Menopausal Gut Issues or Mid Life Truths

Resentment

Funny how that emotion works. It is heavy yet allusive enough to easily dismiss. But when it’s present, there are lots of things to unpack around it. 

I’ve been working with a doctor to help me with some gut issues. She is quite intuitive and in addition to supplementing my diet with important nutrients, she has also helped me work through stagnate emotions - in my organs. 

I know this probably sounds like Woo Woo stuff, but hear me out…

We’ve worked on resentments before, specifically with regard to relationships, so I know it works. And I thought I had healed a lot of the issues that came up around that feeling. But once again, I am told I am holding resentment in my body. Specifically in my gall bladder. And anger in my liver. Who knew your organs could have feelings!?

Those are two very important organs in the body, and they need to work correctly to flush your system. But apparently when you are burdened by emotions that won’t leave, that is where they are stored and do the most damage. Ugh! Is menopause ever going to get any easier?

Upon serious reflection and an honest look inside myself, it seems I do indeed harbor resentments. For me, it has to do with repeated generational cycles of a lack of love and support, real or imagined, but very real in the body. 

Generational Wound

I recently allowed my mother back into my life after a long estrangement.

During that time, I worked on understanding why she could not give me what I needed growing up. I had to find compassion for her and try to understand life from her perspective. She was born from a woman who didn’t want her. The parents that then adopted her were grieving and emotionally stunted from tragedy and their own generational baggage. 

Some years later they were able to conceive a son, leaving my mother resentful and broken. She had been adopted in a time when it was not commonplace and she felt like an outsider in her own family. She did not welcome her brother’s presence, she resented it.

She tells a lot of stories of being a victim in her own family. I don’t question her lived experience, just the fact that she clearly holds resentment, about so many things.

After going off to college, she immediately got pregnant from another emotionally stunted human and had me. A lot of my childhood memories of any love or affection was from my grandparents - ironically - which I believe made my mother jealous and again, resentful. 

My first memory of her was devastating. She showed no comfort or validation for my emotions - and I was 2!

When I was 3, my brother was born. After having my own lived experience of feeling dismissed, I felt protective of him. I tried to be somewhat of a mother figure to him throughout our childhood, because ours was too busy fighting with her father and simultaneously seeking his approval - a very confusing relationship to witness as a child. Not even going to go into my father’s abandonment and subsequent treatment of me.

And this is how resentment starts. You are given all the elements of family, but you are not taught how to love. The cycle continues.

Triggered

Spending time with my mother is a challenge. It’s a constant check of my boundaries, being calm, and not reacting to all the negativity and the continued stories of a wounded child.

My gut gets upside down when I feel uncomfortable. But I was putting in a good effort to get through her birthday dinner. When familial shit came up at the table, it was too much for me to stay silent. Why did I need to even say anything? I usually just swallow these things. And why would I ruin her birthday? I always make sure other people are comfortable before myself. But I was done swallowing.

So it seems I have also experienced what it feels like to be the child of an emotionally stunted parent. I spoke up for myself, so maybe the cycle is breaking. Maybe that is the first step to getting this resentment unstuck from my organs.

More Work To Do

The biggest revelation for me in all of this is that I have more work to do. I cannot expect anyone else to do it. And I cannot rely on my own mother to give me anything, because she is void of what I need. I now have to navigate generations of grief and inherited resentments before my gallbladder fails. Ugh! Damn these generational truths!

Sadly, she still refuses to acknowledge her part in a lot of this. The resentments were passed down. There are still hurts that she refuses to let go of, and at the same time she expects others to let go of theirs.

It’s crazy how she ended up literally becoming the parent she despised - unable to show compassion, forgiveness, or remorse. 

I guess I too am a wounded child. So my work is around not becoming the parents I despise. I will not carry this resentment any longer. I chose to be here - in this time, from these people - although for the life of me I cannot understand why. But it doesn’t matter why. Knowing why isn’t going to help me release this resentment. I just need to stay in the present, forgive myself, forgive the generational pass-the-buck, and find compassion for all involved.

Menopausal gut Issues or mid life truths? Both, I guess.

I am here. I am hurting. I am healing. 

Be well, Friends