Dear TeaK,

I am sorry to hear you had a difficult relationship with your mother too. I really agree with you that it is much more important to be there for your children emotionally rather than financially and materially.

It is sad that the person who says loves us more than anything can also hurt us so very deeply with their words, actions or non-actions, criticism. It is not just shame, guilt, sorrow, feeling unworthy at times, but also serious attachment issues I had to deal with.

I do judge and self-critise myself a lot and probably because my mother criticised me so much. And it is so true how you say how our mother’s critical voice becomes our inner critic. My mother’s didn’t tell me i am good for nothing, but criticised many decisions I made and is extremely controlling, wanting everything to be her way. I think on some level she understands that she shouldn’t have been so critical with us, but unfortunately she never said sorry neither to me nor my sister.

Now whenever she tries to bring up something she doesn’t like, I try to tell her as calmly and respectfully as i can, it is not her place to decide. For example, I lived with my partner for 5 years and there was a period she was constantly on my back that soon I will no longer be able to have children and i should hurry up with getting pregnant. …Classic! I mean this made me so confused! From one side, I was rebelling against “what she thinks is best for me”and at the expense of this rebellion and confusion, I completely ignored my own actual needs and feelings of actually wanting to be a mother without my mother’s instructions. It created quite a bit of inner  as well as outer conflict (in my relationship with my partner). And I kept thinking why was i so confused that I actually want to be a mother? And it is because my mom told me i should do it and i was confused because I thought she is just planting ideas into my head….  and ofcourse as usual I rebelled.

You mentioned you had love-hate relationship with your  mother. What is like your relationship with her now?

I agree it is important to understand the pain. I know I am hurt, but I don’t know why fully. I think its more complicated and multi-facaded than just my mother’s strictness or silent treatments. Although being the most important person of my environment she played a role here, I don’t blame her or anyone who hurt me.

I felt pain and hurt from my past relationships and failed friendships more than from my mother, more pain from the suffering and injustice in the world than my mom’s silent treatments…maybe I was  “trained” in a certain way in my childhood to respond to these situations, and I acquired these reactions in my childhood.  But replacing one negative reaction with another, more positive or modified reaction is not the solution here. For example, if I am reacting now with anxiety and obsessive thinking over something “bad” that happened, I don’t think replacing it with a positive emotion, say, “I am the most worthy person in the world and nothing is my fault” is the solution here. maybe sometimes i am not indeed not worthy…it is being able to see without judgement in either direction is what i truly seek… so i do want to go till the end of it and figure it all out.

I don’t see myself as a victim, I know I am responsible for most of the things that happened to me in life after certain age and its my responsibility to figure it out.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by Nar.