I was born weird...

...this terrible compulsion to behave normally is the result of childhood trauma.
-I don't know who wrote it, but it made me laugh my ass off.

A frightening thing happened to me last week. I got a call from my sister who told me my mom had been rushed to the hospital vomiting with chest pain. I was in my daughters living room and literally felt my knees go weak. In the spot I was standing, I found myself suddenly kneeling.

You see, the relationship I've had with my mom over my lifetime has certainly not been 'normal'. The youngest of 4, 6 years younger then my next sibling, I always felt like I was not really a part of the equation. I didn't realize until I was much older that my mom had me so she wouldn't feel lonely. My siblings all away at school. I watched my sisters hate each other and torment my brother who managed to be away from the house much of the time. But at least they were visible to each other.

I always felt invisible.

My mom divorced my dad when I was far to young to understand what divorce was, and she went to work to support her family. As an immigrant that meant she worked nights, in hotels and clubs, so most of my childhood was spent alone. If I needed a note for school or some money I'd go into her room, wake her in the morning and ask her to sign the note that I had written, or sneak some change out of her purse, and she'd go back to sleep, and I'd go to school. By the time I was in high school, I was writing and signing my own notes and school papers and report cards myself.

When I'd get home from school for the day, my mom would be gone to work for the night.

All my siblings moved out of the house very young...to escape my mom's iron rule, or just to escape each other...that I have never been sure of. My sisters at 18 which made me 8 or 9 my brother at 16 which made me 10.

It was just me, my mom, and Bob, her boyfriend.

Most of the time, it was just me.

One day I came home and she'd gotten a puppy. Hector. He didn't live for long. Never made it past puppyhood before he got hit by a car. But we had Knight. The dog my mom rescued from my cousin Paul. We originally dog sat him for a couple of weeks, but he stayed. He was my best friend. I loved him totally. To this day, at this moment, I get a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye when I think of him. He was my one very bright light. His little doggy face watching for me to come home at the end of the day. His warm doggy hugs...He was never too busy or too tired or to angry at me to listen to me. He'd patiently let me dress him up, and walk him in the sun...he was my pillow...I was his. The day I came home and Knight had disappeared was the day my life changed forever.

I still don't know what happened to him..........

But suddenly I had no one to love...no one who loved me.

And it seemed no one noticed. No one cared.

I ran away from home for the first time at 14. Managed to stay away only a short while before I knew I was way over my head. Lost more then my innocence.

No one noticed. No one cared.

Mom, having had such a hard time with her out of control teenage daughter, made the decision I was to move to my dad's. A 2 room cabin in a 1 horse town with his very young wife and their 2 babies...who's marriage was rapidly crumbling...The same man I had listened to her berating from the time I was 4.

I ran away again 3 months later. And for the first time ever I was visible. Visible enough to get hit. I was the straw that broke my dad's marriage camels back. I've never forgiven myself for that. I've never forgotten his 2nd wife...

But my mom, then decided that I should come back to Calgary...I was happy with my loving sister on the west coast, but mom didn't want me to stay there...so I shuffled around between my mom and my other sister. She, who lived as my mom did, raising her family with an iron rule, thought that after a lifetime of running wild, I would excel with every moment, every heartbeat, every breath regimented. Yeah right.

So I ran away again...I was 16.

I ended up back at my dads, now with another young eventual wife...who tried to give me a home. She really did...She was the first real person to whom I felt visible. But I wasn't able to settle...be good, which is all they really wanted me to be...and so...I was unable to live with them after a very short while.

But in the meantime...Mom and Bob broke up...mom went to Holland for a holiday...and hooked up and married Dick...her 2nd (3rd) husband.

She was gone gone gone...In a very offhand way she invited me to go with her...but I knew she didn't want that at all, but rather felt she had to offer to show she was a good mother. At least, that's what I did and still do believe.

So at 16...I was on my own...I met my 1st husband...

I'd see mom every couple of years when she came to visit the kids...I grew, I changed, I was angry, and uninvolved. I had a husband and children, without parental interference or advice. I didn't have a husband but still the children, without parental interference or advice, I had another husband and still the children, without parental interference or advice. Only seeing her when she came to Canada to visit. I rarely phoned her, or wrote, or really even thought of her much at all. After all, she'd left me. Not the other way around.

I always knew she'd pass away one day...without my daughterly interference or advice, but in my mind, she was already gone.

Until last summer, when I saw my mom, not as my mom, but as a woman. An 80 year old woman. And to her, I was visible. She really saw me. I really saw her.

So this call I got last week Tuesday sank me to my knees. Realizing that my whole life I've been angry at her, unable to truly love her, absolutely unable to accept her decisions, wasted all this time pretending that because I didn't matter to her, she didn't matter to me.

But she does matter to me, because I am a part of her. And I love her...and am so frightened of loosing her. I'm just not ready. I only just found her.

On a positive note: I have been managing this anxiety and stress without turning to food for comfort.