The Motherhood Myth

[Candid]

When I was at university I signed up for Human Development Across The Lifespan, a psychology subject. The text book was the first warning that it would be entirely focused on when things go right.  Four weeks into the semester I bailed out, unable to stomach any more about the interactions between mother and infant and how they bring about each completed developmental stage.  The enthusiastic lecturer, herself a mother, told us plenty of personal anecdotes about her children and encouraged other mothers in the lecture room to do the same. I sat there stewing and isolated in a space of empty chairs, alone again.

It wasn't the first time I'd thought about the motherhood myth that says all mothers love their children. It persists despite the worst cases of abuse occasionally making headlines, when a child has actually been battered to death. If that's the case, the word 'love' has no meaning.

In a tutorial where we were required to sit in pairs and answer certain questions, my 'buddy' patted my knee and said: "I'm sure your mother loved you." Afterwards I was furious. I should have said "I didn't realise you'd met", or, acidly, "are you intending to be some kind of counsellor or social worker?" Of course I said no such thing. Just went away with my stomach in knots, once again full of fury. Small wonder I isolate myself!

The myth has withstood centuries of infanticide and we who aren't actually killed are still the hidden ones, shut down virtually every time we try to speak. It persists because it's what the majority want to believe, and it reaches a crescendo each year on Mother's Day.

Mothering is the hardest job in the world, and I'm aware that many OOTS members are themselves in that role. But small wonder we approach each new therapist in fear of hearing we made too much of it, or we must have earned it, or all mothers have good days and bad days. Of course your mother loved you.

I've been in pain all my life over my relationship with my mother. In that time I've told very few people "my mother didn't love me". But it's worse than that.  I can think up dozens of incidents that show she actively disliked (hated?) me and got a kick out of inflicting emotional pain. She didn't have 'bad days' where my siblings were concerned. She encouraged them to treat me the way she did. My father followed her lead; he was at work five days a week. Her word was law. Candid, the bad one. Candid, the troublemaker. Candid who can never do anything right, Candid the sullen teenager. Candid who's off with any boy who asked her out, and we can all guess what she's up to, can't we?

Biggest regret? Most potent reason to beat myself over the head? It took me decades to wake up. I just wanted my mother to love me, and I didn't give up hope until a couple of years ago when the last of my siblings turned her back. I hadn't seen either of my parents for more than 20 years, and my dear old dad had died in the meantime. I knew I wouldn't be able to see him without her.

So no one contacts me any more. I'm too much trouble, and I let the two cousins with whom I have occasional contact treat me accordingly. My husband pushes me to keep in touch with them and I have no interest in clearing my name.

The Motherhood Myth is WRONG. Not all mothers love their children. All infants love their mothers -- it's that or die -- and in Human Development Across The Lifespan, that love changes and deepens from dependency to caring for the old girl in her declining years, a neat role reversal built on love.

But who am I to be writing about love? I've never felt loved. I know my husband loves me but it's an intellectual knowing, not visceral. And tbh, I stay only because I have nowhere else to go.  I didn't pass the developmental stages and I function about as well as a three-year-old, not driving, not cooking, unable now to work, avoiding people... Oh, the shame of my whole life!

[Three Roses]

my 'buddy' patted my knee and said: "I'm sure your mother loved you."

I'm sorry you had to go thru that. Those comments can leave us feeling like we've been kicked in the gut at the most private of moments, but in a room full of people all spouting the same text, I know I would have felt even more cut off, singular, odd.

It may have taken us a while to "wake up" but we're awake now and that's all that matters. We can't change the past and we can't know the future, but we can actively seek health and stability here in the present. We can work for ourselves to build, layer upon layer, a new and brighter future for ourselves. Loving ourselves is the greatest gift we can give ourselves. The rest will fall in place, following that.

[Candid]

we can actively seek health and stability here in the present. We can work for ourselves to build, layer upon layer, a new and brighter future for ourselves. Loving ourselves is the greatest gift we can give ourselves. The rest will fall in place, following that.

I can't get on the starting block, feel as though I've given up although my presence at OOTS says otherwise. My living conditions are dire. I think I'm waiting for a miracle.

Being able to drop the toxic shame and doing as you suggest above would certainly qualify as one.

ParrotMyPain, your post was a bit cryptic, to me. Can you elaborate?

[Candid]

Oooh, yuk. And yes, my mother went to great lengths to suggest she wanted to 'help' me. Because I'm quite mad, you know.

You might like this http://www.kellevision.com/kellevision/2009/05/the-scapegoat-as-truth-teller.html as validation.

[radical]

I also experienced my mother turning my siblings and extended family against me.  I was defenseless.  It cut me off from any avenues of family support.  I suppose, from her point of view, it was also a pre-emptive strike against anyone ever listening to me and posssibly critiquing her behaviour towards me.  It also shored-up her power in the family - scapegoating one member sends a powerful message about what could happen to anyone who doesn't tow the line.

On the website 'Psych Central' there is a blog by an author called Peg Streep:  https://blogs.psychcentral.com/knotted/

The same author has a different blog on 'Psychology Today:  https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/tech-support

Both are about unloving mothers and their unloved daughters.

[Kizzie]

Hi Candid - Mother's Day was by far the absolute worst day of the year for me, not in terms of my own family, but my mother.  My mother did not love me and deep inside I knew that but was required to keep up the sham to remain a member of the family.  I hated it and it tore me up and eventually I could not hide the truth from myself.  My mother did not love me.  That was the hardest truth to admit, process and then let go of any hope of ever having the mother I needed and deserved.  I had held onto that wish for decades. 

