#Mother Daughter Issues

[angelunderheaven]

"you still belong to me"

[insanity-at-its-peak]

Mom, dad…

You’ve made me sick, that babygirl you raised? That you constantly complain about - “we’ve given her the world!! What else could you possibly want or need!!” - yet whenever she tries to explain to you all about what you’ve done wrong you don’t listen?

Shes gone, shes gone once and for all!

Surely she will crawl up back on the surface from time and time and cry to me telling me all about how she wants to call for mom and dad, to have dinner with them that she always yearned for, or about how she wishes she would fit into that blue circle table from when she was the smallest she ever were, crafting her time away with mom, or to see her dad fishing, his favourite, though she never liked sitting on that small uncomfortable chair when the weather was always either too warm or too cold.

But i wont let her, because i know how to treat her better than you ever have. Because i know the moment i let her walk into that same house after years, when she sees all the photos on the wall, or when she walks into her room only to find it tidy with the lights still open indicating that they want to feel as if shes still there, the same thing they did when she was away at the hospital, her parents being calm, finally being calm after she was begging them for peace in that household for years and years, thats when she will break to pieces.

Because as much as that little girl wants to hate you, wants to ruin you mentally and physically for the sake of you finally understanding just how bad its been - she also wants to cry. She wants to take the chance she never had and actually be comforted by her parents.

But i wont let her, ill keep that babygirl locked in my heart forever, ill keep her there with her favourite toys and songs, she’ll forever be dancing and playing, my boyfriend will be the one to walk in my heart and play with her, my boyfriend will be with me when i decide to let her walk out of my heart, creep up on my eyes and let her tears flow.

Not you, it’ll never be you, ever again.

[anxiousangerball]

Shadow Work

Shadow Question 1:

When did you stop loving yourself?

My response is below. I'm posting it because...well fuck. If I'm going this work for me. I guess I can do whatever I want with it. I'm posting on a whim. Maybe I'll regret it. Maybe I won't.

Unimportant!

The question is for whoever wants to play around with it. (Be gentle on yourself. This journey is already hard enough.)

That one time I lied to my mom.

I was four…maybe five. I cannot remember if my baby brother had been born yet.

Mom was in a bad mood.

She didn’t handle her bad moods very well. She had been taught that being angry was shameful.

Trouble is, anger happens. You can’t stuff that shit deep down and ignore it.

If you do that, then you do things like my mom would do. She would stuff a little bit of anger down each day, and that anger couldn’t get going anywhere.

That little ball of anger inside of her would increase in size.

Soon, it would be too big for her to contain, although she was still making the effort:

She’s doing her thing, not showing how angry she is about all the things, but we, in the household, all knew. We knew when an explosion was about to detonate. We knew. We could feel it in the air of the home. Miserable.

Finally. FINALLY, all of her anger would explode, she would yell, she would lecture, she would cry. She would threaten to run away. Not in that order, of course. (The threat to run away, though...that one always hurt me most.)

Once she'd gotten all that anger out of her system, things would be okay again...until her collection of anger was too big for her body again.

None of this is good or healthy. In case you were wondering.

So, this one evening, Mom was in a bad mood, but it wasn’t bad enough yet to subdue my older sister and I as we got ready for bed.

Our bedrooms were upstairs from the living area of the house, and we were able to hear our parents coming up the stairs. We had been fooling around – a bit hyper, a bit bouncing off the walls. We heard our parents start up the stairs, and I dashed back to my own room, my own bed. I leapt upon the bed and pulled all the covers over me.

I was playing. This was a play action. I was inviting my parents to play hide and seek – of a sort - with me.

Neither of them accepted my invitation to play. My Dad was chill. He didn’t do anything beyond finally kiss me good night after I’d excavated myself out from underneath the blankets.

My mom’s mood had gotten even more sour – I could feel it in the air. So I apologized. I actually said I was sorry for messing up the blankets on my bed – they were all out of order because of how I’d been roughhousing.

My mom said “yeah, well you lie a lot, too.”

