I had a dream about my mother last night, but when I woke up I couldn’t remember what happened - the only thing remaining was a bad feeling in the sweat that clung to my skin as thunder rumbled in the mid-June night. I love a June sky, no matter what time you view it - 3am, 5am - it’s almost always a gorgeous shade of blue; sky blue, midnight blue, translucent blue. The birds were silent as I stuck my hand out of the window to feel the rain, hoping for relief. It was so humid, and it was grey.
I was going to say I wonder if my mother ever dreams of me, but it isn’t true - I don’t wonder. I long stopped wondering if she thought of me the way I did her. She doesn’t, I’m certain.
My mother is a daydreamer. You’ll see her eyes go vacant in front of yours mid conversation; she’s still in the room but I always know when she’s checked out, no longer with me in spirit. Reality is too bitter a pill to swallow - why stay present when you can escape? My habit of indulging in consumptive escapism came from somewhere. As a child, my sibling and I didn’t get it. We wondered why she’d walk out the room like a zombie in a trance when I was halfway through a sentence; eventually I stopped wondering and started speaking less. Books became my friend, and I found my escapism there while my mother found hers in a glass of wine. We all have our vices.
As a child I’d fall to my knees in front of my mothers feet and beg for food while she held the phone against her ear to keep her hands free; eventually a packet of Maggi noodles in a bowl would be placed on the table and I’d skip to it with joy while she hurriedly closed the kitchen door to finish her conversation. “Stop nagging me,” she’d say everytime I required a basic human need. I was seven.
I can’t remember if I was always melodramatic, or if I was truly left that hungry because my childhood neglect was never confirmed or denied, and the memory of a seven year old is probably not that reliable. The denial of the reality I endured started to feel like I was being unintentionally gaslit - I know my mother does nothing with malice - but that stayed with me as I grew and I became a pathetic people pleaser; any bad behaviour I experienced must be my fault. My fault, it must be my fault, I deserve this, how could I have done things differently, it was my fault, somehow.
I don’t think I was being dramatic; I think I was actually starving. I remember wondering at around the age of six - how can I please my mother? How can I make her happier? So I’d wake up early and start mopping the floors, dusting the surfaces badly because I was six, attempting the washing up before preparing cereal. I don’t think she noticed, but I tried. In the years that followed I let lovers get away with murder and did cartwheels for people who deserved to be blocked, and you know what, at least I understand the root of it now. The amount of power there is in self-awareness is very liberating.
I’m kind of past my childhood trauma (LOL, I REALLY AM) - but these things get magnified when a big life event happens; ya know, like marriage.
I’ve long accepted that while my mother is alive, I am motherless. There are so many things I had to teach myself, so many things still on my list to teach myself, even at the age of 31. To know what it is to be a woman, to speak or at least just understand a few words of my mother tongue. When I really think of how inadequate I feel my breathing gets ragged.
Many people know how it feels to have a controlling mother, an overbearing mother, a mother so protective she drives you a little mad. But to have a neglectful parent was to have no boundaries, no discipline, no rules. My friend and I were speaking recently about how dangerous it was - we were 14 years old and strolling the streets with all the riff raff at two in the morning, because that felt safer than being at home. I was the riff raff.
Home was a place where sirens were always blaring - police, ambulance, no fire engines thankfully. Screaming and wailing, rehabilitation centres and intensive care units, disappearing acts and police cuffs. You can’t resent someone for being mentally ill but when it’s your guardian, sometimes you can’t help it.
I was there, but she never saw me. They say the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference; and I can confirm. I once longed to have a controlling parent that my friends complained about; at least you knew they cared.
I’m so proud of the emotional and psychological ground work I’ve done for myself in the years that followed - I was a child constantly in fight or flight mode, a child who was so scared at home that I’d rather have slept on the streets, and I did, many times. I’m learning that I don’t need to be a people pleaser, that I don’t need to have fear of abandonment by everyone I love - my friends, my family, my fiancé - they aren’t going anywhere, I convince myself. They aren’t going anywhere.
They aren’t going anywhere.
I’m not a mother yet, but I feel like one. I’m a 31 year old mother to the 14 year old me that was so scared, so neglected, so downtrodden and so heartbroken. I go to psychotherapy to heal her, and she’s proud of 31 year old me. If God makes me a mother, I can’t say I’d do any better than my own parents, but I won’t let them go hungry, physically or emotionally.
I have empathy for my mother. She had it rough, and she unintentionally tried to pass that generational trauma down to me. I say no thank you, though. I’m expelling what she passed down without my permission and I am learning to not let it penetrate my psyche any further. She had it rough, and I don’t blame her. When someone is emotionally fragile and lacking self awareness, I know compassion is the only answer. What hurts is knowing how bright she is, fierce, sharp, witty, level-headed, brilliant. I know who she is, when mental health doesn’t cloud her character. She’s a great friend and a very smart woman. I miss that woman.
But my inner child storms into the room sometimes, and she is furious. She came back recently, when I realised my mother was having another episode, and knowing that meant she will not show up to my wedding. My mother’s mother calls me daily for updates on how my mum is. “Just pray for her, she isn’t well. Pray she attends,” my grandmother tells me, a woman of faith, of course she’ll never give up on her daughter. I’d expect nothing less. I’ve given up, though. In my heart, I knew she wouldn’t show up on my wedding day. It’s what I knew from the start, when I’m sure even my mother had every intention of showing up. While I had no expectations of her on my wedding day, I can help but feel the sting. It stings to not be able to trust your own mother, it stings to know you can never rely on your mother, it stings. And those truths are what fundamentally make me feel motherless.
My dad knows better than to speak to me about the subject. He knows the hurt, he’s felt it too, before he and my mother divorced. “What will people say?” he said to me on the phone last night. “Everyone will be shocked,” he said, and he’s right - I’m sure many people will ask me where my mother is on the day of my wedding. But what can I say? It just is what it is. I fell silent and he realised he wasn’t helping, so he changed the subject.
The main concern my family still have is protecting reputation. What excuse will we come up with for my mother’s absence? But (as you can tell) I’m all out of excuses. The only thing that has kept me alive is documenting my truth. My mother’s impact on me has been such that her truth has now become mine. I’m not free from her emotional bondage, so how can I separate what I feel from how she behaves? It’s become my story to tell - reputation, shame and ignoring ‘taboo’ subjects like mental health or substance abuse just aren’t things I can afford to care about. I only care about the truth, and documenting my truth. Slowly, surely, it’s the only thing setting me free.
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I'm Over It
Reading this cut deep, got that lump in throat. I'm sorry for what u you have had to go through, but I'm glad you have spoken your truth, sending love ❤️
This was a hard, but good read, you continue to tell the truth my love. I will stand with you everyday ❤️