Yesterday I felt very broken. My heartfelt broken and I believe it’s because I didn’t want to post another loving video of my mom and I, because of all the kids that are still hurting (MYSELF INCLUDED). OUR pain is valid. JUST as our parent’s pain is valid, JUST as a parent, brother sister cousin, etc to an addict’s pain is VALID, AS-IS the ADDICTS. Pain is a 2-way street. We have to see that each of us has our own pain, and it has a road to be on, just as much as the others.
With my mom and what I say to others that are looking for advice, is “DON’T TAKE ON THE OTHERS PAIN” it’s not yours, yes you may have done something to cause it, and YES by all means apologize and try to make it right, but you cant always fix another’s pain. AND you have to accept that they feel as they do.
For so long I hid my pain from my mom because I was afraid of hurting her, and YES sometimes its too much and it can set them off to relapse, but when I confronted my mom about how much it was hurting me I had no choice. It was HER or ME. I chose ME. I needed to let it out, to her, and if that meant I would lose her forever, I was willing to do that. Because I was sacrificing myself for her.
MAYBE just MAYBE we can heal our pain without telling the other, but she was my mom and I needed her to know that I (MYSELF) needed a MOTHER! I remember being so nervous about going to confront her, I often smiled a lot during these times, but my heart was racing a mile a minute. Then when I got to her place, she was so upset with me, but I wasn’t leaving without telling her.
I was lucky because it changed the dynamic of our relationship a bit. I was always my mom’s mom in a way, but I actually let her in a bit more, I slowly let her know some of the things that were going on in my life, like heartbreak etc. I kept that all from her because I didn’t want to get hurt anymore. I didn’t want to give her my vulnerability (MY HEART) again and have her crush it.
But little by little she built my trust up again, she showed me she wasn’t going to run away from me again, and she answered her phone and tried her best to just listen to me, or to give me some advice. She surprisingly was good at giving advice even though she didn’t take it herself:-)
SO yea, yesterday was a day for me. For me to honor my own pain before anyone else’s, so no, no one got a happy video, instead I videoed myself getting hurt and upset. (still have to edit that one) and TODAY I feel so much better about it. For taking my own advice, and PUTTING MYSELF FIRST.
I hope we can all remember to do this from time to time. To give ourselves the opportunity to be upset, angry, hurt. TO NOT BE VICTIM to it… means; you don’t keep repeating it over and over, with a poor me, but yes, we can acknowledge these things that happened did hurt and we have EVERY right to feel what we FEEL, and when we are ready, we can let them go.
Sending everyone love (INCLUDING myself)
Tarah
ps. I recently found this book that has been helping me with this process