Happy memories hurt just as much

[Call Me Cordelia]

There were times when I could feel as if my mother loved me. She would sing to me at night when I was little. I do that for my babies too. But I can't think about her when I sing to them. I can't sing her same songs.

So often we paint pwPDs in pretty black and white terms. They weren't awful all the time. Maybe her singing was merely for her own amusement and I was the adoring audience. That may have been true. She sure did like to perform. But for a little bit as a child, I did feel safe and loved. That had to do something good for me.

Or maybe it just makes it all harder now.

Just another wave of grief. I grieve the good almost more than the bad. Because it COULD have been redeemed, but I couldn't do it on my own. The saddest is, "It might have been."

[bee well]

Oh  Call Me Cordelia,

I've felt this too, and  I think both things you wrote here can be true:

"But for a little bit as a child, I did feel safe and loved. That had to do something good for me....
Or maybe it just makes it all harder now....."

And you say:

"I grieve the good almost more than the bad. Because it COULD have been redeemed, but I couldn't do it on my own. The saddest is, "It might have been."

Yes, it might have been. It's so painful to grieve that. 

That time is no more. AND what you have with your babies "is", and they aren't doing it on their own. You are rewriting the story as you sing your songs to your babies.

Hugs.

[notrightinthehead]

I understand. Recently I have decided that my mother suffered from severe c-PTSD and that makes it easier for me to forgive her. It also allows me to feel that she loved me - the best she could - and that warms my heart even if it makes me sad.
What I asked myself was , do I feel better believing she loved me or believing she didn't.  And I feel better, stronger, more acceptable if I believe she loved me but was too broken and too self absorbed in her horrors to show it in a healthy way. That is how I can make peace with my childhood. Also, I know that I did love her.   She did me a lot of damage, I could not help her or make her healthy, but I truly loved her. Hugs