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.

The Autumn of Motherhood

Days seem to slip by gradually. Valuable time is given away to menial chores and mindless activity. I would love to enjoy days with my babies again - fingerpainting on the bathtub walls, thrilled at the prospect of baking cookies - the days when I was their world. They looked to me for answers, protection and provision. Once upon a time, I was their hero. That vanished in an instant. Wondering how this happened seems pointless. We can't go back. Time has moved us here and here it is that we exist, together. I try to look beyond the belligerent attitudes, hear past the sarcastic tongues, and rise above the patronizing ways they've already begun to treat me as if I'm an old lady. We'll manage. One day they too may have to watch their babies grow up and become people they hardly recognize and grieve for days past. I will still be there for them, and try to help them understand.

I Take Issue with That!

I read this quote from a 1908 publication called "What a Young Wife Ought to Know" reprinted in a current magazine this morning and it got me all worked up:

"A true woman would hardly care to exchange her delicate instinct, her deftness of finger her versatile mind - which enables her to do the many little and great things in our everyday home-life equally well - her quick perception, her motherly all-aroundness, her sweet womanly loveliness, for any other marketable thing, or any other characteristic or capability attained by culture or training. A true woman is a woman, and she does not desire to be anything else unless she can add it to her womanliness."

Where to start.
First of all - I lack all "delicate instinct". I am awkward, rambunctious, easily provoked to raucous laughter - but delicate I am not. I believe God made me - at the basic level - the person that I am, and after years of resisting this and trying to be someone that I am not, I am finally comfortable with the fact that I am not a wilting flower. I believe God made women in all shapes, sizes, colors, and yes, personality too. He created each of us individually - to be different, and to bring glory to Him through our uniqueness. Our creative God did not make us cookie cutter people - but rejoiced in his ability to put together so many different combinations.
I take offense at this idea that we are to use our "versatile mind" only for the home or it is some blemish on our womanliness. Do all of our pursuits not benefit our families? How is it that men may pursue their dreams, follow their ambitions and creativity where they lead and if women do the same outside of their homes, they have committed some terrible crime? We can have our identity as wives and mothers mean so much that we fail to be individuals.
I have been a stay-at-home mom for all of my children's lives until recently. I have always done something - babysitting, cleaning houses, computer work at home, etc. to bring in some extra income to help make ends meet. My times at home with my family have always been my favorite, but I've done it because that was the desire of my heart and not because there was some unwritten standard that I would be less of a woman if I did not. I have seen women crash and burn after divorce because they had all of who they were wrapped up in their families, including my own mother. My mother was not blameless - but she lost who she was when the man she married at 16 decided he didn't want to be married to her anymore, and she never recovered.
Last night, I was feeling rather overwhelmed. I saw women come through my line happily spending money on Christmas gifts and enjoying the season and I felt so envious. They got to go home that evening to their families. They didn't have to drive home at almost 1 am and hope they would be awake and alert enough not to hit a deer, or drive off the road because they were so tired. Then I thought of my co-workers - one who has to leave for work before her 4th grader gets off the bus and has to walk 2 blocks home to stay for the evening with a handicapped grandma while she works. One lady is so tired that her eyes never look like more than little slits. One lady works nights because she is taking care of a 21 year old daughter who is a paraplegic during the day. These women are true women, doing what is required, as I am to make it through the day, whether working out of their homes or not. Their deftness of finger, versatile mind and quick perception are often expended in their workplace and not their home. It is easy to sit back in a padded chair with a comfy life and make judgments on these women - but get in the trenches with them for a little while and you'll see - they are women just like you.

Take It Easy

I had the misfortune today of finding something humorous that a child did -
The mother of the child who did it did not agree, and she let me know in no uncertain terms that her child struggled with "pride"........
Poor guy.
It was just a joke.
He was only teasing.
It was actually quite witty. It was clever.
It wasn't disrespectful or hurtful or disobedient in any way.
He was punished.

I have been scratching my head. I have never understood this kind of parent. This mother spoke of her son in his presence with her teeth gritted while I giggled at what he had done.
I wondered if her son's behavior had embarrassed her. Perhaps he is not the one struggling with pride after all.

Unburdening Myself

I feel in a funk today. There are lots of things that are weighing on me. I am not sure how to assimilate my thoughts in a cohesive manner - so I think I'll just make a list.

• I have a 10 yr old son who would like me to be a playmate to him. I don't know where to start and I feel that I am failing here with him.
  
• Financial burdens - everything is getting more and more and more expensive - from gas to groceries. Our income is not growing accordingly. In fact some of our income seems to be trickling in and I fear at times that it may never come. Each month I am spending money unnecessarily in late charges, etc. My husband needs to make a job change in order for us to progress financially - and he is very resistant to any change - whatsoever.
  
