Lessons From My Mom's Life

Ok, this is definitely going to be the heaviest post I've ever written, and will be the hardest one to write. I'm going to cause family drama by writing this. I'm going to make some of the people I love most in the entire world angry at me. I'm going to be making others really sad. I've put off writing about the things mentioned in this post for years because I don't want that. But today, I felt REALLY REALLY strongly that now was the time to write this. I need it for my healing journey, and I feel like someone else out there needs it. No more living in darkness. It's time to bring my mom's story to light.

My mom (who died in 2010) was a very good woman in so many ways. She had so much faith. She had a way of helping those who others rejected to feel wanted. She could clean anything to perfection. She successfully raised a very large family. She was one of the most intelligent people I've ever known and knew more than almost anything about so many subjects. That was despite the fact she never finished college. She was a hard worker and determined. She had a big heart. She wrote songs and doodled and wrote poetry. She could do anything she set her mind to. She loved her grandchildren so so very much. But my mom was not perfect. Despite all of her good qualities, despite her faith, despite her love for her family, she abused her children and her husband on a regular basis.

Some of us kids got it worse than others. Some of us handled it better than others. Some of us have needed counseling for years and still have wounds that never seem to heal. Some of us are fine. But none of us were fine when it was happening. Even if you weren't the one being abused, you watched it. That scarred you. That warped your perception of the world. That taught you that nowhere was safe, that even those who love you the most can turn on you at any minute. Home could be hell. Many of us dreaded going home because it wasn't safe. When I was forced to be home, I often hid. I hid in closets. I hid in the dog house. I hid anywhere and everywhere I could think of so I wouldn't be found and wouldn't have to see or experience the abuse.

My mom wasn't even close to the most abusive person I've heard of. She didn't beat us until we were black and blue. She didn't make us bleed. She didn't torture us. But that doesn't mean what she did was okay or that what she did should be ignored. Because of children who broke the unwritten rule to not talk about it, CPS was called on my family more than once, but we didn't warrant any drastic measures. I'm thankful the abuse wasn't worse. But it was still abuse and it was still wrong. And the emotional abuse left much deeper scars than the physical abuse ever did.

How can such a good woman, one who loved her family more than anything in the world, hurt her children? I still can't wrap my brain around that. I don't understand. In many ways I feel like my mom was two different people. There was good mommy and bad mommy; nice mommy and mean mommy. When she was good mommy, she was the best mom ever. But then, sometimes for what seemed like no reason at all, she would change and become the other mommy, the one I was terrified of.

I've thought about this for years, and I'm pretty sure I know some of the factors that went into her abuse. My mom's home life when she was a kid was hell in a lot of ways. Her dad was abusive. Her mom was a little nuts sometimes. She didn't ever learn proper limits to discipline. That was a factor. Not an excuse, but a factor. The other factor, the one that concerns this post more, is she had some mental illness that was never treated.

Personally, I think she had at least bipolar disorder, if not more than one disorder. I think this because the patterns I watched my mom go through my entire childhood are the same patterns I have found myself going through. It used to scare me as a child. I thought I was destined to grow up and be a mom who beat her children when she lost control of her emotions. Thank God for serious counseling, a wonderful husband, medication, and a determination to be different. I won't beat my children. I won't scream at them. I won't make them feel like they're worthless. I won't tell them they've been corrupted and are bad. I'm going to be different, despite the patterns I see, because I'm getting help.

Anyway, other people have theorized other mental illnesses. It doesn't really matter what she had and we can't find out now because she's gone. The fact is, she didn't get help and her family suffered because of it. Again, I'm not trying to use her mental illness as an excuse for her behavior, but it is part of the picture. Having lost control of my emotions for no reason, I believe it was a very, very big part of the picture.

My mom dealt with horrible depression. The only time she ever tried to get help for her mental illness was during a depression episode. She went to her doctor, told him that she was depressed and he prescribed a medication. I think it was Prozac. It was definitely before they had as many options as they do now. It didn't help her. In some ways it made her feel worse. She went back to her doctor and he said all he could do for her was raise the dose. That wasn't the right answer. Largely because of this, Mom felt like antidepressants, and by extension other medications for mental illness, were worthless. They could change you, but not for the better. Plus, you're supposed to be able to get over it on your own. If you were depressed, it meant you were sinning or had a bad attitude anyway. This part makes me feel so bad for her. She spent her whole life going through episodes of depression and yet thought that the reason was because she was a bad person. Granted, some of her actions might have given her evidence that she was,  but she didn't deserve to feel that way. Depression isn't about what you deserve. It's a chemical imbalance in the brain, regardless of the diagnosis. Maybe my mom's thoughts and actions made it worse, but they weren't the cause.  

