Tired of living

I think I read that doing things for others could give you a sense of purpose. Do you want to help children learn to read, like a SMART volunteer or some other passion of yours?
Hugs.

I believe that you first step is to forgive yourself for anything and everything in your life.
Love yourself again or for the first time.
Next is for you to forgive your mother, and anyone else who has disjointed you over the years.
(Let some light into your life to allow you to see the way forward).
Next find some meaning in your life; it my be volunteering or birdwatching, it is your meaningful action no other opinion matter.
This is a matter of "freedom of will," your will, and it will take courage and stick-toward-ness.
I promise you it will be worth the effort.

Best,
an 88 1/2 year old man

I agree ! I hope you are still around and can tell us how things are!

@grammy82 - Came across your post from nearly a year ago, but really appreciate your energy and perspectives!

Hope things are well with you.

Hello there! Yea I’m still around and feeling blessed! 2 CT scans this year and they have been clear! Retired from the State of AZ and started a new job today. Thank you for checking!
Best Wishes to Everyone!
Cindy

Omg! Hey! That's awesome news! Soo happy for you ! Look at you starting new chapters! And you are alive to do them! Truly a blessing! 🧡🤗🤎

I have not followed the whole chain of posts, but the original post, and one reply, have prompted me to offer a thought.

Being traumatized by a bad mother can create long-lasting difficulties. This has even been shown in a laboratory setting with monkeys (some time in the 1950s, I think).

What can we do, as human beings, about that kind of trauma? One person suggested forgiveness, but I disagree. If you are like me, some things are just
unforgiveable. However, an alternative is to expand you view of the problem.

The problem is bigger than the interactions between mother and child, and their effects. The chain of causation that led to the bad mother extends back to other people and earlier times. Realizing this can help the child understand that it is not the child's fault. They are part of a bigger picture.

It makes no rational sense for a female mammal to be a bad mother. It decreases the mother's evolutionary fitness. Millions of years of evolution should have weeded out any genetic tendency to be a bad, mother, so something must have gone wrong. You are affected by a chain of cause and effect that may extend to many people, and may extend far back in time.

In the experiment, the poor little monkeys tried to fix the relationship with the bad "mother." It was impossible. In my own life there are/were important human interactions that I wish I could fix, but it is impossible. Taking the broad view of the causes and effects that led to the bad stuff helps me look at it from a broader perspective and kind of step around the tangled pathological mess that I did not create and ask the question: What can I do now?

While I am not a fan of forgiveness, I do approve of doing something good for another person, because their experience of happiness, or suffering, is just as real as your own.

Dear Marilyn, I know how damaging it is to be called stupid as a child. My mother was a cruel mother. I have three brothers and she didn’t like us getting on together…she liked to cause divisions between us. I used to get on well with my eldest brother when we were in our mid teens and she suggested to me one day that we were incestuous. That’s how evil she is. She called us all stupid. I actually believed her so when I got put into the top stream at high school I thought they’d been some mistake! My brothers were all in the bottom stream but they weren’t stupid either. They were amazing at art and carpentry etc but they just weren’t any good at academic subjects. My mother showed no interest in our schooling whatsoever. I once overheard her whispering to my future sister in law that we’d always been thick. When I had my own son he was extremely bright and we both took the official MENSA test and passed. His was 166 and mine was 133 which meant that I just scraped through (I think the lowest is 132 to qualify as a pass). I was 32 at the time and when my mother found out I had become a member of MENSA she said “what did you go and do that for?”. I stopped having any interaction with her when my father died when I was in my early thirties. She’s written me some poison letters over the years until my husband told her no mother should be sending her daughter letters like that. I really don’t know why she had children as she’s not maternal at all. She’s 86 now and I won’t even be going to her funeral when the time comes. It’s amazing that she’s religious (Jehovahs Witness) and when she’s with her religious friends she’s as sweet as can be to them but unfortunately not to her own children. Like you, I’ve always found it hard to mix with people too and only have about three friends who I see once a year for lunch or dinner. People think I’m confident but the reality is a lot of my life has been spent with an inferiority complex. I wish I lived near you as I would love to have you as a friend but alas I think you are in the US and I am in the UK! It’s unfortunate that your son only calls you out of duty but I’ve come to the conclusion that having children is only rewarding for a certain period of time. My son thought I was the best mother in the world but after he reached mid-thirties his visits became more sporadic and now we are lucky to get a call or text once every six months! It’s a horrible feeling to feel sick of living but I think we all feel like that sometimes. I certainly do and I remember occasionally feeling like that every so often from a young age. I’ve got a happy marriage but at times I feel very alone. My husband’s wonderful in some ways but not a very good listening ear so I feel I haven’t got anyone to talk which is the loneliest feeling in the world.

