Sin Washing

Over the years, I have spent a lot of time trying to resolve my relationship with my mother. Issues remain where they are and time is running out. The only way forward is to accept the status quo and make the most of what is and has been good, ignore the rest. This seems for work for my mother and I but has consequences for my relationship with J. 

I see how intergenerational trauma manifests itself but don't know exactly how to break the cycle. I used to be deeply trusting and ready to share everything with my mother when I was younger - it felt like the ultimate safe space. As I grew older and suffered a series of serious setbacks in my personal life, I started to realize I was giving infinitely more than I ever received from her. My mother as a woman has always been a perfect stranger to me - I know close to nothing about her that matters because she is a deeply private person. The bar for privacy is so high that the person becomes a two-dimensional caricature of a human being. That is who she is and that is best I will ever get. 

I strove to be a very different kind of mother to J - be truly an open book where nothing is off-limits. She only has to ask and she will get a complete and truthful answer. For J's personality that is like being told to drink out of a firehose until it stops when she only ever needed a sip of water. She needs a nuanced approach to communication on things that are material and relevant to her - not my no-holds barred style. 

Coming out of decades of feeling gaslighted and betrayed by my mother who soaked up every morsel of information I gave her acting as if it were her right to have it my duty to provide, I cannot modulate my approach with J. Any filter, any calibration feels like repeating the sins of my mother - something I cannot do. For me to be at peace with myself, I have to do it my way and ironically it does not serve J at all.