Evolution...

You may not believe this (after reading all my previous rants), but I am a positive person. I am a "glass is half full" kinda gal. Often I run into people who are rude or insensitive, sometimes someone else's child is mean to one of my children, bad things happen, and so on. When faced with these things I find myself thinking "They must have had a bad day" or "Maybe a bad life". I always explain to my kids that there is probably a reason that "that kid" was treating them like that, "Maybe", I say "Other's haven't treated them well and they don't know any better". More often then not, I give people the benefit of the doubt.

That is until it comes to my own Mother.

I get so angry with her because of the way I grew up, because of all the things I missed out on, because it seemed like she didn't care.

I can't tell you what a relief I felt the first time I realized that Mom's problem might be a disease, a mental illness, not her fault. My Dad had listened to a radio show where they discussed OCD Hoarding and he sat my Sis and I down and told us about his discovery. I thought for the first time, maybe my Mom does love me more than all the junk piled up in the house. Something in her brain is just keeping her from showing it. I thought , great! Now we know what this is and we can fix it. If only I had known...

what I know now.

It's much harder than you think.

To cure someone of something they do NOT believe they have.

One of the reasons I am writing this blog is because I just know that something good is going to come from it. What I've been hoping and praying for, is that after I get it all out in the open here something in me will change and the anger I have towards this illness my Mother suffers from will dissipate. And I will evolve. Like a caterpillar, I will break out of this cocoon and emerge a strong and beautiful butterfly.

So when I read the response by Ariane Benefit on a previous post I was taken by surprise. Part of what she said practically shouted at me, I mean it might as well have been bolded and in all CAPS. Maybe here is part of my answer...

"This may sound weird, but I often think I was lucky in a weird way to have gotten the worst part of life over when I was young and now in my late 40's it just keeps getting even better. How many people have "idyllic" childhoods and spend the rest of their lives feeling like the best time of their life is behind them? I'd rather be me." Ariane

Thank you Ariane. Thank you for helping me to find something positive in my past. Thank you for helping me to get a little closer to my goal. I still have a ways to go, but for a minute there, I felt like I could fly.