It was good to get your message today. When I got up I was thinking how empty my life is now. My husband and I were together for 62 years and married for 59 years, but now it seems as though he never was. How can that be? We believe that my mother had mental problems. After I was married and had children, she still treated me like a piece of dirt. From somewhere I found the courage to confront her and tell her to her face that I never wanted to see her or speak to her again. Of course she did not want to accept that. She would continuously telephone, but I did not answer the phone. My husband would have to tell her over and over that I would not come to the phone. I do not remember exactly when she died, but I did not attend the funeral. However the many insults she hurled at me are still in my head, even though I now know better. My therapist has diagnosed me with complex PTSD due to an abusive childhood. I am now coming to the end of my life. I am 89 years old. I am in good health for my age, but how long can a person live? I am alone and that is hard. My sons are now 60 and 56. I hear from my older son frequently, but he lives in Asia so it is too far to visit. The younger one has basically thrown me out of his life and we have zero relationship. So I have made plans and have replaced him as trustee of my estate and seen to it that his share is almost zero. I see no need to "reward" him for his hurtful behavior toward me. At this point I just exist from day to day. It is interesting that you live in the U.K. We visited there many times as my husband's father was born there and he had many relatives there. Most of them have now passed on. That is also a curse, if you will, of old age. All your friends are dead and it is impossible for me to make new ones. So I thank you so much for your message. My message to you is just to put one foot in front of the other and if you are able, try to get some counselling.

Hi Marilyn, I enjoyed reading your response. Re your feelings about your wonderfully long marriage and how it “never was”, I think that somehow, after the years pass, it’s almost like looking back on another person’s life if you get my drift...I’ve experienced those sort of feelings. Sometimes when I look back on some of my life experiences I almost feel…did that really happen? It’s inexplicable to me. I’m glad you found the courage to tell your mother you wanted nothing to do with her. I think it’s a power thing with the type of women our mothers were. As I said, I stopped seeing my mother after my father died but like your mother she never gave up trying every year or two. It was unfathomable really as she never liked me so why keep trying? She actually told me once I didn’t mean as much to her as her sons. The first time she told me to get out of the house and never come back I was eleven years old. She was good at putting the knife in and then twisting it for good measure (figuratively speaking). You may think that possibly I was an ill-behaved child but I was as good as gold, quiet and polite and tried so hard to please her by helping round the house and when I started work I would buy her flowers and other gifts but nothing worked. Luckily I gave up when I was relatively young as I had a friend (who died at 54) who became her mother’s carer and her mother treated her terribly but she had nothing bad to say about the daughter who rarely bothered to visit her. I’m glad you have a good relationship with your elder son and I think I would take the same action as you with regard to your younger son. He doesn’t deserve to benefit from your death if he doesn’t care for you when you’re alive. It’s wonderful that you are still in good health…things would be so much worse if you were not.

Re your suggestion of counselling, I hope you won’t take offence but I don’t have much faith in counselling…it’s not really a big thing in the UK like it is in the US but it is available. I’ve known instances when counselling has done more harm than good.

We have been to the US many times, in fact we’re going in September. I’ve been to New York, Chicago, La Jolla, Santa Monica, Seattle, Las Vegas, Key Largo, Orlando, Los Angeles. I would like to be a penpal (that sounds very old fashioned now doesn’t it as most people send a Facebook invite) but if you would like to my email. I won’t be at all offended if you prefer not. I have enjoyed our interaction and feel better for it as I was a little down today.

PS. Have you thought about getting a pet? My husband doesn’t like dogs but if anything happened to him I think I would definitely get a dog as a little companion.