hsphaven

It is almost 3:30am but I am not tired, so thought I’d begin the post I was planning on writing next about my mother. I don’t know if I’ve written much about my family on this blog, mainly therapists. But one might argue that the reason I cling to therapists is because I’m really just looking for the emotionally nurturing, attuned mother figure I don’t have with my biological mother.

A friend recently added me to a group for daughters of narcissistic mothers thinking I might get something out of it. I’m not sure if I’d call my mother narcissistic, but I’d like to explore our relationship in this post.

My mum, as long as I can remember, has always been a very angry woman. I think deep down she is just hurt. There is a lot of trauma in my mum’s lineage. My mum was adopted, but has never been interested in finding her blood mother. She was adopted by a woman who was deeply traumatised, who spent her early years in an orphanage where she would hide in the closet from the nuns before she, too, was finally adopted. That was my Nana. I didn’t see much of her as she lived in New-Zealand, but my impression of her was a very self-centred person who could be quite brutal at times. I remember her going off at me for staying in bed for, in her opinion, too long, when we visited her in New-Zealand. My grandad would tell her to cut me some slack. I always found him nicer, but their relationship seemed a bit odd to me. He was more like her carer, always doing the cooking and the nurturing. My Nana was a talented musician and played the violin. My mum followed in her footsteps and learnt the oboe, bassoon and piano. She is now a music teacher.

Every time I saw my grandparents off at the airport, they’d say the same thing to me: “Make sure you look after your mother.” For some reason I always felt inadequate… not good enough, like I was being criticised. They hated my father, and openly criticised him when I was born, accusing him of not doing enough to help my mother, their precious daughter, who was crippled from the birth. It was a very traumatic birth where I was pulled out by forceps. My mum couldn’t walk for a while afterwards, and somebody had to pick me up and bring me to her. They also criticised my dad for wrapping me up and taking me out for a walk at night. My dad blew up at them and threatened to kill my grandad. They never really mended their relationship, and Dad would never stay with them again. Sometimes it would just be my sister and I who would fly over to New-Zealand with my mum and visit her parents. Sometimes I overheard my Nana encouraging Mum to leave Dad.

My mum was a different person with her students than she was at home. Her students loved her (and continue to love her). She is a patient and encouraging teacher. But deep down she was angry and hurt, and she’d take that out on us at home. We were her punching bag. It was and still is like walking on eggshells around her. I feel like I have to watch what I say with her because I anticipate criticism and judgement. I remember her snapping at me when I was a kid. I then turned to my dad, who was in the back room, for comfort. He then got protective of me, stormed out and started a fight with my mum. It got violent, and I had to stand between them to stop my dad from hurting her. My mum then stormed off and slammed our front door shut. She slammed it so hard the panels of glass broke and shattered everywhere.

I often felt like my mum loved my sister more than me. I remember them snuggling in bed together when she was first born. Meanwhile I was sent to kinder with kids who were mean. I felt left out in the cold by my mum. Then, when I was a bit older, I remember her forcing me to surrender one of my toys to my sister who wanted it. That is why I was surprised when about five years ago my sister suddenly decided to cut all contact with my mum. My sister had come out as trans (born a boy but identified as a girl) and my mum went to Spain with her to have facial surgery. My sister felt incredibly vulnerable during this time. She needed to buy a pair of shoes, but the store owner wouldn’t sell her a pair of woman’s shoes, telling her she was a man. All my sister wanted to do was retreat to the motel where she didn’t have to cry in public. But my mum, from what I hear, wouldn’t listen to what she needed. She thought it would be better to get a coffee at a nearby café. And that is the problem which my mum still doesn’t understand. As well meaning as she may be, she doesn’t listen to us and thinks she knows better. She doesn’t let us make our own choices, to be our own people. She denies us comfort, time to curl up and retreat from the world. I had the exact same issue with her which is why I choose to live with my dad now they are divorced. She had it in her head that the reason I was so depressed was because I was sleeping all day, so she decided she was going to wake me up. There were some periods when I was deeply traumatised and needed to retreat from the world, but she wouldn’t cut me any slack. She was just like Nana. I had to stay on that treadmill, push aside my pain and get on with life like she does. I had a huge argument with her about it and was so tempted to tell her this is exactly why my sister doesn’t speak with her, but I wasn’t that cruel. I ended up sleeping in my car that night, and then moving in with my dad. Until my sister moved out and cut all contact with my mum, I thought it was just me who had issues with her. But my sister, who has similar mental health issues to me, said no, she finds Mum incredibly “judgmental” too. I didn’t get the sense she hated Mum, more she was a little scared of her. She told me a bit about Mum’s lineage and why Mum might be the way she is. I don’t hate my mum either, I just think she doesn’t really have the skills to do things better as they were not modelled to her. She tramples over boundaries, and doesn’t leave things in the condition they were originally. When I lived with her she wouldn’t shut my door after she opened it to talk to me, which used to really irk me. Then, when my sister and I were kids my sister took a bag of clothes I was going to throw out and kept them in her cupboard. The clothes were of comfort to her as she wanted to be a girl. My mum then found the bag when she was cleaning my sister’s room and threw them out. I think she has made so many decisions for us that I have grown up to be somebody who doesn’t know how to make decisions for myself. I still often ask my mum to help me make decisions. I have a weird dependency on her, and even as a kid I didn’t like being away from her. I still don’t really know how to cook or clean. She would complain that she was the only one taking care of the house and yet she never taught me how to do things. My friend said this is common amongst narcissistic mothers. They like to keep their children dependent on them.

I believe my mum still loves me. She is competent in the kitchen, often cooking meals for me. She gets angry at people who hurt me. She wants me to be better. But there is something missing. Something that I keep trying to find in therapists. She has little warmth and is not as good with the emotional stuff as she is with the practical. She doesn’t know what to do or say. Sometimes it’s easier for her to just ignore it and hope it will go away. I remember one time, about ten years ago, I was in such a bad place mentally I just lay on the floor of the music room a heap. My mum then came in, set up her oboe and started practicing, acting like I was not even there. Sometimes she can surprise me. Sometimes she is good in her response, but other times some dreadful things come out of her mouth. There was even a time when I was hospitalised because of my torturous period pain and my mum made it all about her, complaining that it was an inconvenience to her day. My mum and I never hug or kiss. I always found it weird how when I visited my dad’s family my aunty would greet me affectionately with a kiss. My sister and I used to take turns sleeping in my mum’s bed as children (my parents slept in different rooms). Mum and I used to give each other massages, but at some point the massages stopped, and there was no more physical contact between us. It’s been this way for so long now it would feel weird to introduce that into our relationship, but a part of me would like that from others.