Tiny Buddha

Tag: mother

  • 5 Surefire Signs You Grew Up with an Emotionally Immature Parent

    5 Surefire Signs You Grew Up with an Emotionally Immature Parent

    “There’s no such thing as a ‘bad kid’—just angry, hurt, tired, scared, confused, impulsive ones expressing their feelings and needs the only way they know how. We owe it to every single one of them to always remember that.” ~Dr. Jessica Stephens 

    All children look up to their parents from the moment they enter this world. They have this beautiful, pure, unconditional love pouring out of them. Parents are on a pedestal. They are the ones who know what’s best! They are the grownups showing us how to do life!

    We don’t think for one moment that they could be showing us the wrong way.

    I, like many others, adored both my mum and dad. I could not see their flaws, their pains, or their trauma. I just loved them and wanted to spend time with them. If they shouted at me and told me I was wrong, I trusted that they were right, no question.

    When I had non-existent self-esteem, anxiety, and suicidal ideation because I believed I was not good enough, I blamed that 100% on myself. I had unconsciously recorded all those moments when their behavior had made me feel not good enough as my own fault for being ‘bad,’ not considering they could have had something going on themselves.

    When I struggled in romantic relationships, always chasing unavailable men, I held myself responsible and never for one minute thought that this pattern of behavior stemmed from my relationship with my parents. I believed what they had told me in different ways—that I was the problem!

    The reason I struggled in relationships, I later discovered, was that my parents were not actually okay when they were parenting me because of their own traumas and were emotionally immature.

    Here are five signs you had emotionally immature parents and how may it impact you.

    1. Their feelings and needs were more important than yours.

    Emotionally immature parents can be incredibly self-absorbed and distracted by their own feelings and emotions, and they want their child, you, to regulate them.

    For example, when my mum was upset, I would be affectionate toward her and soothe her. As I got older, she would be angry with me if I was not there to soothe her when she needed it, saying I was selfish and she had no one. I believed her.

    I was off playing with my friends and being a child, but this was not allowed if it meant I couldn’t meet her needs and calm her emotions. As a result, I learned it was not safe to choose my needs over hers, as she would withdraw her love from me, which felt so scary. My heart would race, and I would feel terror take over my body.

    As an adult, this meant I believed I was responsible for other people’s emotions, and if they were angry or upset, it was my fault. So I would always walk around on eggshells just in case someone might attack me for upsetting them. Because I believed everyone’s pain was my fault, I attracted more relationships like the one with my mum. These relationships made me feel powerless.

    2. Expressing your feelings or needs was not safe.

    When you expressed a feeling and it was met with a negative reaction from your parent, it created a world of panic inside your body. For example, sharing how you were struggling could have been met with a comment about how their lives were so much worse and you should stop being so dramatic.

    Expressing a need, like asking for a ride somewhere, could have launched an attack about how selfish you were—and didn’t you realize how hard your parents were working!

    So what happened? You stopped expressing your feelings and needs and buried them deep. (For me, I topped them with ice cream and sugar for comfort.) As an adult, you may now be so cut off from your own emotions and needs that you act as if you don’t have any.

    3. They did not take responsibility for their actions.

    They’d say or do something that really hurt you, but they wouldn’t acknowledge it, nor apologize. In fact, they may have just carried on as normal.

    Your relationship with them was not repaired as a result. You may have tried to resolve the situation, but you were the only one trying, and you may even have found yourself blamed for something you didn’t even do. The whole situation would leave you feeling crazy and like you didn’t know what’s true. You may even have started thinking it was your own fault.

    As an adult, you might repeat this dynamic in other relationships, feeling powerless to repair and resolve issues that arise. This leads to resentment and staying in unhappy relationships because you don’t know it can be any other way.

    4. They have no idea how to regulate their emotions.

    They walked around triggered by their emotions all day. They had no idea how to bring themselves back into balance. They’d come home exhausted from work, but rather than doing something to discharge from the day, they’d get stuck in their chores and then take out their emotions on others due to resentment over being so tired.

