Dear NB:

“my mind telling me that I probably wasn’t up to her standards”-

– it wasn’t about standards, as in you not being smart enough, or a good student, etc. I think that she was angry at her adult family members: adults in her original family and in her husband’s family (“she was fighting her battles being married to a far more conservative family than her”). She held a lot of that anger inside her. She felt that she couldn’t express her anger and frustration at them for fear of some sort of retaliation, so she did what many abusive mothers do: express and inflict her anger and misery (“expressing her misery in dramatic ways”) at her child. A child does not retaliate and adults witnessing such abuse don’t interfere (They feel that a mother owns her children to do with what she pleases, and they may feel relieved that .. they are not the recipients of her anger).

“I used to hate making her angry”- it felt to you like you were making her angry, but it wasn’t true: she picked on something you said or did, or something you didn’t say, or didn’t do as an excuse to express and inflict her anger and frustration at you, and in so  doing to relieve herself of her distress and feel better as a result.

What came first, what came second: First she was angry and frustrated at other people; Second she chose you to use you as a recipient of her anger and frustration, to punish you so to relieve herself from her distress and feel better for it.

“After a big fight, when we used to go into our respective rooms, I used to come back and knock on her door to see if there was any chance of a reconciliation before we slept.. I cannot remember even once when she responded positively.. sometimes, not even opening the door”-

– I imagine that after each one of you went to your respective rooms, she never knocked on your door to see if there was any chance of reconciliation.

What came first and what came second:  First she picked on you so to express and inflict her anger on you. Second, you felt angry for being picked on unfairly, wanting to protect yourself from false accusations, arguing back. When an innocent person gets victimized, the victim automatically feels anger. Even though you were confused, thinking that you caused her anger, part of you knew very well that her anger at you was unfair, that you were indeed victimized, so automatically, you felt angry back at her.

In your original post you wrote: “we didn’t get a chance to reconcile and I am now left with profound guilt as well feelings of anger that she just left without making things right with me”-

– at 56, the time of her death, she had behind her 2 or 3 decades of getting angry at you so to relieve herself from anger and frustration- she used you (aka abused you) for that purpose, and she did that repeatedly, year after year. After fights, when you knocked on her door “to see if there was any chance of a reconciliation“, she wasn’t interested because she was still angry and she wanted you punished, she wanted you to suffer.

It is difficult to think of one’s own mother wanting her child to suffer, but this is what my mother wanted for me every time she was angry at me, and that’s what your mother wanted for you, every time she was angry at you. And she didn’t bother, at the end of her life, to tell you that this is what she did. It was easier for her to not bother.

In summary: you served a purpose in your mother’s life: you provided her with emotional relief repeatedly. You didn’t volunteer to do that, she helped herself to you in this regard. She fed you, clothed you.. and used you. You owed her nothing and you owe her nothing: she already took from you all that she chose to take, which was her way to feel better again and again, and yet again.

anita

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