Healing the Inspeakable - The Mother Wound

I think it’s pretty common for mothers and daughters to have strained relationships.

But, just because something is common, doesn’t mean it’s good or that it should be ignored or accepted as normal.

Anyone who knows me well, or, who has had the experience of being in a room with both me and my mother for more than 5 minutes, will not be surprised to hear that we don’t get along very well. The atmosphere speaks for itself.

I always figured it was just one of those things. No big deal!

I am who I am . She is who she is.

We won’t see eye to eye. We just don’t get along. It’s too bad but not the end of the world.

I didn’t bother trying to hide it. As far as I was concerned, why bother trying to hide something that is so obvious.

It bothered me when I was younger, I guess. But, I got over it. I moved on. Accepted it. Let it go. I didn’t care anymore.

It is what it is.

I gave up on that relationship a long time ago. It’s in the past.

At least, that’s what I told myself.

And I believed it.

What I found out was, even though I gave up on the actual relationship with my mother, I was trying to work it out through my relationship with my husband.

I had carried the unresolved issues forward with me, into my next big “one on one” relationship.

And, needless to say, it didn’t go so well! He’s now my ex-husband.

The funny thing is, I was totally unaware of what I was doing.

I wonder how common this actually is?

Now that I am a mother myself, and am on the other side, I have come to see how easy it would be to repeat the same cycle over again with my own daughter.

If I wasn’t very careful, and conscious of myself, I have no doubt that is exactly what I would do. Because, it’s all I know.

Through becoming a mother, I now know first hand how much responsibility is involved and it has really given me a different perspective.

A mother has an enormous amount of power over her baby, who was literally a part of her own body for 9 months.

Very often, women have never been in a position where they have had any power at all.

Often, women have only ever been the vulnerable one. And often have been overpowered, controlled, and even abused by others. This causes damage. And I see now, this was the case for my mother.

It’s a strange feeling to have. To have a tiny baby who is so vulnerable, who needs you so much, for survival. Who depends on you for absolutely everything. It can be very scary actually. You might wonder if you are able to do all that needs to be done. For the first time, you might worry about what you might actually be capable of, with so much power in your hands. For the first time. And likely, the only time.

For me, even when I had my first baby, it was a familiar feeling, like déjà vu, only this time, I wasn’t the innocent vulnerable baby.

I was the Mother - Almighty.

A few days ago, my mother showed up at my house unexpectedly. She didn’t let me know she was coming and I was caught off guard. I hadn’t seen her in months.

While she was here, she kept saying she had lots to do - as if she was about to be leaving any minute, but, she never left!

When she did leave, after 3 days, she left just as unexpectedly as she arrived. While the kids and I were asleep.

I woke up in the morning to note she had left me, that was riddled with passive aggressive insults and guilt trips.

By this time, I was already drained. I had listened to her subtly put me down and push all my buttons for 3 days already.

By the time she vanished, I was run down and unable to do much. Tired. Low energy. Unmotivated. Just feeling bad about myself in general.

Growing up, it was no different. But, since it was all I ever knew, I was used to it. I figured out ways to cope. I was a child and I had no way out. I had to do things her way. I needed her.

It’s interesting that even now, that I am an adult, a mother myself, that as soon as she comes around, I feel like a little kid again. And I act like it too. It’s automatic. I still see her as an authority over me.

The hardest part is, even though my mother and I don’t get along, I still love her.

I do care about her. And I always will. Because the relationship between a mother an child is sacred. You can only have one mother. It’s the first relationship most of us ever experience. It is the foundation for all other relationships to follow. If you don’t have a solid foundation, you can’t build anything secure on it.

Even the tiniest crack can have a massive impact.

Now that I am a mother myself, I am very aware that I could easily continue the cycle with my own kids.

Or, I can break the cycle. By taking on the responsibility, fully.

I can take the chance that I have total control and all the power, and choose to make it a good relationship.

It’s 100% on my shoulders and I don’t need to ask the other person (the baby) to meet me in the middle or to understand me.

It’s all on me. I have to teach them. I have to accept them. I have to put them first.

Children are like brand new, untouched little blank slates. They are completely untarnished. They have no baggage.

With our own mothers, we can’t force them to admit to, or apologize for the damage they may have caused us.

We can’t make them hear us or validate our feelings. We can’t make them see us in a different light, understand us or change their behaviour towards us.

It has to be their own choice. They have to realize on their own. And it is very unlikely they ever will.

If we want to heal that mother wound, we can. We can do it when we are on the other side of the power dynamic.

We can heal it through being the mother we wish we had. Instead of taking our turn to pass it down to the next generation. We have second chance to experience and recreate the mother/child relationship, our own way.

Maybe by doing that, we can gain some understanding for what our mothers had to go through in their lives before we came along and why they may have been unable to be the mother we needed them to be, and to finally find peace within ourselves, knowing it was never our fault.

It was never about us at all.

It’s not about blame.

It’s about understanding.

So we can move toward something better in the future.

Finding out that other people share similar feelings and experiences can take the shame away and help us to see that we aren’t alone.

Thanks for reading!

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Diana