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This is a question I have pondered for as long as I can remember. Sadly, my own mother was not a very good role model because mental illness, immaturity, and narcissism consumed her. My friend’s mothers weren’t much better either or at least in my young eyes they were not June Cleaver or Carol Brady. None of them stayed at home, some were part time moms due to divorce, and most were not very involved in their kid’s lives. I wasn’t so sure that mothers like those depicted on t.v. even existed but I did know that I wanted to be like them.

Fantasizing about what a great mom I would be is what got me through my dreary childhood. After my mother’s narcissistic rages I would retreat to La La Land and envision myself lavishing my own children with love and praise. I promised my imaginary children that I would never forget how valuable they are and never blame them for my wrongdoings. I was raised to feel like I was a burden, the cause of my mother’s miserable existence, and that my sole purpose was to serve her. I believed that mothering my children well would right all my mother’s wrongs.

Now I’m a mother and I have stuck to my promises to the best of my ability only I didn’t realize how hard it would be. With my own mother being such a poor role model I had to model t.v. moms and a few mommy friends who I decided rocked the mom gig. Maintaining my idea of the perfect mom did not make me feel like frolicking in a meadow with my children while riding unicorns like I had imagined. Instead I felt depleted and frustrated most of the time. That damn Carol Brady made it look so easy with every episode ending all wrapped up nicely and tied with a bow.

In my quest to be the opposite of my own mother I ended up taking motherhood to the extreme and lost myself in the process. I succeeded at putting my children on a pedestal, giving them many of the things I never had, and being a stay at home mom who bakes cookies and volunteers at school. What I failed at was giving up so much of myself that there wasn’t anything left for me. It is very hard to effectively parent when your own needs aren’t being met.

So my idea of what it takes to be a good mom has changed over the years. I have learned that in order for me to effectively mother my children I need to achieve balance in my life. Keeping balance is a struggle for me because of my fear that any time I put myself before my children it will be perceived as self centeredness.  I have never completely shaken my childhood feelings of worthlessness but day by day I chip away at that negative feeling by doing little things for myself. Not only is it good for me but also good for my children. I am their role model for the portrait of a mother they will paint and I want them to know that they don’t have to give up their life to be a good mother.

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Last Friday I was feeling sorry for myself about my situation with my parents when I got an email that I’m a recipient of the Top 100 Mom Blogs Award. It was completely unexpected and came at a moment when I needed a pick-me-up. Life is funny like that. Patricia Arquette’s character on the show Medium summed it up the best on the last episode. Her explanation was that hope is the high, dread is the low and life is everything in between. I love that. It’s much better than my explanation of life when I’m in a funk which is that we are all basically unhappy and just living for the next happy moment. How’s that for some doom and gloom thinking?

I’m back from my mini vacation to Branson. I had fun just being with hubby and the kids even though it was not one of our better vacations. We didn’t stay at our usual condo that we love. Instead we stayed at The Grand Country Inn because they have an indoor water park. I knew the room wouldn’t be much because of how inexpensive it was but at least it was clean. The water park was perfect for the age of my kids but the water was way too cold on the first day but was much warmer the next. Someone must have complained. Thank God for complainers!

Our plan was to go to Silver Dollar City on Monday but it turns out that not only is it closed on Mondays but it doesn’t even open until next weekend. So onto plan B which we didn’t have. We let the kids pick what they wanted to do which was to visit Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. Big waste of money! Like a $68 waste of money. To top it off Madeline slammed the car door on Connor’s hand which immediately bruised and swelled up. We spent the next two hours in an urgent care center to spend $206 to find out that no it was not broken. He was a brave little guy though!

We grabbed lunch then visited the Titanic Museum which was well worth the money. The kids loved it because we were given passports with a name of someone who was on the Titanic. They enjoyed looking for information and artifacts about themselves during our tour.

