This post looks back at the recent US Holiday, “Mothers Day”, and the challenges it creates for survivors of trauma with a mother wound.
How are you feeling today?
Do you have a complex relationship with today being Mother’s Day?
I know I do, and I thought I’d write this piece for those of you who feel the same. Those of you who didn’t have loving mothers.
Not all mother’s deserve to be celebrated on this day.
I wish I could say that I had a good mother, but the truth is I didn’t.
My mother told me repeatedly that I was unwanted and she wished I had died when I was born.
There was a mother in the hospital bed next to hers, who gave birth to twins too early. Both boys didn’t make it. My mother wished I had died with them since I was born early too.
But I survived.
She offered to take me to their gravestone several times. To show me what should have happened to me too.
To be profoundly unwanted leaves a mark like no other. It’s imprinted in my soul.
I cannot celebrate a mother who wished me dead.
I’ve spent all my life getting away from my parents because they both hurt me in the most profound way through physical and emotional abuse and neglect.
Not only did my mother not want me, but she openly encouraged my so-called father to do the things he did to me. My mother knew, and yet she handed me to him. Gave her permission for him to hurt me.
A mother who hands her only daughter to a sex-offender doesn’t deserve to be celebrated.
When I told her what my so-called father did to me with his pedophile friends — she laughed in my face. She called me a liar with a vivid imagination. That it was my fault.
That is unforgivable.
I cannot celebrate a mother like that today.
My so-called father and his pedophile friends raped and killed a ten-year old girl next to me. I was only eight when it happened.
A week later, I witnessed a twenty-seven year old woman be raped and drowned.
I told my mother, but she wouldn’t listen.
I cannot celebrate a mother who covers up murderers.
I cannot celebrate a mother like that today.
I was bullied throughout school because we moved away from the south but my accent wouldn’t change. I didn’t belong, and the kids showed me how much they hated me every day.
I was punched, kicked and my clothes were scorched while I was still wearing them. My burns got infected, but mother would not take me to the doctor. We had no insurance, so I was left to suffer.
A mother who allows her daughter to be bullied and physically hurt doesn’t deserve to be called a mother.
I cannot celebrate a mother like that today.
When I miscarried my father’s secrets, my mother refused to get me help. I’m lucky to be alive today, after suffering the pain of three miscarriages without medical help.
My mother let me suffer the pain and the shame without any help. She turned away when I needed her the most.
I cannot celebrate a mother like that today.
She wanted me gone from her house, to have her new husband and baby son to herself. I was too young to work and I had no other choice but to stay.
A mother who rejects her child is not a mother.
I cannot celebrate a mother like that today.
When I was eighteen the law stated that I was no longer a minor. My childhood prison was lifted and I left them and everything I’d ever known.
I’ve never looked back.
I started my life again in a new place.
A new home.
I went to the cops and told my story. The sex-factories. The pedophile ring — everything I saw and suffered. The cops listened. They made lengthy records and tapes. They got my hospital records. My childhood years pried wide open. In the end it’s my word against them.
The police advised against going to court. Who will believe my voice?
I told my mother what I had done. She refused to believe me despite everything.
I cannot celebrate a mother who doesn’t believe the truth.
I cannot celebrate a mother like that today.
I studied at college and became a teacher. My writing was still something I kept to myself. I met somebody special.
I married him and we had children.
I never thought my body could produce one child, let alone two healthy babies. I see them as the most precious gift that I was given.
I am a mother who give my children everything I can.
I love them both deeply and I remind them of that every single day.
I talk to them about their lives, about school and their struggles. I help them with homework and problems. We figure it out together as a family.
Today is mother’s day.
I can celebrate myself as a mother with my family.
I can celebrate me.
My name is Lizzy. I’m a trauma survivor, a wife, a mom, a teacher, and an author.
Photo by Dmitry Shulga on Unsplash
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More from Elizabeth Woods:
- The Sex-Offender’s Daughter
- Trauma and its Effect on the Brain
- Continued: Trauma and its Effect on the Brain
- This is How IT Feels
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For more about me: https://www.elizabethwoodsauthor.com
Elizabeth Woods grew up in a world of brutal sex offenders, murderers, and inconceivably neglectful adults. Elizabeth is passionate about spreading awareness of what it is like to survive after trauma. She is the author of several books and has written her memoir, telling her childhood story: The Sex-Offender’s Daughter: A True Story of Survival Against All Odds, available on Amazon Kindle and paperback.
Elizabeth is also the author of “Living with Complex PTSD” and the Cedar’s Port Fiction series: “Saving Joshua”, “Protecting Sarah”, “Guarding Noah” and “Bringing Back Faith,” and “Restoring Hope,” available here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0BCBZQN7L/allbooks?ingress=0&visitId=7e223b5b-1a29-45f0-ad9d-e9c8fdb59e9c&ref_=ap_rdr&ccs_id=931f96e2-c220-4765-acc8-cc99bb95e8bd
Elizabeth,
Thank you for this post. Even though my trauma with the woman who brought me into this world was nothing like yours, it was bad. Even though that woman died last year, Mother’s Day comes and goes without a thought from me.
All of my life, I tried to be a good daughter but she wouldn’t let me. She pushed me away at every attempt on my part to connect with her. When I stopped trying, she cut me out of her will and her life.
She contracted dementia in her last years but it didn’t stop the Narcissistic behavior. Her last phone call to me was an attempt to get me to get her car keys back as she was unable to drive. When I told her she was talking to the wrong daughter as she’d given all of the money and authority to her other daughter, I never heard from her again.
So, even though our circumstances are wildly different, I relate to your inability to celebrate a mother who would treat a precious child as she did. My only thoughts of my so-called mother are that I am glad she is dead so that my life is free from her taint. I am sad she was such a miserable person who, instead of cherishing her children, did her level best to alienate them.
Even though I didn’t have a real mother, I look at people around me and am happy they did get a mother who is worth celebrating.
Thank you for your continued courage to tell your story. I always look forward to reading your posts. They give me hope. Know what you write matters.