Recognizing Truth

I had a session with GM today.  Spent some time discussing the whole situation with DW.  I said what had finally settled in me was recalling how unsupported I felt at that time in my life, how quick my Mom was to get me out of the house and working even though I was clearly at a loss, depressed after breaking my ankle.  I remembered listening to a woman at the Dharma Center give her Way Seeking Mind talk to us, noting that when the memory came back to her that she'd been raped by her father she just shut down and spent six months just healing, crying, screaming, and coming to terms with it.  I recall feeling a little envious that her friends and mother and supported such a period of recovery for her and immediately felt a little guilty for it.

I'm not sure if it wrong or right to try and make up for something I wish I'd had.  After all, much of what I suffered from throughout my childhood was my mother trying to make up for what she'd always wanted.  I feel that my wish for DW to have space to recover without being pressured to hurry up and be an adult is more healthy than my mother's wish for me to have fancy dresses.  I'm equally unsure if this will work or will blow up in my face, in which case she's back to trying to find housing through the addiction counseling services she's using.

I talked to her about my discussion with HB around the shame that keeps bubbling up.  How to look at it, recognize it is part of my life but not mine.  It was left behind by adults who abused me, the shame they refused responsibility for so I picked it up instead, blamed myself.  She liked his instruction to check through the precepts validate that I'm fine, not doing anything to be ashamed of.

We talked around the topic of my Mom some before I finally admitted that finally using the word "abuse" around her behavior leaves me feeling even more estranged from her than I feel normally.  I feel myself flinch away from the word when I combine it in my head with my mother.  GW pointed me gently to the word and the hard truth of it.

More things I don't want to incorporate into the me I perceive myself to be.  The very things HB says I need to make part of me, treat with love.  I don't want to love this, I feel in equal parts the desire to throw things, yell and the desire to crawl into bed, hide.  I don't want to be pulled into and through this, it feels suffocating.  

GW says I will be able to, I'll learn the habit of recognizing the shame and fear as artifacts left behind by irresponsible adults.  Like litter across my psyche.  More time in discussion with HB about how to love this, how to sink into this without losing my breath.