Unresolved emotional trauma - Mother.

I've learned recently that fibromyalgia, CFS / ME and other auto-immune 'syndromes' can be triggered as a result of emotional trauma and came across this post from a previous blog of mine. Written in May 2008 'celebrating' the 64th birthday of my mother who I hadn't seen for five years (It's now passed the twelve year mark) it shows one brief chapter in my Life with My Mother, which had always been a strained relationship to say the least. Reading the post again this morning it raised a lot of unresolved emotional traumas - I want to scream at her for being a really bad mother, I want to thank her for raising me to the point that she did (I was nine when I moved into my grandmother's) I want to beat some sense into her, I want to show her what she's been missing out on by excluding us all from her life - three grandchildren, two sons, two daughters in law - all those Christmasses, birthdays, Mother's Days when we could have been a family..... anyway, read on, you'll see it's written in blue italic pent-up anger font:

If I had a picture of my Mother (I do now - scroll down!) on this computer I'd post it here today. Today is her 64th birthday after all, so you'd expect some kind of recognition or even a bit of a celebration of her life so far. It's what normal families do, isn't it?

The fact that I haven't seen her since the summer of 2003, or spoken to her since March 2005, should be alien to most families. Not to mine.

Prior to the birth of my daughter in 2003, and for reasons best known to herself and her third husband, Mother had decided to exclude me (and my brother) from her life for nine years. It was not until six months after Emily was born that I plucked up the courage to write to her to advise her that she was a third-time grandmother. Her response was that of a normal Mother - we visited her (once she'd told us where she was living) and for a few hours one day in 2003 we were a normal family. She was overwhelmed with Emily and seemed genuinely delighted that we should put the past behind us and move forward. I was wary. With good reason.

A few days after the visit I called her and she was cool again. I asked what was wrong but she didn't want to say (or couldn't, or wouldn't) and a few days later an email arrived from her husband Richard, who advised me that I should stay away or he would call the police. His reasons? Apparently I had not called Mother to thank her for the birthday card she'd sent me and he'd assumed that the reason I hadn't called her was because she'd not included any money with the card, and that I was a scrounger, a layabout, a liar and a cheat. He is quite mad and has driven my Mother, who was never quite the full shilling, to his mad ways. Alienating her from the entire family on her behalf, but I suspect secretly with her full approval.

In March 2005 I got a call from her, out of the blue, to advise me that she had been diagnosed with osteoporosis and that I should let Steven (my Brother) know "as it's hereditary." Why she couldn't call him herself I'll never know. At some point in the conversation I mentioned my Nana (her Mother - who had sadly died the previous month), her response? "I don't want to talk about that woman!" I said "You do realise that she died last month - Richard did tell you, didn't he?" The phone fell silent for a brief moment and she repeated that she didn't want to talk about 'that woman!'. Clearly Richard had not passed on the news of her Mother's death. This explains the reason for her failure to attend the funeral.

I haven't spoken to her since. She married Richard in 1983 and quite quickly began to alienate herself from the rest of the family. Steven was first in 1986 when she 'boycotted' his wedding because of some minor disagreement over seating plans. Even the birth of her first grandchild in 1990 couldn't heal the rift - though Steven tried, and again with his second child in 1992 - to no avail. She boycotted my wedding in 1993 because I'd invited my brother. All in all, between 1983 and the present day, I have seen my Mother less than ten times.

The family had never been really close due to my Mother's ways, but after Richard came along it divided, sub-divided and sub-divided further to the point of no return.

For Mother, today will have no flowers, cards, presents, chocolates, tacky ornaments with "To the Best Mum In The World!" lovingly etched upon their surface, no visiting offspring, no dropping by sister, no high-pitched telephone calls from shy little grandchildren.

Today will be a day for Mother, with the eager support of her doting husband, to reflect on how badly she has been treated by her family, when really she should be looking closer to home, and within her own heart.

I'm sad for what could have been.

I'm not just sad anymore - I'm angry, but by being angry inside and not expressing it to the focus of my anger I'm left with this unresolved issue and all this stress, and we all know what that can do to the system. I thought writing it down might help. It hasn't.

Left to Right: My Gran, me(aged 8), my mother, my brother. At her 2nd wedding in 1975