Chiming in as another person showing support.
I have a handful of friends who have no relationship with one parent or another. They still lead great, fulfilling lives, with friends and family.
Keep us posted…we’re good listeners. 
That’s adorable but I’m not a fan of DPNs. I’m not that coordinated. Find me one knitted in the round and I’m there with bells on.
It’s like for every day I spend away from my mother, I get progressively happier and more hopeful about life.
Happy (almost) Independence Day!
From the mouths of cartoon characters, translation from Spanish mine (hey I wouldn’t even know how to write it in the Japanese original):
Igual que las flores no pueden elegir donde florecen, los hijos no pueden elegir a sus padres.
“Same as a flower cannot choose where to flower, children cannot choose their parents.”
Erza defending Lucy’s right to live wherever she wants to, Fairy Tail, S1 Ep 16.
Nothing could possibly be more validating that I made the right decision than the fact that my Mom is apparently totally cool and at peace with the fact that we’ve ended our relationship. She must be feeling every bit the freedom I feel, because she will never again have to face the reality of the hell she put me through. She can continue ‘‘moving on’’ for the sake of her own peace of mind, which she has consistently, predictably, egregiously placed in front of my own well-being for each of the 33 years I’ve been alive.
I will have PTSD and seizures for the rest of my life and she will be at peace, putting herself first, claiming her own happiness, embracing her joy, whatever. The most authentic relationship she ever had was the one she had with me, because I have been the only one ever willing to call her out on her shit AND validate all of her own pain. But she turned her back on the realest thing she ever had because it’s easier for her to ‘‘move on’’ than deal with the real consequences of the permanent damage she caused me. She told me she won’t discuss the way she treated me in the past because IT GIVES HER NIGHTMARES.
I can think of nothing more simultaneously damning and validating than her own indifference. She’ll never see her daughter (or future grandchildren) again, but at least she won’t have nightmares.
Spice Weasel, do you happen to read the advice blog Captain Awkward? She responds to readers’ questions with advice that is kind, wise, and rooted in feminism and empowerment, particularly for people who are struggling to deal with present or past abuse. The comment section is moderated and filled with people sharing their own stories and techniques for self-healing. If you haven’t come across it before, I highly recommend it. She takes a dim view of the notion that family means that you’re not allowed to protect yourself from active harm. www.captainawkward.com
Your mother reminds me of my family.
When I confronted my older brother about his raping me, he went on and on about how much that had hurt him over the years. When I pointed out that he hadn’t apologized, then he said he was sorry “bad things happened to you.” I shut the door on that relationship.
When my first child was born and then died, my younger brother sent me a hate-filled email about how I was responsible for the death (for absurd reasons) and how much the death had hurt him, for which I was also responsible. Needless to say, there simply isn’t any way of having a relationship with him either.
There are a lot of sick people in the world, and we can’t fix everyone, no matter how much we want to.
You need to take care of yourself, and cutting contact with sick people is part of the healing process.
Spice Weasel, you might be interested in this article about toxic moms and mothers day. I hope you are still feeling strong and happy.
And shantih, thanks so much for the link to Captain Awkward. I spent half the night reading past columns. (First time I typed Captain Amazing; truth in typos.) The internet is truly an amazing place!
Hey, you’re welcome! I guess that brings things full circle; I’m pretty sure I found the good Captain via a link on the SDMB. And I mentally call the site Captain Awesome, so there you go!
The run-up to Mother’s Day seems to have occasioned a number of timely articles: A Toast to All the Brave Kids Who Broke Up with Their Toxic Moms
Thanks so much for the support everyone. I’m still hanging in there. I wrote her a long letter on Mother’s Day, sort of the ‘‘last correspondence’’ idea, but it opened with the proclamation that she doesn’t give a shit about what I have to say, and it ended with the realization that there was no point in sending it because she didn’t give a shit what I had to say.
