Growing up, I didn’t see the effects of my mother not being around… At least I didn’t want to see it. I learned very young in my childhood how to numb the pain. I remember being about five or six years old before my parents officially split; my mother used to be gone for days running the streets. When she did return, she and my dad used to fight nonstop about her not coming home. I went from wondering when mommy was coming home to praying that she wouldn’t come home so we wouldn’t have to endure the trauma. I think that’s when I started to build this wall… So imagine… at five, I began to learn how to survive… I was a child, clueless about what was happening in my family or why it was happening. No one was talking to us; I mean, why would they? We were babies.
Life was never easy for us; very traumatic moments and unstable.
My dad did the very best that he could, but even with that added trauma. He moved his Mom in to help raise my brothers and me. My grandmother was my mother; when you saw her, you saw me. She filled the void of my mother until I was ten, and then she passed away…
Now my heart was broken… again…
I was motherless… again…
I was devasted; my father was so worried about me. He wasn’t sure how I was going to deal with this loss. The wall got higher…
After my grandmother’s death, my mother decided to fight my dad for custody. We were in the court system for a while, having all sorts of ACS workers popping in on us and the fear of being taken away from my father. My mother was granted weekend visitations, every other holiday, and two weeks in the summer. When we were with her, sometimes we were good, but most time we spent fighting… I spent most of that time with my (maternal) grandmother and family, who I have always been close to. I don’t remember why… those are part of the memories I blocked out.
The visitation lasted for a few years, and as I got older, my mother stopped coming for us. I would see her in passing or at my grandmother’s house. I spoke to her occasionally or when she needed something. My brothers formed their relationships with her. On the other hand, I was tired of being hurt and had so much anger built up that I didn’t allow her to get close to me.
Transparent moment: I just realized this in my current season. Not all triggers are bad… So I am currently working through this… and it’s a lot to unpack. But I am using the tools I learned in therapy to work through it.
The effects of not having my mother growing up are showing up a lot lately, especially since I started my healing journey and tearing down the wall built over the years. Healing happens in layers. As I continue to tear down the walls, I learn more and more about who I am. I always say that healing isn’t always pretty, and my experience isn’t the prettiest. Re-living much of my childhood trauma and resurfacing things I blocked out is hurtful. This past weekend was Mother’s Day, and it felt as if the floodgates were left open. All these feelings I never dealt with resurfaced. But I now have the proper tools to deal with them…
I am currently working through the following:
Abandonment issues: According to Web MD
“Abandonment issues happen when a parent or caregiver does not provide the child with consistent warm or attentive interactions, leaving them feeling chronic stress and fear. The experiences during a child’s development will often continue into adulthood. This is why abandonment issues become more prevalent as you age and can affect your relationships.”
I realized that I was so used to being abandoned that I didn’t allow people to get too close to me. I wouldn’t let people love on me because I was afraid they would eventually leave me too. If my mother & sperm donor could leave me, why wouldn’t anyone else? This caused me to act out in ways I honestly didn’t understand. When people loved on me, I found myself giving attitude instead of being grateful. (There goes that wall I spoke about in part 1.) This revelation came to me on my 35th birthday as I was sitting in St Lucia with some of the closest people to me on a surprise bday trip planned by my best friend. A reality check! It hurt me to the core. 1- That I was treating people that loved me this way 2- That I couldn’t let people love on me because of my fear of abandonment. Whew.
Regarding my intimate relationships, I only allowed one person to get close to me where I was emotionally invested. It was in my early teenage years. I found someone I could trust and relate to because he had mommy/daddy issues. (This is also another sign of trauma, I’ll save this for another post) So when that relationship went left, I was devasted, but I clung to that relationship for way longer than I should have. Because here we go again, somebody who claimed to love me abandoned me. It was an off-and-on relationship for a very long time; it took me years to realize that staying in that relationship was doing more harm to me than good. I started feeling insecure about myself and working overtime to prove I was the one. When I built the courage to walk away from that relationship, I only engaged in situation-ships because I felt like I was in control and the one doing the rejecting…
Because I refused to allow anyone else to hurt me, but the truth was I was having difficulty feeling intimate emotionally.
The wall I had been building since I was five was so high I couldn’t see the top anymore. The wall was built to keep out the hurt, betrayal, abandonment, insecurities, etc. The anger & pain that was trapped in those walls with me took over. I didn’t even know it, but I became very codependent. I was transforming into someone I didn’t even recognize.
Codependency: According to Mental Health of American
“Codependency is a learned behavior that can be passed down from generation to generation. It is an emotional and behavioral condition that affects an individual’s ability to have a healthy, mutually satisfying relationship. It is also known as “relationship addiction” because people with codependency often form or maintain relationships that are one-sided, emotionally destructive, and abusive.”
Codependency shows up for me as the following, being a people pleaser, always looking out for others before myself, being a caregiver to all, even those that were undeserving of it, being extremely self-critical, ignoring my feelings and numbing them. As a child, that was through food; as an adult, it was through alcohol. I had trouble setting boundaries; better yet, what were boundaries?! Intimacy, open communication, trust, and speaking up for myself became hard. Instead of dealing with issues, I would avoid them altogether, which ruined many relationships. I used to rave about being a perfectionist (something I still struggle with). I needed to have structure and certainty.
I had no idea these things stemmed from my childhood trauma. We grew up when parents didn’t feel the need to talk to children, and we didn’t have a voice. What happens in this house stays in this house. Don’t you dare speak on it! How would I?
I am incredibly grateful for therapy because it has helped me recognize these traits and equipped me with the proper tools to work through them. We are talking about 30+ years of trauma… I have overcome some of these already … but I am still on this journey and working through some today.
This is your reminder that healing is a journey, not a destination. One that you must choose and commit to be on. It’s bumpy; it’s filled with toss and turns, walls that need to be broken down, tears that need to be shed, habits that need to be broken, and time to unlearn EVERYTHING that no longer serves us. It’s time to break the chains of your past and allow yourself to evolve into the absolute best version of yourself.
It’s time to become your own SUPERWOMAN! Your inner child needs you!
XO,
Moe