    They also might have had no idea what they were feeling. Maybe they were constantly angry because they lacked the self-awareness to recognize they were really feeling sad or anxious or overwhelmed. And because they didn’t know what they were feeling, they had no idea what they needed to do to feel better.

    5. You were forced to grow up before your time.

    It wasn’t okay for you to be a child. They found it way too stressful, so you were encouraged to be a little adult. Maybe even a little adult that parented them. It was also not safe for you to be a child. You couldn’t be loud or silly, as they could have lost their temper, so you walked around on high alert waiting for this. You may have learned to be the calm one because your parents weren’t.

    I found myself getting involved in their very grown-up arguments as a child just to try and keep the peace in the house. This is not the role of a child. If you had the same experience, you may find yourself attracting similarly codependent relationships as an adult.

    —

    If this childhood sounds like yours, you are not alone. There are many of us. There is an inner child within you that missed out on so much love, nurturing, encouragement, and balance, which could be the reason you are struggling now as an adult.

    It is not because you are not good enough or because you are to blame for everything. It is because you were raised by emotionally immature parents. Effectively, you were raised by children in adult bodies.

    You could still be dealing with these patterns as an adult with your parents, as they could be children in even older bodies now!

    Learning how to be emotionally mature yourself so you don’t repeat the patterns with your own children is a wonderful gift to be able to give them, but also it means you can have healthy relationships and find peace within. Healing and reparenting your inner child means you will be able to express your emotions and have boundaries so others don’t think it is okay to do the same to you.

    I used to feel powerless when people treated me like this, not just with my parents but in other relationships too. I would try to be whatever they wanted me to be, but they would still react in the same ways no matter what I did. Stepping back from them and focusing on healing my inner child, understanding her feelings and needs, and holding space for her has changed my life. I was able to become the parent I always longed for.

    I understand now that my parents were emotionally immature, as they were raised by emotionally immature parents too. They were mature with money and jobs, but with emotions, they were out of their depth because no one showed them how to manage them, and unfortunately, they never learned.

    But we can be the generation that breaks this pattern by being the emotionally mature parent we needed. We can be the example of healthy relationship dynamics that we never had.

    **This post was originally published in 2022.

  • Healing Without Reconciling with My Mother and Learning to Love Myself

    Healing Without Reconciling with My Mother and Learning to Love Myself

    “Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we’ll ever do.” ~Brené Brown

    Several years ago, I wrote a heartfelt letter to my estranged mother, articulating my deep feelings about her perceived lack of empathy and care. My intention in writing the letter wasn’t to ignite conflict; it was to sincerely share my perspective.

    Rather than lashing out with blame, I expressed my profound sadness about feeling parentless and the struggle of raising myself without parental love and guidance, something I desperately needed at times.

    I bared my soul, detailing the emotional turmoil our relationship has had on me as an adult, and expressed the longing for connection that always seemed just out of reach.

    After completing the letter, I did something I thought at the time was a bit reckless: I mailed it. Now looking back, I realize it was a courageous step toward advocating for my emotional health, confronting my truths head-on.

    I had no expectations and was prepared for any outcome, including silence, which often felt like our norm. However, mailing it felt like a cathartic release and was undeniably liberating.

    Months passed without a response. I had kept my expectations low but remained hopeful that perhaps she would reflect on what I had shared and gain some insight into our dynamic. Then, almost nine months later, I found myself at a family gathering out of state, and she was there. I had a vague notion that she might show up, but I hadn’t put too much thought into it.

    A rush of panic enveloped me, especially knowing my children didn’t even recognize her. My husband supported me, rubbing my back to help me through the initial shock of seeing her after so many years.

    As conversations swirled around me, I felt an odd sense of being at an event together yet acting like strangers. Though it wasn’t much different from before, I had openly shared a vulnerable part of myself in that letter, which she never acknowledged receiving.

    During the gathering, we barely spoke; our unresolved past loomed between us like an unbridgeable chasm. As the event was wrapping up, my family and I collected our jackets to leave, and then she walked over to me.

    With a sincere expression, she said, “You were right, and I’m sorry.” That was all that passed between us, and then I left. As I walked out the door, a wave of sadness crashed over me, not just from the validation but from the acknowledgment of our painful reality.

