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shamysmom said:

Michelle,

You seem very sweet. I wish you could teach my daughter your heart and your perspective. I'd give my right arm to give her your attitude. Many children don't know what they have. Many mothers don't know what they have. If I were your mom, I would appreciate your sensitivity toward her and how much you care. I'd die for that in my daughter. Wishing you the best and wishing you all the strength and faith in the world within yourself. I am so sorry. We can only imagine how that would hurt.

Sorry, this was supposed to go to another post. :O

Well, I was never really "in" the closet. Since day one of when my daughter estranged me, the people in my life knew. I never hid it from anyone. At first it was embarrassing but that went away real fast. I found that there were some moms out there who had the same thing happen but they never told anyone and that, of course, includes me….until I told them. If you hold on to yourself, bit the bullet and start to talk, I think some of you might discover what I did:

~There are a lot of us out there.
~ No one judges like you'd think.
~ You'll hear a story about a friend or a friend of a friend
~ Those who know you do not change their opinion about what a good parent you are
~ It gives you someone to talk to and to bounce back their perspective. That has been the best comfort.
~ You make friends that are unbelievably close when they share the same stories
~ It gets easier to communicate after you begin to trust it.

I think if I stayed clammed up, I never would have made it. What astounds me and one of my daughters is how many people do this to good parents. One really beautiful person confessed, after I brought it up, that before she raised her two children, she had three others that she sent to visit their dad. They never came home. Her daughter despised her so much, she never spoke to her Mom for ten years. This was an incredible mother too! I never even knew she had a whole other family in her past! And we were really close!

You'd be surprised.