Everything is still so very heavy. My body feels like a lead weight that I have to drag behind me wherever I go. It’s been a few days now, and I’m still not sure I’ve really slept at all except for the extremely early morning hours…maybe or maybe not. I collapse into bed but the minute I attempt to relax my body for some rest and restoration, my mind clicks into overdrive. Eventually my body aches reach an extreme pitch and I just have to get up and try to distract myself, but I’m still physically and emotionally exhausted.

I have managed to sort a few things out – at least I think I have. I talked to another daughter today, speaking in more general terms rather than specifics. The conversation was very affirming and gave me more thoughts to take into consideration. So this is what I have so far:

– The issue is not about whether or not my parents loved me; but more that they were not the heroes I believed them to be. I have always believed that the reason I became a multiple was (in a nut shell) that my parents were so extremely good most of the time and in most ways, but there were certain times and circumstances when they blew it big time, and it was the polar extremes that confused me. In so many ways my parents have been giants in my eyes, far above anything I could ever be. That was especially true of their Spiritual lives. I’ve spent a life time trying to be as good as them, knowing that I would always fall short. Through years of therapy I have learned to see some of the ways in which they failed me and my siblings, recognizing specific shortcomings but marginalizing them in comparison to the loving, good things they did. I could look at the ways they let me/us down so long as it was through the lens of what truly good people they really were. I had them on very high pedestals.

Now the pedestals are gone. It’s not just that my parents have fallen off the pedestals – the pedestals are rubble. In truth they never really existed except in my own mind. Through the years when I have spoken of my parents on their pedestals and tried to give examples of how very good they really were, and when therapists tried to suggest that maybe they really weren’t as wonderful as I made them out to be, I rejected that possibility. I felt and often said that they only questioned it because they didn’t really know my parents. If they really knew them, they would know how right I was to honor them in this way and to this extreme.

– When my daughter used the words “codependent in many relationships” to describe her view of them, and added to that an accusation of “very faulty faith beliefs”, I was able to see the truth in what she was saying. Many of the things I previously held as evidence that they were super parents I now see as dysfunctional. It hurts more than words can describe. It turns my world upside-down and it’s hard to know how to go on. I had to look up the word “codependent” to make sure I was using it correctly. It doesn’t fit completely, but it does ring true in many ways.

-Even as I say these things, as I have been allowing these thoughts to resonate in my mind, I want to scream out “forgiven!!” against them. But today while I was in bed trying to rest and not being able to turn my thoughts off, I realized that this was not really the issue either. Before someone can be forgiven for something, there has to first be a reckoning that an offense has been committed. Furthermore, my parents didn’t put themselves on a pedestal, I did that. Their actions and attitudes were faulty because they were deeply injured people struggling to know how to get through their own pain. They did love us and wanted what they believed to be right and good for my siblings and me. They were not equipped to help me with my struggles because they didn’t know how to get through their own struggles. They were injured, not evil – deeply, deeply injured.

I think I understand better what my therapist means by “dying well”. She has tried to help me grasp it many times, but it has always evaded me. Dad can die now and I won’t be left desperately needing more from him than he is able to give. I recognize his limitations, so I don’t expect too much.

In so far as my dad having faulty spiritual beliefs, that’s a mixed bag of it’s own. Dad has spent countless hours in personal Bible study, and countless more reading books about our faith. Much of what he comes away with is good, sound faith. But there have been times when he embraced Bible interpretation presented by various “professionals” expounding on “correct interpretation of Scripture” that missed the mark dramatically. So did I. Now I’m left pondering how I need to proceed differently. But that will have to be another “to be continued” posts. For now this is enough.

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