I'm 36 so I thought it wouldn't matter too much but as I mentioned in the "How close are you to your Mom?" thread I wrote my Mom a coming out letter yesterday. We've been somewhat estranged for a while. My Step Father was abusive and she didn't help. She has her own kind of craziness, but I always loved her but like all human connection..had this secret that made me feel unknowable.
I had a therapy appt last Thurs where we talked about my parents quite a bit. My Step Father had an affair last year and they were divorced. I stayed out of it as much as I could and when things got dramatic told told my Mom not to contact me until she got some professional help. I realized during this therapy appointment that I was being very hard on my Mom and being very hard on a woman who dropped out of high school and had two kids to an alcoholic first husband.
So I decided that I would tell her everything about me and our life and remove my secret from the equation then try to be more empathetic towards her and get to know her as a person.
I wrote the letter on Saturday night and didn't receive a response by midday Sunday. I started getting nervous. Even though we don't have a lot of communication I didn't want to be disowned. I didn't want her to jump to conclusions and start calling relatives. I pictured the worst. I called her every couple hours and was baffled that she wasn't home on Sunday.
I finally got through at 9:30pm. She had been moving into a new office all day and hadn't even gotten my email. Which was akward. I asked her to read it and then call me back if she could. "If you don't want to call me back I understand."
Five minutes later she called me back and talked for hours. She told me that she always knew something was up. That she was worried when I didn't date in high school. We talked about her messed up clothes and makeup incidents and started putting two and two together on a bunch of childhood stuff. She reminded me of things I had forgotten. She said she thought I was sensitive, and empathetic, and thought I had ESP. ?
She said that she had talked to my brothers many times in the past and they never understood why they couldn't connect. She said she felt so relieved to know what was up. She said she'd always wanted a daughter and I was now her oldest daughter. She yelled at me for hiding it when I was a kid, that we could have done so many things about it.
It couldn't have gone better. I am over the moon. I have this feeling in me that is complete euphoria. My whole body is tingling. I am literally not sure I've ever felt better.
What the #*($#! have I been thinking? I am my own worst enemy.