My mom had very little control over her emotions. In public, she did. She was the picture-perfect lady. But she bottled everything up in public and as soon as we were private, it all came out. She also could flip on a dime. She could go from having a great conversation with you to berating you over something unrelated in under a minute. If she was bipolar, this is evidence of rapid cycling. I never knew when I came home whether I was going to have a good experience with her or a bad one. It made everything in life seem unsure. What it really did was left me with major trust issues. It took years of therapy and some really supportive friends for me to get to the point that I could trust people. Even after I got married, part of me still believed that my husband would flip on me one day. If you knew my husband, you'd know how laughable that is. He's not a yeller. He's not a fighter. He's not mean. He is very much in control of his emotions. Yet despite all the evidence I saw before me, I couldn't bring myself to trust people.

I'm not sharing all of this to change anyone's opinion of my mom. If you knew her and loved her, keep loving her. She was a good woman. A flawed woman, for sure, but her misdeeds don't negate her good attributes. I'm not even mad at my mom anymore. I'm still hurt, but the anger has faded with time and counseling. I mostly pity her. I pity her life, that she would be so emotionally messed up that she would think it was okay to hit her child or to make them feel worthless. And I wish to God that she could have had a different experience with medication and that she could have trusted a counselor. She didn't. She hated counselors more than she disliked normal doctors and that was a lot.

The reason I'm sharing this is because people need to know what happens when you desperately need help, but don't get it.

When you have a horrible childhood and can't work through those emotions on your own, you need counseling. My mom never talked about it. Everything I know, I know from my aunt and dad (who heard it from my uncle and aunt). Mom never admitted there was a problem. She bottled it all up inside herself and never worked through the fact that she was responding in the same way her dad did. She never fully accepted that what her dad did, what she did, was wrong. She desperately needed counseling and she needed to approach it with the goal of actually learning and listening. When my mom was forced into counseling, she never was open minded about it. She was fixed on what she wanted and what she thought. It did her no good because she wouldn't let them teach her and help her. She rejected their help and because of that, she never was able to get the help she needed.

If you have a mental illness, which if all my mom had was depression, it counts, you need treatment. This does NOT mean every person with a mental illness needs medication. It doesn't even mean they need counseling necessarily. Some people treat their mental illnesses on their own and are successful. It depends on the mental illness, the severity, and the person's abilities. But in order to function well with a mental illness, you have to acknowledge it. You have to fight against the natural tendencies to let it control you. You have to work on your thoughts, the way you view the world, the way you view yourself. You have to process it and find ways to cope with it healthily. All my mom did was try to pray it away. That's not enough. That's not getting treatment. That's not taking care of yourself. And we all suffered because she wouldn't go get help. I think medication, the RIGHT medication, would have worked wonders, but that may be my personal experience talking. But anything would have been better. Anything at all...

My mom was terrified of mental illnesses. I don't know why exactly. I'm sure the stigmas that surrounded them during her life were part of it. As bad as they are now, they were a hundred times worse when she was a kid. I'm sure her mom's odd tendencies didn't help. I'm sure her brother committing suicide was part of it. I'm sure her other brother's experience being put in a mental hospital and never fully gaining control of his mental illness until he ended his life was a chunk of it. But instead of acknowledging that mental illness runs in the family and it's something she had to face, she tried to blame away all their mental illnesses on their choices and actions. She tried to pretend that it wasn't genetic. She tried to pretend it didn't affect her. She rejected all attempts from others to help her get treatment. And my life was hell because of it.

Frankly, even if it wasn't a major mental illness and was just anger issues, she should have reached out for help. Losing control of yourself to the point you hit your child or throw things at them or scream at them is not okay. If you're doing that, you need help. Professional help. but my mom didn't seek any help out. She turned away from every offered hand because of her own insecurities, her own fears, and her own warped beliefs.

I sincerely believe if my mom had gotten the help she needed, she may still have made mistakes, but it would have been drastically better. Her life would have been much less painful. My siblings and I would have suffered less. And my parents' marriage would have been stronger.

The moral of the story is find a treatment that works for you. If you aren't succeeding at handling whatever emotional problem, childhood trauma, or mental illness you are experiencing on your own, GET PROFESSIONAL HELP! Do it for you. Do it for those who love you. I promise, alternative is not worth it.