• I am starting to miss my mom - or maybe miss the idea of having a mom. I can't always put my finger on what brings this longing to the surface - but this time I do. Yesterday I overheard the conversation of a new friend and her sister who are going on an out of town trip together to a large TX flea market - and I could feel the pang instantly. Nobody can fix this - it is just how it is, and sometimes I deal with it but once in a while it comes up.
  

These are the big things - but right now little things like grocery shopping, planning menus, staying on top of laundry, etc. has become more of a burden than just a natural, easygoing part of the day. Just writing about it seems to have helped.

Don't Break a Mother's Heart

To have children, it is said is akin to knowing what it is like to have one's heart walking around outside of one's body. It is a strange sensation indeed. I am the mother to three children. In secret the Lord knit them in my womb. But they are not mine. They are His. And yet for some reason, the ties that bind me to these precious ones are elastic, and only stretch so far before snapping them back safely into my arms. The one thing that most threatens this elasticity is the love of another. God intended it to be so. There have been casual interests here and there, but nothing serious. Recently one child's eyes have begun to sparkle. She tells me that it is pretty casual interest right now, but knowing how much she is like her mother, I know she never does anything with her heart half in it. I know he loves the Lord and for that I am thankful. What I wish I could make him know is how precious she is to me, and to understand in the depth of his being, as Gracie Hart best said in Miss Congeniality:

And if anyone, anyone tries to hurt one of my new friends (insert word daughter here) , I would take them out ...

Y'all thought I was gonna get all spiritual, didn'tcha?

It appears they already have a "date" to go to the prom in April 2008 - should I be worried?

Ruth Bell Graham 1920-2007

Yesterday afternoon surrounded by her family and friends, one of the few women who could likely be called a saint in our day and time, left this earth bound for heaven. I was startled this morning when I read the news and heartbroken for her family who will certainly mourn her loss. When I watched the video on Fox News, a statement from her daughter was read, including several quotes that Mrs. Graham had made. It was so poignant, and being a lover of quotes - I will always remember fondly the woman who went counter-culture to model Christian womanhood:

Make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes.
~ Ruth Bell Graham

I Miss My Mom - CAUTION Revealing Post

This is indeed going to be a very revealing post about me. Perhaps because it's late, and I am feeling a bit vulnerable - but my heart is on my sleeve. Maybe I'll chicken out and never click the "add new entry" button, or even get up and delete it in the morning. If not, read with caution - there may be some things in here you just don't want to know, and if you comment, please comment gently, because my in this area, my heart is very delicate.
I grew up with a mentally ill mother. There it is - in black and white - I typed it. I have said it many times, but to put it down in black and white seems to make it more permanent somehow. I spent many years trying to cover up this simple fact, but the truth is that it really was never simple at all. As I have gotten older, and realized how abnormally she behaved, and how out of the ordinary our lives were, and refused any longer to live in the viscious cycle, things have gotten much more complicated.
A few years ago, right around this time - a few days after Christmas, my mom had a gastric bypass - but I didn't know about it because she wasn't speaking to me. (This is all a part of the cycle.) Within 48 hours of her surgery all of her major organs were failing, and a cousin called to tell me that my mother was in a coma. A girlfriend drove me the several hour trip to the hospital where she had the surgery, to see an unrecognizable form laying in a bed with every machine known to man hooked up to keep her alive. Early the next morning, I woke both my friend and myself up sobbing out loud in my sleep, crying over my mom.
For the next three months, every Sunday afternoon, my children and I took our little homeschool on the road. On Friday nights, when I would confirm that within a few hours my step-father would arrive to be by my mother's bedside, I would head home - to grocery shop, make 15 sandwiches for my husband (he eats 3 a day for 5 days!), and cook all our meals for the coming week - so my husband could also have a homecooked meal every night. I stayed by my mom's bedside, loving her the only way I knew how - bathing her, feeding her, putting her on a bedpan, learning to lift her out of bed, helping with her physical therapy, and just being a companion. I wish I could say that this made a difference in our relationship and in her heart - but, the same woman that had not spoken to me for a year or so preceding the surgery returned. It was just devastating.
So it has been for most of my adult life. I just celebrated the second Christmas in a row without her speaking to me. There are never any reasons that make sense to anyone else, so I will spare you, kind readers, the details. Fortunately, I am no longer a captive in the torture that befalls one living with a mentally ill person. There were times when I thought I was going crazy because the person in my life I most trusted would be so out of alignment with everything that seemed right and true. When I became a believer ten years ago, I really gave my heart, even the broken, confused and sick parts to the Lord and He alone has done a tremendous work there. But deep down inside, is a little girl who still needs a mom, and I am sad because I know she needs me too. I have tried to call her several times recently to no avail. I am reminded that the Lord says He will be a "Father to the fatherless", and I cling to that when I am hurting. But if you talk to Him, could you put in a word for me and tell Him, I miss my mom?