I Don’t Know Who I Am Anymore

I do know I will never be the person I had known myself to be, she no longer exists.

I look at this woman but no longer recognize her. This picture is six years old, outwardly I don’t believe I’ve changed that much. I’ve known for some time now I am no longer who I was.

The woman in the photo disappeared almost two years ago, vanishing in an instant. In the time it took my son-in-law to utter the words, “ We have decided there will no longer be any contact between you and the girls.’ ‘ No more birthdays, no more Christmases, no Thanksgivings, no phone calls…” He continued speaking for several minutes, but I didn’t comprehend the words he was saying. I have no idea what further utterances he may have offered up.

What is it that happens to your brain when you hear words that you understand, but are so shocking an invisible line immediately forms? It’s a line of demarcation. One that says to you, despite your altered state of consciousness, this is so unacceptable I can’t process it right now. Meaning, my conscious, coherent train of thought can’t accept what I heard. I think I knew what this meant in some distant recess of my mind, yet I was perhaps trying not to recognize or acknowledge that I understood? Maybe because I wasn’t immediately able to accept the sheer horror?

I don’t know? Two years later, almost, and I still don’t understand exactly what happened to me the night I received that call. I’ve written a considerable amount about what my older daughter and her husband did to me. How it virtually destroyed me, nearly drove me to suicide. I’ve spent the better part of the past two years wishing I was dead so that I wouldn’t have to think about it. Yet I still don’t understand what occurred and don’t expect I ever will. What I do know for certain is, that fraction of a minute changed who I am.

The person I had been vanished. The individual I am today is someone I don’t quite know yet. I see the woman I once was sitting in the blue Pottery Barn chair answering the call from her daughter. “Hi, honey!” Because her name appeared on my phone. But that was all part of their plan. I foolishly, apparently, thought my son-in-law and I had gotten along better in recent years. Did they think I wouldn’t have answered a call from him? Why? But it wasn’t her voice that responded, it was his. “ No, this is _ _ _ _ _.”

I was immediately puzzled but had no time to dwell on that odd feeling. Why was he calling me on her phone? There was just enough time for that question to form in my thoughts, when he, not wasting a second, expelled those fateful words. My question was answered as he spoke. Was it part of their maniacal plan? I still don’t understand why he used her phone. I never will. Just another part of the entire *event*? What else could I call it? Or how should I refer to it? Episode? Is it apparent I remain to this day, utterly mystified?

No one understands it. Meaning no one in our family, or those friends who know me. People continue to gaze at me in bewilderment if, for some reason, this subject comes up. It doesn’t as often when chatting with family these days, and even less so when talking with friends, and several probably still don’t know. If they do, the majority are too afraid to mention anything about it.

Sometimes when I look at these people I know, the ones I feel fairly certain do know what occurred, I wonder what is wrong with them. Why do they not say something to me? Just the words, “ I’m so sorry about what happened with your daughter. Please know I continue to think about you.” If they can’t say them to me, why have they not sent me a note? Just 2 or 3 sentences is all they need to write.

Of course, some do. My feeling about those who don’t is, what occurred is so sad and scary in a sense, it’s easier for them to say nothing. Easier for them. It’s sort of like someone losing a child I imagine. The thought is so frightening, if we can avoid thinking about it, it’s less uncomfortable. In a way, understandably, it’s more difficult for people to grapple with this because it’s so bizarre. Whoever heard of a child whose mother worshiped and adored her and her children, simply calling up and removing herself and her children, from her life?

No one ever saw anything like this occurring in our family. None of us had ever heard of such. Mercifully, helped along tremendously by the arrival of another granddaughter, the first child of my younger daughter, I am, at last, picking myself up and trying to move on.

I’m so different though. The person I was seemed as though she was a fool. Despite prior, tragic hurdles she encountered and overcame, this was on a scale akin to the worst hurt and betrayal imaginable. Made so, because it was done with deliberate malice.

To me, it’s incomprehensible this could be human behavior. I suppose because my mind doesn’t process thoughts that way. However, it is, because my daughter is a human being, and she consciously decided to do this to me. I realize, thanks to support from other Medium writers and readers, helpful articles, lectures, and books, I’m not alone. And I appreciate that. The thing is though, I don’t personally know anyone else this has happened to.

And I continue to wonder, regardless of how well people might know me, do they ever wonder what in the world I could have done that caused my daughter to take this action? I say that because, as I continue to struggle with the ever-present *why*did she do this, might I not wonder the same had this happened to someone else I know? A person I knew to be a loving, devoted mother and grandmother? A person who bored her friends weekly with pictures of her granddaughters on her Facebook page?

I almost said that person who abandoned her Facebook page and associates. But that would have been incorrect. Because the person who appears on Facebook, WOULDN’T have abandoned her page. It was this other individual, the person I am today who made that decision. I came to the determination I could better help myself if I backed away from Facebook.

I concluded this due to the generalized ugliness, but more importantly, because of the daily barrage of photos in the Memories Facebook section. It’s too painful. A morning greeting of precious faces was the most painful of reminders that I will never gaze upon them again.

I’m not as kind, or thoughtful. Before receiving the call, I rarely thought much about what I wanted. Being helpful to others was more important to me. I accepted what I was given and didn’t complain. I pay more attention to myself in certain ways now, or perhaps I should say I’m more aware of things I would like to have, and do, and I often purchase things I would never have previously considered.

Why am I rambling on about this again? Because last night I received yet another comment on a story I wrote one year ago. The most widely read story I’ve ever written. The comment was sincere and thoughtful, deserving of a response. I hadn’t reviewed that story in some time, so read it again to make certain my reply was equally thoughtful. And that’s all it took.

Despite the fact the attempt by my daughter to destroy me didn’t completely succeed, in significant ways, it did. The person I once was is gone, a generous portion of who she was, died that night. I don’t feel anything in the way I once did, be it happiness, or sadness. That feeling of sheer, joyful delight eludes me, as does the feeling of utter despair.

I’ve been aware of this for quite a while. Those extreme highs and lows are lost to me. There is, at times, a feeling of hollowness I’m aware of. Nothingness. I generally feel empty. I can still laugh, and take great pleasure in my new granddaughter, but there is a hole in my soul, and it would be unfair of me to expect this precious little girl to fill it. She brings me great joy. For a long time, I never expected to experience anything remotely similar to that feeling. But occasionally I do, and I expect that feeling to expand, to a degree, as I see that has already occurred.

As of now, however, I truly don’t know who I am. I don’t recognize the person I have morphed into, and I miss many things about the person was. I suppose I could say I mourn to a point, the woman I was. Losing your identity is in some ways similar to death. If you liked or loved that person and she is no longer present, it would follow you would miss her. She was a flawed person, but her positive qualities overrode those that were negative. She can’t return, and I will forever miss her.