You’re Not My Mother

And wishing for it doesn’t make it so.

When do I stop going back for more? When do I give up the dream, the fantasy of having the mother I deserve? The good-enough mother. When do I say it’s over? When do I draw my line in the sand and finally tell her I can’t go back, and I won’t go back? When do I say to myself, “give up, let go, surrender? You’re never, ever going to get what you want from this woman who delivered you into the world.”

It cuts deep; at this point, the damage is held in every cell in my body. I walk through my life with her critical voice in my head. I get depressed. The gaslighting, the experience of her rage, her meanness, the onslaught of angry texts when she doesn’t get her way. Her attempts at manipulation, the devouring behavior––she believes she owns me––the years of inappropriate touching etched into memory, impossible to erase.

She’s a child who’s supposed to be my mother.

The “come here, go away” behaviors that bounce me back and forth between long breaks from her, and then are followed by a cautious willingness to try again. I begin to miss her, but is it my real mother I miss, or my fantasy of what might change if I try just one more time? The false hope I’ve nurtured, “maybe this time it will be different.” I go back bolstered by an unrealistic resolve to heal what can’t be healed between us.

I keep going back for more.

You know the old saw, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” Yeah. That’s been me, for most of my life. Well, I’m not insane, anymore.

I sat at my computer for two days, trying to write my weekly essay and I kept coming up empty. I battled with wanting to write about my relationship with her and thinking, no, I’m too close to it, it’s too fresh, it’s so raw, I’m being reactive. I sat and waited for the words to come. I summoned Grace to help me deliver my thoughts to the page, but I had nothing to say that wouldn’t sound vengeful or angry, and that’s not me. It’s not who I am, not at my core, that’s not my true self.

The desire for vengeance that sometimes comes up, the anger I feel, are rooted in disappointment that goes so deep, it feels bottomless. There are times when there’s nothing present but my pain. When I get like that, I want to leave. Not just this complicated relationship; I feel like I want to leave the planet altogether. Having the “leaving” thought doesn’t scare me anymore, because I’ve come to understand that it’s knee-jerk, a default response to not wanting to feel this depth of pain for one more minute. Leaving the planet isn’t an option because I love the life I’m creating for myself. I’ve worked long and hard for it. But the reflex is still there. Cut and run. I’m no longer willing to suffer the abuses I’ve endured. But I’m not taking myself out of this game called life. I’m here to live, fully. I’m no longer willing to excuse behavior that would be entirely unacceptable coming from anyone else.

In the worst depressions I’ve experienced, there was a line I refused to cross. I was resolute, saying I’d never kill myself because I couldn’t do that to my family, to my parents. I no longer think that’s wholly true. There’s an essential element missing. I couldn’t and won’t end it––my life––because I can’t do that to ME. There’s an ever-present glint of hope. The miracle is occurring, and I’m learning what it feels like to live my life for me.

Before now, everyone’s needs came before mine. My parents trained me well. Yes. Both of them.

Met with my first experience of writer’s block, I had to make peace with the possibility that I might not share a new essay this week. That was hard for me. I felt as if I’d failed. I’ve published here, every week for the last 77 weeks. I keep showing up with stories to tell, not all of them pretty or fun. Some are dark, some are sad. All are honest. The writing has set me free in ways previously beyond my ken. I don’t have secrets anymore. I’ve opened the floodgates, after a lifetime of holding myself back.

After a couple of days of hard interactions with my mother I was reduced to a wisp of myself. I felt like I was watching the me I’ve come to love disappear. My therapist, my sponsor, my friends, my cousin, all listened with love and compassion for my heartache.

I’ve hidden myself from the world, out of shame and low self-regard. I possessed little confidence in my ability to achieve something meaningful. I’m not willing to disappear. I’m not willing to live that kind of half-life anymore. It’s a false narrative that I believed.

I’m in a place of intense grief, because I know I need to let go. It’s a death of its own sort. My therapist says I have to detach with love. I thought she meant love for my mother. I don’t think that’s possible. Maybe I can manage neutrality, but I don’t think that love is the answer in this case. Or maybe it is, if I’m detaching from her with love for myself.

For years, through all our difficulties as mother and daughter, the one thing I wouldn’t let myself say is that I don’t love her. I would say things like, “I love her, I just don’t like her very much,” or “I love her, but not her behavior.”