I think I’m giving up. In a good way. It was good to write the feelings out. Sr. Weasel is utterly convinced I’m going to write a memoir. He keeps telling me to save this stuff I’m writing, for my memoir. I don’t think I’m ready for that but I’m not ruling it out.
My Mom did finally manage to make it to Grandma’s and is there now, so we’ll see if she’s still there when I come next weekend. Family plans are kind of up in the air but I honestly don’t care what we do as long as it’s fun.
Thanks from me too! I love advice columns, but good ones can be hard to find.
Spice Weasel, I’m sending internet hugs and strength to you. Your mother must know where all the buttons are, and I’m sure you can expect some pushing of same, however calm she appears to be about you ending the relationship. Which sounds, in fact, like a major button to push.
Do this! Write things out but don’t send, or at least wait a few weeks, rewrite and send. The act of writing helps organize the feelings inside yourself. It’s one of the most therapeutic acts you can do.
Another way to sort yourself out is to write an essay or short story. I had an incident last week that was positive but it was still affecting me, so I wrote an essay about it, not knowing what I would do with it. I contemplated sharing it on the Dope but in the end the act of reflection was all I needed to resolve it.
Four months and still no contact with my Mom. I think she got married for the 5th time; I dunno, she’s off Facebook but her name changed right before she left. I love him (the man she married, she was with him when I was 7 and he was the only ‘‘Dad’’ I had worth a damn.) I’m pissed I have to sacrifice him in my life, too.
It feels a lot longer than four months. I keep waiting for the pain to go away and it hasn’t. I keep waiting for the guilt to go away and it hasn’t. Sometimes I go to bed sad, sometimes I wake up insanely pissed off. Sometimes I forget for days or weeks. It really is like grieving a death.
Having just submitted our application for adoption, and starting to clear out the guest bedroom to turn it into a nursery, I can’t stop thinking about how much it’s going to hurt my Mom not to be able to see her grandchild. And I can’t stop thinking about my own childhood.
It helps that my husband’s father and step-mother have effectively become surrogate parents. In fact, it was them at my bedside when I was basically dying of a gallbladder infection last October that made me realize what parents are supposed to be like. They were annoyingly stuck to my bedside night and day, researching the best hospitals until 3am and probably annoying the shit out of my surgeon with all of their questions. But there is a safety in it, knowing you have people looking out for you.
They live about 25 minutes away and plan to help a lot with childcare. My SMIL has effectively gone insane since we announced we are starting the adoption process; she wants to get the nursery done ASAP and his dad has already found several artists to do an ocean-themed kiddie mural. They want to go shopping for baby stuff, like, yesterday.
In general, I’m trying to make Dom’s family more my own. I was really nervous moving here because he has a huge, in many cases very wealthy family on his Dad’s side and I had a tendency to judge all hundred of them based on my knowledge of a few of them. Now I am getting closer to his cousins (he has 18 of them) and starting to see members of his family for the individuals they are. Turns out some of them are wonderful people.
I’m trying to focus on that positive stuff and I think I’ve more or less come to terms with the fact that this is always going to hurt on some level. I replay my last words to her over and over in my head and wish I had just a little more self-control when I said goodbye. I wish my last words to her hadn’t been so harsh. I think it over and if I hadn’t snapped she might have been able to see reason. I worry she will try to contact me again and I won’t be able to deny her.
Then my husband suggests we might do something to try to address the difficulties I have completing tasks in the absence of structure and focusing my attention, and it all comes flooding back: ''Pay attention. Why aren’t you listening? You’re never going to succeed in life if you don’t learn to listen. What do I have to do to get through to you? Why can’t you just do as you’re told? Why do you do this to me? You make me physically ill. Do I have to hit you in the head, put you in the hospital? Then will you listen?"
Then I am angry all over again, and confused. It all blurs together and I don’t know what’s true about who I am.
I’m not saying it didn’t have to be this way. I’m just wishing it wasn’t.