It's been a year now.

[IWasNeverReallyHere]

Come June I won't have seen my mother for a year. It astounds me that this is the way it has turned out. I still find it hard to believe but then again, the decisions she made which ultimately impacted me, were never going to make it easy for she and I to see each other.

I told myself before we moved away from each other that I would need an extended break from her, and she got that hint. The last time I saw her, at her old house where she and I had lived, she'd walked away from an argument between us and that was it. I was packing my final things readying to move out and she must have gone out and I hadn't realized. Didn't even say goodbye to each other... I suppose because neither of us could put our pain aside and try to have a final moment to say take care. Even writing this now I realize I've never really processed this, it's making me uncomfortable even, confused and always a sense of disbelief.

To think that was 365 days ago. It's the longest amount of time I've gone without seeing her. There has also been very MC in that time. I sometimes wonder what she's been doing. Has she returned to the area where we were living at all? Given she's now an hour and a half away. In those first six months I'd sometimes hear her voice in my sleep, saying my name and I'd wake almost expecting her there. More recently I would imagine scenarios in my head or perhaps they're hallucinations, where I'd be outside and she'd suddenly turn up behind me and make a comment, done some washing have we? I'd know the voice before I'd even turned around. Fascinating what the subconscious mind does.

I thought maybe a one year get together reunion might be an idea. There is anxiety though over any consideration of contacting her. Does she even want to see me? Why hasn't she made efforts to contact me? Do other family members disagree with my choice to maintain NC?

I sent her a Mother's Day card but didn't receive any acknowledgement from her... Maybe I had the wrong address. I haven't even seen her place, nor has she seen mine. It's been such a loss because she's not really in my life now, which has been good for me in terms of working on myself and bettering myself. But, there's no feeling of her there now, it's such a numbing feeling. Like she's a distant person that I don't know anymore. So wretched. Something I'm not sure I'll ever come to terms with. Even though she's just a call away, a text away. But it's just not the same anymore, hasn't been for that time and probably never will be. And I don't know what the right thing is to do.

I know I should do what is healthy and right for myself. Yet strangely, if there was an emergency with her, I wouldn't give it a second thought. Why is it that two certain paradigms make such a difference?

I remember being in my GP's office, where they pointed out that she would be feeling the loss as well. I'd already considered this likelihood, but I said there was a discomfort in not being in contact with her or seeing her and there is a discomfort in the opposite of those as well. I guess I was just choosing the lesser discomfort of the two.

[Starboard Song]

I think that odd duality you feel is pretty common. There is a real woman out there. She gave birth to you and raised you and wears the title of "mother." That real woman, it sounds like, is someone you thrive without: someone best viewed at a considerable distance.

There is always and forever another woman out there. She is the ideal of a mother. She is who other people see in their heads when you say "my mother." She is the woman you thought of in exactly that way too, probably, for at least the first several years of your. life. And to not have that role filled is indeed sad.

In my home, we realize that the real woman we were dealt has told us that she wants to have no relationship with us, and that distance from that person is healthy for us and our son, who thereby lost a grandmother. But we mourn the loss of the mother. The woman who raised my wife, nursed her, cared for her, taught her. That woman is inaccessible to us, but we miss her -- impossibly.

****

There's another duality here. You said that if there were an emergency you'd be there for her. This is common amongst divorced couples, and all sorts of stressed relationships. It's all a matter of degree, not kind. This is the hard work of ethics, and it is only decent and kind to "be there" in emergencies for those who are otherwise on their own.

We are over 3 1/2 years NC. Last communication was in January of 2018. We regret it all the time. And also don't.

[treesgrowslowly]

Starboard song hit the nail on the head.

And your feelings are very normal. It takes courage to talk about the duality. The missing someone you are NC with.

I've come to see that the duality didn't start with me, and my experience of the real mother and the ideal mother.

Trauma splits people, and some trauma causes PDs, and I think there are people who are / were PD'd around me, who became that way due to their own trauma. The result being, this is not a safe person for me to be with. No amount of wishing or hoping on my part, would make them a safe person for me to be safe with. They are working out their life by being PD, and I'm working out my life by overcoming the collateral damage of that.

The comfort with duality isn't something we can develop until we reach a certain stage of awareness. When you see someone and think "They seem mature." it may very well be that they have a comfort with the duality in life, which they've had to develop. Maybe they developed it after years of recovery from trauma, maybe they processed a loss they had and they accepted the duality in their own experience of this loss. But I do think this idea of duality helps us understand the feelings after a loss, and accepting that our experience after going NC is meaningful, textured and transformative.