    In that moment, I recognized that while the deep understanding I’d once yearned for might never materialize, that exchange marked a significant turning point in my healing journey.

    Through this process, I learned invaluable lessons about boundaries—how to say no without guilt, to stop explaining myself, and to recognize when emotional distance is an act of self-respect rather than rejection. I discovered that safeguarding my emotional space was not just essential but necessary for my well-being.

    Although my connection with my mother remains the same, my inner transformation has been profound.

    I still grapple with sadness that my children will not know their grandmother, leaving me with a wound that is still healing. However, I have learned the art of giving and receiving love in healthier ways. I prioritize open communication with my children and partner, ensuring that their feelings are validated, something I wished for during my upbringing.

    Not everyone is fortunate enough to have their experiences acknowledged. Many of us carry the weight of unvalidated pain, silently wishing for recognition that our feelings matter. The journey of writing a letter reinforced the power of self-love as a transformative force, even in the absence of answers or sincere apologies.

    Self-love for me is about nurturing inner compassion for myself and understanding and recognizing the validity of my feelings, independent of external validation.

    The seeds of self-love began to flourish in my twenties with small acts of kindness toward myself, moments of self-forgiveness, and the courage to question the beliefs I’d carried since childhood.

    It was a crucial period when I started to challenge the idea that my worth depended on pleasing others, and I allowed myself to feel fully—to name and honor my emotions without shame or self-censorship.

    During this time, I began seeing a therapist, which offered me a safe space to examine how my sense of worth had been shaped by my mother’s unpredictable affection and the silence that shaped me when it was withheld.

    Books like Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson and The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown helped me understand and reframe these patterns, guiding me toward self-compassion and a more stable sense of self-worth.

    With the support of a nurturing chosen family and the continued guidance of therapy, I’ve been able to unravel beliefs that no longer serve me—such as the idea that my worth depends on others’ approval, that my emotions should be contained to keep the peace, and that love must be earned through perfection or compliance. Letting go of these patterns has allowed me to reclaim my sense of self and to honor my feelings as both valid and necessary.

    As I contemplate this recent encounter with my mother, I see the evolution of my perspective since I began advocating for my emotional well-being. I’ve come to understand the delicate balance between expectations and reality—the longing for a different kind of relationship coexisting with the acceptance of what is. It’s a balance that asks me to hold compassion for her limitations while still protecting my own heart.

    Each lesson I’ve embraced about self-love has become foundational—learning to set boundaries without guilt, to speak my truth, and to treat myself with the same tenderness I once reserved for others.

    These shifts have reshaped not only my relationship with myself but also how I engage with the world around me. Now, I give and receive love in healthier, more meaningful ways, ensuring that my relationships are grounded in mutual respect and appreciation.

    This healing journey has profoundly shaped my approach to parenting. I aim to teach my children the significance of setting boundaries and advocating for their emotional well-being, rather than simply seeking to please others or maintain peace at all costs. They see a mother who is honest about her feelings and who takes care of herself instead of abandoning herself, which serves as a powerful lesson that goes beyond words.

    While my relationship with my mother may never be what I hoped for, it has guided me toward a fuller sense of self and a more authentic, balanced way of loving. And I’m committed to continuing on this healing journey. I’ve unearthed the strength within me to heal and evolve—strength that exists independent of external acknowledgment.

  • The Enormous Cost of Being the One Who Holds Everything Together

    The Enormous Cost of Being the One Who Holds Everything Together

    “For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.” ~Virginia Woolf

    There’s a kind of work in our society that doesn’t come with a title or pay, and for a long time, I didn’t even notice I was doing it. I just lived inside it. It shaped my days, my stress, my identity.

    These days, I see it more clearly. I can name it now. I don’t only live inside it, but I still return to it—especially as a parent, especially when things stretch thin. The difference is now, I pause. I reflect. I ask myself if I have to hold it all. Sometimes I still do. But not by default. Not blindly. Well, usually anyway.

    I’m writing to make the invisible visible. To name what I rarely heard said out loud, not just to others, but to myself. When I’m holding the center while everything pulls at the edges, absorbing what others don’t even realize needs carrying, I see myself. I’m not overreacting. I’m not asking for too much. I’m doing the work that holds lives together.