But I got clear yesterday. I realized that what I feel for her isn’t love, it’s attachment, and it’s not secure; it’s never been secure. It’s anxious, avoidant, disorganized, and unhealthy. And I can’t do it any longer because it’s killing my soul. It’s killing my joy. It’s holding me back. It fills me with dread.

I wrote an essay about her some months ago, and I played it safe, I held back. I was a diplomat. I held back because she’s alive and I knew she’d read it. I tiptoed around my truth. I was told by a memoirist whose writing I love that it isn’t possible to write honestly about our parents until they’re gone. The risk for me is high, but I’m not going to keep putting my life on hold because of a desire to be proper or protect her or myself. I’ve been putting myself on hold for my entire life. I’m not going to wait for her to die to speak my truth. I’m 64 years old. Time is ticking down.

Sometimes, the people closest to us are our greatest perpetrators. It’s not necessary to list the gruesome details.

Even though I don’t love my mother, I do have compassion for her. But I can’t participate in this ongoing dance that we do with each other. It’s exhausting and it does no good for anyone.

My therapist talks about cultivating radical acceptance. I can take a stab at that. But having radical acceptance that my mother is the way she is and will never change doesn’t obligate me to be in her life. It’s time for me to give up the wish that she’ll be different if I keep doing the work.

I have moments when the fear of being judged for being a less-than-adequate daughter overwhelms my desire and responsibility to take care of myself. So, I stay. I go back for more. I fail miserably most of the time and so does she.

There are people in 12 Step who find that the only way they can live their lives happily, and free, is to walk away completely from the relationships that cause harm. I was never willing to do that. I was determined to transform my relationship with my mother and let go of my expectations, able to accept her as she is.

But pardon me, is it not reasonable to expect that the woman who birthed me would treat her child, me, with respect and love? A woman who could set her expectations to the side, and see and appreciate the child entrusted to her care as a unique individual to be cherished?

I don’t wish her harm; I just don’t want to play anymore. I’ve stayed in this relationship out of a sense of fear, obligation, and guilt. The FOG. Hardly the basis for a healthy bond. Fear that I’d be lost without her. Fear, that if I jumped ship before the miracle occurred, I’d miss out on the best part, the arrival of my ideal mom. She can’t help me with the miracle because she’s ill. She’s a child of trauma. And so am I.

We’ve both made choices. She chooses not to see how she violates me. She’s incapable of truly owning her mistakes and making amends for the damage she’s done. When a person makes an amend, they’re making a commitment to change, to do better.

I choose to inquire, to be curious, to rat on myself when I go astray, and to remove the layer of tarnish that has accumulated on my soul. I’m doing the work.

I kept going back because I was too scared to let go. I was afraid to walk away for fear that she would cut me off as a beneficiary, and that my old age would be a struggle I couldn’t surmount. There was a part of me that believed that I was entitled to reparations. There are still traces of that belief. That she owes me. Our relationship has always been transactional, on both sides. She dangles the carrot of “one day, you’ll be a very rich woman” in front of me, and I buy in. I’m ready to let go of the fear and dependency and move forward. I can provide for myself.

In a less enlightened time in my life––during my adulthood––I was dependent on both of my parents. As a child, that’s entirely appropriate; but as a woman, not so much. Afraid of standing on my own, of growing up, I held on to my dysfunction, because I couldn’t see any other possibilities for success in my own right. Both of my parents needed me to stay small, to parent them, to soothe their fragile selves. And that destroyed mine.

There’s another memoirist, a woman whose writing I’ve loved for years. We both have narcissistic mothers. This writer has made tough choices to stay involved, to care for her mother, no matter how hard or toxic it becomes to do so. I used to feel angry reading her work, to the point of barely restrained rage toward her mother, when I read her stories of ongoing emotional abuse.

I’d think to myself “Why do you keep going back for more? She treats you so badly. No one deserves that.”

Yesterday, I understood. I’ve been projecting all along. Why do I keep going back?

This writer and I, we’re made of different stuff. One choice is neither better nor worse than the other. I made my choice and I hope to bear the consequences with grace. It’s time to be accountable for my life, to keep cultivating joy, not sorrow. To be brave. I need to acknowledge that I’m a person who makes a difference by telling my truth.

Letting go of my mother is the second hardest thing I’ve ever done. The first hardest thing will be staying my course. I’m claiming my life and my right to thrive. I’m mothering myself.

© Sabine Weiss, 1953

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A song, and a lyric that always makes my heart sing, because it’s true, and it’s what I always needed. Sweet Honey in the Rock with lyrics by Khalil Gibran, The Prophet