Adult Daughter says, Have a good life Mom.

[nativelilith]

My story is a long and complex one.  I will try to make it short.  I looked at the forums on here and didn't find anything similar, of course I am new to this board and maybe my search skills aren't quite learned yet for this forum.

1997 - divorced their father (the father and i have always gotten along, no problems ever with him)
2000 - moved 900 miles away with my job, my minor son came with me
2001- my minor daughter came to live with me
2002- my son turned 18 and went back to our hometown
2003- i was remarried, became a victim of a violent crime and left for dead at the hands of my new husband
2003 - my daughter went to live with her father, because i was affected by the crime
2003 - went in front of the grand jury to indict the man who left me for dead
was participating in the victim assistance program and moved to another town as trial neared.
2004- in another town about 100 miles away , unable to make decisions, unable to remember things i was trained to do, took menial jobs such as janitor work, etc. got a room in a rooming house (started over) found a new boyfriend. Very supportive.
2005- no news from the court on the attempted murder charge, got a better paying job with a good salary
2006- still no news from the court on the attempted murder charge, court said postponed due to attorney with medical conditon, first grandson born
2007-laid off job, travelled see first grandson a week after his first birthday
2008-still laid off, not finding work,
2009-found work, was laid off in august, grandaughter born, found out man who tried to killed me died in 2007, charges were dropped, they never got around to doing anything about it!

2010- still laid off, still with supportive boyfriend, and now i feel as if i have awakened to a very cruel world.

My decision making is much better now, I recall how to do many things but still have nightmares about the incident. Sometimes I think the man is not dead, I think I see sometimes, even though I live in a completely different town.  I ordered his death certificate thinking this would give me closure but it made no sense to me and only caused me to ask myself new questions.

Now, may daughter tells me, you werent here for me when i needed you such as having babies, the grandchildren's birthdays and she expects me to do anything in my power to move to where she is.  I think this is unreasonable, then when I told her I cant move, she says, have a good life mom.  My son feels the same way. When I have looked into everything piece by piece, it seems that I am to blame for anytime anything goes wrong with their young lives.. i admit i was not a good mom, i made a bad decision marrying the crazy man who left me for dead.  I apologized. I cannot do anything else. It is not in my financial ability to move to be with them, I would love to see my grandchildren every day, i cant.  So how do i deal with my daughter in this situation, i just told her what i written here. I dont think it makes a difference what I say or do.  And the children never ask me how I am doing. I believe they see me as a complete failure because of the choice I made.

[luise.volta]

If I read you right, you survived and you are in a supportive relationship. What is past is done, whether it was your doing or another's. What isn't understood...may never be and still life offers worthwhile moments and simple joys. My only suggestion is to do the best you can to move beyond the pain, suffering, misunderstandings and mistakes. If you dwell on them the life you have now won't be one of quality. You deserve peace.  Sending love...

[Enough]

I am so sorry for the horror that you have had to endure.  You are a survivor, and that counts for more than you know!  I imagine it feels like this man destroyed you, and then the legal system did it to you all over again, by giving you no closure.

From your son and daughter's perspectives, it is like a bomb went off in their world, they do not care that the bomb is sorry, they only know it destroyed their world.  They know, it took their mother away, and that, even now, she has not truly come back.  They are angry...and rightly so.  Maybe they think you didn't do enough to avoid this happening, maybe they think you didn't do enough to come back to them...I don't know.

Just out of curiosity, I see that you have been laid off (off and on) since 2007, would there be a job, in your daughter's home town?

[nativelilith]

Thank you both for the replies/suggestions.   

@  luise.volta , it is hard to move ahead without  professional help, even when I had a job I couldn't afford the cost of health care or therapy and by my daughter saying what she did to me has caused me to confront this issue instead of putting it aside as I have all these years. I guess I feel squeezed into thinking about what happened, when I think about it, i feel as if it just happened. i just wish I didnt feel that way.

@ Enough - I have been looking for work in large metro areas that offer public transportation as my auto was repossessed. I live in a large metro area right now and still haven't been able to even get a job as a waitress.  I am trying to find anything closer to my children although my supportive boyfriend cannot go because he is the only one who helps his 89 yr old mother here. His mother still gets around and lives in her own house, but needs help daily as she has gone blind now.

