Coming from a Dysfunctional family where your mother had abusive narcissistic traits can be a curse for you especially on Mother's Day.`
The glorification of motherly love everywhere and your own memories of the sacrifices or acts of kindness done by your mother towards you may make you feel guilty of not being able to express gratitude towards your mother. You may feel deep pain thinking about your mother's trauma that made her abusive. You may feel like a bad child for not celebrating Mother's Day like everyone else.
And it's Ok!
If you maintained a distance from her for your healing from the trauma you have been getting from the abuse she caused you, it's okay to stay at a distance. The guilt will dominate and intimidate you on some days especially mother's day or your mother's birthday. And it's okay. It's absolutely okay to do something that you need to do to heal yourself and break the pattern of abuse and stop the legacy of abusive parenting to be passed on to coming generations.
You may feel that being loyal and complaint to your abusive mother will make you look good and great in family's eyes(this is what you think, but actually it's not) and the eyes of society (maybe, if she hasn't ruined your image), but your own children, other relationships and the coming generations will have to pay a hefty price for this sacrifice of yours.
You are no/low contact with your mother after years of debate with yourself. You should be proud of yourself for holding yourself together while being crushed under a huge pile of self-doubt, self-hate, and guilt for not being able to reciprocate everything nice she did to you. You may feel two parts of you constantly in a fight with each other, one who has been too destroyed to function and treat others as a normal human being because of the pain of abuse/abandonment inflicted by your mother and the other part who gaslights, guilt-trips, intimidates and highly invalidates the former one for having those selfish feelings and thoughts. There is a constant war in your head that no one can see and understand except for someone who is in exactly the same situation.
If you are a mom now and your dysfunctional family gave you things like C-PTSD, codependency, depression, and anxiety, etc, then it's very highly likely that you too feel like somewhat an abusive OR dysfunctional mother (though with awareness and on the path of healing) towards your own kids who might be really excited today to treat you, especially on this day. You might feel scared of turning out like your mother one day, putting your own children in the position you are in today with similar feelings and emotions. You may also feel heartbroken for your own kids thinking about the day when they will be grown-ups and will think about the abuse you caused them because of your mental illness. This thought brings a huge amount of guilt for being a mom.
If you try to be compassionate to yourself in the above context, it immediately guilt-trips you into giving a second thought to your own mother's abusiveness and guilt-trips you into not being compassionate enough towards your mother and forces you to reflect on the issues that made her abusive and fills your heart with compassion and mercy for her and hatred and shame for yourself for distancing yourself from her.
Such is the toxic cycle of thoughts and feeling that a woman from a dysfunctional narcissistic family has to go through every mother's day.
It's difficult to fully feel what you feel on mother's day for your mother, yourself as a daughter, yourself as a mother, and your own kids. It's difficult. It's very difficult to feel all those emotions intimidating and making you feel ashamed for the kind of daughter and mother you are. It is difficult to fully involve emotionally with your own kids when they try to make you feel special on this day because of the emotional turmoil going inside you.
It's okay to feel that way when you are unhealed or still healing!
Healing is messy and such occasions make it messier. You just have to keep going holding yourself together. That cruel part of you that doesn't have your back shouldn't be fed any attention and should be ignored as much as possible so that it understands that it doesn't have a place in your life anymore and will have to leave you eventually someday with that part of you which is compassionate and kind towards you, your mother and your kids without forcing you to continue being abused by your mother or ashame and judge you for your parenting mistakes because of your trauma and conditioning.
You can be with your kids physically, pretending to be involved emotionally, show them gratitude and love for what they do for you. You can wish your mother from a distance if your healing allows it. Nothing is more important than your healing right now.
Remember that the best thing you can do for your kids is get healed as soon as possible so that they don't have to heal from the parenting they get from you.
Having boundaries and physical or emotional or both kind of distance from your own mother in favor of your heeling is a healthy choice for preventing the legacy of abuse/hurt/trauma/pain/dysfunctionality from being passed on to your future generations via your own parenting.
You are brave and strong for doing this. You are breaking the pattern of generational trauma and creating a peaceful painless future for the generations to come. At least you are trying. You must be proud of yourself for putting up with all the pain, confusion, guilt, and struggle to bring peace to your family's future life.
View your critic self in human form and ignore her whenever she tries to tear you down. Have pride in how far you have come with the enlightenment and healing, and have faith in God for where he can take you one day!
Keep Going
You have got this.
Happy Healing.
.jpeg)
0 Comments