Your relationship with your mom.

[*Anya*]

This is a very heavy subject for me.

My mom was a foster child because my Grandmother was thrown out of her own family for getting pregnant and my GM had to work as a domestic to survive. The foster family was abusive and she was the scapegoat for the other 5 kids, as she was the oldest.

It damaged my mother and she was unable to be a loving, caring or nurturing person to her only daughter. She then met & married my dad, also from a cold, withholding family of origin.

I believed at an unconscious level, she identified with me and in collusion with my dad, made me the family scapegoat. My younger brothers escaped their wrath.

I used to pray as a child that something would happen to them and I would become an orphan and adopted by a mother like some of my friends had *nurturing*loving*.

Fast forward to the day I told my mom I was in love with my best friend, a wonderful person my mom really liked and that I was gay. She would not speak with me for 15 years. I wad uninvited from my brothers wedding, my brothers would not speak me & the scapegoat was out of the family dynamics.

As we all aged, my mother became sick, had surgeries and as usually happens- I am the only child near them. I help them because there is no one else. I accept that it is what it is. Things that they say still can sting though I have developed a much thicker, protective hide with them.
We were at a family and friends dinner the other day and my dad proceeded to tell the guests all about the "big vacation" when he took the "whole family, wives and grandkids to Hawaii a couple of years ago".

Neither of them noticed I was not included in the big trip (nor did I know it even happened!).

This thread asked about mom but my mother is totally intertwined with my dad. They are one person to me.

When my mom decided to speak with me again, the door was totally shut on my private life. She/they do not ask and do not want to know. I discuss the weather, groceries, etc. I just pretend with them, they pretend with me.
They are old now and I do not expect anything to change at this stage of the game.

[*Anya*]

I just noticed this was the butch zone. I am sorry, all I saw was "mom". I hope it was OK I invaded the space.

[SnackTime]

I am very close to my mother, especially for the last 20 years. We had MAJOR issues when I first came out and we did not talk for approximately a year. My family was faced with almost losing her in a car accident and it hit me the hardest. When something like this happens it changes our perspective on EVERYTHING. We repaired everything within a few months after the unthinkable and now we are closer than ever. She is truly an amazing woman! She is my hero and I am blessed to have a second chance with her!

[Oiler41]

My mom and I were pretty close. When I came out at age 16, things didn't go so smoothly. Coming out at 16, in Mississippi, in the perfect upper middle class, Republican, 3 child family was not easy. Things were pretty bumpy until I turned 18 and moved out (thinking I had the world by the tail, only to learn later that IT had ME). But she never turned her back on me; no one in my family did.

Within only a few years time, my mother came to accept me for who I am. After a while, it got to the point such that when I was living away from her, she would keep me caught up on the gay gossip in the little town in Mississippi I grew up in, lol. Years later, when I was getting ready to head to D.C. to march with the uniformed military contingent at the March on Washington in 1993, she was actually telling her friends about it, and again for the Millenium March on Washington.

We still had our rough moments over the years, but when she passed in 2007, I lost my greatest ally, advocate and supporter. She was always there no matter what. I miss her still. She was a great lady.

Glynn

[Strappie]

My Mom is my everything I don't need to say much more. She is my Rock and my families Rock!

I can only hope to one day I find a partner just as amazing as her!

[MissItalianDiva]

My mother is the most amazing woman I know! She is everything I have ever wanted to be. Kind,caring,loving,compassionate and throughout life and the process of building a family she has maintained her own sense of self.

If I can somehow manage to be even half of who my mother is then I will be one amazing individual

[bigbutchmistie]

Well I have 3 so let me explain...

My biological mom Debbi U. and I were close up until I was taken away at the age of 2 to be put in foster care. From then on up until 6 I was in and out of foster homes. Which brings me to "mom" number two.

Her name was Darlene (which is my middle name). She had foster kids and kids of her own. Her and her husband loved kids and had taken a liking to my brother and I. She wanted to adopt my brother and I and was in the process and as fate would have it got breast cancer and wasnt expected to live 6 months. She knew of a couple who turned out to be my adopted parents who were wanting a boy. They were friends of friends. They had taken some child classes from her she had taught. They adopted us, and that will bring me to my adopted mom.

I have never met a more cold and hateful woman in all of my life. Debbie D. certainly had no reason being a mother. Every thing a mother should be nurturing, affecionate, tender, loving, etc she was not with me. She was with my brother but not me. It has taken me years of counseling to get over hating her. Now, I just feel sorry for the human she is. We were never close growing up and now dont talk at all. Its how it should be.

