Dear Saoirse,

you are very welcome. As Roberta Said, you’re not obliged to anyone to keep in touch with your mother, and I think there is no point in meeting if you have such a strong reaction to her. Perhaps the best course of action is to take a time out – a pause in contact – until you’ve processed some of the childhood hurt and anger that you feel towards her. Your hurt and anger are totally justified, but if you leave them unhealed, they will be a burden for you and continue to contribute to your stress and anxiety.

As a mother myself I cannot in a billion years fathom how a woman could cause their own child to suffer

There is a saying “hurt people hurt people”. That’s how I came to understand my mother’s behavior. My mother was emotionally abused by her own mother, and she simply didn’t have it in her to give me love and affection. She was love-deprived herself. She couldn’t give me what she herself didn’t possess. That’s how I got to understand her and forgive her. But it doesn’t mean I’ll let her insult me and emotionally abuse me any more. I am keeping firm boundaries.

Anyway, maybe understanding that your mother was a hurt and deprived child herself can help you come to terms with her mistreatment? Furthermore, her mental illness incapacitated her to be a loving, caring mother. She probably didn’t even understand how she hurt you and your brother – even in her “sane” periods, when she was back from hospital.

Recently I feel like I am almost mourning the nurturing mother I never had, and so resentful of the one I do have.

It’s good you’re mourning the nurturing mother you never had. However, you can now make up for what you haven’t received as a child. You can give your inner child the love and care she never received from her mother. That’s called re-parenting.

I think the reason you’re so resentful is partly because you believe that you’re irreversibly damaged by the lack of your mother’s nurturance. But in reality, you are not. Your inner child can be reparented and this can change your emotional setup, so to speak. Those unmet emotional needs can be met now (you can do it either on your own or with the help of a therapist.)

I do agree that perhaps I need to learn how to deal with the way I react, rather than expect her to suddenly have a lightbulb moment (or to get OJ from a cow!) as this is realistically never going to happen.

Yes, it’s most likely not going to happen, unfortunately. But if you learn how to re-parent yourself, you won’t need her to have a lightbulb moment and finally become a mother you were always longing for. Your happiness and peace of mind won’t depend on her. And so, you’ll be less reactive to her, less triggered and less resentful.

But circumstances are different now and I guess there’s no harm writing another one. It’s just hard to know what I should suggest – that we don’t see each other at all? That we only see each other when I feel strong enough? I don’t really know where to draw the line.

How about if you give yourself some time to process and heal, which will enable you  to see and feel the situation with greater clarity? Right now, you know you don’t want to continue like before, forcing yourself to go visit and feeling horrible anxiety. But you’re also not sure you want to cut contact completely. So maybe give yourself time to figure out what you really want.

You can write a letter telling her that you are working on your mental and emotional health and you need some time to work things through before you can proceed meeting with her. Or alternatively, you can tell her that as a part of your new self-care routine, you can only meet her in a park for the time being. In the letter, try not accusing her but state your own needs and preferences (and present requirements) calmly.

How does this sound?

P.S. I’ve just read Roberta’s latest post – that’s excellent wording for your potential letter!