Have you ever woken up to an epiphany, to clarity, to an understanding that shakes you?
That has been my morning. This feels huge.
Although I knew this information, it never settled into my psyche, it never fit into my puzzle until just now.
I was 23. My Mom had sold my childhood home, a tiny 2 bedroom 1.5 bath place and moved into a 3 bedroom 2.5 bath place. We assumed I was going to be moving out soon, so I got the 9’x9′ room with a micro closet.
After High School, I always had 2 or 3 jobs and was going to school full time, a local community college, but I wasn’t very successful at any of it. I changed my major three times and felt lost. I also had a serious boyfriend and that seemed to be where I wanted to put my time. I just didn’t know where to focus.
I briefly moved in with that boyfriend and both families were sure we’d get married. I was very involved in that life. I loved that family dearly. I wanted to be one of them so badly.
But my ex had other plans. He wanted to be Mormon, he wanted a girl that wasn’t like me, he wanted a different life. So, he kicked me out of his house and I moved back in with my Mom.
My Mom clearly didn’t want me there. She wanted to be an empty nester. She was annoyed by my presence and made it pretty clear. She would have sleepovers with her friends and would announce that I would have to sleep somewhere else for the weekend. I was severely depressed, taking antidepressants and gearing up for another school year while grieving the life I thought I was going to have. She never comforted me through this time. She was annoyed by my big feelings and avoided me. She just wanted me GONE.
I finally got into a regular college and was commuting to that school. I was either studying or driving. I had started a side hustle selling homemade soaps to make extra money in what little spare time I had. I used her kitchen to make the soaps and I guess I would sometimes leave a mess.
My mom made life unbearable. She clearly didn’t want me around and she got meaner and meaner. So, the guy I was seeing (my soon to be ex husband) offered me a room at his apartment for $450 a month. A bargain to get out of that hellscape (little did I know I was entering a different hellscape). So, I left. I thought she would be thrilled.
She stopped talking to me for months because I moved out. But it was so so clear she didn’t want me there, I was so confused. Turns out she was pissed I wasn’t calling to check in on HER. (This would be the theme of our relationship for the next 25+ years).
Fast forward to a few months ago. I asked her point blank, “you didn’t seem to want me there. You gave me the tiniest room, you were always annoyed with me, you were always stomping around, slamming and trying to get me to go away. Why?”
And this is what she told me:
“I remember coming home from work one night and there was soap making shit all over my kitchen. I made a sandwich and stood in the corner and cried. I did not feel comfortable in my own home.”
I told her that was a short phase in my life, I was severely depressed, I was mentally still a kid, I was overwhelmed with life and I apologized profusely for it.
But she honestly thought this one moment in time was a reason to treat me like shit. She never communicated about it then and it gave her a reason to want me gone. Her 23 year old naive, immature daughter doing crafts in her kitchen was enough to feel this way. She felt fully justified.
So, okay… on the surface, sure, she’s the adult, I was technically an adult, it was HER house. I get it. But it still hurts. Especially because I’m just learning this now.
This is where the epiphany today came in…
This was the blueprint of my life with her starting at the day I could talk.
My mom never taught me how to be an adult. When I did something unsavory, there was never a conversation about how I should have handled it, how to use critical thinking. Nothing. She never guided me, she never taught me, she judged and shamed. I was forged and shaped through shame.
My mistakes were embarrassing to her, a scourge. I would say the wrong thing or be uncouth in front of her coworkers, so she never brought me around them again. Then she would give me the silent treatment.
She took my feral-ness personally. She expected me to be a full baked human adult at the age of 5. I was trying to figure out life and instead of teaching me, realizing I was a CHILD, she would shame me, compete with me, show me she didn’t approve of me. There was zero compassion, zero help. Nothing. Just head shaking, scowls and silence. It’s almost like she enjoyed being ashamed of me.
She would accuse me of doing these things on purpose. To hurt her, to make her look bad. When in reality, I was a kid mimicking what I saw on TV because I had NO IDEA how to BE. How to “Adult”. I needed guidance.
So me being a wild kid was an insult. A betrayal, evidence that I was a burden, an embarrassment.
