I have read back into the archives of The Grieving Room diaries, and have been comforted by the range of experiences. Seeing similarities to my own situation reflected in the experiences of others has been reassuring. Being able to externalize and examine my thoughts over the several months that I have been working on this diary has allowed me to step back from the individual issues and see the larger picture.
A special welcome to anyone who is new to The Grieving Room. We meet every Monday evening. Whether your loss is recent or many years ago, whether you have lost a person or a pet, or even if the person you are "mourning" is still alive ("pre-grief" can be a very lonely and confusing time) you can come to this diary and process your grieving in whatever way works for you. Share whatever you need to share. We can't solve each other's problems, but we can be a sounding board and a place of connection.
a link to all previous "Grieving Room" diaries
When my Mom died, my world crumbled. Not for the usual reasons, but because she turned out to be the keystone supporting the house of cards that was my personal narrative. The ongoing adjustment is painful but also liberating.
When the offspring gathered at my Mom’s bedside, shortly after she entered into hospice care, there was a halcyon period of family peace - almost a full 24 hours. Then the seismic cracks reappeared.
I assumed direct care of my Mom near the end, immediately after the departure of “the beloved child.” I entered her room with confidence, buoyed by the many contributions I had made behind the scenes. Unfortunately, “the beloved child” had neglected to brief me about many of my Mom’s preferences - even in those final few days, the need to retain primacy trumped everything, including my Mom’s comfort. Dealing with my Mom’s grief at the departure of “the beloved child” would have been difficult enough on it’s own, this just made it that much worse.
Growing up, my Mom did a stellar job of setting us at each other’s throats. Nothing anyone did was ever quite good enough, one sib or another would be held up as an example. By the time we entered adulthood everyone, including my Dad had been sucked into the frequently vicious struggle for my Mom’s approval. Approval was only given conditionally, so there was never any end to the struggle. “The beloved child,” who managed to claw to the top of the pile at a relatively young age, was hyper-vigilant about defending that privileged position. My Mom’s death did little to change the family dynamic – “the beloved child” assumed my Mom’s role and everything continued as before.
I had submitted to my Mom my whole life, bending the knee as the price I must pay to maintain the illusion of acceptance. After her death, “the beloved child” began demanding that I grovel. I was surprised to find that the terror of exclusion seemed to have died with my Mom, and I decided that the price required of me was too high. The family closed ranks behind “the beloved child,” effectively shattering my illusion of family acceptance and support.
“Friends” were only interested in what I could do for them, leaving me to face the stark reality that my entire personal narrative was an illusion. My carefully constructed house of cards came crashing down.
I have spent a long time staring a the rubble, and am finally starting to move forward. In a way I am grateful, because now I can lay my own foundation, based in the real world, and build a less precarious structure. A painful part of the process has been facing the fact that if I am the common denominator, then I am probably the source of (many of? most of? all of?) the problems.
When I was a child, there was tremendous dissonance between the verbal and the non-verbal: statements of acceptance were negated by actions of rejection. Because the non-verbal messages were never acknowledged, I was conditioned to take things at face value. In adulthood, there was comfort and security in accepting the verbal messages and I clung to the practice as a way of preserving my illusions. As I am learning to rely on the non-verbal messages, I am finding more and more that the world is a consistent and predictable place.
My Mom and “the beloved child,” both highly charismatic people, were the sought after center of attention in every social situation. By contrast, it took me a long time to realize that I wasn’t literally invisible. I eventually figured out that the problem wasn’t so much that I wasn’t seen as that I was rarely noticed. I invested a lot of effort into trying to be like my Mom and “the beloved child” - desperately aping their behavior in the mistaken belief that it would change how I was perceived. I flung myself into attempts to please so I could maintain the illusion of a social life. Now, as I move forward, I am giving myself permission to stop trying so hard to maintain the fiction that I am someone / something I clearly am not. I am trying to develop a sense of detachment and humor in the face of the dramatic swings, from “hail fellow well met, by the way could you do me this favor” to lack of eye contact or acknowledgment, which are so painfully obvious when not obscured by a real social life. I am learning what a sincere social overture does NOT look like. I am starting to evaluate the requests made of me and make reasoned choices.
Some books that I have found valuable, and that might be of interest to others:
Taking care of parents who didn’t take care of you by E. Cade
Mistakes Were Made – but not by me by C. Tavris and E. Aronson.
The Bittersweet Season by Jane Gross