Abandonment

Well I had my first therapy appointment today. Wow. It's amazing how little time it takes to realize just how much baggage you have to work through.

I like my therapist so far. She is German with a really heavy accent which is a little weird but she was able to bring out stuff that I had buried or not realized in just 45 minutes.

We went back in my childhood to talk about abandoment issues. I had felt abandoned by my parents when they split up for a while when I was in high school and my mom was going to my dad's apartment every weekend to work on things. I now realize that it started as early as 3rd grade if not before. My mom has always struggled with major depression from as early as I can remember. I would come home from grade school and my dad would say, you need to be nice to mom because she isn't feeling well. From that point on, whenever that was, I was having to take care of them. Then my dog Madchen died when I was in 3rd grade. Talking with the therapist made me realize that that is probably when my depression started. My only friend had died. The only one who spent real time with me and had unconditional love for me.

I have spent all my life looking for someone to love me. I have relationship hopped and never wanted to be alone. I married an alcoholic who is like my father in some ways and is really not available emotionally a lot of the time and that feels normal to me.

I also realized on the way back to work after my appt that my "security blanket" known as moles that I still sleep with today relates to this. When I was very little I liked to rub the moles on my mom's neck before going to sleep. She then didn't want to have to sit there while I did that so she made some out of yarn for me. I still use these EVERY night. Hmmmm.... light bulb. It had never crossed my mind that these could be related.

My therapist and I talked about I still feel the need to take care of my parents. I don't show all my emotions in front of them because the can't "handle" it with their own mental illnesses. I told her my dad asked me to call him after the appt and I asked what I should tell him. She said, it's time to stop worrying about your parents and tell them what you want to tell them. So I decided that I would tell him, if he asked, that we talked about abandonment. When I called him he asked how it went and I said, well there is a lot, it kind of overwhelming. He said, well be nice when you talk about us. Wow, that floored me. I hadn't realized how selfish and unhealthy he was until he said that. He wants me to distort things in my childhood so they don't look bad.

There are many things I love about my parents, but I now see, and probably will continue to see how flawed they are. My husband says, people do the best they can with the tools they are given, so I am going to try not to be angry and instead feel sorry for them and work through the other stuff through therapy. Hey, maybe there is hope for me yet.