Monster
I guess I'm lucky - I don't have any recollections of teachers or the like shaming my little creative self. Not when I was actually a child, anyway. When I get to that excercise this week I think I'll have a few entries for the ol' Monster Gallery from my college days at music school. There were a few pointed comments from high school peers I could work with as well.
But before I get much further into this, I guess I have to identify out loud the ground in which my personality, creative and otherwise, grew: the fact that my mother has psychological and emotional problems; that she and I never properly bonded in my infancy; that her experiences with motherhood with me, her first child that lived, did not live up to her fantasies, and that in order to cope with her unbearable sense of failure as a mother and maybe as a person, she decided I was a problem baby, a bad child and a bad person. I think it was the only way she knew to cope, and though I know of no specific diagnosis, I also know she was and is not well mentally or emotionally.
My memories of my relationship with my mother do not include the sense of safety or the love and protection that most people think are automatic between mothers and their children. And while I can understand the tendency or desire to universalize those themes of motherhood, I know from direct experience that these things are not automatic. If they're meant to be part of our nature, then our nature can be usurped under temporarily stronger forces. Sad but true.
So. As I go through this process, I'm sure I'll find myself facing again in new ways the fallout of this unpleasant reality of my life. When I do, please know that I am not merely an aging adolescent unwilling to let go of mommy issues. I'm sure there is and always will be more work to do on this stuff, and I am absolutely willing to do it. I have my scars, but I am not bitter. I do forgive her. I believe she did the best she could with what she had, just like we all do. But the reality on the painful level of my experience in the world is that my mother did not love me or support me but rather resented, envied and distrusted me, emotionally abused me, and made of me a family scapegoat. That's just how it is on that level. It's just something I deal with.
Please please please don't tell me about how you used to hate your mom too when you were seventeen but then you learned how to see how much she always loved you and only wanted the best for you. I know no one's mom was perfect. I also know my mother did and does love me in her way, and that she wants the best for me, too. Unfortunately for me, that manifested in her telling me regularly (to make me better) what a mean, insensitive, conceited person I am, from as far back as I can remember.
I found a photograph of a long-ago Christmas a few years back, a Christmas I have clear memories of. I got a Chrissie doll from Santa, and from my mother some handmade clothes for her. I remember considering those clothes, which included a very simple wedding gown with a veil made from the same ivory jacquard, and wondering if it was a some sort of peace offering. Or, did she have to do something nice for me because mothers have to? Is it so no one will think she's a bad mother? Or did she really mean to do something nice for me? I think I ended up deciding it must be a sign of a truce, that she did actually want to give me a gift. I accepted it like the adult I felt I was, with cautious gratitude.
I intellectually knew but didn't really let myself know when that took place. I was shocked the day I found that photo to turn it over and note from the date the developer printed on it that I had been six years old.
Not long after that, she took to telling me, "You're a monster. And you're not my kid," when she thought I was being bad. (This was generally when she thought I was copping an attitude. I was pretty well-behaved. I thought I was an adult.)
Thankfully, there has always been a part of me that did not believe her. And I have worked hard on myself. But because this dynamic goes back to my preverbal days, it's such a part of who I am in the world that it's really easy to slip into forgetting that this particular littany of censoring ideas came from somewhere outside me. When I first mused about my Monster Gallery in my pages this morning, I began by thinking that I was probably the only monster in there. (!) No matter how I disinter and examine and fight to dissociate from and resolve that enormous inner critic, it still doesn't seem to immediately occur to me when I have a thought like, "Who do you think you are?" when I'm in danger of doing anything potentially threatening to real or imagined fragile egos around me, that maybe that thought is not mine.
I hope this program helps me with that. Onward.
But before I get much further into this, I guess I have to identify out loud the ground in which my personality, creative and otherwise, grew: the fact that my mother has psychological and emotional problems; that she and I never properly bonded in my infancy; that her experiences with motherhood with me, her first child that lived, did not live up to her fantasies, and that in order to cope with her unbearable sense of failure as a mother and maybe as a person, she decided I was a problem baby, a bad child and a bad person. I think it was the only way she knew to cope, and though I know of no specific diagnosis, I also know she was and is not well mentally or emotionally.
My memories of my relationship with my mother do not include the sense of safety or the love and protection that most people think are automatic between mothers and their children. And while I can understand the tendency or desire to universalize those themes of motherhood, I know from direct experience that these things are not automatic. If they're meant to be part of our nature, then our nature can be usurped under temporarily stronger forces. Sad but true.