    I am often the one who remembers the dentist appointment, Mufti Day, the allergy meds, the forecast, the birthday, the swimming bag. Or the one who keeps the emotional boat steady—calming the toddler (or the adult acting like one), soothing tension between co-parents, biting my tongue so dinner doesn’t derail, all while managing the storm inside my own heart, or gut, or head.

    This work has many names to me: mental load, emotional labor, logistical labor and, especially, narrative labor (the effort of constantly explaining myself, justifying choices, making life make sense for everyone else). It’s the work that says, “I’ll just do it; it’s quicker.” Or, “It’s fine, I’ll figure it out” Or, “No one else will remember, so I’ll make a list.”

    But here’s what’s changed: I recognize it now. I’m no longer trying to prove I can handle everything. I’ve learned that sometimes, the quiet question inside—“Why is it always me?”—is actually wisdom, not weakness. It’s a sign to pause. To reset. To shift the pattern.

    While I see this most obviously in motherhood, I know it exists everywhere. In caring for aging parents. In supporting partners with chronic illness or disability. In blended families and complex co-parenting. In friendships and workplaces, where someone quietly holds the emotional glue.

    I’ve watched how, without this work, so many people and systems quietly fall apart. And I’ve also learned the cost of doing it all, all the time. That cost lives in the body.

    These days, my body can often feel like that old board game Operation—except the buzzer is jammed on and the batteries are dying. A constant low-level fog on my brain, with a weariness that sinks deep into my bones. It’s not always visible, but it’s there in my clenched jaw, racing thoughts at 3 a.m., or that strange, sudden overwhelm that never quite becomes tears.

    I used to downplay my own needs because there was no room for them. I kept things light even while crumbling, especially when my kids were young. I was the strong one everyone leaned on, even when I longed for someone else to take the weight.

    Now, I try to notice that impulse. To catch it in the moment. To remind myself I am not a machine. That asking for help doesn’t make me weak; it makes me wise.

    If this sounds like you too, you are not alone.

    This is for those of us managing households and trauma responses. For those parenting kids who live in two homes, two worlds. For those doing the extra work to help a child thrive in a system that wasn’t built for them. For those stuck in meetings, trying to help others see what should already be obvious. For those holding finances, feelings, and fallout.

    And then there’s judgment. The kind that seeps through tone, silence, side comments. The kind you can feel in the air. Suddenly, you’re not being witnessed; you’re being evaluated.

    It often lands hardest on those making unconventional caregiving choices. The stay-at-home parent “not contributing.” The adult child who cuts back work to care for parents. The partner quietly managing chronic illness. The blended-family parent navigating chaos.

    I once read, “Judgment assumes superiority. It lacks curiosity. It flattens your life into a one-dimensional story and acts like it knows the ending.” That’s exactly what it feels like.

    I’ve carried that weight many times—judgment from those who don’t live my reality. For a long time, my nervous system told me it wasn’t safe not to care what others thought. Even when I knew the wisdom of that old saying “Don’t take criticism from someone you wouldn’t go to for advice.”

    It’s always ironic; the ones who carry the least are often quickest to critique how you carry the most.

    And so here’s my truth: I won’t apologize for being there for my kids while they still need me. I won’t apologize for showing up for the people I love.

    There’s another saying, “Don’t judge someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.” But most don’t want the shoes; they just want the right to judge from the sidelines. Or, as Brené Brown puts it, “If you’re not in the arena getting your ass kicked, I’m not interested in your feedback.”

    Because here’s what’s often missed: most people don’t realize how much they rely on invisible labor… until it stops.

    They don’t have to think about whether the PE gear is clean. Who will follow up with the lawyer or the school. How tension gets diffused or meltdowns averted. Why the fridge is never empty or the calendar runs smoothly.

    But when I’ve stepped away? Things fall through the cracks. Conversations go sideways. The house might be quiet, but not peaceful.

    This isn’t about guilt. It’s about value. This work enables others to succeed, to rest, to function—precisely because someone else is holding the complexity.

