She's not THERE

Perfect song for my Zombie Blog! The title of the most famous song by the Zombies. I love it when life gives you the best thing at the right moment.

I totally lost my way with the blog. It happens. I'm going to just take up from here and be happy I got back to writing.

Writing and exploring my soul makes me happy. It took a lot of years and two great therapy experiences to get here. And I am eternally grateful for the Survivors of Incest 12-step group I found in the early 90s. They reflected who I was and showed me who I could become.

I now understand what threw me off the blog horse and it's TOTALLY okay. Last summer, I broke up with my remaining biological family. They began to pressure me to "get over" the rift between me and my mother.

Maybe rift fails to reflect the true nature of my relationship with Attila the Mom. I use that term because my husband pointed out that people would not urge me to reconcile if my mother was Hitler. Of course she isn't a genocidal maniac. Just a psychological self abusing maniac who first made and then abandoned her child.

My mother planned for my birth. She hoped to save her marriage. When I failed at that, she abandoned me. At the same time, she was using me to get back at my oldest sister. I'm sure Attila the Mom had no idea she was doing this, but the more I reflect on the situation, the clearer it becomes.

My mother became pregnant with my sister around the same age my sister was when mom had me. I feel mom resented my sister getting to live her high school years with freedom.

So when I was born, she brought me to my sister to take care of. My sister did care for me as best she could, but this built a deep resentment in her.

I feel so sad that my sister had me as a burden. I couldn't help but bond to her as a child bonds to a mother. There's a story of me getting hurt at a grocery store and I wouldn't stop crying until mother took me to "My Kathey's" high school so she could kiss my booboo.

Kathey married, had a child of her own and moved far away at about the same time as my parents divorced. I was four. I so get that none of this had to do with me. Though my mother and sister acted as though it did. I'm sure they didn't realize they were. That doesn't make it any less painful, it just made me confused until I sorted it out.

So there I was, resented and abandoned by both mother and bonded to sister. These resentments continued into my adulthood.

Attila the Mom hurt me more than MyKathey so that relationship broke down first. Twice ATM and I had major fallings out where I quit talking to her. Both times, my connection to my sister waned as well. I didn't quit talking to her, but I decided not to put any energy to keeping contact.

As an adult, my sister called me three times my entire life. Once when a cousin died, when my grandmother died and finally when my father died. I didn't even know the cousin. She was peeved at me for not knowing him. I do understand they were about the same age and she was feeling very mortal.

People tell me "you have to understand" a lot. When do I get the understanding?

Okay, so, I still had a kind of relationship with my sister because, well, she's my sister. After dad died, she and I were Facebook friends. She didn't post much, I saw more from her daughters. She would occasionally say things like she loved me after a post where I talked about something going on that wasn't working out.

I lashed out over that. I didn't call her by name, but I posted a Facebook where I complained that you can't act unloving and just say you love and make up for all the crap you pull. She replied that I didn't know what was in her heart.

I know that's very true. I don't know what's in anyone's heart. I do know how I am treated.

Last summer, ATM started having some health problems. My niece told me because she '"thought I should know." I told her that, though I wish her peace, I still didn't want to have anything to do with my mother.

My niece got hostile and told me how I needed to "get over this." That stressed me greatly for a couple of days. I realized, they would never understand the depths of the pain I survived. Though that makes me sad, it is OKAY.

I realized that I was holding on to a fantasy that family could "get me." They lacked the capacity to love me where I was at.

I broke up with them. I had to grieve that for all of December 2014. That's a whole other post that I'll write later.

Please understand, I am not asking anyone to quit their family like I have. You get to follow your own path. This is what is best for me. I even encourage others to try and find some common ground.

For me, I had to let go of the family ties the other party had let drop ages ago. Mostly I feel relieved.

Kind comments are encouraged. I'm BAAAACK!