Reflections

Sometimes, I sit and think about my life and wonder where the fuck did I go so wrong with it.  There are times I just feel like a complete failure.  Okay, a lot of the time.

Like how I let an abusive addict control my life between 16 and 18 years old.  I swore I'd never get involved with an addict given my father was an alcoholic.  But it happened anyway, learned behavior maybe?  Or how I let my mother control me for so long.  She all but encouraged this relationship.  Every time I broke it off, she would find a way to get us back together.  Maybe it was the time he held me at knife point in a subway stairwell that finally woke her up.

In a way, I guess my mother was abusive too.  Is that the right word even?  I don't know.  It seems too easy to throw it around.  But she was controlling, quick to put me down, and could serve up the silent treatment if I didn't agree with her better than anyone I knew.  I don't know if she was/is bipolar, narcissistic, or what.  Yet I put up with it because all my life she put the 'fear of Mom' in me.  Short of saying I brought you into this world I can take you out. 

Fast forward a couple more years, now I'm married to a narcissist.  I didn't know it at the time.  He was charming and persuasive.  A smooth talker as my aunt said.  He could make you believe just about anything.  Made promises out the ass.   In the end, I gave up going to college after a year to move to Florida with him (we were married a year at this point).  Lived with his sister for 6 months, didn't know it then but they are so much alike!  At this point he really hadn't shown his true colors yet.  But slowly after we were there, he would make comments and suggestions to subtly break me away from my family.  I was in Florida with no friends or family anywhere near me.  After a few more years, the controlling behavior really started to show.  The put downs, the belittling.  The making me feel like I was crazy.  The first time I was taking my oldest back home to meet the family, he told me if I even thought about not coming back he'd have me arrested and declared unfit.  Now at the time, this hadn't really crossed my mind.  I never even once threatened to leave or not come back.   But those words scared me!!! 

Three years later and two kids later, the relationship isn't improving and his narcissism only gets worse.  But everyone thinks he walks on water and can do no wrong.  He's made that same threat a few more times here and there, pretty much solidifying me staying so I can be with my kids.  And I got blamed for everything wrong in our lives.  I could do nothing right, I was stupid, I was lazy...in his opinion.  Things had to be done his way or it was wrong.  His favorite thing to say was "if you know how I want things done, why don't you just do it that way to begin with and then I wouldn't have to get mad".

Then I decided I wanted to homeschool the girls.  I feel like I failed them miserably at it.  I feel like I have failed with my kids in so many ways.  Getting them to do their work was near impossible.  Maybe I should have done things differently, maybe homeschooling was a bad idea after all.  I feel like I've let them down in every way possible.  I suppose at some point in life every parent might feel like they have failed their children.

So where am I going with this post?  I really don't know to be honest.  My past just makes me feel like I failed as a daughter, as a wife, and as a mother.  I know that I can't blame myself for what my mother and my ex did or how they made me feel.  I can't blame myself for the choice my girls make now that they are old enough to make their own decisions.  I can only hope I instilled enough in them that they won't get lost in the world. 

I need to shed all this junk that holds me back.  These feelings of failure and inadequacy.  I need to find and make my own happiness.  I am happy to be with my Beloved, to be surround by nature as we are.  I love being here with him.  I just really need to find a way to come into my own and be who I was meant to be, to be the person he sees in me.  I need to find the key to unlock the door and set her free.