Ever since I was a pre-teen, my relationship with my mother has been....challenging. I am in my forties now (early forties lol) and I can't say that the relationship improved with age. As a matter of fact, over the last year it has become even more difficult as additional stresses have been added to it.
I am by nature I am a very mellow and chill person - but there is no one who could bring my inner rage out like my mother. She can do and say some pretty awful things, and prefers to live her life depending on others and being helpless even to change her own lightbulbs. Her reasoning for every day decisions drive me absolutely wild.
Years ago I went to a psychologist and listed all the things my mother does - and they responded back with an unofficial diagnosis. Medicine would fix it. I have long forgotten the diagnosis, it doesn't matter. She will never go - psychologists are evil and "pills" are to be avoided. She sleeps with knives under her pillow and swears the little old lady who accidentally bumped her in the grocery store is a witch, and the tired pregnant cashier who accidentally short changed her a quarter is trying to steal her money.
In short, my mother is a difficult person in a difficult situation who seems to take pleasure out of making me want to tear my hair out in frustration.
But I have been a christian now about eleven days.
It took me about a week to settle down into starting to figure out I should pray for her. So I settled in the other night and prayed for her to find a new home, prayed for her to learn to start acting right, prayed for her to start treating people like decent human beings, prayed for her to learn to control her funds, prayed for her to start DOING something about the situation she finds herself in, ...blah blah blah.
And then last night I started with the same requests....but then instead of praying for HER to be changed....I found myself praying for MY attitude towards her to be changed. It had to come from God...I have been asking him to teach me how he wants me to pray (because I feel like I am awful at it) and I am afraid he did. No WAY would I have thought of that on my own.
I started praying that my mother would have a good daughter, one that would honor her and be a joy to her old age. And all I could suddenly see was how awful I have treated her.
I texted my mom when I went to bed and apologized, told her that I had taken out my frustrations and stresses on her, and I was sorry. I told her if she needed a place to say, she had one wherever I was at - we would figure it out. She called me at five am, three hours after she got the text. We didn't talk long, but then this morning I called her on the work and we chatted. I had to bite my tongue several times, but bite it I did.
Already, in one day, our relationship is better. But do you know what is even better than that? All that stress and worry about my mom I had been dragging around for years....gone. I don't even know how to react to it. It's...well...shocking. I am completely at ease about her and her situation...and mine if she does end up coming here to live with me. I better learn how to pray fast, cause I will need it if she ends up moving in with me!
I am by nature I am a very mellow and chill person - but there is no one who could bring my inner rage out like my mother. She can do and say some pretty awful things, and prefers to live her life depending on others and being helpless even to change her own lightbulbs. Her reasoning for every day decisions drive me absolutely wild.
Years ago I went to a psychologist and listed all the things my mother does - and they responded back with an unofficial diagnosis. Medicine would fix it. I have long forgotten the diagnosis, it doesn't matter. She will never go - psychologists are evil and "pills" are to be avoided. She sleeps with knives under her pillow and swears the little old lady who accidentally bumped her in the grocery store is a witch, and the tired pregnant cashier who accidentally short changed her a quarter is trying to steal her money.
In short, my mother is a difficult person in a difficult situation who seems to take pleasure out of making me want to tear my hair out in frustration.
But I have been a christian now about eleven days.
It took me about a week to settle down into starting to figure out I should pray for her. So I settled in the other night and prayed for her to find a new home, prayed for her to learn to start acting right, prayed for her to start treating people like decent human beings, prayed for her to learn to control her funds, prayed for her to start DOING something about the situation she finds herself in, ...blah blah blah.
And then last night I started with the same requests....but then instead of praying for HER to be changed....I found myself praying for MY attitude towards her to be changed. It had to come from God...I have been asking him to teach me how he wants me to pray (because I feel like I am awful at it) and I am afraid he did. No WAY would I have thought of that on my own.
I started praying that my mother would have a good daughter, one that would honor her and be a joy to her old age. And all I could suddenly see was how awful I have treated her.
I texted my mom when I went to bed and apologized, told her that I had taken out my frustrations and stresses on her, and I was sorry. I told her if she needed a place to say, she had one wherever I was at - we would figure it out. She called me at five am, three hours after she got the text. We didn't talk long, but then this morning I called her on the work and we chatted. I had to bite my tongue several times, but bite it I did.
Already, in one day, our relationship is better. But do you know what is even better than that? All that stress and worry about my mom I had been dragging around for years....gone. I don't even know how to react to it. It's...well...shocking. I am completely at ease about her and her situation...and mine if she does end up coming here to live with me. I better learn how to pray fast, cause I will need it if she ends up moving in with me!
