Hello Anita,

I was going through some old notes and found the link to this thread… Wow, I am so surprised to find a reply under this old post.

Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts! I must say that you are right – I was naive thinking that all the pain, and neglection which I experienced in my childhood would be solved by one deep conversation. It was just the beginning of a long and still ongoing work. I had to get back to this topic at different points of my life.

I found out that I suppressed my negative emotions toward my mother. I felt like I kind of ‘must’ love her and whatever she did – was with the purpose of giving us the best living conditions. So I always was saying that ‘No problem! I am good, I don’t miss anything’… I guess I wanted to feel that we have a good, strong, loving family. I wanted to avoid/ignore the fact, that my father does not reach out to me (while I missed him), I wanted to feel a loving connection to my mother (while our relationship was rather rational, with a lot of fear on my side).

At different points of my life, I was visiting psychologists and also a psychodrama group. The goal was varying: to address my addictive behaviors, another time a burn-out at work – but it was just the surface and a lot of work was actually done dealing with my childhood. It was quite painful and the process is not over yet (although I am having a pause right now) – first I was feeling really sorry for my little self, kind of felt the unfulfilled childhood need for love, intimacy and safety. Then I got really angry at her and whenever we met, I felt very-very annoyed with her small actions (which probably was not a big deal but rather was a channel for my released negative feelings).

Now I feel kind of sad about it, as I am not sure about the next step. I always want to be there for her and support her throughout her life, as I believe that she also tried the best she could (but not what I needed the most) – but it’s rather a very rational level. On emotional level I don’t feel that true love and connection (which I feel towards my grandparents, with whom I have a lot of nice, pleasant childhood memories – which somehow charged me with love). I neither feel gratitude and feel that I should – but it’s fake.

I was thinking if we should have another deep talk about it – but I’m afraid to reveal my thoughts and that I will hurt her and she is going through a very rough period for a while now.

I was thinking to accept that this is how our relationship looks like and just keep supporting her in the way I can, hoping that I’ll gain more positive feelings towards her eventually.

This is where I stand at the moment. Will come back with another update in 8 years 🙂

Thanks again for your post, which triggered me to reflect.

All the best,
Denis