(Quick note here. Either my hearing or my auditory processing was never strong. I think auditory processing issues are the culprit, but who knows? All I know is that that is what I heard my mom say. I could be mistaken. I mention it only because, also around this age, there was a moment when I dashed up to my dad to tell him something of vital importance to me. He said “What’s up” I heard “Shut up.” It’s a thing. But, we’re going with what I’m sure I heard my mom say. Because that’s what I reacted to. Hearing my mom say “yeah, and you lie a lot, too.”)

Another aside, I already understood that I had a tenuous relationship with the truth. That, in my mind at the age of 4, was gospel. I struggled with telling the truth. Also, I was a bad child. (I was being raised in a strict Catholic household. I was never going to get out of there with self-confidence intact.) The point is – I could easily believe my mom said such a thing to me because I already understood that I struggled with being honest.

She kissed me good night, turned out my light and went back downstairs.

I started sobbing.

My older sister heard me from her room and tried to figure out what was going on and how she could get me to stop. She had no success. She went down and summoned our folks.

My mom tried to get to the bottom of why I was crying, and I couldn’t tell her. I felt absolutely unable to articulate why I was crying. I didn’t want to tell her that I was crying because I was a liar. (full disclosure, I have no clue how my mom would have reacted if I had said “I’m crying because you said that I lie a lot. I know that that is true, but now I think that are going to stop loving me because I’m an absolute crap human being.” But you know…how a 4 year old would say it.).

So, I didn’t tell her. She was already angry. Then, AFTER BEDTIME! She had this irrational child that she couldn't understand, who wasn’t giving her anything at all to work with. She finally left me to my dad’s care and stomped off back downstairs.

My dad finally managed to get me to calm down. I still couldn't bring myself to admit why I was so upset over the fact that I was a liar and a crap human (honestly – I believed for many many years that I was going to burn in hell because of what an awful person I was. The church always told me how awful I was. I believed them. I am so grateful that, when I was in my 20s, I came to the conclusion that no one should be made to feel so profoundly miserable on a weekly basis by visiting their chosen house of worship. So, I stopped going. Because I deserve to not feel miserable. I really fucking do. No one should feel miserable when worshipping. I will die on this hill.).

I couldn’t tell my dad anything, but at least I'd stopped. He convinced me to talk with my mom again, because my being upset had upset her. It would make her feel better, he said, if she could give me another good night kiss (paraphrasing here, if you couldn’t guess. This is gist, not the actual conversation).

We go downstairs, and I had another conversation with my mom. I still would not tell her why I had been so upset. Mom kept offering guesses. Finally she suggested that I was jealous that my older sister had just gotten new flannel sheets for her bed, but I hadn’t. I told her that that was it. That was why I was so upset.

(As established above, that was not why I was upset. Also established above, I was a lying liar who lies, apparently. I just didn’t want to tell her that she had made me cry because of what she said. I do not know why that meant so much to me.)

So, she promised that, as soon as our budget could handle it, she would buy me a set of flannel sheets as well.

That was a terrible night. My mom called me a liar and then I proved her right. That’s heavy stuff for a four year old. But, because I couldn’t figure out a way to tell my mom what was actually going on, I hated myself even more than I had.

I think that is when I stopped loving myself. What an irredeemable person I was! (Again...I was four. I remember certain things. I remember how that sadness clung in my throat and it ached, ached, ached. I remember the shame. Should a four year old be able to hold that much shame? At that age? I blame the Catholic Church for the assist, along with my mom for her own traumatic upbringing that caused her to hurt those she loves.)

(Not that my dad gets a pass in my childhood…we all made plenty of choices we regret. It’s just…this was a story about me and my mom. And when (and why) I stopped loving myself.)

You know what I hate the most? I don't believe my mom's love is steadfast. I think I will lose it by doing or saying the wrong thing. By making the "wrong" choice. (And "wrong" is just code for something she doesn't agree with. If I had come home with a same sex significant other, that would have been a wrong choice. Just for example.) I feel very tentative around my mom - leaning in to politeness so as not to give offense. I guess I don't want to lose her love, even if I think the way she is choosing to live her life is close minded and bigoted.