[luise.volta]

OK

[irenic]

I am so sorry for your pain.  I think we all are or have been in the horrible situation that tears us away from family members.  You did the best you
could in the past, we do only what we can do.  My daughter blames me for her rotten life cuz when her brother died, she said I changed and became an angry mom.
Indeed losing a child makes you angry as I am sure you must have anger in your life for all the terror you went through.  We can only move forward, we didn't
mean to hurt our children, we didn't mean to make their lives tough.  We can apologize and if they won't accept as in my case, I have to move on slowly.  You remember
your survived, you conquered fear and pain and agony.  You can only be the kind of person u want to be now.  You are cared about deeply, this place
has helped me.  I think we have to be kind to ourselves, we beat ourselves up and over and over again and we have to pat ourselves on
the back and tell ourselves we are good, we are loving and we did the best we could. 

[justus]

Frankly, it is amazing you are as functional as you are. I cannot imagine going through what you did. Whatever else you are, you are a survivor.

One of the things that  I really had to get over as a mom was worrying about what my children thought of me. I love them and I want their good opinion, but they have no idea about my issues. It is so easy for the young, especially if they are our children, to look at our lives and think they would have made better decisions. Heck, looking back at my life, it is clear what I should have done, but we all know that in the middle of a situation, knowing what we knew then, the best course was not so clear. They have a right to be angry about any decisions I made that had a negative impact on them, and I am probably a lot harder on myself than they are on me, but I cannot change those decisions, nor am I responsible for who they chose to be now. I can and will help them work through whatever issues they have with me, but I won't let them beat me up about it if that is all they want to do. I can't snap my fingers and make it all better. They are adults and they have to do the hard work for themselves.

So, I think right now you need to let your DD do what she needs to do for herself and work really hard on yourself. On airplanes, they tell you to put your mask on first and then help those around you with their's. Burying what happened only guarantees that it will come up at the most inconvenient and awful times. It means that when your children need you to help them deal with it, you can't because you are paralyzed with all that stuff you buried.  You are in a metropolitan area, which means they probably have some resources available to unemployed people. There are often community clinics that charge based on salary and there might be some group therapy sessions or survivor groups you could become involved with. If making a phone call is too overwhelming, look up support groups on the internet. I bet there many just like this one for survivors of violent crimes and domestic violence.

You are a very strong woman to have survived what you have. There is much to admire about you. Your DD doesn't understand this yet, but I bet she will.

[Mary]

I am so sorry this is happening to you.   Holding on to their anger is not going to make their lives better for anyone.  We all do make our mistakes.  Everyone on this earth.  Noone can say they are perfect.  That is so so sad that your children will hold you to a standard they themselves cannot hold themselves to.  We all sin everyday and make mistakes.  That is why there is a thing called forgiveness.  God knows we are not perfect.  I hope your children can see what God sees.  Someone who went through horrible pain at the hand of another human being and now they inflict more?  That is not right.  They need to forget whatever they "think" you did and get on with life.  Life is so precious and so short on this earth.  What good is their anger and resentment doing them?  If they can name 3 things it is bringing good into their lives, hold on to it and pass it on to their children...but we all know the answer.  It brings only saddness and havoc and bitterness.  Don't let that happen to you.  If they decide to not let go and see the good in life and only the emptiness of the past, let go and live your life as hard as it is right now.  I know of what I speak.  I have 3 children that are adults that I raised for years by myself as a single mom and now I hear I "yelled" too much. Now, two need a break from me.   Children sometimes will manipulate our hearts.  It is very very painful and it is mean on their parts.  You don't deserve it.  Lift your head high, cleanse your heart.  Please live your life and forgive yourself first and then let go.   Let go of the past and go on.  You cannot control if they do or not.  Let it go. 

[luise.volta]

"Let it go." What profound words. I honestly think I could have named this site: www.letitgo.com It's so often the answer.  I can still get stuck at times in being right (with tons of documentation to support my position.) When that happens, I can get into Victim Mode and that is lethal. It hurts me more than it ever hurts anyone else and totally stops any progress I might make. Then I defend that position and become more stuck. What a Catch 22. Sending love...

[nativelilith]

All these comments really help.  Ideas and suggestions are great. One thing I am doing is trying to keep in closer contact with my daughter daily by sending emails. My son is not into email. I keep the contact to one or two sentences.  She can read it, reply if she wants.  The first day she said, ok.  Usually the reply is nothing of my concern.

I am going to see if I can find a group.

Thank you all for the help and suggestions.

[luise.volta]

Wonderful! Sending love...