Discovery From My Past.

[BlueKota]

Trying to do some basement clean up. There is some of my old stuff that needs to be sorted through.

I ran across my 5th grade report card. I had gotten extremely lucky that year because my homeroom teacher was such a kind person and so was the other 5th grade teacher. The homeroom teacher wrote every semester about how hard I was trying and how much I was improving. She also kept emphasizing how I lacked confidence in my self and was always being way too hard on myself and that I needed more praise and encouragement.
Even the principal who rarely had a good thing she was willing to say about any of us, wrote that I was doing really good work and to keep trying.

Want to know what my Mom wrote? "We have seem some improvement and will try to encourage her to do better, but she still needs a lot more improvement, especially her messy handwriting." I don't know maybe I am still being oversensitive many many years later, but am I the only one who thinks my Mom missed the whole point of what the teacher was trying to get across to her, and in fact did the exact opposite?

The teacher even told her in person and wrote a veiled warning that the homeroom teacher I was getting in sixth grade was cruel and feared she would undo much of the confidence she and the other teacher were trying to instill in me, and that Mom should at least request I be placed with the other 6 grade kinder teacher. Miss L was right on the money. That's exactly what happened because my Mom ignored her warning.

My Mom eventually apologized years later for leaving me in that school and for all the times she made me bad about myself, and I told her I forgave her before she died, and a part of me did. Also a part of me loved her, knew that a part of her loved me, and that she had a really cruel father, which led to her having her own issues.

It still hurts though and yes a part of me is still angry that I was taught a pattern of blaming myself to the point I didn't think I even deserved to exsist, and that my own Mom played a part in that. Even after years of therapy I still haven't shaken the tendency to be over-crtical of myself. I even feel guilty because I still talk to others about my issues with Mom. I mean forgiveness means letting it go right?