Losing My Mom-A journey of Self Discovery & Inner Child Healing

After a swiftly abrupt ending to the most sacred relationship in my life, I share with you today the wisdom I have gained and the very practices I implemented to cope with the biggest heartbreak of my life.

As I tuck my youngest son to bed and gently shut down the door, I am taken by the rush of emotional memories that invade my mind.

It’s the time of the night again when I’m left alone after the kids have gone to bed. I used to patiently look forward to ‘me time’ as all parents of small children do.

Now it has become a time that I dread.

Here we go again.

Images, voices, and scenes from the past flood my mind. Everything that I’ve fought to keep away from my mind throughout the day has found its way back at night.

As soon as I pause and take a moment of silence, the memories take advantage of my idleness and remind me of the constant emptiness I feel inside.

One by one they slide into my conscious forcing me to reflect on what has happened to lead me to where I am today.

I have always been intrigued as to why our deepest thoughts and memories tend to creep out at night time.

After doing some research, it turns out that the amygdala, which is the area in the brain that is responsible for the fight or flight response becomes more sensitive during the night, which can lead to the pattern of emotional stress, overthinking, and the emergence of repressed memories.

I now feel more empowered to tackle this restlessness.

There’s an inner urge to address, accept and reflect upon those repressed emotions rather than resisting them and judging my thought processes, as that only enforces the memory further into the consciousness.

It has been exactly six months since the day my mom disappeared from my life, leaving a deep wound and a dozen questions that haunt me every night.

No, she did not pass away but instead, chose to silently and abruptly ghost her eldest without a word of warning.

This is not the first time she does this. She has done this many times before. With each time I have expressed to her how much it has saddened me to have her disappear.

I explained to her the effect of her disappearance and lack of care for her young grandchildren who loved her and struggle to make sense of her absence.

And with each time, there is no remorse, empathy, or apology.

Yet this was a different time.

Surprisingly, she ended our last call normally and gave no hint of her intention to leave.

Since then, it came to my attention that she had publicly declared among her family and friends that she has officially disowned me as her eldest child and urged others to break their connection with me as well.

She clearly instructed my younger adult siblings too.

It really did show how much they value and cherish our relationship. Doesn’t it?

Eventually, I have come to understand that it is indeed their loss. They are still young and time will show them the impact of such a decision. You can imagine it does indeed hurt, but not as deep of a wound as that of my mother’s insensitive decision.

It might make sense for this to happen if the parent-child relationship was a strained and toxic one.

I often hear many stories of strained relationships with parents where either the parent or their child decides to distance themselves or break off the relationship during the teenage years or afterward.

However, this wasn’t the case for us.

But like the break-up of any relationship in life, there are two parties involved.

One that decides to leave, in some cases, denying the other party the right to closure or having a say.

This leaves the other party to pick up the shattered pieces of what is left from the connection. Then the rough part begins, where they pave the path for grief and healing.

Day to day, they battle their way through moments of guilt and regret as they attempt to place the pieces together and rebuild their life.

My mother and I had a deep loving bond from the beginning.

It all started in 1990 when she became a single parent at the age of twenty after my father had to forcefully flee the country as a political refugee.

I was only five months old.

They were married for one year when he left war-torn Iraq, leaving her to deal with the aftermath of separation while caring for a young sick baby.

She struggled with parenthood from the very beginning.

I was constantly fighting off sickness in my early childhood, which had a toll on her mental wellbeing. Pollution was on a rise in civil war-torn Baghdad.

She wasn’t able to work, but fortunately received regular financial and emotional support from my grandparents.

A year after dad left Iraq, my grandmother passed away from a vicious ten-year battle with leukemia and it was the hardest thing for my mom to cope with.

Her anxiety and depression escalated and she was hospitalized a few times, leaving my aunt to care for me full time. After a few months, I was back under my mother’s care.

Mentally she wasn’t ready to have me back in her care.

One night while battling depression and in a failed attempt to teach me a lesson, she took out a knife and heated the stovetop.

In a moment of anger, she pulled my hand and burnt it with the hot knife until it swelled.

Luckily, I was only three years old and therefore, do not remember a thing besides the scar that I have on my left hand until now.

After my late grandfather came back home, he was furious and took me back into his care. Mom was to see me under his supervision and she was closely monitored.

Meanwhile, my father settled into a refugee camp and secretly sent my mother letters to check in on us. He stayed at the camp for about four years, after which he received a refugee visa to Australia, the ultimate blessing.

He contacted us after a year of settling in Australia with an invitation for my mother and me to join him and finally reunite after 6 years of separation.

It was a scary time as we had to move secretly from the country to avoid investigation about my father from government officials which will lead to imprisonment and torture if they find out my father’s story.

We packed our bags and moved to Jordan for over nine months and lived in a small apartment filled with insects and mold.

After a tiring 36-hour flight, we finally made it to Melbourne where our life awaited. I was happy to meet my father, yet it took me years to get to know him as a person.

