One of the worse things my mother ever told me is that I didn’t deserve to be there when she died because I didn’t love her enough. Now that she is reaching the end of her life, I am finding myself having panic attacks, bleeding gums, horrible migraine headaches, and other stress symptoms that are making it very difficult for me to be there for her. I keep thinking that I am not a strong enough person and that somehow after all these years of abuse, I just don’t have enough strength to see it through to the end. I keep questioning whether I am just this really weak person.
Then, I start to think about what exactly happened to start my own episode of anxiety. My mom is doing everything she can to manipulate situations. The other day she called me asking for help. She even said it was an emergency and that she needed me to come right away. I couldn’t leave my house due to road work, but I was willing to get her emergency help if she needed it. I tried to get her to tell me what was going on so that I could get her help. She told me she couldn’t move. I told her I wasn’t going to be able to help her move. I literally am incapable of physically helping her move. I am much smaller than she is right now and I just can’t do it. She got angry with me and hung up on me. I tried to call her back and she wouldn’t answer the phone. At the eleventh hour, when she really needs help, she is still playing games and trying to manipulate me instead of just letting me do what I can to help her.
My body’s reaction isn’t one of weakness; it is one of strength. It is my body tell me that I can’t do this anymore. As I have been writing lately, God does ask us to honor our parents, He asks us to forgive, and He ask that we turn the other cheek, but He also asks that we love ourselves. I’ll do what I can for her, but I’m not going to hurt myself for her. I’m not going over to her house and try to move her just because she cares more about her comfort than my physical well-being. I’ll stand by and make sure she gets what she needs, but I’m not going to let her treat me like I don’t exist except to serve her needs.
It feels in a way that all my life has been leading up to this time and it feels so bad because it is such a paradox. The only way to be strong is to take care of myself and realize that I can’t do the co=dependent relationship anymore not even if she dies. The bitter truth isn’t that I don’t deserve to be there when she dies because I don’t love her enough, the bitter truth is that I won’t be there when she dies because I love myself more than she ever cared to loved me.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
