I thought I was feeling it already

[MamaDryad]

I've been NC with my uBPD, alcoholic mother for-- oh wow, I just checked, and it's exactly six months. That might explain some things. Before that, about three years of NC with attempts to reestablish LC that always ended within a couple of weeks because she would not respect a very simple boundary.

Anyway, I've been going to ACoA meetings since March and seeing a therapist since November. I've been reading and posting on online forums, journaling about it, and meditating for several years. I thought that I had faced the pain and gotten out the other side. I really believed that, and I was sometimes concerned that maybe I didn't feel enough, but I assumed that those receptors had just sort of been burned out by being raised in a high drama, high conflict environment.

Apparently not. I was talking to my partner about my fears and doubts about myself as a parent, and this huge wave of grief came up and just absolutely swamped me, like nothing I've felt before. I can't stop crying. I understand now that I couldn't let myself feel it at all for fear of dissolving completely. I've been keeping it at bay by cycling between 1) hyperfocus on keeping my son safe from her and from the aftermath of her effect on me, 2) anger at her, and 3) sadness for her at the way she's isolated herself. But I wasn't actually feeling my own pain, and now I feel like I'm drowning.

It also feels unforgivably self indulgent even to admit in writing that I'm feeling so sorry for myself. My life is good now, and so many people have it so much worse than I did as a kid. I just don't know what to do with all this grief.

[Deb2]

(((( MamaDryad))))

When I sent NC with my dBPDsister,  I cried offf and on for 3 days. Until there were no more tears left. I felt bsd tol. But now I see it  as a process of mourning the whole situation.