I’m using Medium to Journal Some Feelings, OOPS.

When I step outside of myself and my feelings, I can understand why my mother’s reaction to learning that I had been raped was more traumatic than the rape itself — I can see the ways that having my world view shattered contributed, in the long run, to me becoming a better person… I can understand why my mother behaved like she did all through my childhood, I can look at her past and look at what I know about her mental state (so much more than I should have — emotional incest is a bitch) and I can see the motivations. I can see the way things moved behind the scenes, the threads that made up the tapestry of my childhood.

But understanding those things with the rational mind isn’t the same as knowing them in your heart. And being able to see why your mother resented you doesn’t undo the damage her resentment caused. Nothing can erase the damage of the past and even trying to understand does little to ease the pain. I wish that I could take the easy road — to blame her illness, to blame her personality disorder for what she did to me. I wish that I could say it wasn’t her fault, she didn’t have a choice — she was sick. it was in her nature. But I can’t.

It hurts to acknowledge that she chose to treat me that way. Her actions were a decision. Maybe influenced by her mental illness, but not caused by it. She was a human being who made choices, choices that deeply wounded me as a child and leave me scarred as an adult. We share that personality disorder and I know that I’m not like her. I make different choices — always remembering the choices she made and endeavoring to be different.