Motherless Mothering: becoming a mother

My mother physically died in June 2019. She was long gone from my life for years prior to this. She died 5 months after I had my first son and second child when I was 33 years old. 

Becoming a mother was a wonderful, scary, and eye opening experience. I knew I had to be a different kind of mother than my own the second I found out I was pregnant. When I found out she was a girl, sheer dread overcame my joy. I worried I would continue the legacy of bad mother/daughter relationships that were rampant in my family. Yet I was determined not to raise her differently than my own mother raised me; I couldn’t continue the legacy of awful mother/daughter relationships. 

The moment my daughter was born, I vowed to her I would always love her unconditionally which is something I hadn’t experienced (although it took years of therapy to finally understand this). I took a time out from my mother when she obsessively called the hospital, showed up unannounced, and generally ruined this special time of my life.

Postpartum, I became anxious, confused, and depressed. I desperately needed my mother to comfort and care for me. I was shocked out how many emotions came over me postpartum. She wasn’t there. She couldn’t be. She wasn’t able to be the mother for me, the one I so desperately needed. In fact, she was emotionally absent most of my childhood due to her own depression and other forms of mental illness. 

At 3 months postpartum I sought help for my depression. Little did I know this would begin a journey of reflection, uncovering layers of painful truths, and the beginning of my own healing from years of sadness and confusion surrounding the relationship with my mother.