I am so shocked and upset I can not even think of a word or phrase to title this post with.
Betrayed, maybe because, yes, I was. Utterly and thoroughly destructively betrayed.
Background: You guys recall the devastating story of how I was abused and mistreated (and coerced into accepting an epidural I did not want and which never "took") during my labor with Matt, and then how they c-sectioned me without the benefit of anesthesia, and how Matt had descended the birth canal before they sliced me open and how they had to fumble around trying to get him out the incision before someone went up my birth canal and pushed him back into my abdomen so they could remove him through the incision and how after hearing him make one cry they knocked me out without answering my question of whether that was my own baby I heard crying, rendering me unconscious for the first 8 hours of his life and how as soon as I regained consciousness they gave me an intramuscular pain killer injection which rendered me unconscious again and how when I woke up the next morning they fucking didn't want to bring me my own baby. Fuckers. And recall: I ended up with both post traumatic stress disorder and post part depression afterwards.
- My mom caught me sobbing uncontrollably when Matt was 6 weeks old. I tried to tell her about the flashbacks she said "Oh for Christ's sake. You're fine the baby is fine. Get over it and get on with your life." I tried not discuss my problems after that.
- When Matt was almost 1 I felt that I needed to do something to stop that doctor from doing what he did to me to any other woman. I told my mother (I know, I know. I'm so stupid) and she told me that the doctor had just retired and couldn't do it to any other woman. I felt guilty that I had not stopped him from hurting anyone else in the 10 months since my experience. But I found solace knowing he wasn't going to hurt anyone else the way he did me.
- My PTSD and post part depression lasted for about 2/2.5 years respectively. Not a single family member (husband included) ever expressed any concern. None. Nothing. Nada. Even when I cried myself to sleep next to him for 2 years. Even when I started to gain weight at lightening speed. I find it hard to believe I seemed "normal" during that time. No one really sees me.
For some strange reason, I decided to google the doctor who did that to me. I wondered if he was dead. I was hoping he would be dead. Because I view him as evil. And he is. And I got to read his obituary. He didn't retire a year after Matt was born. He retired in 2002. Nine years after Matt was born. My head spins when I think of all the women he might have abused in those 9 years. I am overcome with wave after wave of nausea thinking that he kept on doing what he did to me and that my mother lied to me to protect the doctor. Or, more accurately, MY MOTHER LIED TO ME TO PROTECT THE DOCTOR.
Or, honestly, MY MOTHER LIED LIED LIED LIED LIED LIED TO ME, TO ME, TO ME TO PROTECT THE MOTHER FUCKING SON OF A BITCH DOCTOR.
Betrayed is like the tiny hole in the dam that proceeds the entire dam falling to pieces and flooding out the whole village. So here I sit, 10 years after my mother is buried, 24 years after the lie took place... feeling like I have been sucker punched in my own reality. Honestly, I know my mother was a pathetic mother. She didn't want to be a mother, she didn't ever pretend she wanted to be a mother. And every time I tried to make heads or tails of the strange life I was living where I was supposed to pretend everything was just fine, I was told everything was my own fault I was too sensitive, too needy, too dramatic, too demanding.
Even today, I feel such guilt for insinuating that my mother was an awful mother.
Well, you know what?
Not any more. My mother was a piece of shit who didn't deserve to be a mother. She was selfish and unloving and should have never been allowed to have her own children. My life was nothing more than an inconvenience to her, and for that I am trying to make myself so glad that she's gone. Imagine if she was here today? I would still be trying to get some affection or approval from her. Banging my head against the wall for nothing. I hate her so much right now.
And you know what I really regret? Begin such a doting daughter when I didn't know she back stabbed me with that lie. My mother lived with me for 6 months during her illness. I made beautiful well balanced meals every night of the week. I drove her to her chemo appointments, I bent myself like a pretzel trying to accommodate her, even when she wouldn't see my grandma during that time and I had to juggle the responsibility of caring for both of them. (Not to mention my dad who, if you recall was also dying of terminal cancer during that period) and my own 3 young children. I ran myself ragged trying to be everything to everyone for one person who would lie right to my face to protect the man who desecrated my body and my mind.
Inconceivable.
That is what this is.