So. As I go through this process, I'm sure I'll find myself facing again in new ways the fallout of this unpleasant reality of my life. When I do, please know that I am not merely an aging adolescent unwilling to let go of mommy issues. I'm sure there is and always will be more work to do on this stuff, and I am absolutely willing to do it. I have my scars, but I am not bitter. I do forgive her. I believe she did the best she could with what she had, just like we all do. But the reality on the painful level of my experience in the world is that my mother did not love me or support me but rather resented, envied and distrusted me, emotionally abused me, and made of me a family scapegoat. That's just how it is on that level. It's just something I deal with.
Please please please don't tell me about how you used to hate your mom too when you were seventeen but then you learned how to see how much she always loved you and only wanted the best for you. I know no one's mom was perfect. I also know my mother did and does love me in her way, and that she wants the best for me, too. Unfortunately for me, that manifested in her telling me regularly (to make me better) what a mean, insensitive, conceited person I am, from as far back as I can remember.
I found a photograph of a long-ago Christmas a few years back, a Christmas I have clear memories of. I got a Chrissie doll from Santa, and from my mother some handmade clothes for her. I remember considering those clothes, which included a very simple wedding gown with a veil made from the same ivory jacquard, and wondering if it was a some sort of peace offering. Or, did she have to do something nice for me because mothers have to? Is it so no one will think she's a bad mother? Or did she really mean to do something nice for me? I think I ended up deciding it must be a sign of a truce, that she did actually want to give me a gift. I accepted it like the adult I felt I was, with cautious gratitude.
I intellectually knew but didn't really let myself know when that took place. I was shocked the day I found that photo to turn it over and note from the date the developer printed on it that I had been six years old.
Not long after that, she took to telling me, "You're a monster. And you're not my kid," when she thought I was being bad. (This was generally when she thought I was copping an attitude. I was pretty well-behaved. I thought I was an adult.)
Thankfully, there has always been a part of me that did not believe her. And I have worked hard on myself. But because this dynamic goes back to my preverbal days, it's such a part of who I am in the world that it's really easy to slip into forgetting that this particular littany of censoring ideas came from somewhere outside me. When I first mused about my Monster Gallery in my pages this morning, I began by thinking that I was probably the only monster in there. (!) No matter how I disinter and examine and fight to dissociate from and resolve that enormous inner critic, it still doesn't seem to immediately occur to me when I have a thought like, "Who do you think you are?" when I'm in danger of doing anything potentially threatening to real or imagined fragile egos around me, that maybe that thought is not mine.
I hope this program helps me with that. Onward.
posted by eliza | 10:39 AM
6 Comments:
Powerful writing... some of what you wrote resonated with me, though the gender of the parent is different. This is a deep wound and scar, and you are courageous to explore it with yourself and us. I honor that.
Kathryn
www.kathrynpetro.com/mindfullife
I so identified with your post, not because the circumstances are identical, but because I didn't bond with my mother either...and it's hard to explain that to people when they meet her now. (I didn't bond with either parent.) I fully understand that you didn't write this post to seek pity (at least that's my guess)...AND it makes me sad to think that someone would say those things to anyone, let alone to their child. My lack of bonding didn't occur because of abuse, but rather uninvolvement/lack of attention...my mother left when I was 14...my teenage years were spent basically on my own (which had been the case from a young age)...but with the added responsibility of running the household. I was more like a housekeeper/au pair than a daughter. And yet, like you, I know my parents did the best they could at the time...I look back and realize they were both (separately) so busy dealing with their own dramas and pain that I guess there just wasn't energy left over to deal with me...all the 'kid energy' got directed toward my little brother. That's all just a long-winded way of saying: I understand about the bonding thing...and I understand how it's a core issue...and yet one we can move on from (if that makes sense).
I couldn't have said it better than Kathyrn and Marilyn. I have similar issues and I was shocked at how much freedom it gave me to forgive my mother's shortcomings.
I love you for many reasons, today for being an open book. xo
thank you for sharing that. you are certainly not alone in your feelings. it IS courageous of you to recognize and try to understand this experience. know that we're all in this thing together and you've got some ears (and eyes) ready to listen :)
I should add:
I hope my daughter will do the same for me some day. :)
Thank you for writing about this. My circumstances are different but a few years ago through therapy I figured out someone in my early life who still is in my life has an undiagnosed mental illness. Sorry to be vague - but I wanted you to know that this post meant alot to me to be able to read it because I still struggle at times and I have found ways to blossom. I'm glad you are part of the AW group.
Post a Comment
<< Home