Can't forgive DM for abandoning me

[AsYouAre]

It was many many years ago but I've never gotten over it, its not acceptable to discuss it now and whenever I try to I get shut down.

When I had just turned 16 my mum upped and left town without saying goodbye, returning to the city she was born in a few hundred miles away. I was flat sharing with a friend and had only been out of her home a couple of months - living 10 minutes across town, she wanted me out as soon as she stooped receiving benefits for me so I had to find accommodation straight away.

She was being railroaded by her two sisters to move but the way she did it was ultimately her decision and she went along with it just fine

I went to visit her one day to find out she had gone, no prior warning and it broke my heart. There was no opportunity for me to go with her or even come to terms with her leaving. I had shit provisions for looking after myself and didn't know what to do with myself, the next few years were a struggle.

She says it was because she was miserable living where she did, her sisters thought my behaviour was adding to her depression. I wasn't a terrible child by anybodies standards but was going through a typical teenage rebellious stage of not listening, answering back, having an attitude.

I had a rubbish childhood and my outlook on life as a teenager was a result of that

When she left she changed her mobile number and every time I tried to contact her through her sisters they blocked the path, wouldn't let me talk to her. She was the shrinking violet of the three and never speaking for herself or making her own decision's, always echoing what they said

I finally got in touch with her about a year after she left and we have stayed in touch sporadically ever since but were never close again. I'm not to discuss her leaving as I'm told by the sisters that it "stresses mum out" so in order to keep a relationship I'm told to just let it go.

What she did was a massive deal for me, it shaped the remainder of my teens and introduction to adult life.

Could you forgive your DM for this?

I have had similar outcomes, with a parental context that was different, but still left me with abondoment and notable parental failures on my plate at 16.

I'm 50 now. 2.5 years ago I was ... still stuck. Couldn't forgive either of them. But then my father died. It was a (bloody painful) catalyst to give myself the space to work things through in my head and heart. I don't have any easy answers for you. I am still estranged from my mother as an act of self-defence, despite her having recently been treated for cancer. So my forgiveness has some quite tight boundaries.

But I do know two things.

Forgiveness really does set you free to some extent, without rewriting the past, without the need for wilful blindness to what damage was done.

Forgiveness has to be genuinely felt, it can't be forced because other people think you should/must, and it is a process not an event. IME it doesn't seem to come with any shortcuts, you have to walk the rocky and often painful road towards it, even when you don't know that is where you heading, and wouldn't have been feeling up for the trip had you known that is where you were headed.

It think how you feel is well within the range of normal. And it is OK to feel what you feel. It would probably be more helpful if people stopped chivving you forgive and instead finally gave you the space to grieve.

I'm using grieve deliberately. It was a shock to discover that the grief over my father's death was really quite similar to my grief over his abondoment of us. But this time round more people (not all) were prepared to allow me to call it that, experience it as that, and to finally heal in a sort of "Kitsugi for the Soul" kind of way.

Mostly, it's not a perfect "Disney" healing.

But it is good enough, and more than I ever hoped for.

((( Massive Big Fat Hug )))) love. I'm so sorry. It is such a hard thing to lug around for so many years. And it can be so difficult and painful to find a way to start to put down the bucket of pain your parent thrust at you in your formative years.