The Mother Wound

I cannot remember where I first heard the term "mother wound", but I knew instantly on the hearing that I had one as deep as the Grand Canyon and as wide as the Nile River is long. It is the thing that has most significantly shaped me as a person, for better or worse.  A brief definition:

We all come into the world needing the tender presence of a mother's touch, nurture, care and love. In fact the mother's influence begins when we are in the womb. The absence of this mother love is a wound that is created in three ways:  

1. Mother separated from the child through illness of the mother, mother's death, divorce
2. Child separated from the mother through illness of the child, incubator/hospitalization, adoption
3. Unhappy relationship with mother through neglect, abuse, mother's mental or emotional distress, attempted abortion

I think most mothers leave positive and negative marks on their children.  I know that in spite of my best intentions, I have done (or not done) things that my kids will have to overcome.  The mother wound is more profound - and the healing is sure to take a lifetime.  The confusion created when the same hands that are meant to nurture and provide, harm and withdraw is significant.  One resource listed the consequences of the traumatic interruption of this attachment as an overwhelming sense of abandonment and dread of aloneness, emotional dependency and a loss of self and being.  The list is longer but these are the three attributes that are most identifiable to my personal experience.
My mother was mentally ill for most of my life.  She had extended stays in the psychiatric hospitals and long periods of time where she confined herself to her bed while my step-father and I provided 24/7 room service.  Since I became an adult and was able to define some personal boundaries of acceptable behavior, our relationship has become more and more distant.  There are years when we don't speak at all.  Somehow through the neglect and abuse the need for a mother remained, my spirit wooden like the body of a mannequin with non-posable arms reaching out for something just beyond its grasp.
It was this conditioning of neglect and abuse that first taught me I was worthless and led me to accept the mistreatment of a spouse who was supposed to love me for far too many years.  I am working on being at a place where I harbor no resentment while stating the truth.  I would rather spend my energy on the healing process that God is doing in my life than to dwell on the darkness of history with anger or malice.  The darkness has swallowed far too many precious years already.
Our last rift was over my refusal to add my mother as a "friend" on Facebook.  I explained that I would rather establish a real-life relationship with her than to have voyeuristic familiarity.  She responded by not speaking to me for a year.  In recent months, my mom and I have talked sporadically - text messages, emails here and there.  When I dropped Gary off at the airport on Sunday morning, it triggered my fear of abandonment.  I knew immediately it had nothing to do with him or the situation - but it was deeply connected to my mother wound.  People think I'm brave.  They think I'm strong.  What nobody knows is that inside I'm still pining for a mother.  I was bawling my eyes out as I left the airport, so I dialed her number.   She never answered.

There is No Such Obligation

I have been churning inside since a discussion yesterday in which a friend attempted to correct what they perceived as immaturity on my part.  In another online format, I took a dig at someone who had done something illegal that involved one of my children about a year ago.  I feel no guilt or remorse over what I said despite their best efforts to show me the error of my ways.  The comment did not distract from the conversation and only those who are aware of the situation understood the underlying implication.  No harm, no foul.

What disturbs me more is this idea that no matter what wrong or evil someone has done, we are to smile and lovingly emit a grace we are not ready to give and forgiveness whether you feel it or not.  Supposedly, this is the Christian way.  More and more as I contrast the precepts of my faith with the experience of my humanity, I have decided that I am no longer able to "fake it till I make it".  Grace and forgiveness are a process, and in this particular situation it has not yet been achieved.  I made a statement about the wrong done and I have no regrets. This same grace must be extended to cover me.

The other thing I was called down on was the issue that one of our friends who is not a Christian might be thrown by my inability to show the love of God to someone who caused injury to my child.  In this case I will have to defer to God to love them, because at present I cannot.  While this is considered horribly un-Christian of me, let me propose that it is perhaps moreso than putting on a fake smile and pretending whatever someone does in any given situation is okay because I am under some mandate to pursue forgiveness.  Interacting with people with the motive of evangelism is as disconcerting as the friend who is a Tupperware dealer inserting the current specials into every conversation.  We are not Jesus - and we might stop being such a colossal disappointment to the non-believing world if we stop the facade that we might be.

