Mom and Me

In a woman’s life it is often said that there no relationship more important than her relationship with her mother. But that relationship is not always a totally healthy one. Sometimes the relationship is not totally toxic, but it has its moments where there are things that get said that really shouldn’t be said. Little jabs that rip you apart piece by piece and you have no control over it. Now its not all the time, and there are loving moments, so it is not that it’s a toxic relationship, or so you think at the time.

How can your mom be the one who helps build you up but also knocks you down? On one hand, she gives you love and support to grow you into a strong woman. She makes you feel like you are an amazing, beautiful young individual, helps you see past what the media tries to get you to believe about your looks and your body. But on the other hand, tears into you saying that you do not have any mental illness issues, when you do, that you are fat and need to work on it, and belittling your relationship with your significant other at various opportunities.

That is my relationship with my mother.

Its on the edge of being a really loving relationship and a toxic one which makes it exhausting to figure out how to go about it. There are moments where she is my mom, if I have any problems whatsoever, she is right there by my side ready to do whatever is needed to help. Other moments, I get cut down by her. I get told comments regarding the aspects of my life that I am the least secure about. It won’t be malicious comments, but it will be a slight comment here and there. A quick like sentence inserted here or there in the conversation and my entire world shatters for a moments time. I feel naked, broken and insecure in the words of the one who is usually there for me no matter what, and who is supposed to build me up.

To describe the slippery slope that it is, is so difficult. It isn’t like I ask for the words to come out of her mouth, nor have I provoked her in any way. Comments made to make me feel as though I’ve made the wrong decision or that I have let myself go when I am working so hard to get myself back together only help feed the demons in my head. And I have learnt that, that is not what the relationship should be.

But that is just our relationship, not that I agree with it but its how its always been. There was one moment back in the day when this shift happened, and things have never really been the same after that. That moment I can pinpoint to being in 2016 so for 4 years my relationship with mom has not been “okay”.

Do I have a heavy heart? Yes. Do I love my mom? Always. But it is not the normal relationship a daughter has with a mother, and it is tough to deal with at times. I cannot say that it is the one I want to be in, but it is what I have to work with. It is not like I can cut off my mother from my life, she’s done nothing wrong to me really but at the same time her relationship with me is the most toxic one in my life. So, it is a constant struggle on to I try to keep the relationship or let it go.