When I was DESPERATE to be shown what she wanted. Totally, utterly desperate to learn how to act. For someone, anyone, to take an interest in me.
So the biggest epiphany here? My mother judged me as an adult, not a child. She expected perfection and judged me like a peer or a rival instead of her very, very sensitive child. She never loved or respected me enough to offer guidance, give me the benefit of the doubt or see who I was as a human. She judged me as the caricature she had created in her mind. And that caricature was from a twilight zone plot.
She judged me as some backwoods, savage, evil devil spawn that existed to ruin her life. I can see clearly now that she never wanted me around, she never liked having me there. I was just SO desperate to see the good in her, to see that she loved me that I couldn’t see the truth until much later.
I never talked back to her. I never said anything mean to her. I wanted her love so desperately that I stayed quiet. I was also scared of her so I would hide in my closet and play and I knew to be as quiet as possible on the weekends and to never disturb her. I always kept to myself.
The other thing that came out of this is that she looks to me to be there for her, comfort her and parent her and love her unconditionally. Which makes NO sense. And when I ask for that in return, she couldn’t do it. It always slips back to her upbringing, her marriage, the injustices she faced. I can’t get that woman to want to comfort me, sympathize with me, to comfort me, and I need to let go of the hope that she’ll ever actually love or care about me.
She would also send me to my dad’s in ill-fitting, stained and ripped clothing. To show him how sad we were and maybe to get him to give us more money? I’m not even sure. But that is a whole other story of shame and feeling like a total piece of shit. I just never felt safe or taken care of. I felt like I shouldn’t have ever been born. I was a pawn for my parents to push around, like a tortured homing pigeon.
So, I’m realizing this for the first time. Trying to regulate my breathing as I type this and hold back tears. This clarity is like PURE FREEDOM but it is also laced with so much pain. My shitty marriage, my horrible friendships… all of it stems from the relationship with my mother.
Here are the patterns that unfolded in my adult relationships:
- I hold on too long when someone treats me poorly.
- I blame myself instantly, assuming I did something wrong.
- I don’t truly trust my instincts.
- I shrink or silence myself to maintain the peace.
- I believe love must be earned. And can be taken away.
- I thought I was “bad” at being human because I never got taught how to be one.
- And the biggie… When I start to feel shame, I feel flooded. That anxiety takes over and I can’t focus, answer questions, tap into my instincts or my rational thinking. I revert to being a kid immediately and it is SO embarrassing. I fawn and start shaking and then start crying and totally shut down. Sometimes I rage and break down. But it’s an all body stress response that takes over.
And I know people don’t think that childhood trauma, (little t, since it was emotional abuse, not physical), can do this. That being ignored, pushed aside or shamed can turn you into the person you are today. But it can. It’s sneaky that way.
Am I going to rent a freeway billboard, slap a picture of her on there and condemn her? No. But I will finally recognize that my pain is valid, probably keep her out of the whole thing (she’s too fragile and doesn’t care about my feelings enough to hear any of this) and move forward knowing that the bullshit emotions swirling inside of me is because an emotionally immature, fragile, probably narcissistic shell of a human being couldn’t be patient and kind to her little girl.
She has held WAY too much power over me and now that I see that, now that the mystery of the ‘adrenaline out of nowhere’ is solved, I can heal. And, when she acts up now triggering these invisible wounds inside me, I can just show her the door. Just like she did to me metaphorically for 22 years and then for realsies for 2 years. No offense but fuck you, mom.
This blog… for whatever reason… has been SUCH A huge catalyst for healing. I am so grateful. And I hope these words help you, too.
Untangle the past and live in the now the best that you can. But you have to detach and remove the barbs they put there without shame.
ETA: My mom never told me that she liked me a as a person, or that I was fun or smart or worthwhile. She would say I was like so and so or the only compliment I really got is “you’re so strong” or maybe “You’re so creative” but then she wouldn’t like how I was creative. It just always felt like she had to force herself to be around me, and if I wasn’t doing what she wanted, you could tell it was pure agony for her. I wish she would realize that we don’t have to be friends. It’s totally ok. If I’m that horrible, annoying, selfish or whatever… she doesn’t have to subject herself to me.
