Something that is missed sometimes as a writer is the toll it takes on the mind to have so much to say, and it can't be said without ripping out my heart entirely. Acknowledging that feelings have an existence in my being leaves my heart feeling like a squished grape. The past 18 months have been hard for two very specific reasons, and the other day in therapy, I was given a homework assignment to write about this one. My mother. This time of year has been hard for me, because the holidays were the one consistent thing throughout my entire life. No matter what place our relationship was in, no matter how much she imagined she hated me at the time, the holidays were the most important thing on the planet to her and everything had to be perfect; and because of that, they were mostly the same. And now they're not. Because she isn't here.
Mothers are all slightly insane. It just so happens that mine is more so than others.
~ JD Salinger
If my Facebook news feed is an accurate representative sampling, my friends fall distinctly into two categories: those whose mothers are alive and well, and those whose mothers are neither. Mine however, is alive but unwell. She is here but gone; physically present but absent in every way that counts. And as I have learned the hard way, nobody throws a wake or sits Shiva for your ambiguous loss. There are no well-wishers, no little black dresses, no bringers of casseroles; you can’t eulogize a woman for living when she never died. She just sort of, left. Both physically and mentally. My relationship with my mother has always been one surrounded by control and was anything but stable. At 36 years old, my mother went from someone that I would talk to several times a week and shop with at least once a month, to someone that I saw 4 times in a year.
My mother is broken. Borderline personality disorder, broken. Extreme up and down, broken. There are things surrounding the early years of her life that if gone into detail anyone would understand, but I won't. I am most definitely not one to poke fun at mental illness of any kind (I myself inherited more than just my mama’s good looks). But my mother is not seeing a therapist, taking meds, or conscientiously managing her mental illness. If she were, I would see her as a survivor to admire, she would be someone I could talk to, someone with whom it was safe to have a relationship. My mother refuses to treat her condition, to her own very real detriment and that of those around her, despite the devastation she leaves in her wake.
And growing up with an emotionally unstable person who says to you the worst things that no child should ever hear from anyone, let alone the one person who should never even think them about you does a number on you that you won’t soon forget. When you become a mother yourself, the impact of growing up with a mother who has mental illness becomes more clear.
1. You will always feel like an impostor.
Being a motherless mother, you permanently feel the sting of being the odd one out. You are forever the last kid picked in gym class. You will listen, somewhat incredulously, to your friends swap stories of their mothers’ support during their pregnancies, labors, and other momentous kid-related events. You will, much like Chief Brody sheepishly eyeing his appendix scar in Jaws while Hooper and Captain Quint trade shark attack tales, stand awkwardly to one side, lacking a frame of reference for even comprehending these narratives.
I never told my mother anything until I didn't have a choice because I could never count on the reaction I was going to receive. My pregnancies were discussed only after someone else already said something. I told her about my marriage; to which she flipped out and cut me out of every picture she had with me in it. She didn't approve, or have a hand in controlling my decision; I was dead to her. It never mattered if it was where I chose to work or if I was OK with my son's choice to go commando for the day. Do people call their mothers about these things and not die spiritually?
2. Nobody taught me how to do mom things.
I don’t live in squalor, but my domestic skills lack finesse. I don’t have a natural barometric gauge when things are clean or dirty because I was screamed at if I left a shirt on the floor. Hell, if I can walk through your front door without climbing over a waist-deep obstacle course, it looks great to me. People have teased me my entire adult life for loading a dishwasher like it’s a precarious game of Jenga and for not knowing how to mince garlic until the ripe old age of 30. Growing up, I was something to control, and I was never taught the basics of life - how to balance a checkbook, how to pay taxes, how to manage bills. My mother didn't work when I was growing up. When she did, it was babysitting out of our home. She doesn't know what it is like to bust your butt all day and then find the energy to cook and clean and make sure the tiny humans are in one piece. She always had someone there to help her - my aunt came to live with us when my brothers were babies because she couldn't handle 4 kids on her own all day. She was always in a relationship. She's never experienced what it is like to have to work your ass off for everything that you have. I was kicked out the second I turned 18 halfway through my senior year because my aunt needed a nanny, and tag, I was it. I sometimes have to take a step back, take a deep breath, and extend myself some grace. Nobody taught you how to do this, lady. You’re doing just fine. But I have a lot of anxiety about imparting this particular set of life skills to my child when I perpetually struggle with it myself.
3. You won’t have anyone to call when things are really, really bad.
I'm a single mother. I was working full time with an infant and a toddler. Alone. I couldn't rely on her support to watch them when I was sick or needed a break. I considered returning them, but the warranty had expired. Now, they're 14 & 16. I don't know what to do or say to them half the time, and I sure as hell wouldn't say anything that she said to me as a kid. She did take my daughter to get her first bra, but that was around the time that things started to really go downhill.
And you know when you’re a kid and your world is imploding on itself, and it all fades to black, and you just want your mommy? Yeah, I get that too, only my mommy is usually stuck up her new boyfriends ass and coming into my house when I'm not home like a stalker, and fighting with me through text message about how "insert family event she wasn't invited to because she abandoned everything and everyone for her new life and hasn't spoken to anyone for months". I have had to rely on my own lousy instincts, and Facebook crowdsourcing, and sometimes my aunts. When my son’s fever spikes to 103 degrees, I have no one to call to ask how high is too high and whether or not I should I go to the ER. I have never had that person, and sometimes (every second, of every damn day) it sucks like a whorish Hoover.