    Invisible labor holds everything together, until it can’t. I know this. The migraines, the kidney stones, the menstrual issues—they brought me to my knees. My body was trying to protect itself. Fair call. This work isn’t bottomless. It’s not free. And it’s not a given.

    So many of us do this work quietly, without even naming it in ourselves. Because when something is always expected, it starts to feel like it doesn’t count.

    But it does count. It is work. It deserves to be seen, not just when it collapses, but while it’s still holding the thread.

    We are not invisible. We are not unreasonable. We are not weak for needing rest or recognition.

    We are doing work that keeps lives afloat. That work matters. We matter. But boundaries matter too. No one is coming to save us. And we can’t keep rescuing others from their own responsibilities.

    Yes, there will be excuses. But unless there’s a clear diagnosis, the sixteen-year-old who won’t get out of bed for school? That’s theirs to navigate, not mine to carry. Let there be real-world consequences. How else will they grow? How else will they take responsibility? How else will they learn to stand on their own two feet?

    So today, I pause. I see what I’m carrying. I value what someone else is. I ask where the load can be shared. I wonder what would change if we truly recognised the weight behind what seems effortless.

    Because the most important work isn’t always the loudest, but it’s often the most essential.

    And maybe the first step isn’t changing everything. It’s noticing it. Naming it. Starting there.

  • My Daughter Needed Me to Choose Better, So I Did

    My Daughter Needed Me to Choose Better, So I Did

    “Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.” ~W.E.B. Du Bois

    I was standing at the service bar, waiting for my drink order to be ready. The scent of steak fat clinging to my apron and infusing itself into my bra, while twenty-something servers around me whined about working on Mother’s Day… yet I was the only mother working that night.

    I’d barely slept because I’d closed the restaurant the night before.

    My nine-year-old daughter had just told me she wished she were dead.

    And here I was, pretending to care about side plates and drink refills when all I wanted was to be home holding her, telling her she mattered. Instead, I snapped—righteous and broken all at once—and stormed out to the alley behind the kitchen where I could cry without making a scene.

    That was the moment I knew: something had to change. Not for me. For her. Because if I stayed in this life, this marriage, this pattern, she would learn it too.

    Up until then, I thought I was protecting her. I fooled myself into thinking that there wasn’t too much harm, because the yelling wasn’t directed at her. That I could absorb the blows. That love was sacrifice. But kids don’t learn from what you say. They learn from what you model. And I was modeling self-betrayal.

    Her stepfather’s cruelty wasn’t new. Neither was the exhaustion I carried in my bones from trying to patch over the cracks with routine and denial. But watching her crumble under the same pressure I had normalized? That shattered something in me that couldn’t be glued back together.

    I married him because I saw a wonderful father for my daughter. I saw him get down to her level and play with her. They would giggle together. Be silly together. Be kids together.

    Well, that was all fine and dandy when she was three, four, five years old, but at some point, she began to outgrow him. While he sat stuck in his trauma, she matured. She was growing to be a strong little lady.

    He didn’t like that. So, when I wasn’t around, he would lash out and treat her like a slave, a whipping boy, but also whined and threw temper tantrums. She had now become the surrogate mother of a petulant child.

    She was nine. She should have been thinking about art projects or bike rides, not death.

    When I confronted my husband about how he spoke to her, it only made things worse. So she begged me never to mention it to him again and informed me that she would no longer confide in me. I hated myself for letting that happen. The very moment I thought I was being strong and standing up for my little girl, I was actually just prolonging her punishment.

    I was staying for stability, for financial security, for some misguided sense of loyalty. Those were the moments that provided her with a blueprint for her own suffering.

    There’s this narrative that mothers must be martyrs. That our suffering is noble, even necessary. But I don’t buy it anymore. Because what good is a self-sacrificing mother if all her child learns is how to silence themselves in order to survive?

    Leaving wasn’t brave. It was survival. I packed us up, found a small apartment, and started over with debt, doubt, and one hell of a broken heart. Not just from the marriage but from the years I’d spent disconnected from myself. My daughter didn’t need a perfect mother. She needed a peaceful one.