What the hell is that? I hate the choices she's making. I HATE them. I am so embarrassed and ashamed that someone who taught me to be kind and empathetic, someone who led my scout troop, and taught us all feminism 101 for fucks sake (holy wow were we feisty when we were pre-teens. I miss that optimism and courage.), someone who was one of my best fucking friends when I was an older teen into my twenties, has grown to be so fucking unkind. That meanness is there there. It's there in how she votes. It's there in how she talks about people different from her. IT'S MOTHERFUCKING THERE WHEN SHE - WITH HER FULL CHEST - PICKETS OUTSIDE OF THE LOCAL ABORTION CLINIC. WHAT THE EVER LOVING FUCK, MA?! HOW VERY DARE YOU BE SO FUCKING MEAN!!!

This woman pisses me off.

But, also. She's my mom. And I want her to still be my family. I want her to consider me to be her family. But she's grown to be so fucking awful. And I look at her and I feel - in with all the frustration and anger - I feel pity. This fucking woman. She's doing her best, but religion has rotted her brain. She thinks she's being righteous. She goes to mass on the daily, she prays her rosary, she completes so so many acts of service. She reads her bible She reads other religious tomes. She tithes to the church and donates to charity. She thinks she is being good. But when we try to point out her bigotry, she can't hear it. She can't take it in. She won't even try. She's scared. She's being left behind in a world that is adapting because it has to. She's clinging to what makes her feel safe, but her sense of safety HURTS others. It fucking damages others.

I love this woman, but she breaks my heart. I fear her final abandonment of me, even as I don't agree with her current morality. I hate this. No stars. Cannot recommend.

[devouringghoststhatfloat]

My Mother's Love Wavers

Inspired by Milk by Allie X

Mom used to tell Andy and me that when we were babies, she would hold us for so long that her arms became numb. She had to reluctantly  hand us off to Dad until her arms regained feeling and then she would do it all over again. I was an easier baby than Andy, but to both of our credit, we never really caused too much grief when we were younger. I was fussy when she left my crib for too long and I didn't like the prune juice they used to feed me, but that was it. Mom loved to brag about how lovely of a baby I was. 

She and Dad would get compliments from my teachers in elementary school gushing about how smart and sweet I was. Middle school was similar. I did my schoolwork, hung out with my friends, and stayed out of trouble. 

I had a good relationship with my parents. I remember one time I came home five minutes past curfew when I was 14, running into the house heaving from sprinting back from a friend's place after losing track of time. Mom was sitting at the kitchen counter in her robe and pajama pants typing away on her laptop. The second I saw her I began to spew apologies and promises of "never again" through short breaths. She looked at me with a stern face before breaking out into laughter. She stood up and wrapped her arms around me and kissed my head and told me not to worry so much. She had no reason not to trust me. When I walked up the stairs, she patted my head and told me to get some sleep. 

I started lying when I was 16. Realistically, I'd lied before, but never on a scale like that. In Mom's eyes, the two of us were friends. When the sun went down, we would take my car to the pier and smoke cigarettes and drink gross indie beer I stole from the fridge in our garage. We would kiss. It never went farther than that. When we returned to my house, we would hop in the shower and scrub our bodies raw to rid ourselves of the smell of cigarettes. I would brush my teeth and scrub my tongue until it bled so there would be no evidence of my sins. 

It was my senior year of high school when Mom found out. It was mid-April and I had just turned 18. Andy was back in town for the week and Mom decided that she would bring him and surprise me after school. 

I didn't see Mom and Andy standing near us. It was only a kiss goodbye. No cigarettes. No beer. No shared showers. The color on my face drained when I turned around to walk the other way and Mom was standing there. I thought I would vomit, and looking back, if someone had looked into that very moment it would be funny. Our expressions were probably the same and Andy just stood next to her knowing I made a grave mistake. That night was rough, she told Dad, and he had reacted the same way as Mom. Bloodless faces and two mouths pressed in a hard line. 

It was never really the same after that. 

We managed to be civil through graduation and the subsequent summer, and by the time August rolled around I had flown halfway across the country for college. We didn't talk much after that. Maybe the occasional "do you need more money in your account for groceries?" But besides that, it was radio silence. 

