8 – Mom and Me

Dad,

In the letters you wrote me in the early years of my adulthood, you often accused me of relating to Mom as a child. You felt that I blamed her for all of my problems and wanted her to take care of me as if I was still a little girl. And you were angry with what you saw as my selfishness – you thought I only cared about myself and had no concern for Mom’s suffering.

I don’t think you ever understood how completely my life went off the rails when Mom turned away from me. She and I were incredibly close before she got sick. She was the center of my universe, just as she was the center of yours. But after she got sick, she didn’t seem to want to be close to me any more. She didn’t even seem to love me any more. I was in so much pain that I found it hard to function. Of course I blamed her. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t care about her suffering. I cared deeply. But I couldn’t see any way to help her. She wouldn’t even talk to me. I felt like I had to get away from her to save myself.

So I tried to live my life without her being part of it. But I struggled to find a way forward. I didn’t know how to forge a new path for myself. I think this is because I didn’t really want to go forward – I wanted to go backward. I wanted to go back to my old life, the life in which I was Mom’s beloved daughter, the life in which I had a home and knew where I belonged, the life in which I was happy and secure. I lost that life. I wanted it back so desperately that I became frozen in place, unable to move, waiting for Mom to come back to me. 

So in a way, you were right – I did want to return to childhood. But not because I wanted Mom to take care of me as if I was a little girl. Rather, I wanted Mom to love me again, to pull me close again, to be part of my world again. I tried so hard to involve her in my new adult life, but she was not interested. Eventually I came to accept that Mom was never coming back, at least not the Mom who raised me. 

In the letters you wrote me in later years, you expressed your belief that I pulled away from Mom in reaction to the horrible things she said when she was under the influence of an allergen. But by the time that behavior started, the damage was already done. I had already pulled away years before. The nasty things Mom said when she’d had an exposure just made me pull even further away. When I was with her, I was always afraid that she might attack me. My fear made me anxious and tense. I didn’t know how to not be hurt by the attacks.  I didn’t blame her for them, but I was terrified of them. You felt that as long as I remained afraid, I could never be close to Mom again. But I didn’t know how to not be afraid.

You kept trying to fix our relationship for us. But I knew Mom and I would have to find a way to repair the relationship ourselves. Every time you and I talked about it, we concluded that I needed to spend more time with Mom to rebuild our trust in each other. But you yourself made this difficult. When I called, you were reluctant to let Mom get on the phone, and when you did, you hovered in the background. When I visited, you tried to prevent Mom and me from taking walks without you, so it was hard for us to talk openly. You seemed to feel that you had to protect her from me.

Is it possible that you didn’t really want me to repair my relationship with Mom because you wanted her all to yourself and you had finally achieved that?  Was it your wall, more than either Mom’s or mine, that kept Mom and me apart?

Karen