I am under no obligation to live up to the expectation of others.

The Best Dad is Mine

Every little girl's first love is her daddy. This was as true of me as the next girl.  My dad was my hero.  It was the 70s and he had shaggy blonde hair and wore polyester pants and shirts with wide collars. I thought he was more handsome than any other man that on earth. He drove a green Pinto and had an affinity for Krispy Kreme donuts and big bowls of chocolate ice cream. He was the coolest.

When my parents divorced in the late 70s, the greatest loss was the connection between a father and his little girl. My dad had begun a new life of which I was rarely a part.  It was some serious collateral damage and a grieving that endured throughout my childhood and into adult life.  My mom made it very difficult for me to spend any time with him, and so I didn't very much.

A couple of years ago when the pieces of my life all came crumbling down around me, my dad was there.  He sent money to help me afford a rental truck and gas, but that wasn't what was most important. He answered his phone - over and over and over again -whether it was a phone call or a text message.  He was there for me. I never needed him so much in all of my life and he came through.  He told me I was doing the right thing, to be strong, that he loved me.  It meant everything to have this validation and support.  The picture posted here is of my dad hugging me after my wedding to Gary.  Before the ceremony was even over - my dad was on his feet and up to hug and congratulate us.  He has worried all of these years about me - and I know how happy it makes him to see me safe and loved and happy after all this time.  It gives me a lot of joy to see him so happy too as I've watched him go through a lot of changes in his own life in recent years.

Happy Father's Day Dad. I love you more than words. You are the best dad in the world, because you are mine.

My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me. 
- Jim Valvano

The Healing Process

Sometimes when you are healing, you can take one step forward and two steps back. Almost two weeks ago I got a Monroe piercing.  Some people say that they are nurturing their inner child, but much of the time lately I feel like I am nurturing my inner rebellious teenager, as evidenced by this need to poke a hole in myself.  The first few days after I got the piercing, I had a lot of difficulty getting used to it. The labret they put in at first is extra long to allow for swelling and I think mine would have accommodated Angelina Jolie and Mick Jagger's love child.  Every time I tried to bite or chew food, not to mention talking, my teeth would pull it from the inside.  It was no fun.  Gary took me to Cherry Bomb tattoo and piercing parlor a couple of times to get the jewelry changed which helped quite a bit.  Little by little it was feeling better, until a couple days ago when my teeth caught it and gave it a good pull that grabbed the front end and pulled it through my lip. OUCH!

I share this story of the piercing because it seems to be the way of healing.  In this process there are stops and starts.  We gain ground and start to feel a sense of wholeness and suddenly and often unexpectedly that same ground seems to drop from beneath our feet, leaving us reeling again.  But healing must occur and we must expect that it does not do so in a linear fashion.  If we choose to forego the healing process our only option is to remain battered and bitter.  It seems not a choice at all to me.  Healing is not easy, and it requires that we deal with our scars, but wholeness is always the goal.  I read something beautiful recently from Little Bee by Chris Cleave about scars:

"I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived."

I survived. When the bad memories come, the pain creeps to the surface and demands acknowledgment, I remind myself that I survived.  These things did not kill me then, and they will not kill me now. Like my piercing, the pain will serve it's purpose.  In time, healing will come and with it a beautiful scar as a reminder that I survived.

Happy Divorce-iversary to Me!

I'm going to throw caution to the wind and post this celebratory declaration of the one year anniversary of my divorce.  This anniversary celebrates a passage of time in which I have not had to suffer verbal, emotional or physical abuse.  My children now live in a house where they go to bed every night certain that they won't wake up to violence, rage or outbursts.  In the last year nobody has told me that I was fat, clumsy, stupid or a b*tch.  In our home, nothing has been thrown, broken, mutilated, or destroyed in a fit of anger.  I have not had to duck, hide or passively apologize to neutralize a toxic situation.  Nobody has disabled my car to keep me from leaving or made empty promises to manipulate me into staying. Perhaps divorce breaks God's heart, but I can't help but think that this metamorphosis of our family gives Him anything but joy.

