Trust YOUR truth

Trust YOUR truth
Tuesday March 07, 2006

Thank you for your books (am reading ‘The Untouched Key’).

I am the daughter of a matricidal narcissist. And you are my enlightened witness. Yours is the only truth I trust.

I am a divorced 52 year old woman, with no children, no husband and no sense of home. I am trying to heal myself…with your help.

I often think “doesn’t someone want to study me?” (smiles)

The following is just a brief thumbnail sketch…..

Both my parents were only children. I was singled out as special by my father…which enraged my mother; and when I was 13 he french kissed me (after re-marrying a woman 12 years older than me) and he asked if he could have sex with me when I was 22. (There was no sex…and I left his house the next day)

Middle child….of three. We were severely beaten by our father (before he left when I was 11) then beaten by her. Oddly, she was never, NEVER, spanked by her parents.

I found out when I was 38, that I had a genius IQ. They didn’t want my older brother (by 13 months) to feel intimidated…so I was never told…..until much later. What I could have been, I will never know.

My brother is dead. He died of ‘cancer’ at the age of 32. My younger sister is living with my mother. She has never had sex, or a relationship of any kind. She is alot like my father, and when I see them together….talking baby talk…it seems as if my mother has made her into him. The man she professes is the only man she ever loved.

I know now that she has no idea what love is. I was raised as the caretaker of the family and feel that I am now…an unwilling masochist. The door-mat caregiver to all. And I am trying to change.

My parents met in a play in college…so naturally, all of us kids went into the ‘business’. (I would send you a copy of my head shot…but am not allowed to attach to this email) My sister is the singer/actress…my brother was the disk jockey turned news reporter, and I am a classically trained stage actress (retired..or gave up).

As soon as we had all left the house…..my mother took up with and subsequently married an actor who was 20 years younger than she….a narcissist as well….and a man who was originally interested in my sister.

She called us all one day. (I was living with my soon to be husband in Albany, NY….my brother was away at college and my sister was doing dinner theatre in Washington, DC.) Basically, to ask if we thought it was a good idea to put her mother ‘down’. Supposedly for medical reasons…but I later found out that my grandmother was only showing the beginning signs of altzimers (sp?). The real reason was cash. My grandmother in a nursing home would eat up all (or some) of the money. The real reason was my mother wanted to kill her was so she wouldn’t squander the inheritance my mother salivated for. (It should be noted that my grandmother’s doctor had given my grandmother an open prescription to cortizone…then …a new drug….and my grandmother had become addicted.) So there was a toxic ‘Bermuda triangle’ of three people to decide my grandmother’s fate. The quilty doctor, my mother, and my grandmother’s sister, an unnattractive woman, who had lived in my grandmother’s shadow her whole life. (My grandmother was called the most beautiful woman in Atlanta..in her day. She was beautiful …both inside and out)

It was one of the only times in my life that my mother ever telephoned me. Being conditioned to take care of her….I said that she should do what she thought best. Three days later, my grandmother was dead. My grandmother, Mimi, who was the only source of love and comfort in our lives. I am still dealing with that guilt.

I have spent my adult life studying other toxic people. Serial killers, etc. Trying to find a childhood worse than mine.

We never wanted for food or clothes. Grew up at the edge of Atlanta high society. (Being of ‘old’ blood…not ‘old’ money). In neighborhoods of gigantic houses. So, how could I complain? The woman I was named for (a cousin) had millions and lived at the Biltmore Hotel in Atlanta. So…we were fine. How could I complain?

I realize now, I have spent my life….running. Trying to find home. I know now that what I am looking for is inside of me. The home is inside. And, I still don’t know how to get there.

All of my love relationships have been with men who did not love me. I know I was trying to heal that ‘first’ relationship. I was tryi! ng to heal her. And, I was attracted to what was familiar. The familiar for me…was loving someone who did not love me back.

This last is what I am so desperate to change. I want to be loved before I die. Do you think that is unreasonable? Is is unattainable? I don’t know. My beauty is fading….and I am still scared. I sometimes feel like I could die from lack of ‘touch’.

I have had therapists…over the years. The most horrible one I remember….left a button on the arm of the chair for me one day (our last appointment, by the way) which said “if it’s not one thing, it’s your mother”. Horribly cruel, I thought.

And, as a caregiver, I have not wanted to expose others to this pain. And, I even feel guilty telling you. For God’s sake, you have heard MORE than your share of horrible stories. And it feels like! I am hurting you…or anyone I talk to….about this. And, I guess…I don’t really know why I am writing to you now.

Except to thank you. For your books which have been my quide through my pain. And, they have helped. They really have. And, it does seem like you are the only one in this world who dares to tell the truth.

Any comments or advice would be more than welcomed!

From the bottom of my battered heart….I thank you, so very much, Ms. Miller.

Bless you!
B

AM: You write: “Yours is the only truth I trust.” I hope and wish you that my books could help you to trust YOUR truth, to come in touch with the little girl you once were, to learn to love her in her pain, to give up the distance that separates you from her, from her suffering. She is still waiting for your love, nobody else can replace you.