A vacation would not be complete without someone being sick which happened to be me. I have the mother of all head colds. You know the kind where your nose is stopped up but manages to still run. I’m quite a sight with my red nose, open mouth breathing, and dark eye circles from lack of sleep. Hubby says he’d still do me. Not sure if that’s a compliment though.

The great thing about family vacations is how well you get to know your kids. Well maybe it’s not always great but definitely informative. I think Isabelle may also have Tourette’s Syndrome because she was doing a lot of sniffing. She has done this sniffing for some time but it was more pronounced and evident that she can’t help it. Asking her about it made her do it even more. Sniffing was also Madeline’s first tic. So we’ll see. It would not surprise me if all my kids end up with Tourette’s. I just don’t breed well. At least they’re cute!

Madeline informed that her and her friends play a game where they tell each other their deepest, darkest secrets. She asked if I wanted to know what her secret was. I wasn’t so sure if I wanted to know the deepest, darkest secrets of my eight year old but I was quite relieved that her secret is that she loves the show Blues Clues. Ahhh, the innocence.

Connor told his daddy the sweetest thing. We threw coins in a fountain and made wishes. Later that night when we tucked them into bed Connor told my hubby that his wish was for the boo boo on his wrist to get better. (Hubby had surgery on a broken wrist two weeks ago). How sweet is that?

All in all it was a nice vacation and hopefully our kids will remember these times with fond memories.

Now I’m catching up on laundry, phone calls, and emails. Many of the emails are from my crazy estranged mother boo hooing about her skin cancer and in depth details about the cancer that was cut from her vulva. I should feel more sympathy for her but she pretty much brought it on herself. For many years she tanned in tanning beds every day and sometimes several times a day. We warned her that she was going to get skin cancer especially since her own mother had melanoma but she told us to mind our own business. Now she expects us at her side and taking care of her. I’m sorry but I’m a firm believer in taking care of your children so they will take care of you. I feel bad for her in the same way I do for anyone who is going through a difficult time but do I feel a desire to rush to her side and take care of her? Hell no! All she is getting from me is my prayers and that’s all I have to say about that.

I’m humbled by all the support, email, and comments I’ve received for this post. When I wrote that post I knew that I opened myself up to trolls and those who don’t agree with my decision to divorce my parents. I didn’t expect so many of you to not only support my decision but to also be in a similar situation. A few months ago I started a blog called The Padded Room; A Safe Place For Children of Toxic Parents but I got busy with the holidays and dropped the ball. I’m willing to resume the project if there is interest. You can leave me a comment or drop me an email. Thanks again for all the support and also thanks for feeding my ego by keeping me a Top Momma. Don’t forget to click on the Top Momma banner in my sidebar and then on the photo of me in the shark before you leave.

Yesterday my sis and I received a letter and a book from an author on her high horse. I’m sure the woman meant well and went to sleep last night feeling like her letter may bring a fractured family back together. I’m also sure that soon she will be another one of my mother’s victims. If you have read my blog long enough you know that my mom is a mental illness cocktail, a mixture of Bipolar, Borderline Personality Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and a dash of psychosis. It has been 14 months since I cut ties with my parents and it was the best decision I could make for me and my family. You can read more about my family dysfunction here, here, and here.

It really pisses me off when people pass judgement on me about my decision to divorce my parents especially when they do not have all the facts. This woman that wrote to us has made assumptions based on the words of a crazy person. Actually I feel sorry for her because she is one of many of our mother’s victims. If you know anyone with BPD you know that they can be very charming and likable people. That is until you piss them off or challenge them. My mom is very good at what she does and obviously has given this woman her sad story how her daughters turned their back on her for no good reason. Here is the letter and my rebuttal:

Dear Kristie,

I connected with your mother over an Ebay item and after chatting on the phone we became fast friends.
Do you not find it odd that my mom puts her phone number in her ebay listings? Are you not disturbed by my mom’s negative feedback and the childish fights she has via feedback. Ebay is how my mom connects with people because she can’t sustain “normal” friendships. Online she can be whoever she wants to be. It’s very sad.

