YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Ra ti ta ti ta...so I get a call this morning from a friend of my mothers telling me they had to take her to the hospital last night because of "rectal bleeding." Charming.

Now, my mother had a colonoscopy last week and the doctor apparently thinks this was a side effect of that.

You'd think I wouldn't be okay with this; yet strangely I feel...not un-okay. I mean my stomach isn't plunging or anything.

My relationship with my mother has screwed up most of my life. I know a lot of people feel a parent fucked them up, but I actually have a "smoking gun," so to speak: She's the one who molested me.

This is one of the things that happens when the focus of your anger is a person "of a certain age." There's a question of can you get "closure," or whatever, before their *life* closes.

And perhaps worse than that, it makes you feel guilty for wanting to confront them and really vent. I've said this before: At least as bad as what my mom did to me is that she let me go OVER 15 YEARS before I started dealing with it...

I'm dealing with some similar feelings right now, too, but with my Dad. He was diagnosed with terminal cancer a couple weeks ago and ... well, a lot of what you wrote resonates with me.

I'm both glad to know there's someone else here going through something like I am, and sorry that's happening to you. My mom's coming home today and I think she'll recover, which of course doesn't resolve any of our issues. My friends and therapist have been reminding me that my need for closure and/or venting should be dealt with, guilt-free...