Don’t get me wrong, I respect him and am grateful for all he has done. Yet, my world revolved around my mother.

She’s everything I ever knew.

She was my best friend, protector, lawyer, and counselor.

I suffered from anxiety from my earlier childhood years, and it escalated when we reached Australia.

I had to battle through the process of not only integrating into a new culture, different language, social circle but also my father, a new person who entered my life. He had trouble understanding why it took me so long to get used to his different parenting style.

We clashed on different occasions.

Being a 6 year old is tough work.

Around that age, children go through massive major physical and mental growth spurts, testing their parent’s boundaries and rules. And let’s say it didn’t sit very well with him, being the traditional conservative father that he was.

To me, mom was my haven, where I would seek refuge whenever I clashed with my father and she would be a medium between us, standing by my side and backing me up every chance she would get.

From early on in my life, I had a deep fear that I would lose her one day.

I remember the nights where we would chat over a hot cup of black cardamon tea, a traditional Iraqi relaxing tea blend.

“Mom, do you love me?” I’d say.

“Of course I do, my angel”, she would occasionally reply in her usual gentle tone.

I’d beg her not to leave my side and she would reply “Of course not, why would I leave my world, you are the oxygen that I breathe, the very thing that gives me hope”. It was always that same reply.

We would talk for hours each day about our hopes, dreams, and ambitions.

She would encourage me to invite my friends over, where she loved to serve us all her popular freshly squeezed orange juice and homemade date biscuits. She loved retelling old stories of her younger years and have deep philosophical conversations.

They all loved her.

Besides, she was the ‘fun’ mom who didn’t constrict herself to only talking with other moms but made an effort to engage with others and get to know my closest friends.

As I grew older, the tension and arguments between my parents escalated and it was clear both were unhappy to continue with the relationship.

Yet they couldn’t finalize the decision to break free from each other because of the kids’.

They think they are saving the child but instead, what happens is the slow destruction of the child’s emotional and mental wellbeing as they witness the pattern of daily chaos in the home.

It’s a vicious cycle.

In some instances, it can also cause a deep sense of resentment from the parents towards parenthood, especially if they reassure themselves that they are ‘sacrificing’ their peace of mind so the current family structure can continue.

They do it to create a fake sense of external stability in the home, whereas what it does is harbor inner conflict amongst themselves and a deep sense of guilt within their children for even existing in this world.

At the age of 19 after completing my first year of Bachelor of Arts, I met my now-husband and moved with him to Northern Europe.

Moving away from my mother was the hardest step I had to make. She seemed to be supportive of my decision. I visited Australia twice during the last 10 years since getting married, and in my last visit, I temporarily relocated to Australia with the family for a few years in hopes to build a better life. During that time, her mental health deteriorated.

She separated from my father and turned resentful and bitter, bickering every chance she would get.

Nothing seemed to make her joyful, no matter how hard I and the kids tried to cheer her up.

She would have fights with me over a simple presumption and disconnect for many months, only to reappear back into the picture.

After my son’s illness, we decided to make the move back home where we trusted our son would get the best of medical care for his condition.

I still kept in contact with my mother, offering her to come to visit me, but she would always refuse. My father separated from the relationship and shortly after he remarried and began his new life.

She became extremely resentful towards anyone who she thought was in contact with my father.

I have tried the peacemaker and mediator between them on numerous occasions.

In my last phone conversation with her, she expressed her need to seek revenge against him in malicious and destructive ways.

I couldn’t find it in my heart to go along with what she spoke about him and falsely accused him of, so I did what I do best in injustice situations. I spoke out gently but clearly how I do not choose to go along with her plans, instead, I proposed she work on herself by rebuilding her life and finding joy in the little things.

I expressed how miserable it makes me feel to see her struggle after all these years and advised her to let go of the need to seek revenge, as it will only backfire on her mental and physical wellbeing.

I told her how much I loved her and there was nothing in this world that is worth her stressing over.

Little did I know, this is the last conversation we will have.

After hundreds of attempts to reach her through multiple platforms, I was made aware that she has directly spoken to my siblings and warned them from speaking to me.

Besides, in her eyes, I have seen the traitor, who chose to follow her father.

She didn’t even give me the chance to correct his misassumption.

After weeks of disbelief, I was burnt out from attempting to reach her and instead gathered my tears, pain, and disappointment and took off to embark on a journey of healing.

And let me tell you, that was one heck of a journey.

I was forced to shed my identity and look deep into myself, challenging the major values and systems that I placed for myself.

It was similar to addiction since my bond was strong with my mother, I hadn’t anticipated the day would come where I would be forced to accept that this relationship would be over.

I went through the major stages of grief and craved to hear her soothing voice to comfort me through my difficult nights.

It allowed me to heal my deepest inner child, recover my talents and grow spiritually as a person.

I am forever grateful for this process as it has opened my eyes to uncover my deepest thoughts and unlock my creative expression.