I find her a supportive, thoughtful, and enthusiastic person, traits that are often hard to find in our world.
First off, I don’t find these traits at all hard to find in people. In fact people with these traits can still be crazy, manipulative, and do bad things.

She’s told me wonderful things about you; Kristie, and also that you’re taking a break from each other. I did this with my mother long ago when I left home at 17 and distanced myself from her during my college years and another four years when I lived in Florida. When I returned back to Minnesota, it took years to connect again with her, but slowly I matured and lost my stubborn attitude, and we reconnected. When my marriage dissolved, my mother was there for me.
Well, lucky you. Obviously your distance was due to your stubbornness and immaturity. Good for you, you grew up. In my situation my mother is the stubborn and immature one and has proven incapable of changing or growing up.

Thank God we mended the bond. She had become my best friend.
I already have a best friend. She’s the one who helped pick me up after my parents knocked me down. She’s the one who gave me emotional support after my miscarriage because I had to give my mother emotional support to help her cope with MY miscarriage.
Over the next twenty years our relationship became even stronger. We became reacquainted and best friends-until she passed away. I found that no one quite loves us like our mothers do, as I’m sure you are experiencing with the love you feel for your little ones.
You are exactly right. That’s why I don’t understand how my mother could neglect us, starve us, call us names, and put us in harms way. Do you need more examples?

This summer will be 7 years since my mother passed away. Every single day, I miss her. That mother-child bond is not a replaceable relationship; we are only blessed with The One.
I never had that. My mother is incapable of sustaining that kind of bond. You are right; it is not a replaceable relationship. I’ve spent my adulthood trying to replace the bond that never happened with my mother. I finally gave up. I’m sorry about your mother’s passing. I understand your grief. I’m mourning the mother I never had.
And when I look back on my life, I realize how much I hurt my mother during the years I pulled away.

If I could redo a part of my life, Kristie, it would be that. I wished I could have been mature enough to discuss the true issues between us, find a solution, and set our boundaries, but that I did not lose sight for so long of who I was and where I come from.
You know what I would redo? I would redo that 5 years ago I gave my parents another chance. I allowed my children to bond with their only grandparents and not only did I set myself up for disappointment but also my children. I have tried to discuss the true issues, I’ve done therapy, and I have set up boundaries. My mother is incapable of maintaining boundaries in relationships. Do you know how many times I have asked her to not share my address and phone number without my permission? She did not ask my permission to give you my address. Just a small example of many boundaries she oversteps.

I also believe in the laws of karma and the better the relationship is for you with your mother so it may be with with your children. Will they have the heart to stay and love during difficult times, or will your children pull away from your love? What are you modeling to them?
I also believe in the laws of karma. Do my parents honestly believe that they can abuse their children and then continue to abuse their adult children and expect to have a loving relationship with them? I hope that by doing my best to love my children unconditionally they will have the heart to stay during difficult times. What am I modeling? That it’s okay to put toxic people out of your life after all means to make a relationship work have been exhausted. By continuing a relationship with my mother I feared that I was teaching my kids to also be her therapist and to walk on eggshells around her to avoid upsetting her. I want to protect my children from a person who will think they are all good one day and all bad the next. I don’t want them to feel responsible for her happiness or her suicide attempts. Protecting my children is much more important to me than preserving a relationship with my mentally ill mother. You did not mention if you have children? Would you put your mother before your own children?

I hope this book hits you on Valentine’s day.
Oh yeah, well I hope it hits you in the ass when I return it.
Often a time of lovers, it is a day for the heart. Your mother does not know that I wrote you, nor what I have said. The message comes with a wish to your family from my heart.
I appreciate your concern but you really should get both sides to a story before you decide to meddle in someones complicated family dynamics. I’m guessing you have never had any personal experience with someone who is mentally ill.

