Healing & Improvement at the end of 2021

 I am proud of myself.

The female biological donor called me. In the long past, I would have answered, allowed her to ramp me up, & then spend the rest of the day in misery.

In the short past, I would have not answered the phone at all. I would have simply boiled over her audacity

to call to try to gaslight, devalue, guilt, & shame me into doing whatever took her fancy that day.

This time, as the phone rang, I looked at it & breathed deeply. I looked into the darkest part of me & stilled my nerve for battle.

"Hello (her given name), how may I help you?" I say into the phone with a very business-like tone.

I'm not going to bore you with details here. I'm going to paraphrase the conversation into healthy & understandable layman's terms.

"Hello Daughter, I have called because I'm being nosey. I feel guilty about stuff but I would never admit this to any entity Dead or Alive. So, I'm calling to check in on your current attitude towards me. Since you are still feeling salty, I will future promise help & resources towards something I know you absolutely require for daily living. Since that won't work, I'll offer your children that same empty promise in the hopes that you will enter my domain in hopes of making your children's lives easier with something they need. I will also bait you into anger, to weaken your resolve. This will get my foot in the door as it has in the past. Oh, no. It didn't work this time? Don't worry I will keep bringing up trigger topics to work you up then gaslight you into you believing it's your fault  "the argument started'. I will try to hang up the phone feeling like a victim so I can tell my Flying Monkey Family members how horrible you were to me. They will "come to my rescue" and help me feel secure again. If you don't fed me & give attention to fend off my fear of abandonment, I will manipulate all your family into shunning you. This will work because these people don't talk to you & get ALL their information about you, from me. So If you want a relationship with your extended family members you have to speak to me."

None of these things worked on me. None of these things sent me into an escalating Borderline Personality Disorder roller coaster of Emotional Nuclear Holocaust portions. I was affirmative. Strong.  Solidly set on the words she never wanted to hear:

No. I. Do. Not. Need. You.

They weren't yelled or screamed. They weren't whined or over-dramatized. They were words of a parent protecting their inner child from a toxic adult.

I've been working on those words for years. Often used them against other people. But never against my mother...until yesterday. 

I am reborn. I am free. I am not alone. Most importantly, I am loved. 

May the Force be with you. For All Time. Always.