Letter from an Emotionally Neglected Daughter on Mothers' Day

Letter from an Emotionally Neglected Daughter on Mothers' Day

Hi, Ma.

I hope you are doing well, but I know if I ask, you will give me a litany of ailments and stories of perceived hostile acts of grievances towards you. I will ask anyway, disassociating while you talk, a protective habit that I developed while still in diapers. I interject little “mmmhmmms” here and there, but even if I did not, you would continue talking anyway. You don’t really need me there. Just an ear as a prop that makes you think someone is listening. That ear can be attached to anyone and anything: me, my brothers, the dog. Hell, it could be unattached. Even better. A sentient ear with no mouth to give you feedback or criticism. Only words of worship and praise for you, while your criticism is unleashed on anyone and anything within your orbit: your children, your sisters, your brother, your friends, strangers on television, whomever.

“You look just like your mama”

“You act just like your mama”

I remember hearing these comments as a little girl and immediately feeling a pain in my chest. Even then I knew I wasn’t like you, and I didn’t want to be like you. The constant chaos, fighting, yelling, and conflicts that surround you and your relationships was not something I wanted to emulate. You love your struggle life. “Look at me. Look at what I’m going through.” That was your way of getting attention and, unfortunately, it still is.

So I ran away from you. I got my doctorate, started my career, dated, bought a home, but I was never happy. I left in pursuit of what I thought was supposed to give me happiness and I didn’t find happiness. The stain of you was still all over my emotional body. I could not get too close to anyone out of fear. How could I know that person wouldn’t turn on me the second they didn’t get their way? Would they have a temper tantrum until I couldn’t stand it anymore and just give into their antics? My relationships were defined by me ignoring my own wants and needs, to the point that I didn’t know who I was anymore. So afraid of being emotionally manipulated by someone that I just avoided any serious relationships, ending up isolated and alone.

Your negativity is powerful and strong like a tornado sucking anything and everything into its orbit, creating its own weather system of darkness. The affect you have on the home and people you live with is sad and terrifying. But I survived, just like my childhood. While younger me may have escaped the tornado only to wander aimlessly in the remnants of its destruction, this version of me will not. I found my path. The one that leads me away from your land of self-destruction and to my own land of self-creation. It is beautiful.

I wanted to tell you all of this. How your neglect in caring for your own mental health led to you not caring for or nurturing your children. How I still am avoidant in my relationships and that I can see how your emotional neglect has affected my brothers as well. By teaching us that your emotional wants and needs were the most important, you dismissed our emotional needs and in turn we’ve dismissed our own emotions. Now you’ve neglected yourself so badly, your mind is leaving you at an earlier age and faster than most people. What would be accomplished by bringing these grievances to you? I would be met with defensiveness and anger. The anxiety that comes with truth never sat well with you. I will still care for you because you’re my mother. No one else is expected to put up with you and I’m not sure anyone would.

I also wanted to tell you that I know that I would not be the person I am today without you. My hypersensitivity to others’ emotions while ignoring my own. My inability to accept any compliments with sincerity and grace. My belief that I don’t deserve good things. Yet also my innate understanding of others’ emotional pain and the emotional support they need. My conscious effort to choose the light over the dark, the positive over the negative. I see what kind of life is built by always choosing the dark. And we always have a choice. I choose the light.

So Happy Mother’s Day to me as I mother my own inner child with the love and nurturing she deserved from the beginning and still deserves now.