However, I am glad I was able to renew a relationship with my biological mom before she passed. And now my relationship with Darlene is blooming. She and I have recently had a conversation where she sat at supper crying because she never wanted to give my brother and I away. She wanted to adopt us and apologized for putting me with my adopted family. It broke my heart. To see her so torn up after all these years about it. This woman who even after all these years has a closet full of photo albums of just pics of me and my brother growing up. I of course explained to her that things happen for a reason we always dont know what it is. But things happened as they were supposed to.. Now matter how screwed up it is.

She considers me her daughter, knows I am gay, and we hang out from time to time. I guess you could say she is the closest thing to family I have. And I am truly grateful for her.

[clay]

[COLOR="Blue"]My mom...I loved her..always...despite the fact she gave me away at age 8 for adoption, then wanted me back at age 13, as "more dependents for my Navy stepdad meant "more money"..so I spent 5 years, being raised like a military recruit. Subjected to verbal abuse, and physical..the "steel toe in the ass" kind, made to "fall out of the rack" at o dark thirty am for inspection" and many other forms of "discipline" for her "three bastards" ....and she stood silently by..saying well he DID take me and my 3 bastards and give us a place...excuse me, I am NOT a bastard, you were married to my daddy when I was born...that does NOT constitute a "bastard".
Anyway, once she found out I was gay, I was the outcast from the family! That was okay because I had friends and close folks who were ACTUALLY family! AND I was always loved..by someone...somewhere...
When she was diagnosed with Terminal Stage IV Bone/lung cancer, my two brothers said well YOU aqre the girl it is YOUR place to care for her. SO I was coming out of a bad relationship, so I sold my half of the home, sold my motorcycle, sold my motor home..and went "home" to care for her the last 3 months of her life...BY MYSELF! and I would do so again..I loved her..for to me, blood family love never dies... and just before she died, she said is there any way at all you would be "straight, sister? I said no ma'am, NOT an option. I was BORN this way, and I will DIE this way! I was holding her in my arms when she died, and I though wow..I came into this world in hers, and she left this world in mine...how ironic!
There is much more I could add...but it is not relevant..I loved her..unconditionally..she didn't me..plain and simple ..and I have moved on...it serves no one any good to hold a grudge, or to live in the past. I am a much stronger individual..I am capable of loving..in spite of..and I WANT to be this way! My life now is much different, I am even more stronger, and I have "let go...for to keep fighting an old issue gives it power, and if I give it power, it will last forever!!...This is for MYSELF alone...and works for ME alone...
Thanks for the "space" to write this...Clay{COLOR]

[Ginger]

Originally Posted by *Anya*

This is a very heavy subject for me.

My mom was a foster child because my Grandmother was thrown out of her own family for getting pregnant and my GM had to work as a domestic to survive. The foster family was abusive and she was the scapegoat for the other 5 kids, as she was the oldest.

It damaged my mother and she was unable to be a loving, caring or nurturing person to her only daughter. She then met & married my dad, also from a cold, withholding family of origin.

I believed at an unconscious level, she identified with me and in collusion with my dad, made me the family scapegoat. My younger brothers escaped their wrath.

I used to pray as a child that something would happen to them and I would become an orphan and adopted by a mother like some of my friends had *nurturing*loving*.

Fast forward to the day I told my mom I was in love with my best friend, a wonderful person my mom really liked and that I was gay. She would not speak with me for 15 years. I wad uninvited from my brothers wedding, my brothers would not speak me & the scapegoat was out of the family dynamics.

As we all aged, my mother became sick, had surgeries and as usually happens- I am the only child near them. I help them because there is no one else. I accept that it is what it is. Things that they say still can sting though I have developed a much thicker, protective hide with them.
We were at a family and friends dinner the other day and my dad proceeded to tell the guests all about the "big vacation" when he took the "whole family, wives and grandkids to Hawaii a couple of years ago".

Neither of them noticed I was not included in the big trip (nor did I know it even happened!).

This thread asked about mom but my mother is totally intertwined with my dad. They are one person to me.

When my mom decided to speak with me again, the door was totally shut on my private life. She/they do not ask and do not want to know. I discuss the weather, groceries, etc. I just pretend with them, they pretend with me.
They are old now and I do not expect anything to change at this stage of the game.

Anya, your parents sound destructive and cruel.

It sounds though, as if you love them. Children love their parents strongly, even if they are horribly abused. I think there's a biological advantage to clinging to our parents; that we're hard-wired that way.

But instinct and reason are conflicted when the parents are so hurtful, that the child is more likely to survive, without them. So, I'm guessing that you get something back from your family, something that reassures you on a deep level that isn't conscious.

I hope that is the case, that you at least get that. You sound so together, I doubt you would do something self-destructive, like be with them if it endangered your quality of life.

What's amazing is how objective and clear-headed you are about the whole thing. I'm really struck with how compassionate you are about your parents' families of origin, and how their own childhoods impacted on their development as the parents they would one day become, themselves. It's truly, deeply impressive how you see the whole picture, including your place in it.