I’ve been staying with my sister for the last week. We’ve done a lot of work on her new house (sorting through boxes, doing tip runs, that kind of thing), some cooking (an excellent hotpot, a roast dinner – her first attempt! – fajitas… we’ve eaten well!), some watching of god-awful films (seriously, if you haven’t seen the Pitch Perfect trilogy, don’t. 😛 ) and we’ve done a lot of talking. It was during one of these chats that we realised that while we’re both NC with mum, the reasons for that are very different. For her, she simply doesn’t have the bandwidth to deal with mum’s bullshit right now. For me, I am still traumatised, and being in touch with her was re-traumatising me at almost every interaction. With my sister, she distanced herself from mum’s stuff quite early on, and never really internalised her voice, whereas with me it’s so internalised that at 43 I can’t tell what’s mum’s and what’s mine when I have a thought.

This is mostly what I’m working on in therapy, finding out who I am without her. I think it’s why I’ve come on so much in this past year of being NC, because figuring this out without her is SO much easier than trying to do it with her whispers still in my ear. I’m really enjoying discovering what my strengths are, and finding out new things about myself (for example, that I’m much more capable and less anxious than I believed myself to be).

However, even amid learning to love myself, and believe that I’m on the whole a good person, I still feel a bit lost when I think about the longer term. My therapist asked me last night what I wanted (with regard to a relationship with mum) and I realised that I didn’t know. I don’t know if I’m doing this work so that I can keep myself safe when I re-engage with her in the future, or if I’m doing this work so that I no longer need or want a relationship with her, and don’t miss her any more, and can cope just fine without her. I hope it’s the first – I’ve always thought it was – but the thought that if anyone else treated me like this, I’d cut ties and not look back is suddenly present, so why is it different because she’s my parent?

I don’t know what the answer is. IS it different because she’s my parent? Will I find out what it is I’m aiming for, and if I don’t know, can I continue to do this work without an outcome in mind? I’m a little lost at the moment, but I do have faith that it’s a temporary thing and I’m sure I’ll be back on track soon. Until then, I’ll keep recording thoughts here, and keep talking, and delving, and thinking. It’s the only way out. 🙂