Struggling For Air

I guess it's time for this post. I have dropped hints about my not-so-perfect relationship with my mother before, but I think I'm ready to get to the heart of it all. I'm honest, this is my third or fourth attempt of it, and it might not make it either, but it's something I just need to write about to get it off my chest,

I'm by far not the perfect mom, but I try our best to raise the girls with all the love I have to be free-thinking, independent women. All I want for them is to be happy and able to take care of themselves. And while I don't doubt that my mother tried her best to raise her children with love, I always felt that she gave me her love bound on conditions. To have the perfect grades, to have the perfect figure, to be the perfect daughter at home, to date the guys she approves, and to stay with her in eternal gratefulness.

Well, I am not this type of person. As a result, I developed serious eating disorders at a teenager, struggling to take control of at least this part of my life. I suffered from depression and cut my arms with anything sharp I could find just to feel alive in the pain. Later on, I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, which almost always is founded in traumatic incidences in early childhood.


In all my struggling for independence I fought her tooth and nails to break the leashes she had attached to me. The paradox in our relationship always was that on the one hand, she is supportive, like finding therapists or tutors for me or helping me out financially to fund my college, while on the other hand she always tried to hold me back (she was mad when at 14 I told her that I did not want her to make my school lunch for me any more). I am still thankful to my dad that he helped me get out from home at the age of 19, when I took off to college and to my own life.

During my senior year in college, I met my husband. And my mother did everything in her power to prevent us frrom getting married at first. She only relented when she noticed that we would follow through, no matter what. The hubby and I still joke sometimes that it would have indeed been fun just to elope at the court house or in Denmark, the Las Vegas of Europe if it comes to weddings. Three months after the wedding and just days after graduating college, we took off to Richard's new duty station in Kansas. After a last-minute fight at the ariport, my mother did not talk to me for over two months. At this point, it was still hard on me; while I struggled to establish my independence, I still craved her approval to a certain point.

The four years after that, we had two daughters and moved back to Germany. But things didn't get better. We had found a new platform of communication since I was now a mother as well, but still she couldn't respect me as an independent adult and parent. When we first arrived back in Germany, with a newborn, a toddler, and no jobs, we lived in my grandmother's house next to my parents. As soon as I had found a job, we also looked for an apartment; we found one very quickly and moved, which she opposed to the point of accusing me to take her grandchildren away from her again (I commuted for 3 hours every day, and with all respect, our children needed me more than their grandmother).

During the last three years of us living in Germany again, things have gotten better, worse, and even worse. We're going from not talking to each other to her confiding things to me that I never wanted to hear about. The major issue we've been dealing with for well over a year is that Richard and I had decided to end all contact to my "sister", who is my mother's favorite, even though she would never admit it. Well, this person has at some point attacked our daughter with a knife and tried to potty-train her by force within a day to prove our inability as parents while we were moving into our new apartment; after that experience, Lily panicked if she only saw a toilet for a month and we were back to zero in that respect.

In my mother's eyes, I'm a drama queen, who tends to exaggerate and play up things. However, it is my responsibility as a mom to keep our daughters safe. I do not want them to suffer from depression and develop eating disorders just to be able to establish a minimum of control over their own lives. I have never asked my mother to chose sides between her daughters, but it is more than obvious that she has picked her side from the beginning.

I am still learning to accept it, but it's getting easier every time. I feel sorry for our daughters that they don't have the contact with their grandparents as they should. But as they don't know it much different, we will do our best to keep all the drama as far away from them as we can. We have lived as a family by ourselves for so long that the current situation doesn't change much. We have wonderful friends that have become as good as family. Yes, I sometimes day-dream about moving away again, far enough to leave the drama behind me. But I know that I cannot run away forever. I have ran almost to the other side of the world and still couldn't escape the struggle. We have returned to stay and build a good life for our family, and we have succeeded.

I will one day be able to leave behind the guilt, the depression, the panic attacks and become the person I was meant to be before my mother has taken the air from my lungs and tried to bind me to herself. I try to take one baby step at a time, but already feel that I am making progress. My husband is the greatest rock in this process, and I will be eternally greatful to him for all his support in the past, the present, and the future.

Walking The Line

I know it's been a long time since I've written a proper post. As I have already said, it's been a time of soul searching and trying to figure out where I am heading with all this. I had to take a step back to focus more on myself and the family, but I feel that it's time for me to start up again. I have long contemplated about this step but have decided, to start out again, that I would like to share a story with you about a girl, who has always known that she doesn't quite fit in. As long as she can remember, she has felt just a little different from the other kids, misunderstood. From an early age on she was an outsider, fleeing from her life in the world of books. Growing up she always striven to fit in, but never quite managed. She fled into different kinds of spiritualism, but eventually realized that it just was not in her to be a believer. She cut herself with everything that she could lie her hands on to dull the pain inside her with the pain on her outside. She starved herself to try and gain control of herself, her life, and her emotions, but failed. She saw therapist after therapist, who always focused on the issue on hand without looking at the big picture. The years passed and she existed on, went to school, fulfilled her duties, and kept looking for the tiniest bit of forgetting at the wrong places. She graduated and moved to the city to go to college, but nothing changed. She had friends but was still the odd one out. She was sad, she cut and starved herself. She destroyed her body with exercise and alcohol until she finally ended up with a therapist who confronted her with the big picture: Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). She was put on medication to ease her depression and for a while, she kind of felt like normal. She had a relationship, got engaged and was ready to settle down, until everything came crashing down around her. At this point she decided to quit the medications and start to fight. She decided that if she was sad then so be it. She would accept it and live with it. She would accept who she is and not try to fit in any more. She fought against the urges to destroy her body and use her will power that helped her to discipline her body into ruin to become healthy. She wrote down her pain and sadness. She fought to not lose her grip on life. Eventually, one night she met someone on the internet, someone she didn't need to explain herself to, someone who just knew. They met in person, fell madly in love and were married soon afterwards.

I now would like to tell you that the girl and the guy lived happily ever after, but it would have been a lie. Six years and two beautiful children later they are still madly in love, but the struggle isn't over. Even though the girl has experienced happiness beyond her wildest dreams, the black holes of sadness are following her wherever she goes. There are still days and even weeks when she is sucked in and fights through the darkness to regain the light. She has learned to live with it and persevere, even though sometimes when making a cup of tea she feels the urge to pour the hot water over her legs to dull the pain. But for her family she keeps fighting and is the more grateful for the truly happy times.

I am telling you this story to show that BPD is a real danger. Look around and there might be a person battling those demons without you ever knowing, with the smile in their face and the darkness within, walking the line between happiness and despair, between the night of their demons and the light of their love ones; walking the line between life and death.