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November 15, 2006
When I was an itty-bitty baby my mama would rock me in my cradle
So, as promised, more noodling about my mom.
A few years ago I had a flash of insight that started me along the path to better understanding and forgiving my mom for my childhood. I think I was about 31, and having some health problems of my own, and I suddenly realized that at 31, my mom had kidney stones. Now if you get kidney stones, it still surely sucks, but they blast them out with sound waves and give you some dietary advice and you go on your way. When my mom got them, it was 1976. Hers were far-advanced, and stuck in her kidneys themselves. She had two operations, each of which left an enormous bisecting scar around her middle. She was in hospital for weeks at a time, recuperating. She was only 31, barely spoke English, had a five-year-old daughter and an intermittently employed husband, and lived in a trailer. This was not her beautiful life, the one she thought she was signing up for when the handsome American fell madly in love with her.
I remembered/realized all that, and I was filled with so much compassion for her. My heart nearly broke, thinking about how hard her life turned out to be, after she'd thought it was All Going To Be Okay. I gave the rest of my childhood more thought, and really felt how hard it had all been, my dad reclusive and odd, the penny-pinching, me being strange and bookish. And the endless health problems. On top of which, she was clearly manic-depressive. So she'd freak out, get anxious and twitchy and irritable, and clean the house top to bottom, yell at me and Daddy, and then collapse in a pile of tears, begging our forgiveness. And that was all *before* she was crippled by rheumatoid arthritis, or incapacitated by endometriosis.
Feeling that compassion for my mother softened me a lot, and made it easier to bear my disappointment at how our relationship has gone. But part of me resented this. Part of me felt like, "I am making this huge effort to understand my mother, and she is doing nothing of the sort! She isn't trying at all! Fuck this!" I felt superior, and I felt hurt, and it was all kind of shitty.
I started seeing a new therapist this fall, and one of the first things that came up was my discussion with her of my changing feelings toward my mother. I explained that I used to be barely able to stand my mom, that she upset me so badly I couldn't contemplate her, but that this had shifted, because I now understand how hard her life was when I was growing up, and I forgive her. Barbara looked at me levelly, and asked, "So how was it for you?" I said it was uncomfortable, unpleasant. She looked at me with a whole universe of sadness, and said, "I hardly think a five-year-old would use the words 'unpleasant' or 'uncomfortable'. How was it for you, growing up around her?"
And I lost it.
I started sobbing, and I told her how terrified of my mother I'd been. How she would shout, and I wouldn't ever know what I'd done wrong, because I always tried *so hard* to do everything right. How my teachers were always full of praise for me, and I often wished I could just live at school. How I decided she was unreliable, and not-to-be-trusted, and how I'd try as best I could to avoid her. And the whole time I cried.
Barbara explained that until I can confront my own sadness around all that, it's never going to get better. That learning how to *not run away* from that sadness, my ur-sadness, really, is one of the big keys to making sure that I never have to go through all the crap, the depressions and anxieties and insecurities and mood troubles and fear, ever again.
She also explained that it wasn't fair, that little children deserve to have mothers they can run *to*, not *from*, and that my anger and resentment at my mom are a natural reaction. My intellectual forgiveness, my understanding of *why* she acted as she did, is a good start, but I also have to forgive myself for having hated her and being afraid of her.
It has turned out that the one session was a sort of emotional tipping point, that it shifted my whole understanding of my relationship with my mom. I've been doing a lot of work with sitting with my difficult emotions, and it's all been incredibly productive. I'm not running away anymore. And the talks I had with my mom last week are one result.
Posted by Rose at November 15, 2006 11:13 AM
Comments
That's amazing. It's wonderful to hear how this is working so well for you!
It's difficult to know how to talk to parents, wanting to be honest with them while wanting them to think the best of you. I loved hearing about your mother expecting you to get defensive last week and then it taking her several times to actually hear you saying "That must have felt really bad. I'm so sorry."
Your experiences are encouraging.
Posted by: Lorinne at November 15, 2006 05:44 PM