    It wasn’t a clean break. I cried in closets and called him at 2 a.m. and hated myself for the longing. I felt like I’d lost my mind. But I was beginning to find my voice. And slowly, she started to smile again. Her shoulders relaxed. We giggled like two girlfriends. We reinvigorated our “‘nuggling” tradition—Saturday nights with a big bowl of popcorn, snuggled up under a blanket together, watching a silly movie. Just the two of us. Just like it used to be. I knew we were going to be okay.

    Healing didn’t come in grand epiphanies or social media-worthy quotes. It came in late-night sobs and morning coffee. In resisting the urge to explain myself to people who would never get it. In learning to sit with discomfort instead of racing to fix it.

    I had to undo decades of believing that silence was safety. That if I didn’t rock the boat, we wouldn’t drown. But we were already drowning. And pretending otherwise was only teaching her how to hold her breath longer.

    I had to unlearn the idea that being needed was the same as being loved. That caretaking and contorting myself for approval was noble.

    I started showing her what boundaries look like. I started apologizing when I got it wrong. I started asking myself what I needed, not just what everyone else wanted from me.

    I also had to let go of the fantasy that he would change. That if I just loved him better, communicated differently, forgave more quickly, then things would improve. That fantasy had a chokehold on me for years. It’s humbling—and liberating—to realize you can love someone and still not be safe with them.

    Sometimes I wanted to go back, not because I believed things would be different, but because being alone with my thoughts was terrifying. I had to rebuild a relationship with myself that I didn’t even know was fractured.

    I started journaling, walking, making playlists that made me cry and heal in the same breath. I was slowly, painfully learning to mother myself.

    I watched her blossom with every ounce of peace we created. She didn’t flinch as much. She stopped asking me if something was wrong when I was having a moment of silence. She acted like a child again. I knew then that the mess I was wading through was already doing its work—not just in me, but in her.

    We learned new rituals. Morning cuddles before school. Singing in the car. Cooking meals together and dancing in the kitchen while things simmered on the stove. It wasn’t just healing. It was joy. Honest, simple, borrowed-from-the-mundane joy.

    I realized I didn’t have to keep waiting to feel safe. I could create it.

    And in every small moment, I chose something different. I chose gentleness. I chose boundaries. I chose to believe that we were worthy of more.

    There were still days I missed the chaos. That part of me that equated drama with passion, unpredictability with depth. But then I’d hear her talking to her stuffed animals in the next room or see her curled up in bed with her cat and remember: calm is not boring. It’s safe. And we deserve safe.

    Eventually, the grief became quieter. The ache dulled. I stopped needing to explain the past to anyone, including myself. And I started dreaming again—not just for her but for me. I wanted her to grow up seeing her mother whole, not just holding it together.

    Because one day, she would hit a wall of her own. She’d sit in a bathroom or an alley or a car, and she’d wonder how she got there. And I wanted her to remember that change is possible. That discomfort isn’t failure. That sometimes, being your own hero means walking away before the fire consumes you.

    Some days, I still think about standing in the doorway of her room, unable to move—but needing to leave—looking at my sweet little girl who just told me she wished she’d never been born. The day I realized that being a mother wasn’t just about protecting my child from harm. It was about protecting her from becoming the kind of woman who thought harm was normal.

    She didn’t need me to be unbreakable. She needed to see me break and still get up. So that’s what I did.

  • Walking My Mother Home: On Aging, Love, and Letting Go

    Walking My Mother Home: On Aging, Love, and Letting Go

    “To love someone deeply is to learn the art of holding on and letting go—sometimes at the very same time.” ~Unknown

    Nothing has softened me—or challenged me—like caring for my ninety-six-year-old mother as she slowly withdraws from the world. I thought I was strong, but this is a different kind of strength—one rooted in surrender, not control.

    She once moved with rhythm and faith—attending Kingdom Hall for over sixty years, sharp in mind and dressed with dignity. She’s a fine and good Christian woman, often compared to Julie Andrews for her beauty and radiant grace. But now, she rarely gets out of her robe. She sleeps through the day. The services she once cherished are left unplayed. She says she’s tired and feels ‘off.’ That’s all.