A divorce marks the disentanglement of two legally joined parties, but if I'm honest, my heart was disentangled long ago.  My life followed slowly, and what a life it is!

Taking Off the Mask

I woke super early this morning with about a hundred ideas of what to blog about and the desire to write them all at once. Finally some reprieve from blogger's block that had me stuck for the last couple of years, staring terrifyingly at the little white box with the hope that eventually words would come and I could click the little orange button and "publish post".  Once in a great while I was able to eek out a few words, but nothing like the hum that used to go on in my head with a steady stream of things to blog about.  Now I know that this hum was silenced when it was for the best.  Though people often slow as they pass the scene of an accident, nobody really appreciates the eye full of mangled metal as much when there is a person among the wreckage.  I was that person. The wreckage was my life. The EMTs and tow trucks and insurance companies needed to work unhindered behind the scenes to provide emergency medical care, clear the debris and assess the losses.

I have shared on this blog some of my deepest fears, most vulnerable weaknesses, embarrassing antics and personal anguish with no regrets.  As Gary and I were laying in bed last night in those precious moments before sleep, he asked me if I ever worried about unguarded way that I share and put myself out there in the blogosphere. I ruminated on that a while before dozing off and woke this morning to the comment on the last post from "Anonymous" who said "it's raw and it's real......... and it's beautiful".  This comment validated my personal principle for writing - to fling my heart wide open and share with little hesitation.  I do work hard to create a balance of maintaining privacy and dignity for those who are crazy enough to walk through life beside me, while maintaining authenticity.   I could write exclusively about the best parts of my life in the hopes that everyone would want to be me in this fabricated life I'd conjure for public consumption, and be the author of a blog nobody would want to read, including me.  It is my resolve to be as real as I can and in so doing, help other people with similar struggles to know they are not alone.  This process of self-discovery that I'm in the midst of can only flourish if I am validating others - and we can do that only if we are each willing to take off our respective masks.


(A note to Anonymous - I feel like I should know who you are - but sadly once I started sharing my story - so many women who were surviving various levels of abusive relationships were contacting me. I still get emails and blog comments and Facebook messages asking for help for a friend or some advice on how to get through the worst of it. If you don't want to identify yourself here - please send me a message on Facebook or an email at julsnwv AT gmail DOT com. I'd like to know who you are so I can follow your story.)

Non-Static People

Lately I have been going through what could best be described as a mid-life crisis.  I'm bored, I'm restless, I'm anxious and easily agitated.  I go from laughing to crying and back again.  Some days I wake UP in a funk that doesn't clear most of the day - which is not my usual "bubbly" (as my hubs calls it) demeanor.  I'm impatient (at least in my head) with people over things that should not be so irksome, including myself.  I'm unreasonable and irrational and I wonder how it is possible that anyone could find me lovable in such a state, especially my husband who has been married to me for just nine short months.  If he doesn't occasionally wonder what on earth he has gotten himself into, I think he should be awarded some sort of sainthood.

We were having a discussion about this fledgling personality disorder that I am developing earlier today. He knows that I am, as cliché as it sounds, trying to "find myself" and has been my biggest cheerleader.  Abusive relationships diminish a person's true self, and I am still very much in the healing process.  Often the progression of self-discovery is hindered by self-loathing and you literally have to learn to examine who you are and evaluate that this person in the mirror is good, valued, lovable.  In a lot of ways, Gary has gotten to know me better than I know myself. His honesty and willingness to hold my hand through this unfolding of my true self has made all the difference.  In one of my emotional tantrums, I was asking him if he could still love me as I change and grow. "People aren't static" he said. "I'm going to love you no matter what." 

People aren't static. They are dynamic and changing and organic and vibrant, and I am among them. Being loved securely, come what may is truly the greatest gift imaginable.