My mother never tells me that she's proud of me. I doubt she's even aware of it, honestly.
She just doesn't think about it, so she doesn't say it. I've told her that I would like to
hear it, but if she says 'but I am proud of you!' after, it feels less genuine. And she never
brings it up unless I do.
This is all fine, I suppose. I can live with it. I mean, I'd be happier if I did get told
that I'm good, that people love me, et cetera, but I don't, and I've made my peace with it.
But I bring it up for a reason. I was talking to another family member today, the one from
diary entry 11, who has cancer. We were talking about our personal experiences with therapy,
which we have both been in. I mentioned how my therapist keeps talking about my situation as
if I was horribly abused as a child, which I don't necessarily agree with. My relative got
a strange look on their face and said they did understand where my therapist was coming
from. While they agreed that my mother wasn't necessarily abusive, they do feel like my
mother can occasionally have these outbursts of anger at people, including me, which she also
had when I was a young child.
I agreed with this. My mother can get angry at the oddest things, and can stay angry about
things for a very long time. She also, for some reason, always assumes that I'm lying, no
matter what I do. I told my relative this, and they agreed. We sat down on their bed
together.
"I think," they said, tentatively, "That as a child, your mother gave off the impression that
she didn't want to be touched. And your grandmother adapted to that and gave her her space.
But I think that maybe, in the long run, your mother would have liked to be hugged just as
much as her younger sibling was hugged."
It is true. My mom's younger sibling is always the one who gets more attention from my grand-
mother, mainly because they're an (ex-)drug addict with serious mental problems, while my
mother has always been the hard-working, sober one of the two. I know my mother just wants
to be told that people are proud of her, as well. She wants a hug from my grandmother, and she
wants to be treated the same way her younger sibling is. It isn't fun to see someone else
get all the attention. Of course it isn't. And I understand.
I don't think my mother knows that she wants this, though. But I know that one time, a while
ago, I told her that her mother is proud of her, and she started crying. I think that a lot
of people don't know that they are hurting. Most parents try to do what they think is best
for their children. My grandmother gave my mother space. My mother never told me that she
was proud of me. Maybe she never noticed that she was lacking that in her own life. Or maybe
she did, and I'm just nothing to be proud of. I don't know. But I know that she tried her
best in her own way, and I find it hard to really blame her for that.
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