That I hope you will stay open and reconnect with your mother and father. I don’t know what the distance is about. It’s not my business.
Exactly my point. Why are you bothering to get involved then? You have no idea what abuse my parents have inflicted upon my sister and I. Does guilting someone back into an abusive situation make you feel better? There was a time that guilt worked on me but your guilt trip is not welcome here.
I only know there is some reason for distance from each other and only know your mother enough to know that she and your father are crushed from your separation-and may be too proud to let you know that.
Let me remind you of:

I Corinthians 13:4-8
Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking.
It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.

If my children cut ties with me because they felt that I treated them bad then I would do everything in my power to right my wrongs. Our parents don’t see it that way. They feel we should be more accepting of their bad behavior. My mother has tried. I’ll give her that. Unfortunately she can’t keep it together for long. My father has tried. very. little.

I don’t know you, Kristie, and may never meet you (though I hope we do, one day), please forgive me if you feel this out of line. But sometimes a stranger with nothing vested may say something that we choose to honor or act on. As someone who spends her life trying to select the right words on each page, I pray that I have found them for you.
Save it for your books lady because you have joined a list of people who try to make my sister and I feel bad about a very difficult life decision. If you are looking for a pat on your back then pat yourself for pouring salt on our wounds.

Enclosed is my book (title removed). I hope you enjoy the read.
Thank you for the book. My gift to you is some advice. If you are going to have a relationship with my mom then you need to know a few things.
1. Always agree with her.
2. Never challenge her.
3. She needs endless compliments.
4. Make sure you are available to talk everyday. Be prepared for her to get angry with you if you are unavailable.
5. Make sure you are well rested and in excellent emotional shape because she will emotionally suck you dry.
6. Be prepared for her to get angry with you for something you didn’t even know you said or did.
7. Try not to blame yourself if she threatens to kill herself over something you said or she thinks you said or meant.
8. Know that when she is in her “black days” you may not hear from her for days or weeks.
9. Be prepared to listen about how everyone treats her so bad.
10. Don’t be surprised that some days she is very lucid, sweet, and kind. On the days she is abusing medication she will slur her words and may be argumentative. She may even be psychotic and not make much sense.
11. If you fail to follow these rules and you will without even realizing you did be prepared for her wrath. She will call you names and say the most hateful things. She may threaten to call the police or sue you. Most likely she will threaten to kill herself. I hope you are strong enough to handle it.
12. Be aware that she may one day end the friendship without telling you why. She may send you a hateful and threatening letter. All the things you told her in confidence, all your weaknesses will be thrown back in your face. You may not know what you did and you may never know.

When your friendship falls apart and I’m willing to bet money it will, I would like you to take out this letter, reread it and decide if you would have sent it knowing what you know now. Best of luck to you.

So how does a slacker mom find time to write long posts? She puts her 14 month old in the high chair with a large piece of red velvet cake and a bottle of milk.

Do you have something in your life that you feel powerless to change? I do. I haven’t written about my parents whom I’m estranged from in a long time. You can catch up on the story by reading this and this. The situation has a lot of feelings attached that I’ve pushed back in my subconscious. I do my best to ignore them but occasionally they manifest in my dreams. Lately I’ve been dreaming a lot about my mom and last night I had a nightmare about both my parents. They were so mean, hateful, and uncaring just as they were while I was growing up. The dream left me feeling really icky. It’s good when I have dreams like that because it reminds me of why I cut ties with them. It’s very easy to get on the pity pot and miss the fleeting and rare happy times. My dad has a law enforcement job so occasionally I catch him on the news. I hate that. He looks so old and not at all like the mean person I used to know. I can’t help but to wonder if he misses me or what does he tell his friends is the reason he doesn’t see any of his six grandchildren? It’s amazing how in a single moment I can feel such intense hate and love for that man. I’ve always just wanted him to be proud of me and to like me. It feels like I’ve spent my entire life trying to prove myself worthy to him. Then there’s my mom who I really don’t miss. She’s so needy and annoying. She can suck the life out of you in a matter of minutes. My problem is that I feel so sorry for her. Her life has been so hard and her mental illness has been such a battle for her. My dad and brother have done a wonderful job of keeping her sick. I often wonder if she would have done better in a different situation. I know she misses me and the kids and I hate that. I hate that I’m denying my kids the only grandparents that they have. I wish it could be different but I had to do what is best for me and my kids. It’s still a shitty feeling.

