Reflections on the Visit

Coming back from visiting mom I am awash with mixed feelings. I acknowledge my real love for my mom and simultaneously feel fairly intense anger towards her. I think she's doing great and I worry about her welfare. I perceive she is as high-functioning as I've ever known her to be while I am regularly disturbed by the perceptions she has/ comments she makes/ fantasies which often play a large role in her every day life.

It's a good thing my wife came with me this time because it was hard for me to be friendly toward my mom for the first few days. I just sat there quietly with a serious look on my face while she talked. She could tell I was mad at her. Very mad. Cellular mad.

On day one of the visit she told me a few things I had not previously been aware of. And I still don't know whether to fully believe them or not because her memory has been poor in the past. Can I trust her memory now? I really can't say. Anyway, she told me that my dad had been fired from his teaching post at a University soon before he packed his bags and drove out of my life.

Second, mom said that some months before dad left she asked six-year-old me if I still wanted to go to his house on weekends. According to her memory I said, "No" and she relayed the message to him. My saying so was a key part of his decision to move out of state, according to her memory. Quite a bit of responsibility for a little guy. I mean, aren't adults the ones who are supposed to step up and take responsibility. Children learn to make good decisions themselves by modeling their parents' healthy decision making processes. If the six year old is playing the role of the adult in the family, we've got a big problem. And we did.

She also told me that I came home from dad's one time with a photo of him mooning the camera. Naturally, she wondered if my being at his house was all that healthy for me.

When I put myself in her shoes it's easy to see that she had been dealt a pretty challenging hand. In my adult life I have never faced a situation as difficult as the one she faced then. I honestly don't know what I would have done in her shoes.

On day two of the visit mom and I were on a walk and I was able to share some aspects of my process which I had not yet brought to her. I told her that my personality had built up around supporting her. I told her that when I was six years old and experiencing several months of molestation by a babysitter, dad abandoning me, her undiagnosed mental illness and her workaholism that I created a survival mechanism. The mechanism involved reducing my needs to as close to zero as I could and focusing my child's mental energy toward helping her to survive. And that I maintained that particular mechanism, greasing the cogs on a regular basis until just recently.

Right now, anyway, my mom's answer to me and my pain is to refer back to how difficult her childhood was, to her pain. How she did not receive nurturing from her parents. How her parents worked all the time and used shame as a child-rearing tool. How she had nannies who took care of her and her sister and how weird some of them were. She wants me to see that she was really hurt during her upbringing and that she's not to blame if she didn't have the parenting knowledge and skills that would have made such a difference to me when I was growing up.

I can definitely see her point. And yet, she and I are going to have to come to some new understandings about things. I have no intention of unleashing my anger on her. But she does see my anger, not something I've shown much to anyone. I am physically incapable, at this point, of continuing to suck it up for her benefit. That's what I've done since I was six years old.

At the same time I know from my counseling experience that my anger is something I have to own. I have to work with it and transform it. It's my work. It is most definitely not her, or anyone else's job. Still, I wish she would say she's sorry.

So I'm glad I brought this new level of my process to her. She is beginning to get the picture of what I have hidden from her all these years because I did not want to burden her. She is starting to see how difficult my childhood was and how I feel deeply wounded at a level which comes across in my basic gesture. And she gets that I am deeply angry at her.

Up until recently my mom was projecting fantasy over much of my upbringing, creating a myth of how things must have gone. I seemed to be doing well in life; was a successful teacher with a happy family. She could rest secure on her laurels as a parent while she held up the picture: "super-human single mom beats all odds and raises a well adjusted child into successful adulthood." The persona I was projecting as a teacher could have easily led her to buy into that myth.

The problem with all of that is that I was not able to hold that persona up long term. The weight of my childhood experiences were pulling down on me to the point where I burned out of my teaching job and am now looking at a few years of intense soul searching, counseling and less demanding work-life to be able to move forward in a positive way. It's not that the picture I was holding up as a teacher was false. It's just that it was not the whole picture.

Now I am beginning to come around the whole picture. To see my strengths as well as some of the places where I was very deeply wounded. Places where rage within me lives. Places I am not proud of.

So it appears to me that mom and I are in a transitional stage. When I was a kid my personality built up as an extension of her. She and I did not have healthy boundaries. Up until recently I did not have a clear sense of where my mom ended and where I began. She could play me, at times, like a puppet on a string. Neither she nor I had a clear sense of our own individual core.

There is a part of her which does not respect me and which would have me do her bidding without feeling the need to say thank you. Part of her would be perfectly happy controlling me like she might control her hand when she wants to make the turn indicator in her car signal "left". Part of her sees me as a child with no individual self, eager to serve her will.

Luckily, that is a part of my mom, namely her lower nature projected through the lens of mental illness, which has been steadily losing power. Now that I am more empowered I will stand for that shit less and less. These days I let slide only a fraction of what I would put up with even ten years ago. And I have zero intention of letting any of that backslide.

So progress is visible, especially if one looks at things from the perspective of several years. Mom is committed to her meds. Every day, twice per day and she says she rarely misses a dose. Her quality of life is better than it has ever been.

Mom has acknowledged to my wife and me that she has been looking to our example as a model. The health of the family I am lucky enough to be a part of is likely something my mother has never before seen up close, let alone been a part of. The relative stability of my life is a huge gift to her, as well as to me, and she acknowledges the truth of that.

So we have plenty to be thankful for. Nevertheless, it is a long process and one which takes boat-loads of patience.

I am willing to be grateful for what is there and continue to work hard over the years to come to gradually transform both the relationship and the pain I feel in her presence. I don't see any other viable options.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly, Ben