I've been dealing with being abused for many years. I've done some healing about the abuse. I think that I'm in an okay place regarding my father. I'm angry with him and I know that it is okay to be angry with him, to blame him and to place the shame of the abuse where it belongs - - on him. (As simple as it sounds, it took me years to get here.)
Things are more complicated when I think about my mother. Why? Well, in many ways she failed me as a mother. She didn't protect me. She didn't stop my father. Yet, it isn't that simple because she too is abused by my father. Throughout the time I was growing up in my parents' house my father emotionally abused my mother, belittled her family, belittled her dreams, belittled her accomplishments and worst of all routinely sexually abused her in front of me and my sister (and even my friends! when they were at the house). So, the part of me that knows that she is a victim, that she is depressed and that she too is stuck feels sorry for her. How can I blame her? Yet, I'm her little girl and she didn't protect me. How could she not protect her little girl? I feel protective of my friends' kids, of my students, of kids in the neighborhood. How much more the maternal instinct must be. Why didn't she protect me? So thus it is complicated.
To my sister and brother survivors and thrivers - - if this resonates with you what advice do you have for me? If your situation is similar how do you handle it? Thanks in advance for your comments.
