DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

I don't feel like a mother anymore that is my
biggest problem. I think the
pain of not being able to be a mom and not having
my children with me,
compounded with the way my ex-husband
has pushed me out of their lives, I have kind of
retracted. It is kind of
like I don't want to feel any of the mother things
at all anymore. It is just too
damn painful.

My children seem almost dead to me at times for I
grieve in much the same way - at least what we once
were is like dead perhaps that is what I grieve for,
and we
will never have it back. The pain of being alone
is too great. The pain of
what I feel the system has done to me and my
children is too great. When I
go home, I have to spend the hours there alone
remembering what life was once like.

I hate and have lost respect for the system. I
hate my ex-husband (lost respect for him long ago). I
am helpless to ever win and that
is just the way it is and that is one of the most
difficult things I have ever had to accept. No one
really cares and for those who can change the laws
(and I have written to many) the issue is too hot and
they all back away. All they want is their money -
and no matter how hard I fight nothing ever will
change because the only
ones who can change the laws are driven by the
monetary rewards of not
changing the system.

I don't know how to explain this to you. The pain
of my situation with my
children has become so burdensome that I don't want
to feel like a mother
anymore. As soon as I let myself feel like that -
the pain comes back
because I am not a mother anymore, not in the way
that I was and I will never be again. Who could bear
such pain and survive?. It is
better to not allow myself to feel anything for my
children then to be in constant agony. I do not want
to remember what it is like to have children.
Sometimes I wish that I had none, never had any,
been barren or so ugly no
one would have ever wanted to make one with me and
then I would be alone
just like I am now but I would not be in pain.
I will never resolve it, absolve it - get rid of
it. It is what I live
with every day of my life. I am not a part of my
children.

Love I can feel and have - the love of my children - although I can
feel it I can not have
it. To feel it is too painful to live with.
Other children remind me of what I no longer have -
of the little faces of
my children I will never see again. Other children
remind me of the things
I will never have again. Can you understand the
pain?

I don't know if you can understand this - perhaps I
am caught in my own trap
but this is where I am.
Writing this makes me deal with the things inside
of me. I would rather not feel.
Because I still do feel, and even writing
this has brought tears to
my eyes and these eyes of mine are tired of crying.

Non-Custodial Parent