Sometimes, rebirth takes a lot of ugly to get to the beautiful.
My rebirth happened so much like a baby's: I was nearly 30 and stuck, still, in the thrall of my mother. And I mean stuck, like a baby in breech. I'd grown up with a mother who has a terrible mix of narcissism and borderline personality disorder, and so when anything in the world went wrong, it was my fault. I grew up hating myself, never measuring up, believing that if I wasn't perfect, I was a failure. Bad choices and depression ensued, then an antidepressant and a bad husband pick. All my doing. I didn't think I could do, or deserved to do, any better.
Around the time I was 28 or so, I suffered my second miscarriage and, at a friend's suggestion, got into counseling. Within a year, I had come to realize how much my mother's extreme narcissism was being allowed to control my life and my feelings about myself. (I didn't even get to the "wow,what's so wrong with her... is there mental illness there?" until 3+ years ago... I was afraid to ask those questions then.)
Stuck, I finally confronted my mother on the years of abuse (all sorts) that she'd afflicted--and allowed to be afflicted-- upon me. I asked her to go to therapy with me if she wanted a relationship, because a relationship without a third party present finally began to feel as emotionally dangerous as it really was. I had come to realize how much I was afraid of her. ("Terrified" and "terrorized" were words that would come later on, when I was stronger.) This woman would not allow any rebirth that didn't suit her, and was happy for me to be stuck. It made her feel better. No therapy, no apologies, nothing on her end, except upping the level of abusing my name to everyone else.
I was deflated, but still needed to get healthy. I kept doing the hard work that would sometimes leave me crying so hard I thought I'd be sick. Kept working with the therapist, turning to better, caring friends for support, and facing all the ugliness in my life. This was the darkest period in my life in so many ways, all those repressed emotions and memories coming to surface. I divorced my husband and found peace in a small studio apartment. Fortunately, my work picked up and I was just able to squeak by alone. And my own genuine self-- one freer of the expectations and projections of unhealthy individuals-- was given room to grow.
What emerged from all of this over the last ten years has been beautiful. I'm in a loving relationship with a man who considers me a partner and equal and treats me as such. I've developed a sense of self that isn't shot full of holes. I have a beautiful little boy who is four and the light of my world. I feel at peace that no matter what sort of 'tough moments' I have with him, I know he's not going to have to live through the hellish nightmare of a childhood that I'd experienced. My mother chose not to be a part of my life simply because she refused to change, and this has benefitted me because I don't have to worry about my son being exposed to someone who would make people suffer for her own pleasure, to bolster her own self-esteem.
It's hard, some days. I'm not immune to old ghosts popping by from time to time, and this can be momumental. The farther away I get from my life as my mother's daughter, the harder it is to revisit it. Some people, when they hear about all of this, get very judgmental: "How could you cut off your mother like this? She raised you." Our children love their parents, not for raising them, but because of how they were raised. Now, when the bad, bad moments from the past resurface, then it's time to do more work. But through all this work, and with loving support of my friends and husband, and a few family members (who aren't held in her thrall), I am like a new baby who is being allowed to thrive, encouraged to grow healthy, and allowed to believe the best is still out there waiting for me. I get to have a family of my own, a sweet house and my garden, which has been so therapeutic I'd suggest it to anyone who needs to learn how to love, nurture and grow--and be patient-- with themselves. We give our love to so many others-- it is a lesson to learn how to allow that love to go to ourselves as well.
Always the best to you, Ephie.