Letting Go and OH NO!

How many times have I heard let go of the past....just let it go?  Only thing is every Mother's Day my past is also my present.  I am working through what to do this year.  I love hearing from my kids.  My daughters and daughter-in-laws are each amazing wonderful moms to our grandkids.  My mother, well if you believe her own press, she's the happiest person she knows and plenty of people will tell me how lucky I am to have her for my mother.  All the years before counseling, it was fairly easy to pull off getting a card and flowers.  I believed them when they told me, "She doesn't realize how hurtful she is being.  You gotta' love her."  Then counseling started.  I realized that my illness, depression and multiple personalities really hurt my kids.  I was devastated.  My kids reassure me that they coped.  I am still working at forgiving myself.  From counseling, I became more aware and  realized that my mother would look around and make sure we were alone before she verbally shred me.  Looking around indicated premeditation.  She knew full well what she was doing and checked to make sure she wouldn't be caught.  If I said anything, she would burst into tears sobbing how cruel I was and I just didn't understand.  She did it before and knew that it worked for her audience.  I moved away for years and that suited me just fine.  Then we moved back into the area, counseling turned my world upside down and inside out.  I know there is plenty of family pressure to ignore the elephant in the living room.  I write reminding myself that I choose to be a victim or not, now.  I am an adult with boundaries in place.  Just recently, I was criticized with how I don't feel the same about family as someone else.  How I long to be able to loving choose a card that tells my mother how wonderful she was in raising me or how she supports me now but I promised myself to stop lying.  Lying to her, my family and most importantly to myself.  For several years now, I bought flowers, mums short for chrysanthemums.  Flowers have a language of their own.  She counts the bouquets and gloats.  I just can't do this any more.  I write about moving from victim to survivor.  Every Mother's Day I doubt myself and if I truly moved to being a survivor.  Have I actually rolled up my doormat?  Am I really setting healthy boundaries?  Or will I buckle under tradition and get something for the woman that gave me birth then expected me to take care of her, belittled me, and set me up to be abused by others?  I admire my sister for stopping all cards, plants or gifts years ago.  I tried my counselor's idea to just keep it low key and neutral.  I thought I was doing fairly well until last month when other family member insisted on celebrating my parents 60th Anniversary.  I went and played with my grandkids.  The level of resentment and simmering rage still seething through me tells me how outraged I still feel about participating at all.  I read other blogs and the dilemma many face like I do.  Endure the criticism and not give a gift or give a gift and resent myself.  I think I am done resenting myself.  Therefore, I'll take the criticism and be absent from Mother's Day. You know, it still amazes me that my kids give me such wonderful cards.  I am thankful for what I have learned about healthy relationships and hope I can continue.  I can not change the past but I don't have to embrace it either.

Progress seems mighty slow sometimes.