My sister sent me one of those email questionnaires with the question What do you miss most? She answered my mother. I can’t say the same. I miss the idea of a mother because I never really had one. My sis and I mothered her. As an adult I was able to emotionally force her to be a mom but it never felt completely right. The angry child in me hates her while the human side of me pities her. I wish it were different. I wish we could get along. I wish I’d had “normal” parents. I wish a lot of things but all the wishing in the world isn’t going to change this situation. I hate that. I hate that my parents didn’t try harder to make it work. I hate that they choose to live in their little screwed-up La La Land.

So there you have it. That little nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I’ve been ignoring showed up in my dream last night. I’ve cried my eyes out and I feel a little better. Now I can shove those feelings back in my subconscious until they decide to pay me another visit. Damn it!

Today is my ninth wedding anniversary so I looked through my wedding album this morning, something I haven’t done in YEARS. What a wonderful day. Best day of my life along with the births of my children. It was a very warm October day and everything went as planned except my flowers didn’t make it onto the tables at the reception but I didn’t let it bother me. I went into my wedding day with the thought process that I would not let anything ruin my day.

I love this photo. My hubby has his thumb on my belly because I was 6 weeks pregnant. Our little secret and a funny story that I won’t be able to tell our kids until they are grown and married. We had planned on having kids right away and figured our honeymoon would be the best time to start trying. Being the control freak that I am I manipulated my birth control pills so that when I stopped them ovulation would occur during our honeymoon. We stopped having sex the month before the wedding because we were living together and hubby thought it would make the honeymoon even more special. In actuality I think he just needed to release some catholic guilt. During that month we had a moment of weakness. We did not use birth control because it was late in my cycle and I figured I must have ovulated already. Turns out I’m a late ovulator. Two weeks later I end up with a raging yeasty beasty although at the time I didn’t know what it was. Not like any yeast infection I had ever had before. I convinced myself that hubby must have been a bad boy at his bachelor party and gave me something. Poor guy. Two weeks before our wedding and I’m accusing him of cheating. Something I had never done before. I went to the OB/GYN and refused the pregnancy test. I’m not pregnant. We only had sex once this month. I must have sounded like a dumb teenager. I was quite relieved that it was only a yeast infection. I think on some level I knew I was pregnant but I couldn’t deal with it so close to the wedding.

These are the photos of our families. Mine is the much smaller family because my parents weren’t there due to one of our typical estrangements. My beautiful beloved sister is to my right and my favorite aunt is on the left.

When I look at the photo of my husbands family I’m reminded of how in love I was with the idea of his family. Ten children; five girls and five boys. How perfect. I honestly believed that God had given me this family to make up for the family I never had. I was so naive and delusional that I saw what I wanted to see. I never have really fit in. I still feel like I’m on the outside looking in. I have my favorites that I feel safe to be myself with but for the most part I don’t feel I can be 100% true to who I am with them because to fit in you need to be like them. It saddens me that I don’t feel as close to them as I would like. Over the years I have slowly distanced myself because being around certain family members is emotionally painful for me. There are two sisters who have been hard on me and have some characteristics that remind me of my Borderline mother. Of course I took it from them because that’s all I knew. I was the perfect prey. I was this young, fragile girl trying to make this family love and accept me. I’ve finally given up and adopted the attitude that this is who I am. Take it or leave it. They are the types who are always going to find something about me to pick at.