It's amazing how quickly something can become conditional. Maybe her love was always conditional and I was just none the wiser. I don't think I'll ever know. 

Dad passed away after my first semester of college. His kidneys had been giving him problems for years. I was booked the first flight home. I had never felt more alone. Andy's flight didn't get in until the next afternoon, and I had just lost my father. Mom picked me up from the airport in tears, put my suitcase in the car, and silently drove home. 

The second we walked into the house I broke down into sobs that wracked through my entire body. For almost an entire year I was a child sucking on their thumb for comfort so hard that the skin puckered and pruned. The kind of kid who soothes their wounds by licking them and lapping up the blood until their knee stops bleeding. At night I would attempt to rock myself asleep to feel a semblance of maternal warmth. Now I was back in the presence of my mother and all I needed was her love. 

She stared at me for a second when I started to cry before sitting down on the couch. I walked over to her like you'd walk towards a frightened animal and slowly sank down into her lap. Between sobs I promised her I wouldn't push her away or do anything wrong ever again. I would be her golden child.

She pulled me closer to her and rocked me until I was so exhausted from crying that I fell asleep. And as I drifted off, I vaguely remember grabbing the hem of her shirt so tightly that my fingers turned white and prayed that she wouldn't let go of me again.

[mad-girlslove-song]

when ethel cain said “i tried to be good am i no good am i no good am i no good” which started with her self-loathing after being abused by her father and neil perry said “i was good. i was really good” and then he killed himself because he knew that he would never be good enough for his father

[ultrainfinitepit]

Moon Cycle 2 - a redraw of this piece.

[onceifixmehesgonnamissme]

no one will ever understand the love-hate relationship between a mother and her daughter

[pendwelling]

One day, my little brother brought home a baby..........

(Jung Hyunseo stay strong)

[ikarust]

i would die just to know if my mother will cry at my deathbed or spit on it. i would die just to know if my mother loves me at all.  (mine)

[revelisms]

Lil' comic of a scene from a fic I haven't gotten around to writing.

(basically Vi and Jinx have reconciled, Silco is alive, and Vi is begrudingly finding herself beginning to look up Silco as a mentor/father figure. She accompanies him on an errand run, one of which winds them up at the old cannery, and emotions bubble up biiig time 🥲)

[petrichor-moss-and-lightning]

that daughterhood feeling of slipping out of your body, trying on different bones, adjusting the marrow so that your mother might look at you, might love you enough. that daughterhood feeling of being simultaneously five and fifteen and fifty-five. of counting the rings of your spinal column to make sure. of being haunted by the vengeance of every version of you that didn’t make it out of that house alive.

[angelunderheaven]

you tell me to smile and I am, I am smiling, mom

[pain-is-my-game]

It sucks having a mom who's a good person but a bad parent.

[thoughts-of-a-caterpillar]

Like my mother

Like my mother

Like my mother

I need to be beautiful like my mother.

She's the most beautiful woman to have ever lived. But no one knows that except me because no one else has the same wounds as her like I do which can carry the entire truth of her existence. No one else has cried when she cried, bled when she bled, died when she died.

No one else has inherited her rage.

No one else has inherited her grief.

No one else has inherited her bloodlust.

Except me

So I need to be beautiful like her too.

I'll paint my lips to hide the crimson stains of spitting my own blood.

I'll darken my eyes to hide the bruises from nights spent with mania instead of rest.

I'll pluck out every imperfection in my brow until it no longer furrows for men who do not deserve it.

I'll put kajal on my waterline so whoever makes me cry has to see me in all my horrifying anger.

I'll powder up my cheeks to hide the tears my father never dried and put lotion on the skin that holds the scars from wounds I was too young to heal.

Like my mother did.

Because I need to be beautiful like my mother.

Even if it leaves me lifeless.

She has been lifeless for most of her life too.

[a-room-of-my-own]

It's impossible to find a video about fashion history without an airhead who self-identifies as a fashion historian - because she LARPs on week-ends and owns a sewing machine - inserting a 5 minutes tirade in defense of corsets.

[mad-girlslove-song]

"my mother" by lea jane