Messed up Moms

I decided to do this as a 2 part entry otherwise it would be just too darn long.   I am first going to share the challenges I faced as a Mom that due to learned patterns I made many poor choices in raising my kids.  Part 2 is the challenges I am still facing with interacting with my own Mom.  I wish many times that things could be different but life does not have an edit>undo.  All you can do is make course corrections and sometimes a lot of apologies and plenty of changes that stay.

Some of my children read this blog so I am going to say upfront how thankful I am that they have stuck with me through so much that was not their doing.   I sometimes believe that before they were born God asked for some volunteers to help out a really messed up lady.  Their encouragement and love has helped make my integration possible.  Many days when I couldn't believe in myself, they were my inspiration to keep going.  

PTSD at a severe level, DID, MPD are all names for the same thing, as a child I suffered from trauma that was on going over years, to cope I split my life into compartments to the point that I had 5 personalities to cope with my growing up years.  I knew by the time I was 15 that something odd was happening, but like anything else I expressed concern about, I was told there was nothing wrong with me and stop exaggerating.   I stopped trying to find answers.  The outcome, I spiraled slowly down into a deep pit of depression with physical health problems so extreme the doctors didn't know what was wrong with me.  I recently read a book from a child's perspective of living with a multiple mother.  I cried all the way through the book as I saw better from my children's perspective how confusing I could be.  They would tell me things that I would 'forget' and then I would talk to them about the same thing later.  The alters, parts of myself, did not share information.  One of my children even figured out that depending on when I was asked, they could get different answers.  The hardest of all was the part of me that showed no emotion of any kind.  How can you show your children you love them if the alter that is in control can not feel any emotion?  The higher the stress the more likely this would happen.  Then other days they would have a kind, laughing, loving mom that wasn't anything like the emotionless one.  I also had no idea that this was happening.  When one of my kids was a teenager she challenged me why I lied all the time.  I had no idea what she meant.  Another challenged me with why did I act differently around some people.  Again I had no idea what she meant.  One of the medical doctors recommended I get counseling, unfortunately the psychiatrist that was involved in the week long medical testing scared me so much that I took 10 more years before I built up the courage to try.   Then came counseling.  I knew that I had difficulty sharing how I felt.  So I asked the counselor to help my husband and I communicate better.  I never mentioned anything about my childhood.  KavinCoach treated us like an average couple and gave us assignments.  Results were not what he expected.  Things kept going really wrong.  He finally talked to each one of us separately.  The wife my husband described and KavinCoach's own experience in talking to me, he felt like they were 2 different people.  Fortunately in his 30 years of experience he recognized what was happening.  It took 6 months of counseling to get enough information together to give a definite diagnosis and recognize how severe the problem was.  I often imagine some day giving a speech starting with, "Every teenager believes their mother is crazy, my children have documentation."

My behavior had already hurt my children.  Some had chosen low contact boarding no contact.  They already felt that a heart to heart conversation was out of the question with mom.  I worked hard through out the counseling to understand who and what I was.  How to change my behavior and how to share this with my kids without adding to the trauma of having a whacked out mom.   I finally chose to write a book that most of my kids have read.  It didn't magically change everything.  That took a lot of effort on both of our parts.  I was able to recognize my progress when my children complimented me on how calm I was during Thanksgiving.  A time I am usually too stressed to enjoy the holiday.  I enjoy a wonderful relationship with all my children.  I still say and do things that are not kind but I know it and I apologize.  I am still careful to allow myself some decompression time after a major event.  I am learning that 'normal' family interaction is not smooth no matter who you are.  I do believe being integrated makes a world of difference.  I am thankful to my husband, my children, KavinCoach and friends that have supported me and continue to support me through this huge change in my life.  Reconciliation takes a lot of work on both sides.