Struggle With Reality

On February 18, 2019, I decided to become a different person and to leave the past hurt and abuse behind me. My mother called me on the 19th and I updated her on my knee recovery and on what is happening with our housing situation. I even told her that she should be happy if we can be financially stable, even if I am not around. She ignored that saying that she was happy to have me more stable but crying because she was worried about her dog. Lucy, adopted 2 months prior to the conversation, was adopted from a shelter and had been abused previously. The dog has had a history of biting at people and my mother wanted to focus on that over us, even though I was asking for support. I told her that I would look into how to help the dog stop biting and call her back, for which she seemed grateful.

On the 20th, I called her and gave her my results of the research: patience, love and communication, and space is needed for an abused animal. She seemed to feel hurt to hear this but I told her that there are only 4 ways to deal with a biting dog: be patient and communicate, put the dog in an area which will not let it bite, give it to a different home, or put it down. Oh, the waterworks. She then said something to the effect of "I don't know anymore". What about? "Why didn't you tell me you were engaged?"

I'll tell you that it really set me off. For one, I brought up "why should I have told you when you hate the man that I am with?". I don't hate him, was the response, because I haven't been able to get to know him. But you have judged him from day one because he isn't a Protestant Christian. Well, I'm no longer one either. Yet you still berate me and say that my faith is false, that it is a cult. She had little to say about that. I told her that she has expressed the idea I should divorce him and she denied it. I told her that she has been disapproving and disappointed in me for all of my life and that she needs to stop and be happy for me.

I asked her to be more open minded but she took the "woah is me" approach. I could not feel any repentance in her when we talked and I am not trying to let this hurt but I have lost my support system. They were a crappy one all of these years and they were not good enough for me, but they had been distantly "there". Just thinking about my conversations with her makes me ill. I think I might need to cut it off completely just to get emotional stability and it kinda scares me. I am willing but I am hurt.

I want to have support but I feel so lost and lonely. I don't know how I can get any real support in the near future…. I will let these words out of myself so they aren't stuck inside to fester. If even just one person reads this and feels enough empathy to lend a hand or send a good thought my way, maybe it will be worth it.

~ Gracie