Mother

I am my own Mother.

From a very young age I have been desperate to be mothered and loved for me, for who I was and not who I was supposed to be.

I am a very capable, intelligent, empathic and passionate person, this led me to have big emotions, and big outpourings of emotion. Instead of embracing those, and learning how to lean into them, they were attempted to be shamed out of me. It worked mostly. I learned to be quiet and silent. I learned I was different. I learned that I was not accepted for those differences.

I constantly dreamed of the day that I would be told that I was adopted and could return to my true family. I yearned for acceptance and understanding, I had so much frustration from not being heard and understood. I was told I was oversensitive, dramatic, attention seeking, manipulative, controlling, but I thought I was just searching for love, for acceptance. I tried in so many ways, that I can see why it seemed I was deliberately acting out.

I subconsciously sought and found other mothers in different places, subconsciously latching on to anyone who seemed to see me and hear me. I was lucky in secondary school to find two teachers/staff that did. They helped me navigate my big emotions, my trauma and anxiety, they held my hand whilst I attempted to get my shit together to survive being in an intense competitive environment, that instead of enhancing my capabilities, I was drowning amongst the fierce competition and drive to be a successful academic. Those things weren’t important to me, but I tried nonetheless. I was just looking to be happy. Just looking to survive this hollow world that seemingly had no meaning.

I left school after barely scraping through, I knew I had to leave my support behind, I was alone again. Without knowing these things that I had subconsciously been doing, I soon found myself in the arms of a new loving protective family. I found a home and I felt welcome.

Soon after that, I discovered I was pregnant, I was in no way prepared for this, but I knew that I was capable of being a mother and could provide endless love. I hadn’t ever needed or relied on material things, therefore I could still be a capable mother, whilst I immediately went out to work to be able to provide those essentials too.

I lived in this bubble for a while, I was comfortable, but deep down, unsettled. I had a family, but I had watched this family cast out undeserving individuals too. Discarded like they never even existed or had any previous importance in their lives. I was guarded, always ready for rejection, to be cast out.

When I finally accepted my truth about who I was, my sexuality, and realisation that I was not living independently at all. I was still very reliant on others permission and direction, I would shape my decisions around others’ perception, and what would be acceptable to them. I chose to stop doing that and be authentically me.

The past five years have been an incredible five years. I let myself be me, or so I believed. I had started to be me, but I still had so far to go. Not knowing what being independent looked like, I have navigated this new life rather indelicately. As a person who wears her heart firmly on her sleeves, I have had moments when I have made less than logical decisions, said things less delicately or carefully than I ought to have. Things I have tried to speak delicately time and time again, but after years of going unheard, it comes out as a roar, a loud explicit roar for the whole world to hear my pain and anguish. I’m not trying to blame or hurt anyone, it’s just a desperate attempt to start over and fix things.

Recently I have been going through a big change. I am finally holding a mirror up to myself to look at all the deep cracks and crevices and examining them in order to fill and repair them. This is an incredibly difficult, painful, embarrassing, shame inducing, gut wrenching, uncomfortable thing to do, but it is absolutely necessary for me to be here.

I am messy, I am finding my feet, I am learning.

I realised that in all of this, I had still been searching for a mother. I had a person, a person I trusted and regarded her so highly, she was the closest I had ever come to finding who I viewed as the perfect mother. A surrogate mother as it were. I did not view her as this in anyway, I was aware enough of the void I had and that I was looking to fill. As much as I wanted it, I am not entitled to that from anyone, so as much as I regard a person that way, I do not attach myself to them in that way.

This woman, for the past few years has been my biggest supporter and cheerleader, we do not regularly converse or communicate, but I felt she was always there to reach out to when I needed to feel understood, or to reassure me that what I was feeling in reaction to something was valid, she never made me feel ashamed.

