Fear Of Loosing One Support

When I was growing up obtaining Ruth's love was everything. Loosing her love to me until I was 27 years old was unthinkable. When I was 16 years old Ruth's father died. My grandfather George. I purposely stayed home from school the day we found out and school was my sanctuary. I stayed home to be a comfort to her. I thought she wouldn't want to be alone all day. She allowed me to take care of her, she cried in my arms. We spent the day talking about my grandfather. I made her lunch. It was the closest I had felt to her probably in my whole life. Why did I do this? I did it because I honestly thought that if I showed her compassion that she would show it back. I thought if I nurtured her that somehow she would be able to nurture me in return. I felt really good that day I thought it would be a turning point in our relationship. I wanted to show her I was worthy of her loving me.

While I am grateful that I was able to be a comfort to her our relationship didn't change. I believe this act showed my true nature. Unfortunately Ruth was toxic and our relationship was toxic. It took me until I was 27 years old to break away from this toxic relationship. From the time I was 18 years old and left home I would go periods of time not talking to her. Then I would make the decision to contact her and I would get caught up in wanting her to love me. Then I would back away again and something would ignite in me and I would contact her again. It was always with the same results; arguments, wanting to be the center of my world, demanding everything be the way she wanted it, manipulation, never taking any responsibility for her actions, betrayal and not earning her love. She demanded that she be the most important thing in her children's lives. Once I got married I explained to her that my husband had to be more important to her and this caused great strife for her. Then I had my children and had come to know God and when I explained that my children had to come before her she was furious. When I tried explaining that God had to be the most important thing in my life she tried to convince me that God would want me to make her the most important thing in my life. She believed that a mother should remain the most important person in a child's life. While this is true when a child is young and under the age of 18. It naturally changes when the child grows up. Not to mention that a mother is someone who is supposed to nurture, love, guide, build you up, set boundaries, and be your biggest cheering section. All of which she wasn't.

When I was 27 I had found the strength to stop the madness. I finally told her I had, had it. I told her that I didn't care if she ever loved me that it wasn't worth dealing with the toxicity anymore. It wasn't fair to my children who were being subjected to her behavior. I needed to stop so my children would have a better childhood then I did. I had started refusing to go to holiday meals after my son was born. It was rare to have a good holiday. Most birthdays and holidays ended up with her becoming rage-full, threatening to kill herself, beating her children, breaking something or storming off in a huff. Usually because she didn't get her way. This behavior continued until my sister finally stopped it when her husband put his foot down. He told her that he didn't want Ruth over for the holiday's anymore. He couldn't tolerate his kids dealing with this anymore. Ruth was 54 years old by then.

When we survive abuse, severe abuse at the hands of someone who loves us. We tend to tolerate the abuse because we want to gain that persons love. We think if we can only do something better we may get their love. What I learned is that I had to love myself in order to not tolerate being abused anymore. That was a hard thing loving someone who was taught they were unlovable. Backing away was hard because at the same time she was a support person to me. I also feared that I would loose relationships with my siblings because of Ruth's demands that if she was mad at one of us we all had to be mad at that person too. I did lose relationships doing this but it was how I survived. Once I backed away from Ruth I gained great strength. This led to me being able to get out of my marriage. It was as destructive and abusive as my childhood. I did it for my children. If I was going to not talk with their grandmother to give them a better life then I needed to get away from their father for the same reason. It felt good getting stronger. Was this easy? no way! was it worth it? yes.

We may feel such guilt that we stay connected to people who are toxic in our lives. Guilt is a terrible thing. My experience with abuse is that the abuser uses guilt to manipulate. I had to learn not to listen to that "chatter box in my head." Susan Jeffers use's this terminology in her book Feel the fear and do it anyway. Learning to use affirmations to comfort myself was important to moving forward in my life. Taking these steps as hard as they were led me to where I am now. I am a very fortunate person who is grateful to be living the redemptive life she is. Blessings, Rosie

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