4. …or when they’re really, really good.
Conversely, I will never have a mother to call about the good stuff. She wasn’t there to hear about it when my kid successfully had a sleepover. She refused to read anything about my daughter's diagnosis of an ASD until 2 years after she got it because she was so hell bent on painting me as a horrible mother that she wouldn't see that the problem wasn't me. She won’t be there to ooh and ahh over their prom pictures. She wasn’t at my wedding; I doubt she’ll be at theirs because she has alienated them so badly with her control and random bullshit statements that kids don't need to hear from someone who should (but doesn't) have any idea of how to love someone unconditionally. She is too busy pursuing the extravagant desires of a broken mind and doesn’t give the flyingest of fucks that by doing so she has jettisoned everything that really matters.
And you can reassure yourself all the live-long day that it doesn’t matter, that you don’t miss her, that you didn’t really need anyone to call and tell that funny-gross story about the mishap in the bathtub. And you don’t. You’re tough. You will get by. But sometimes? It’d be nice. Because no one would appreciate a good mishap-in-the-bathtub story more than the mother you don’t have.
5. You will fear for your children and question your own decision to procreate.
It should go without saying that mental illness has a biochemical basis and a major genetic component. Mood disorders and schizoid-spectrum disorders in particular tend to cluster in families. Every time you look into the big beautiful eyes of your sweet baby, you will be overcome with the irrational fear that they too, will go crazy.
Will he inherit the family curse? Is he a ticking time bomb waiting to detonate? What kind of life have I wished on this poor innocent child? And perhaps more fundamentally, was it selfish of me to bring a child into this world knowing I could be passing on such a terrifying legacy? And even if it was, what can I possibly do about it now? But the full-scale horror of the as-yet-unknown—ay, there’s the rub.
6. You will fear becoming your mother.
When you aren’t worrying about your child becoming your mother, you will be worrying about you becoming your mother…and leaving your child to pick up the broken pieces. That time that you got so stressed out that the idea of just up and leaving everything sounds so wonderful - but wait, your mother just did that. And then the pain of everything that you've gone through catches up to you and everything snowballs and before you know it, you're at Target buying your son that game he begged you for a hundred times and you refused, but look at you being the awesome mom. The thought of your kid coming to resent you the way you resent your own mother is heartbreaking enough. Couple that with debilitating lifelong guilt for feeling the way you do about her and the logistical nightmare that is the care and maintenance of a psychotic adult, and you’ve potentially bequeathed your kid one hell of an inheritance.
7. You will have very little from your childhood to share with your child.
When your childhood memories are steeped in chaos and trauma, it doesn’t mean that no good things ever happened to you. It does mean you have a very difficult time recalling them. And when your primary caregiver was as neurotic and unstable as mine was, family traditions went by the wayside and day-to-day survival was all that mattered.
Both of my parents were in long term relationships after they divorced, so holidays were spent with every branch of my family. It was chaos, but it was wonderful because my mother was so focused on making good face, that I was allowed a little freedom to enjoy myself. There was always small traditions that my mother held onto. Each of us kids had our own ornaments that were seperated and we took turns putting them on the tree at Christmas. Some of the decorations she used to have I have now and every once in awhile, when things get really bad, I take out the candle holder that she passed down to me and smell the old wax. It never changes, the faint hint of cinnamon that I've smelled since I was little. It's also, the only time I let myself be sad about how bad it sucks that she's gone from my life. I can't listen to Christmas music without getting angry. And then crying because I'm angry. Or being happy. And then feeling guilty that I'm happy. And then crying because I'm happy.
I don’t have a cherished “Mom’s German Chocolate Cake” recipe. For a highly creative person, I’m rubbish at making up holiday traditions. I almost feel like I don't want my children to feel like they're being forced to do what I want to do. I want to pass these things down to my kids, but I keep coming up empty-handed. Manufacturing a whole new childhood for someone else from scratch is hard work.
8. Your kid is missing a grandma.
My grandmas were both pretty badass. They both love me fiercely and I can talk to them about anything.
My kids, on the other hand, will always have a gaping hole in their life where they are missing 100 percent of the whole grandmother equation. I can’t tell them she died. She didn’t die. She simply has no interest in having a relationship with them, and even if she did, she is toxic and unsafe for them to be around. Unfortunately, both of them came to that conclusion long before the "big change" and my son cut as many ties with her as he could beforehand. How can you possibly explain to the bright eyes and precious dimples peering up at you and asking the hard questions that while some people’s bodies are broken, Nana’s brain is broken? That she doesn’t love us in a healthy way because she can’t?
9. You will learn that it’s OK to question yourself as a mother.
In time, however, you will learn to forgive your own mother (albeit imperfectly) for what she couldn’t give you and, more importantly, forgive yourself for what you were not given. This is not to say you will absolve yourself of doing better by your child; you will make it your paramount priority. But you will eventually shed the layers of hostility you feel toward yourself, although perhaps not all those you feel toward your mother.
You will learn to treat yourself with a little kindness; you will learn through trial and error that you yourself, as much as anyone else in the universe, deserves your love and compassion. You will learn that you are not a failure for having failings, and that the very fact that you are questioning yourself as a mother means you are already a good one.