Personally I hope as Complex PTSD becomes better known that we can come out  more, that people will not say things like "Your M must have loved you" when we talk about our experiences.  Until then you can be both candid and Candid here 

[Candid]

It cut me off from any avenues of family support.  I suppose, from her point of view, it was also a pre-emptive strike against anyone ever listening to me and posssibly critiquing her behaviour towards me.

Yes. It also made me very reluctant to tell anyone what was going on for me. The fact that she pulled the wool over my father's eyes and convinced him I was bad was, I thought, the saddest thing... until my siblings dumped me.

Thanks for those links. I will check them out.

eventually I could not hide the truth from myself.  My mother did not love me.  That was the hardest truth to admit, process and then let go of any hope of ever having the mother I needed and deserved.  I had held onto that wish for decades. 

The Motherhood Myth is as pervasive and enculturated as any religion. As helpless children, we figure if Mother is always right, we must be very wrong. I know I always believed I was deeply flawed but no one would tell me why. Relationship was hard for me as far back as I can remember, because I was hesitant to inflict myself on anyone. Alas, I still feel the same way... not because I was born flawed, but because I'm so damaged. I find it virtually impossible to engage in normal conversation, and hate meeting new people.

Personally I hope as Complex PTSD becomes better known that we can come out  more, that people will not say things like "Your M must have loved you" when we talk about our experiences.  Until then you can be both candid and Candid here 

Thanks, Kizzie.  When I meet this trauma therapist, I expect to ask early in the piece whether s/he has experience in treating clients who were emotionally abused as children. If the answer is no, at least I can do some educating before I run for the exit.

[woodsgnome]

***this is almost all TRIGGERS, considering the topic***

Candid, your experience echoes my own; mine is to the point where I can't refer to either parent other than by the letters f and m...not 'mine'; I know, some will call this silly--'my' is just a 2-letter word, they'll say, but I feel better using the 1-letter reference. There is nothing but grief when the 'my' word is inserted; I literally can trigger big-time just saying it in the usual possessive way. The only claim to those 2 I wish to make is I got away. Sorry if that offends some, but it's how I survive, and I deserve that too.

I never heard the love word via the m, either (or from the f either; he seemed, though, to care a wee bit more). But I did, unfortunately, encounter references to what was called love several times at religious schools I attended (my educational outcome was 'how to spot hypocrites'). Love was all over, in word, but never in deed. So, like you, I'm still unsure of what love is but feel I'm getting closer lately (inner critic says "ya right, your'e just further away from the trauma years is all"). A good therapist has for sure helped me start to re-frame my entire life. Sigh--that's good, but it's also so tiring to have to do this. None of us ever asked for a full-time job just to recover from all this confusion and shame we carry into daily life long after.

Regarding the school stuff, emotional abuse was the core, but sexual abuse from female teachers happened in grades K (first day), 3, & 4--in the 4th grade it caused a noticeable change in mood to where I couldn't even go to school unless literally dragged. The f pulled me out, and for a while I was in the care of a wonderful outside therapist to which the f took me (even though the school didn't 'believe' in that kind of thing).

Still, all the parents liked was that I was declared 'normal'. I never could tell them the sexual abuses (partly as I didn't realize fully what was happening; no trust with them, but the T must have figured this out, and I was returned to the school demons. After, the overt sexual abuse stopped, but the emotional seemed rampant as always.

To backtrack the m was an abuser from my first memory; and while her overt sexual abuse abated after the therapist meetings, just like the school people the emotional part escalated and ranged from overt to covert to abandonment. In some ways the abandonment was welcome; until I recall how lost I still was about the lack of this thing referred to as love or even affection. I won't mention later stuff with male teachers, given this thread's theme, and my bottoming-out mood in reciting this horrible litany.

I tell of those times only to offer empathy for what you've felt, Candid--just writing about it requires some careful after-care. I wish you the best with your therapist experience. As mentioned, mine has allowed me to reach the edge of feeling human. I wonder what it must be like to feel wholly human, and loved.

[Candid]

The only claim to those 2 I wish to make is I got away. Sorry if that offends some, but it's how I survive, and I deserve that too.

You surely do. So do I. And both us us deserve so much more than endlessly writing about what went wrong for us.

I never heard the love word via the m, either (or from the f either; he seemed, though, to care a wee bit more).

M said "I love Candid" in front of witnesses but I never heard I love you. F definitely cared more and was fairer, but he still saw me as the difficult child... because M said so.

emotional abuse was the core, but sexual abuse from female teachers happened in grades K (first day), 3, & 4

I'm so sorry to hear this. After parents, I think teachers must be the chief source of self-esteem. :huh:

... the emotional part escalated and ranged from overt to covert to abandonment.

I know all about that! Now that I'm stronger, and clearer in what happened back then, whole-FOO abandonment pains me. I'd like a chance to tell them the way it is, but clearly they're not interested.

I won't mention later stuff with male teachers, given this thread's theme, and my bottoming-out mood in reciting this horrible litany.

I feel the trigger, and hope you're able to post about it elsewhere.

[Kizzie]

Now that I'm stronger, and clearer in what happened back then, whole-FOO abandonment pains me. I'd like a chance to tell them the way it is, but clearly they're not interested.

It's such a bitter pill to swallow isn't it? We finally figure things out and are then faced with the hard truth that they will not ever hear/ acknowledge what we have to say.  I think that's why coming here is so helpful for me, I don't feel like I am alone with this huge loss any more, that others know what I feel and it does make a difference.

[movementforthebetter]

Ugh. Hugs, and condolances, to everyone on this thread. I am in the same boat - actively resented by my M growing up. Now she makes sweet but never acknowledges the past. Her birthday is near mother's day, meaning I feel anxious for most of every May.