raw and rough

originally written 13 Oct 2016

October 11, 2016 - 
 I have to get this out of me before I get carried away in my isolation and push everyone too far away from me. This is raw. This is unedited. This is me.

Here I Am.
If I had known 25 years ago that I would be sitting alone today, grieving for the life/lives lost when I gave my children and my motherhood away, I wouldn’t have done it. I wouldn’t have allowed myself to be caught in the trap of coercion that makes me cry, for feeling like I deserve any suffering that comes my way, too often. Even I can hardly imagine the way it must feel to have your heart ripped from your chest when you lose a loved one, never mind two of them and they are your children. All that remains in that place, once full and overflowing with love, are despair and longing. Hopeless and empty, knowing that what once was, will and can never be restored.

“How can that person be me?” I ask myself over and over when I try to wrap my head around the reality that it is myself I am talking about. “How did I live through that? How will I? Because I still feel like I might not make it.”

I agonize and dwell in the putrid mess of stuckness and believing in my unworthiness. There is no time machine to take me back to then. To help me by showing me that I had a right to say NO to what would become the most terrible disaster to ever have to live through. There is no time machine that I can turn back the clock and give myself the strength to stand up and walk away from the people who made promises to make everything better, because I could see through their collusion. They never had any intention of allowing my presence in my childrens’ lives. I am like the sole survivor of the car crash where every passenger dies and the driver survives. I am responsible for steering us in the right direction but lose control in a horrific accident.

How does one live with themselves after destroying so many lives? There is no forgiveness for monsters such as myself. Any hurt or suffering is well earned on my part and healing will not come easily, if ever. What kind of mother gives her children away? “The kind of mother who has no self esteem and is persuaded over time that she is not good enough to raise her kids.”

There is a faint voice in my head, reminding me that I was bamboozled. Do I feel sorry for myself? You are damn right I do. I used to tell myself to not feel sorry for myself, that someone else had it way worse than me. Until i learned that I need to feel sorry for myself now and then because what happened was not okay. It is not okay to convince a young mother to give her children up for adoption with empty promises. The only reason I agreed was, “if I won’t be allowed to see my children and remain in their lives, I will not do it. I won’t give them to you if I can’t still be a part of their family. I may as well give them to perfect strangers if I can’t be in their lives.”

Their paternal grandparents and aunts promised, with their fingers crossed behind their backs where I couldn’t see the trick they were about to play on me. “Of course you can remain in their lives! We want them to know their mother and you are a part of the family!”  That’s right, you heard it here, it was the childrens’ father’s family who tricked me into signing the papers. Before the ink was even dry, the children were gone, never to be seen again if their paternal family had any thing to do with it.

The image of my son in the back seat, passenger side window; It never fades. I see him like it was five minutes ago; with his pacifier in his mouth and his index finger twiddling the curl of the hair at the back of his head. Like he did when he was soothing himself for what ever reason. Only this time the look on his face was one of utter concern.

“I don’t want to go Mumma.” He whispered in my ear as I hugged him and secured his car seat. I tried not to cry. I am crying right now. How does a person ever get over this? I am not sure it is even possible. Am I angry? Yes, Yes I fucking am. 25 years ago I lost my life. A person died that day as she watched her children being driven away. Or I became a zombie or something because how the fuck am I still breathing right now. I used to struggle so hard to find a way to forgive the paternal side of my childrens’ family, for the devastation they caused and the reckless way they chose to “help” me when I finally reached out to them and asked. Because their father was dragging me down and draining the life out of me and I got scared and reached out for help. Reaching out for help isn’t supposed to cause the most traumatic experience you could ever imagine. Reaching out for help isn’t supposed to leave you stuck in fear and isolation for the rest of your life. We aren’t supposed to be afraid that asking for help might mean losing everything. No, I do not forgive the paternal grandparents’ and aunts of my children. I don’t have to. They don’t deserve my forgiveness because what they did is unforgivable. What I want is to find a way to forgive myself for allowing myself to be convinced that giving my children up for adoption was the “selfless thing to do.” It was “the noble decision and showed strength of character.”  Lies and more lies to keep me on the track of surrendering my legal right and authority as a parent to my two beautiful, precious children that I loved more than anything. I loved them so much, I allowed myself to believe they would be better off without me.

Only to discover that my son was tossed around, not wanted by his adoptive parents (aunt and uncle) once they got divorced. Back and forth to his grandparents he was thrown. And my daughter, stuck on a farm in butt-fuck no-where, to grow up in isolation, leaving her with minimal life and social skills once her parents (aunt and uncle) got divorced in an ugly and violent way. At least with me, we would have been together and the consistency that children need, would be there because they remained at least with their mother.

I didn’t have money or material things but I had my motherhood and skill at raising children. I was a good mother. I know I was and that the paternal family of my children tried and succeeded in convincing me otherwise is a terrible and disturbing thing. Especially coming from so called Christians. They never did like that I am a “half breed.” They never did like that I came from poverty and secular living. “You can’t raise a child on love alone.” My childrens’ grandmother poked at my poverty and motherhood. If I could go back to that moment in her sitting room that sunny Sunday, I would tell her, “Fuck You.” 

Maybe I will get that chance some day. Maybe I won’t. Right now I just have to get through right now because man, all I want is to lay down and never get up again. I want to quit. I want to give up. I want to surrender to the calls of death inside my head. But for some unknown reason, I just can’t. It isn’t in me to just lay down. I have to find a way to forgive myself for what I have done. I have to find a way before it is too late and I have literally no more life left to live. Can it be possible that the next 25 years of my life might be somehow better? Right now, I do not know. All I know right now is that it hurts and I don’t know how to make it stop.

This is me trying.
with gratitude,
princess shredder.