Dammit, I didn’t want to be THAT person who can’t shake the death of her mother. I am, but it’s not for normal reasons. It’s deeply painful to admit there was no love when there should have been. If my mother never loved or wanted me, I had to respond in kind for my own survival. Eventually, anyway. The death of a parent is bad enough. Add to it mental illness exacerbated by age and issues of my own and you have a Dr. Phil marathon.
I turn 62 in less than a week. Please hold your applause. I’m a mature woman with a mortgage, certain conditions associated with a woman of my years and THEE world’s dumbest lawn guy who thinks a topiary is a rat-like puppet frequently featured on the old Sullivan show. I’m also a daughter and still a child. I can no longer run to the arms of my mother for guidance. But my reality is, I never could. The idea of me or my sisters even attempting to do that is coconuts. A child who never felt safe or secure grows into a woman who (in that regard) never felt safe or secure, so grieving a parent who would never allow her to feel safe or secure is a whole other ball game.
In the past month, I’ve learned to bristle when people who try to tell me my mother loved me and as a parent, did her best. No she didn’t. Abusive, neglectful narcissists are incapable of loving or exercising their best as a parent. And might I add, the person trying to shove this ill-timed platitude down my throat is either a complete rube or dealing with their own flawed childhoods courtesy of lunatic parents. We’re talking old school psychological projection and denial. Plus, that “they did the best they could,” excuse, minimizes a child’s pain and to a greater degree, enables that lack of parental love and concern.
I’ll catch hell for acknowledging that mine was a cruel, abusive mother. I’ll be told as I have just this past week how wrong it is to speak of the dead. Well, to that I’ll say the following: ours is a culture that worships baseball, moms and apple pie, unless the apples are racist and with names like Granny Smith and Red Delicious, I wouldn’t be surprised. It venerates parents and doesn’t question their sense of “love” for their children, yet will chastise the hell out of child who deigns to bring the topic into the light of day. I’m selfish, shameful and defying God by questioning for not unconditionally loving my parents and doing so in such a public forum.
Kids like me and countless others have few options. Most have to placate those around them with a forced narrative that their moms and dads were aces as parents. Nah…..Respect goes both ways. And yes, parents can respect their two year olds, even in the process of raising them well. Even with reasonable discipline. Fortunately for me, the mutual admiration society that can exist in normal mother/daughter relationships, never materialized. My mother never felt entitled to anything but to be caustic and torpedo things we wanted. to achieve. We had defined roles and mine wasn’t to make her feel better about the choices she made. That was one positive.
I’m not saying I was chained to a radiator, starved, burned with cigarettes or kept locked in a closet. How I was neglected and emotionally abused is personal and not up for debate. As more information comes forth, more memories are enhanced, even temporarily, my mother’s legacy becomes one of cruelty and control with a few nasty little IEDs triggered post mortem. These things are on her. She abandoned the role of being a loving mother before even becoming one. This was a fact she reminded us with amazing regularity. But what did three little girls all under the age of nine know about the genetic predisposition of mental illness and all its vile manifestations? Even though I might not have ever felt it it, I wanted the familial love and warmth I saw demonstrated saw on TV. That was my Donna Reed/early 60’s version of normalcy. By 1970, when Florence Henderson became America’s mom, I knew it was a lost cause.
So, what does a kid like me do? She grows up to become a major market TV and radio broadcaster who’s loved and adored by anonymous minions she’ll never ever have to meet.
You tell me—is there a better “safety net” in the world for the love starved? Please make sure your sarcasm detector is powered up to 11 when re-reading the above sentence.
