.  Then if I choose to be with my mom, I can choose that with the clear understanding that she can not nurture me.  I let go of my fantasy.