I love my mother - ever since she died
For a long time I had wondered how I react when the final call comes. Whether I laugh or breathe in relief. How many times had I been convinced that I would stand by her grave and rejoice that she is finally gone, forever and irretrievably.
The call came on a November Sunday, and when my sister said, "Mom is dead," I just collapsed and cried for hours about the woman my mother was. At that moment, I did not cry for my mother. But about our missed opportunities. Until recently I had hoped she would apologize to me, tell me that she loves me. Now it was too late. I wanted so much to be loved by her.
My mother did everything possible for anyone outside the family to hear how great she was. Outwardly, she played the Perfect, and we played along. But inside the house she was the woman who seemed to hate everything. And she lived it out, including us children. If she did not like something, she just struck. That's how I grew up. I did everything not to irritate her. My stepfather eventually left the family; he could at least go.
My mother was cruel.
On the day she heard how proud I am of my long hair, she cut her off in my sleep at night. There I was twelve. When a friend was allowed to stay with me, she asked me if we had fun. I said yes, and she got out and slapped me. "Now you can go back to your room and have fun." I was eleven.
Then in between something like love, quite abruptly. One thing I remember very well: On my 14th birthday she gave me a wonderful necklace, and I thought: She loves me yet. I was ready in a moment to forgive her for being so happy. But when she saw my joy, she took the chain from me again and said I did not deserve it.
When I later saw the film "Schindler's List" at some point, it suddenly became clear to me who the cruel camp commandant Amon Göth reminded me. It was the same pattern my mother pursued. Arbitrariness. Hate. You could not follow any rules. I suspect that her own limits were exceeded and then she knew no more. It was not healthy for us children. My three siblings and I could not rely on anything or anyone. Our feelings changed sometimes every second.
She insulted and derided me.
As a child, I moved more and more into dream worlds. I dreamed of another life. I imagined I had a good mother and always hoped she would. At some point I did not let her get to me, showed no emotions.
After I was old enough to move out, I did not call her, hang up when she called. The result was that she literally terrorized me with her calls until I collapsed. I brought her money, because she always had high material claims and was therefore chronically broke, I paid her bills and never heard a thank you. She insulted and derided me. I was successful in her job, she wanted me, she told me, "to land in the gutter". I always went back to her. Because I'm sorry. Because she was my mother. Because I hoped she would change. I had learned to deal with pain.
But then, many years ago, I fell ill, was in therapy. I broke off the contact then really and finally. After that I felt better and better. I breathed. The evil was under control.
Until the call came.
Famous people expressed their condolences to me, wished strength in this very difficult time, I just thought: If they all knew how she was. You could not tell the truth to anyone. I was embarrassed that nothing was normal. Then the conversation with the pastor. What should he say? My sister and I tried to explain our mother to him. I felt like he thought we were exaggerating.
We selected a beautiful urn and a beautiful tree in a burial forest. Despite everything, I thought: We have to get our mother well under the ground. I stuck to the phrase, "That's right." At least I needed normality in the course of these things, I wanted to regulate everything as "normal" families would have done.
In fact, it was the first time that anything in our family had been ordered.
Suddenly I could see her with different eyes.
Then we were in mom's apartment. I went to her bedroom, saw her bed, there was her pajamas. I thought: It smells like mom. Something rose up in me that I did not know before. It took a few minutes for me to figure out what it was: a sense of love. I can not explain why. I only know that it was there.As if it were possible now. Now that she was gone.
Then the anger exploded inside me. I beat up on the bedding, screaming that I miss her and over and over again, "Why?" Why did not she get help? Why did not she realize that something went wrong? There would have been possibilities! Could I have helped her? If yes how? I did not know it. But at that moment I knew that I desperately wanted a mother. A real mother. None to bring flowers to avoid being beaten. I wanted this mother now, right now, on the spot. I touched every object in the apartment. I wanted her back for anything in the world and by force. So we could start over. I hoped to find a message somewhere. But there was nothing. Nothing at all. Only she was everywhere.
Later, after I calmed down, I looked at old photos with my sister. And suddenly I could see my mother with different eyes. How sad she looked in many pictures. How much she drank. Maybe because that was really the only way to deal with their own story.
Eternal anger or peace close?
I slowly realized that I had exactly two options - either I would run around with this anger all my life, wear myself down and rub myself in the memory of the evil, be angry about the fact that I did not have a real mother. Or I made my peace with her. Accepted that she was the way she was. Adopted the fact. And just loved her. It was easier - now.
Maybe she even tried to be good, but she did not succeed. Maybe that's why she has shown something like love in between, even if only briefly. The answer will not be given to me anymore, but I have chosen the second option. Also because - it sounds weird, but it's the truth - I'm so grateful that they can not do anything to me, can not hurt me anymore.
I paint our own picture in bright colors.
I made my peace with her. It was very strange, and it took a while, but now it works well. Sometimes I look up in the evening and nod to her. Sometimes I talk to her too. Tell her that I love her. That was very new and unfamiliar, but also very nice. I picture my head pictures, imagine how we laugh together, that she says "I love you", draw scenarios in which we have a wonderful mother-daughter relationship in which love and trust, caring and for each other there -To play a big role. I paint our own picture in bright colors. It is very possible that it will be very nice.
And I look at a picture of her every day, which is now on my desk. It shows her in Baltrum in 1962. She walks in shorts and blouse with a beach bag and flowers happily smiling along the beach promenade.
I think she was happy there.
I hope so, it was her.
And hope it is now.
Contradictory feelings: That's what the psychotherapist says
Asked by Dr. med. Corinna Dieterich. She is psychotherapist for individual and group therapy and has practiced since 2002 in her own practice in Hamburg.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Should one love a mother who behaved so cruelly, despite everything - even if, as here, only after death?
Corinna Dieterich: Yes. And that can be very important. Children often have the ability to internalize loving and appreciative moments of togetherness and to preserve them as a great treasure. During the period of mourning there is often an emotional chaos of affection, but also hatred, resentment and guilt. If, on the one hand, there is a desire to make peace? but feelings of hate are felt, then it is about the acceptance of these conflicting feelings. For many people, the fear arises that the often confusing, contradictory and threatening feelings are not sustainable or even harmful. The opposite is often the case. Funeral rites can make a significant contribution to the inner departure from the deceased, to irretrievably missed opportunities, to unfulfilled desires. The author of the story can now accept the past that has shaped her into what she is now. With what has succeeded, and what she had to do without.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Is there a danger that someone with such a childhood story will become a human being later on?
Nobody becomes just like his parents. But through such a relationship experience in the formative childhood emerge inner states of feeling and behavioral patterns that affect the formation of one's own relationships. Often, until adulthood, the ability to develop with one's own needs may not develop sufficiently, as many antennas are directed at the others. This can lead to self-alienation. The confrontation with one's own life history seems to me crucial. The author has chosen this path. She has dared a therapy. She went to the funeral of the mother. She has written this article.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Why do people so often try to find explanations and excuses for being their own parents? Can not you just be angry?
Both emotions are significant. To be angry about what has been denied or done to you is part of the process. No man exists only out of what has been done to him. If one engages in the exhausting argument, it may become possible to mourn the missed and gratefully acknowledge appreciative, loving experiences.