In this new messy emergence, communication had resumed again. I looked to her for guidance and honesty, I recognised that I was struggling and being careless in my delivery of things. I reached out for honesty, as I can respect her honesty and hear it. I value her words and her reflection and have always used it constructively, rather than hearing it as critically and rubbing salt in my wounds. Speaking to her eased the load for my partner. I am a lot. I am complicated and hard to understand, if I can displace that discomfort and allow someone else to satisfy that need for me in a healthy way, then I believed it was a good idea to make use of that outlet.

Some of the words she said were hard to accept, but I swallowed my pride and feeling that she this time had misunderstood me. I accepted it because I knew I was in a bad place, so was inclined to think that I was the one who misunderstood myself and not the other way around.

I took a pause as I could see it was making me uncomfortable still, despite trying my best to heed her words and advice. I tried and I tried, but it didn’t sit right.

Instead of choosing to communicate this with her, I opted to send a heartfelt message a few days later to outline some of the progress I had made for myself. It was to reassure that, yes, I am not ok, but I am coping. Yes, this is messy, but I am learning. Yes, I am strong, but the wrong dose of meds is making me vulnerable and on edge too. I am snappy and spicy, but am aware of it, and have recovered my reactions as soon as I have been aware I am reacting. I am protecting myself, my family. I told her that I was grateful to her for her support and for being brave enough to speak to me frankly and honestly (even though I felt she still misunderstood).

My message was from the heart, from my soul. My truth, my passion, it was all me.

Without disclosing what happened or what was said, I got a reply. A reply, that was sent on the day that she knew that I had been brave enough to gather the energy and go out to do something really important. She didn’t know this, but I was out collecting a part of a Christmas present for my partner. A very special present that I have been planning for a very long time. She knew I was with my friend that day to give my partner a well needed bit of space from me. A time to breathe, recharge and relax knowing I was in capable hands.

The reply was sent and in that instant the ground was taken away from beneath my feet and I was stabbed in the gut with a sharp serrated knife that was twisting and turning inside me. She had spun my words into poison and thrown vile and derogatory words back at me, demanding that I rewrite my entire message without being manipulative, coercively controlling and victim led.

What the actual fuck?!

Managed to step out of my car for some air, consequently got a parking  ticket, because I forgot to display my blue badge, and burst into tears on the poor parking attendant who didn’t have a clue what was going on. There was me, just blubbering in front of a total stranger slapping a yellow ticket on my car. My friend pulled up to find me a crumpled mess on the floor of the car park. Not the start to the positive day I had planned. She scooped me up, as she has done many times before, and told me in no uncertain terms ‘you are worthy, you are deserving’. She knew that was just enough to get me up and ok again. Gentle reassurance, then I can find my own feet.

So yesterday I realised what I had inadvertently done with this woman. I had again elevated someone to such a high position, this time a surrogate mother. No more. I have always been my mother, why do I keep looking elsewhere?

How do I know I am not as ill as they keep saying I am? I did not revert to the darkest depths in that moment. I wanted to keep going, I knew I had to move on and accept that all I had lost, was what I had thought of as a safe outlet for my emotion. a person I could vent to in order to not hurt my loved ones around me, whilst I suffer and manage my huge emotions safely. I had lost an outlet, that was all.

Yesterday I was still a victim, but I chose to become a survivor.

I have got this.

I know I am genuine.

I know I am not manipulative.

I know that all I have is love to give, it sometimes gets muddled in my delivery, but that’s up to me to fix that.

I know that I may be off centre right now, but I am not ill.

I am now my own cheerleader.

I know I am ready to find my own feet and I no longer let anyone take the ground from beneath me again.

I will fill your oxygen mask if you want to help me, you are not alone with me when I am lost. I am still helping you help me too. If you are going to refute that I am doing that, then I am going to let you go, because to you I am invisible and the sum of my condition.

I am not my condition.

I am me.

I fight my own battle, my own condition.

You can chose to support me or leave me alone.

I do not ask anyone for help ever again.

I look after me.