Beginning to Forgive

I have been in therapy for the last year dealing with all the ways my mother has fucked me up and continues to send me into never ending downward spirals of hell every time I have to deal with her. I'm still not completely aware of how much of my depression and self hate is because of the contact I have with her.

My therapist keeps trying to help me set boundaries with her, and for awhile I can, but then something happens, I don't even know what it is, but at some point I let her in my "fence" and I turn into a complete mess. It's all I can do to function on a daily basis for myself let alone my kids and husband.

I'm supposed to be able to get to some place where I can understand why mom is the way she is, accept it and forgive her for how horrible of a mother she was. I'm still not able to reconcile how to do this and maintain boundaries because I feel like I need the anger to maintain the boundaries and protect my sanity from her.

My mom said she wanted to "break the chain" with me.   But when it came down to it, she raised me the same damn way her father raised her.

And as much as I try to raise my kids completely different than my parents raised me, I see The Boy struggle with the same shit.  It's not in how I parent him, praise him, discipline him or any of those things my mom sucked at, but it's in how he sees me react to and handle things. Which is not well at all.  My therapist has said the same thing about her kids.

This makes me think that no matter how hard I try to do things differently for my kids, I'm still going to fuck them up some how. And no matter how many mistakes my mom wouldn't have made, I still would've been fucked up. Everyone is fucked up by their parents because parents are humans.  Hell, look at my FIL. He wouldn't come visit Evan when he was born and now he wont come visit us because our house is too messy. On the surface I see my in laws as these stable well adjusted people that raised three amazing men, but my FIL does shit to hurt Magnus. WTF????  I would never picture him as someone that would hurt one of his kids, but he has.  Every time my MIL comes to visit, he lays a guilt trip on her because he likes having her there. Does he mean it?  Probably not. Does that make a difference?  Nope. Still fucking hurts like hell.

I guess my point is that in trying to come to some sort of peace with all the shit my mom has done and still does, I'm realizing that she's human just like everyone else and no matter how "perfect" my childhood could've been, I still would have issues because and she still would have hurt me, because she's human.  The shit my mom did and does isn't intentional. She's just that messed up in the head.  I still struggle with every positive thing she has to say to me because I don't believe a damn one of them. How can you call your child awful names and make awful accusations and then turn around and tell them how amazing of a person and parent they are?  What makes her so qualified to know what a good parent is?  Logic doesn't tie those two things together, but some how, in order for me to heal, I've got to reconcile that my mom loves me despite all the shit she has done and does. She loves me in the way she is capable of loving me, not in the way I need her to love me and can't show me in the ways I need to see it.