Yes.It's a competition thing.

Yes. Tonight I had another realization that Everything with my mother is a competition. It was with my father, my weight, it was the entire time growing up. It is with my son and even with My house to this very day.  Everything, every every everything is a competition. What does a daughter do with that?  It's so outside of the relationship I have with my own daughter, that  I can not even imagine.  We are not in the race I am her coach and the one that  wants so much for her. That has never been the case for me. My mother and I have always been equals in the same race. Letting that sink in that my mother and I have been equals,  we have always been that way.  My entire life I have been running the same race as my mother. That is so hard to write, to comprehend to even wrap my head around.  I never had a coach on the sideline, I never had that encouragement,that person who I knew was always on my side.  I was just expected to survive.  I hope that in realizing this, somethings will start to make sense for me, maybe something will click and I will better understand. Maybe it will make living with her today that much easier, it has to really because I am drowning in that competition.

It's so hard because, its just recently that I realized there was a competition thing between us.  I am one of the most un-competitive people you will ever meet.  It's just not who I am.   I don't care who comes first I want everyone to be happy and healthy.  I want everyone to be cared for and be safe.  I do that making myself last sometimes but oh well.  I do believe that my mother wants all of those same things only she makes herself first.  And that is a huge difference and a place where the struggle is humongous.  I just don't understand wanting things at the detriment of others.  And she doesn't even see that detriment.  I mean it has literally been like this my entire life.  I can still see so clearly, them, my parents standing in the kitchen.  He was kissing her staring at me,  and I felt terrible. I felt terrible for my mother knowing what she was going to have to do.  I can remember his beaty eyes and laughing looking at me. I can remember that he called it a sandwich.   And he laughed and joked that he wanted to make a sandwich, and I remember him going down the hall to their room. I don't remember what I said to my mother but she said that she had to make him happy and would be out in a few minutes.  My heart literally breaks writing this.  I think that my little brain was more than confused.  I was being left on my own,  so worried about her and yet there was no one worried about me. I remember it being the weekend. And I would watch the lone ranger and the rifleman I would lie right in front of the big console Curtis Mathis TV, my mind being everywhere, wanting it to end.  Wanting more than anything for my mom to come out so I could make sure she was safe.  It felt like forever.  And then She would come out into the living room while he slept.  And I never understood how she just pretended that everything was fine. In my little mind he was hurting her.  I remember there being so much anger there, I just wanted to be safe; to feel that I was safe but I didn't. I never felt safe  Then later he would come out of the bedroom, usually in his underwear and he would stare at me like see this is how its supposed to be its not a big deal.  My poor little brain, I was absolutely confused tying to fit all this craziness into some sort of normal.  There was no competition, she was married to him, her choice. I was his daughter and I hated every second of it. How in the world was I seen as competition for her???  .  I think of so many different circumstances and I so wanted her to save me, to make things better to see and hear the things that I couldn't say and there was nothing. I was left on my own.  I so wonder what was in her head when we would go to bed at the same time and I went n her bed.  That was never my choice.  The night I couldn't stop crying .  I was 5, but the weight that I carried.  The tears just wouldn't stop it was a completed rape that night and my little body was in unimaginable pain, and she was in my room but still I was all alone. Even her being there trying to console me, I felt like she wasn't there  I knew he wasn't far away, I was more than terrified.  Then he did show up they fought then I was left.  I needed someone to pick me up hold me tell me I was ok. Tell me I was safe, but instead I was left tearing up my tissues until there was literally nothing left of me or those Kleenex.  I knew I was not important, because she had to go make him happy. I see that watching from somewhere else in the room still and I can not make sense.  A part of my brain understands and knows another part of my brain is like what in the hell were these adults doing. I see it as clear as sitting here at my computer. To this very day at almost 45 years old, I see it all happening to little Callahan.  I have all these adult thoughts and I want to jump in make everything OK. I want to save her.  I want to pick her up and run as far away as we can so she can rest; so she can heal so that little Callahan knows someone saw her and someone did something.   This is a new level of heartbreaking. How in the world little callahan ever survive?? She did but Barely.

Even later in life, its always been the same.  I got really skinny I had lost 125 pounds and there was no support no encouragement.  I was going to get a trainer and I talked to her about it and she said what a waste of money that it was blah blah blah.  Nothing kind and caring.  I can even remember eating lunch at the table and my brother snorting at me like a pig and I was I think a size 6 and she laughed. He was not told to stop t not redirected. I was just the laughing stock of the table.  So I got up tears streaming threw my lunch away and left the room. There was no care , or concern .  No one was worried about my heart.  Then a few weeks later she went and got a trainer and started this gym thing and was in my face about it.  It was like look at me look at me.  I didn't have a word to say.

When I decided to pres charges,  I remember the flowers that she gave me, the next day when I told her that my uncle wasn't the only one he hurt. They were beautiful and for a second I felt like I mattered.  As my case progressed, there was nothing.  After close to two years when we were finally going to trial, and they had the witnesses come to the DA's office.  It was my mother, me and my brother. The DA started asking me about specific abuse.  I think I was in a state of shock. I had never said those words out-loud to my mother.  She asked and he forced you into oral sex, and started talking about number of times and I shrank ten sizes not believing she had said that with them in the room. I answered and the DA  kept asking questions, going over my statement.  Talking about all the ways I was violated,   Once again there was nothing, I was alone in my sadness. That DA said out-loud the exact words and nothing nothing for this heart.  I was more alone in that room than a person can imagine. 

When I was going through the court system, after my own case trying to keep Angela safe there was no support, I can remember getting back from Boston for the first time.  We were standing there in Baggage claim. My head was spinning about keeping Angela safe,  I didn't get to testify, her case was rescheduled.  There was so much and she hugged me, but there was nothing.  I was standing there in my own world, she couldn't understand where I had been or what I was going through.

I can think about times when the kids were little and I would put something where it always was and she would come through and change it, I always felt like she was trying to prove that she was better, she knew better .  It's hard to put into words.  I have never felt like she was there wanting me to accomplish great things,  wanting me to succeed and have a great life, that was something I never felt from her ever.

That competition has never stopped, even today with my own Son she has to give him what he wants be the favorite. She will stick up for him regardless of the situation or whose heart is getting broken. She has to compete with me, she is the friend and makes me the bad guy all the time.  She is the keeper of secrets and I don't know how to stop that.

I want so much to understand, and I am not sure that I can. I want to be open tell her how I am but almost 45 years of that kind of not listening, that competition, that not being important  and it just doesn't work for me. My heart is fragile and not ready to be opened up to anything else. I want my heart to be cared for and I am not sure she can.  So unlovable yes. I do believe that is it.  Not sure I have felt that from her.  I don't know.  Maybe every now and then but mostly like I was in a race that I knew wasn't possible to win.   

I heart your heart