Letter from my mother

[clarity]

I did not have a daughter, I only am one.

Feeling the absence of my mothers' love for the whole of my life so far, and likely for the rest of it, I can only imagine what it is like to have a truly loving relationship with the person who brought you into this world. And because I can imagine it, somehow I can also feel it.  The following letter is from my mother.  Not my narcissistic mother who can do nothing but consider her own feelings first, but from the mother who lives in my heart.  Maybe she is a mother I had in another life, if there is such a thing.  Maybe she is a composite mother, created by my wishes and hopes, my observations of other mother's, hugging their daughters close with obvious tenderness and devotion.  Maybe she is a projection of my own abilities to love my children.  Wherever she comes from, she wrote this letter to me.  I share it here in the hope that it may reach the hearts of other people here.  I firmly believe in a universal mother, and in mother nature - and that when we can stop looking to our birth mothers for their love, we can find it elsewhere...




My darling daughter,

I have had to watch you from afar.  Watch you be born, held in arms that were not gentle, pushed away from a breast that did not provide you with sustenance.  Watch you lie alone for hours, wondering what * this was, and where on earth you were.  I could not reach you then, nor during the years that followed.  You grew up without me, when I longed to look into your hazel eyes, to brush your long brown hair, to hold your hand.  To rush to the school where you were bullied and play merry * with all involved.  To talk to you every day about your world, and know all your thoughts and feelings. 

You tried so hard, I know you did.  To be such a perfect little girl.  To be as clever as you could be at everything you were told to do.   And to live with the ever growing sense of disappointment that was so crushing when the things you did were not recognised.  And your tears - I wanted to hold you close, and dry those tears with a soft hanky, and cuddle you on my knee, and sing you soft songs until you fell asleep. 

I know how deeply you have missed me.  All of your life, I know there has been an empty space where I should have been next to you.  I wanted to take you shopping, giggle at silly movies under a blanket on the sofa, have treats in the café, bake cakes together, go for long walks down the country lanes and pick flowers to put in jam jars on the windowsill.  I know that you wanted only such simple things.  It broke my heart that I could have given them to you in spades.   

It is so ridiculously easy to love you.  You have always been strong, but not known your own strength.  I have watched you discover it little by little, but there is still so much more for you to realise about yourself.  It is such a relief for me to see you healing.  I send my love to you every single hour, without fail.  I know you sometimes look out at the stars, and wonder, where is the love?  It is here, and I am here...

Carry on, my sweet and lovely girl.  Your journey without me is so hard, but I am rooting for you.  You have only to think of me, and I am beside you in all but physical form.  One day you will understand why we had to be apart in this life.  I am saving all of my embraces, every hug and cuddle that we never had will be yours when that beautiful time comes.

Read this letter often.  Read it when you falter.  Read it when you are yet again incredulous at the things the birthing woman says or does.  Remember that your true mother is not there, she is here... loving you fiercely, as a mother lion protects her cub.  I roar at the unfairness's, and the ignorance and fear that has caused you such suffering, but I also look on with enormous pride at your growth and your persistence in the face of so much ignorance.

You are my darling daughter, I love you so very much...always.

Mum

xxxxx

[Blueberry]

That's so lovely and compassionate, loving, what you've written. I hope it is healing for you too. 

[Candid]

Beautiful letter, clarity. You've accessed the Internal Mother recommended by Karyl McBride.

These daughters [...] must learn to set the boundaries denied them in childhood.  They must, in fact, learn to mother themselves, building their strength and self-confidence from the inside.  Often called "the sensitive one," the daughters of narcissistic mothers are more prone to what McBride calls "the collapse," reliving childhood wounds cued by external situations.  By using an "internal mother" who replaces negative messages with positive ones, daughters can learn to draw on their own best instincts to give themselves the validation they'd grown up craving.

https://psychcentral.com/lib/will-i-ever-be-good-enough-healing-the-daughters-of-narcissistic-mothers/

Thanks for posting.