This photo sums up my marriage pretty well. My adoring hubby kissing me, my eyes are closed and my hands lightly touching him, feeling a little uncomfortable with the affection. The Golden Boy marries The Damaged One. My hubby is number eight out of the ten. The only boy in the middle of five girls. He was born after a stillborn pregnancy. He could do no wrong and was called The Golden Boy. Need I say more?

I’m the oldest of three and grew up in an abusive home with a mentally ill mother. I considered myself damaged goods. I didn’t think anyone would want to marry me because of where I come from and the emotional toll it takes on me. When I first dated my hubby and my mom was admitted into the psyche ward I told him that this is my life and I would understand if he wanted out. He stayed.

He became my rock. A wonderful example of emotional stability. So much so that when we had a family crisis and he was having a hard time coping I found myself wanting to scream no you can’t fall to pieces, who’s going to help put me back together? I get so uncomfortable when he’s down or worried because he rarely exhibits those emotions. He’s so laid back. It takes a lot to ruffle his feathers. He’s funny, generous, kind, and generally a very likable person. A bit out of touch with his feelings and I often ask him where his magical suitcase is that stores all his emotions. It has to be bursting at the seams by now. He tends to be passive-aggressive which can drive me crazy because I’m the exact opposite. I feel every emotion to it’s fullest, analyze everything and have no problem talking about my emotions and dark thoughts. I’m pretty much an open book.

It’s funny to me how at times I think I don’t deserve him and other times I think he doesn’t deserve me. I wish I could say he’s my best friend but because of our differences in how we handle the “emotional stuff” I turn to my sister and best friends. Can’t say that I would change it since it works for us.

I still love him as much as the day I married him but the passion is lacking. We are able to rekindle it though with a night out without kids. Unfortunately resentment has grown for me towards him over the years. The current storyline on Desperate Housewives between Tom and Lynette reminds me of us. Tom has found out that he has a love child from before they were married and Lynette has embraced the child but her skanky, demanding mother is causing problems. Tom expects Lynette to grin and bear it and often puts up with the skanky mom’s crap because he doesn’t want to lose his daughter. He cluelessly (is that a word?Blogger says no) lets his wife take it and to deal with his problem on her own. Often Lynette feels like the love child and her mother’s feelings are more important.

My hubby’s love child is his family and has expected me to deal with mistreatment from certain family members. In the beginning he pushed me to have a relationship with his sisters that it would mean a lot to him. Being the stupid, naive, damaged girl I did just that out of fear of losing him. I can’t believe how long it took me to get a clue. It seems to me that my hubby finds it easier to deal with me being mad at him rather than his family. Often I felt like they were more important than me. Our family crisis brought this issue to a head and we ended up in marriage counseling. It did help him to acknowledge some of the dysfunction of his family. Things improved for us but the resentment still sits in me and sometimes he says or does something that causes it to resurface.

I am happy in my marriage and can’t imagine not being married to him although there were times I didn’t feel this way. It is so true for us that the things I loved about him before we married can drive me batty now. Marriage is just so complicated. He’s a great guy and truly adores me. I wish I did a better job of showing him that I adore him too. My parents really screwed that up for me. I have a wall up that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to tear it down. Deep, deep inside I feel unworthy of his love and I feel such a strong need to protect myself because I fear he will be taken away from me. I know it’s irrational but it’s there deep inside in the dark place I try to avoid.

I want my hubby to know that I’m thankful for him. We are so good in so many ways and I will always be committed to working through our issues. I honestly cannot imagine my life without him.

Nine years ago today I never imagined that I would have to work at my marriage although I wouldn’t change a thing, not even the bad. They’ve been learning lessons that have caused changes for the better. Isn’t that what life is? Lessons that encourage us to be better people, to love more and to teach the lessons we learn to others? Life would be pretty boring without them. Some just have tougher lessons than others and some need the lessons repeated over and over to learn them.

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