Mother's 19th nervous breakdown

The other day, I spoke on the phone with my Ma. She had a terrible time a couple of weeks ago, and had even called me to tell me about it but when she did, I didn't even give her a chance to tell me. As soon as I heard her voice I basically said I was sorry and selfish but I just had to talk about me that day. I know, ballsy, insensitive right?

She told me she had a very frightening panic attack, despite her anti-anxiety prescription. She said she thought she was dying. Thankfully her friend Glow was there to help her through. God Love the Nurses!

As the story goes, her trigger had something to do with a personal realization of the bare naked truth. Her lifelong denial came to a grounding halt, with no way around it, she had no choice but to see the truth.

I went through something very similar last November when I uncovered what I called my Miss-Taken truth. Now I see that was a blessing because I am a year ahead of mom, I know what she's about to face because I've already faced it, and I can help her through this if she lets me.

Mom finally saw it, spoke it, accepted and admitted it.
Her parents never wanted her.

They blamed her for being born. Because of her, two virtual strangers were "forced" to marry after one blind date. That's right one blind date! My grandparents were 23 and 25 respectively. Stupid and horny, what can I say?

They took many frustrations out on her, then turned to the world and said, "We just don't know what to do about that girl, tsk tsk." This habit of subtle subterfuge interfered with my mothers development into a confident, productive, whole adult being.

Mom described her attack, her actions of ripping mother's pictures from their places, her immense anger and betrayal, and all the things she SHOULD be feeling, all the things she's denied herself from feeling or knowing, all these years.

I gave mom the best piece of advice I had for this moment; She must remember as bad as Gran was a mother, her mother was just as bad. Grannies inability to mother is directly related to her motherless childhood, which is the direct result of her mother's motherless childhood. I told her about having to reconcile my own angry feelings with my loving feelings for Granny.

What mom may or may not yet realize, Granny's failures as a parent effected my entire life, from where and how I was born, to where and how I was raised to where and how I was abandoned, by my mother.

My mom's inability to mother ME was a direct result of her mom's inability to mother her.

Spinning full circle, the bottle stops at me.

I was suddenly grateful that when she first called after her panic attack I charged right in and controled the conversation from word Go. Had she a chance to unload on me fresh from that horror show, she would have been too raw to hear what I said. As it was I had to reign it in quite a bit. I could've started something, or lost a precious opportunity to help mom face reality about herself and the fictional family she keeps up in her head.

It is crucial, that mom not be too hateful towards granny right now, or later she will regret it.
She needs to feel the feelings she has repressed all these years, she must feel them and release them. They are valid, but they are not real. They are phantoms she's been carrying around with her like a second suit of skin. They are heavy and they distort her health.

I tried to explain about the essential thing needed for "dealing straight with granny". The thing is, she needs to deal with her memory as she would the memory of any other woman. Look at her as an equal, evaluate her life as though it were the story of any woman you might meet.

When viewing Granny's Life as Ette's life, it's impossible not to see how brave and wonderful she was. Yes, she was young and stupid at one time, then wiser and bitter. But after that? She waded through a lot of shite, a lot of crappy behaviour and dark despairs in addition to bearing the weight of grievous wrongs done her by others. She got to the other side, took life by the horns, carved out a name for herself among her peers. She helped shape change in the larger world globally and here at home. She became a great and interesting woman, despite the fact she was a crap parent.

I told mom this is how she need judge her mother not by the narrow role of parent but as a human being, a woman in her own right. I also told my mother while I call her mom, I've made her a sister. In this way I can know her, and allow myself to have her. Otherwise, I don't know how I could be able to live with her, and I don't mean under the same roof, but I in my heart.

I began to disclose the story of the family that I have uncovered through the direct questioning of the people involved. And in picking clean their memories of those others involved, no longer alive to tell their own stories.

With no disrespect to my great grandmother Gladys, she was not the ideal mother everyone made her out to be.

Contained in the "funniest" of family stories is often a hint of something else. Something not quite so funny. Something down right mean spirited. But, then again it could just be my perspective of events that happened two, three and four generations ago.

It used to be a darkly dangerous thing to criticize the sainted Gladys, but the sainted Gladys was just a traumatized little girl, an orphan of TB at the turn of last century. She was ripped from her family, from the reservation and sent thousands of miles away to be basically the house slave of an insane alcoholic family where she withstood tremendous abuse. She was rescued by a remarkably freaky chance. But that's another story.

My Great Great Granny was, like my own mother, a fifteen year old bride who began to birth babies from that time till she just couldn't anymore. Granny and I calculated it, the woman was pregnant for 66% of her entire life. Twelve babies, 11 survived.

Gladys was basically a single mom except for the few times a year her husband would show up, meet the newest baby, get Great Granny pregnant again, and be gone.

By the time Granny was born 4th from the end, child rearing was left up to the older daughters. Granny was basically raised by wild teenage girls with little to no parental guidance, her mother a harried and absent single mom trying to make ends meet. Her father periodically appearing to play house between his adventures.

Then I switched over to her father's side.

Her father was a child fostered out between his mothers lengthy "arrangements." A kept woman with a taste for extravagant corsets. Unable to care for or provide for her son, she had an inexhaustible collection of fine undergarments. Most of which had labels claiming to be from France, were hand made and exceedingly expensive. Many, Granny membered, were still in their original wrappings toward the end. Alice said, she kept buying them long after she no longer wore them. During the 1930's life was hard. Lingerie was her livelihood, a little boy a liability.

So I reminded mom of much of our unspoken history. The stuff not written about in the family bibles and tree's.

Things like despite the fact that Granny and many of her siblings were divorced, and the same with their children, it is only when one comes to my mother's name in our family tree that the words "divorce" is ever entered. Interesting n'est pas? According to my grannies family records I am the first bastard ever recorded.

I am so proud.

However, I have it from three good sources the entire brood of one of my little old aunties belong not to her husband but to various neighbours. OOOH YEAH!

I began to speak a spontaneous kind of litany for my mother. As I said it out loud, Mom began speaking with me, word for word until I was done with it. It was a little spooky, it felt momentous. The words just whooshed out of me and you know what? they weren't very respectful toward the deceased, but every word I spoke was true.

I told her,

Your father's mother was a prostitute, his father her pimp.

Your mother's mother was a child bride, your father a peodophile.

Your father was a sex addict, your mother a whore.

(I can't quite remember the next couple of lines, something about passing down baggage, and lies from generation to generation) -Their shame is not your shame,

and we ended it with a brassy"And it must be said out loud!"

It was a powerful moment between us, both our voices raised unscripted, and the truth pored out.