And then I was old. It was suddenly too late for so many things I thought there was time for. Like the woman in Shangri-La crossing the invisible line and disintegrating into dust.

No, it was not that dramatic. It only feels that way on the inside because so many pieces lay at my feet with no hope to mend. They will lie there still when I have left this earth because they are not in my control. There is no glue for hearts.

For decades I ran frantic back and forth from safe haven to the battlefield and back again trying to mend and make amends and all the time thinking I needed to get “home” to my children before it’s too late and never knowing it was too late long ago.

I’d come straight from the Funny Farm where I grew amongst the other wild children of my cold and distant parents where sex and incest were ok to do but not to talk about and my eyes witnessed horror and my brain took in cruel words and my heart learned not to love too much and my body tried to disappear into the woodwork. Mistakenly, I thought if I just get away from that place and those people I would be OK, normal like all the people who must live behind all the little curtained windows in all the other houses in town. I was wrong.

I must have packed unaware all my coping mechanisms along with my clothes and books and sentimental oddities because there they were when I got to where I escaped to for me to use against enemies no longer with me. I didn’t know why I sat in my new safe place peering out the window lest someone find me out, I did not know why I needed my boyfriend to return from work to go outside and hang the laundry. Paranoia suddenly works on nothing when you have watched your back since childhood and now have no reason to watch your back. Like breathing in and breathing out, someone is still out to get you.

Most people might agree that it is needless to say that I had no sense of self or safety, my mind could not reason away my fears or begin to build a foundation or work out why I could not just be.

I was a child when my children entered my life still dependent and needy and sunk in the past that followed me everywhere. When I was pregnant with the eldest I was still having nightmares about my brother coming to attack me and I would in my sleep be pinching me to wake me up before he could open the front door and just as his hand was on the knob I would get to the door and lock it just as I woke in a sweat as though I had been running a marathon. Always these nightmares came after my boyfriend, we were not married yet, left for work and I lay in bed to curtail the morning sickness. I could not tell him. I would lose him. He didn’t understand why I could not just “be OK” and neither did I. It was 150 miles between my brother and i, and a much greater distance between Fred and I.

People like me should not have children. It only perpetuates the trauma from one generation to the next and on and on ad-infinitum. If I believed in “sin” that would be my greatest, not abortion, not pre-marital sex, and certainly not incest or hate or lying or stealing. But I did not know how broken I was.

It is true that many people come from horrid childhoods and prosper and build stable families and live some sort of normalcy. I did not. I did not choose to not be OK. And no matter how I tried, I could not get it right even for the children I loved so much. Emotionally I was erratic, I had no control, needed to run for cover at the slightest threat. I wonder why.

Having me for a mother, leaving out the fact my children had a cold step-mother and father who filled them with religious crap and lies, would have been a kind of torment for them. I expect it was worse than having no mother at all.

But now it is today and I have had three years of emotion regulation therapy and at 68 yrs old I have what feels like the most solid foundation of my whole life, the most settled emotions, as well as the clearest view I can possibly have of the misery I brought my children.

I remember the day I finally had to accept that I may never see my daughters again. I understood on some level why they had the right to make that choice. I had made that choice, out of self-preservation, to never see my mother again. I did not see her again, and if I had to make the choice over again it would probably be the same. My mother never chose to change or apologize.

I can give my children no less freedom to cut me out of their lives. It is that simple.

Do you feel sorry for me? Don’t bother. Pity never helped anyone progress. I know because I was sunk in it all the years of struggling to fix what was wrong with me.

“If you had my life, you’d drink too.” I would moan drunkenly to the tune of Barbara Streisand’s album. One day I had enough of me and ripped the LP off the player and broke it in a dozen pieces.

I do not know what drives me to keep getting up and trying when so much has failed. Perhaps it is that interminable and sometimes annoying hope. I do not know what else to blame it on. It has brought me this far. It can see me through whatever comes next.

Back to my statement about having children. I firmly believe victims of severe trauma need to fix themselves before they bring in more children who will almost undoubtedly need some sort of fixing later on. But for those who already have children, be open and honest about who you are and what you went through as best you can according to how much they will listen. Let them know that above all else you are there for them as best you can be. I ran from my disabilities instead of facing them. Well, I faced them on some level, but I was not open with my children. I kept faking “normalcy” while my insides were a shambles. It was not right and certainly not helpful to them or myself.

I wish I could prove my life actually happened, but so many people with agendas of their own claim it never did. The family I grew up in, my mother, some of my sisters and brothers because they cannot face the truth. My first husband has to believe I was just a horrid person so his choices look reasonable and I take the blame. In the end, if I want any life at all, I just have to accept that my life is what I am still recovering from. I and I alone need to face it in order to change me.

I wrote to my brothers finally, and my ex-husband asking for an apology. I never expected to get one. But I am glad I made contact about the wrongs they did. I have had to live with it. I do not see a reason why they should not also live with it in some small measure.

Finally, I still feel young, and freer than ever before. yesterday I walked a 3 mile trail twice. I have miles to go before i sleep.