Dear Sann:

In this post, I will quote and summarize all that you shared about your childhood/ teenage experience with your mother (and some about what you shared in regard to your childhood experience otherwise): you don’t remember a single “genuine smile” on your mother’s face. She complained to you “about how bad her life is, and what’s the point… to keep living“. At times she suggested to you that she was about to kill herself. For example, one time she left a piece of paper on the table with a list of names and phone numbers to call “in case (her name) would die“, “there was always a kind of thread (in my feeling) that it would be my fault, that I would be responsible in case she died, that I wouldn’t have done enough to help her“, that you didn’t do enough to keep her alive, that is.

She was unpredictable and acted as if she had no “control over herself”. She expressed hate toward herself and toward you (“She… had a lot of self-loathing and worked it out on me“), had “big rage-outbursts… she burst out in anger, out of proportion“, shouting at you, shaking you. At other times, she seemed anxious and asked you if you still loved her, in spite of her aggression, wanting you to reassure her that everything was okay. And that’s what you did: while hurt and scared yourself, you comforted her best you could, telling her that “everything was ok… I was trying to support my mother, listening to her, trying to show understanding, trying to encourage her“.

Your mother applied “a huge pressure” on you “to act as if everything was ok between us“, that you were okay, that she was okay, that the relationship with her was okay, but reality was not okay at all: “She hadn’t been there for me, and she had never given me the safety or love that every child needs“. You experienced “A lot of acting. Pretending. Acting in a fake way, with a fake kind of voice… I had to put up a huge facade and faking, in order to be accepted… pushing myself further away“.

Looking back at your childhood, you considered that maybe your childhood was not so bad, maybe it’s that you were too sensitive (“maybe I’m just too sensitive… Maybe I was already sensitive as a child“), and that the abuse you suffered was not that bad (“so many people have gone through much worse things…  there was not really physical abuse, so what am I complaining about?“).

You did not invent the above sentiments: “I am so used to people telling me to ‘get over it’, ‘forget about it, then is then and now is now, don’t keep dragging in the past’, or ‘there are so many people who have it much worse than you, you are so negative…’ etc.“.

You excused your mother’s abuse by stating that she suffered: “My mother had major mental AND physical problems… she had such a hard time with herself… I don’t think my mother was bad and she didn’t want to hurt me. She was in too much fight within herself… she was not bad… Maybe…she had had problems with her mother and that had been the way for the previous generations“, as if these two things (a person’s suffering and abusing their child) are mutually exclusive, as if there is a single case of a parent who is mentally healthy and yet abuses their child for years and years.

At times, “she would give me comments that would be guilt-inducing“, and when as a teenager, you confronted her, saying “some very, very harsh things…  these awful things to her“, and then switching the phone off and not being in contact with her for a year or so, you felt very guilty. After she died, you felt even more guilty than before. Your feelings of “self-hatred and self-blame” worsened. In communication with me, you chose to not talk more about your mother in fear of experiencing that self-hatred and blame more acutely.

About your father: he was “the safe person, the reliable person” in the household, but “there was also not really affection, or attention… never gave me a hug, or never even put an arm around me… I would come back from school or other activities and wanting to tell something, and he would act with ‘yes, yes…’ on a tone that said, I showed some attention but not whole-heartedly, and then ‘and now I want to watch tv’. Meals were always in silence“.

You wrote on June 17, 2016: “The doctor told me today: parents do the best they can, they can’t help it, no parent is perfect, and, yes, I understand that. I told her that as well, I’ve spent the main part of my life trying to understand and excuse my mother. But… I think it is also time that I give myself some recognition… I am starting to look at myself as a person that also had/has certain needs…  I find it sometimes irritating when people say that I have to understand parents, that is all good and well, but who is there to understand me, to give me some space in here?…

“I have learned since I was a child that other people are so important, that they are the ones that matter, and that I don’t…  I have done it with work before, and with people, keep going, keep pushing myself to keep functioning, keep pretending and keep everybody happy, for way too long and until I totally fall apart, because that is what I have learned…  I am always worrying about the others and never look at myself, and of course I have all these needs and feelings in me, because I am actually a human being as well… hey I am here too, pay attention to me…  I actually also exist, and I also breathe“.

-to be continued in the next 24 hours.

anita