    I ache to restore her to who she was. But no encouragement or gesture can bring that version of her back. Something in me keeps reaching for her past, even as she settles into her present.

    As someone used to teaching, creating, and mentoring, I’ve built a life around helping others move forward. I’m solution-oriented. I try to inspire change.

    But I can’t fix this. I can’t lift her out of time’s embrace. Viktor Frankl, the psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, wrote, “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” That quote feels especially personal now. Because I can’t change what’s happening to my mother—but I can soften my resistance. I can change the way I show up.

    Walking Each Other Home

    There’s a beautiful quote by Ram Dass that returns to me in this quiet moment: “We’re all just walking each other home.” I think about that when I bring her a bowl of soup, hold her hand, or whisper, “I love you.”

    I’m not here to bring her back to life as it was. I’m here to walk beside her—gently, imperfectly, faithfully—as she lets go of this chapter.

    I think often of Pope John Paul II, who remained remarkably compassionate while bedridden in the last days of his life. As his body failed, he interpreted his suffering not as a burden, but as solidarity with the poor and the sick. His vulnerability became a doorway to greater understanding. That vision moved me deeply. Because that’s what I hope to do—not just care for my mother but be transformed by the act of caring.

    I’ve studied meditation. I’ve written and taught about presence in filmmaking. But this—daily care, raw emotion, the unknown—is the deepest form of mindfulness I’ve ever known.

    Thich Nhat Hanh teaches that “When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence.” So I try to be there. Not fixing. Not explaining. Just breathing. Just sitting beside her.

    In Buddhism, impermanence is not a punishment—it’s a truth. Everything beautiful fades. Clinging brings suffering. Peace comes from loving without grasping. That’s what I’m learning, slowly, as I witness her journey unfold.

    Some days, I feel like I’m failing. I lose patience. I say too much, and I say it too loudly. But I show up again. I apologize. I soften. I learn.

    There’s a quiet kind of love growing in me. It doesn’t look like grand gestures. It looks like warming her tea with honey. Adjusting her blanket. Noticing she’s cold before she says a word. This is slow-burning compassion—the kind that asks nothing in return. It’s not about being a hero. It’s about being human.

    I used to think wisdom came from those who spoke the most. But now I see that some of the greatest teachers say little at all. My mother, mostly silent now, is teaching me about humility, aging, and surrender.

    Like Pope John Paul II, I want to turn my suffering into understanding. To feel my heart break open—not shut down—and to know that this is not just her time of transition, it’s mine too.

    Lately, my own health has begun to shift—macular degeneration, diastolic heart failure, near-blindness, persistent fatigue, and a growing sense that I, too, am aging. At first, I resisted. I wanted to stay useful and strong. But now, I see these changes as reminders: to live gently, to love fully, and to be present. My body is not the problem—it’s the messenger. And its message is simple: this isn’t about me. It’s about how well I show up for her.

    So what is it that I’m learning here in this strange, quiet space between caregiving and grief?

    • You don’t have to be perfect to be present.
    • Love doesn’t always look like joy. Sometimes it looks like patience.
    • Letting go isn’t failure—it’s an expression of grace.
    • Even in loss, there is growth.
    • The end of one life chapter can open your heart to all of humanity.

    A Whisper Before Sleep

    Each night, I make sure she’s ready to sleep. Sometimes she’s dozing. Sometimes she’s half-aware. Sometimes she’s just staring at the TV. But every night, I whisper, “I love you, Mom.” Maybe she hears me. Maybe not. But I say it anyway—because love, at this point, is more about presence than response.

    And now, another quiet miracle has entered her world. Nugget—the small, grey-furred cat who is super cute and equally crazy—has become her closest companion. My mother never cared much for animals. She found them messy, distant. But Nugget changed all that.

    This tiny creature curls at her feet, climbs into her lap, and purrs without question. And my mother responds—stroking her fur, talking softly, calling her ‘my little kitty.’ It’s pure, surprising, and profound. Nugget brings her back to the present in ways I cannot. She opens a door to tenderness that has long remained closed.

    My mother still shares vivid stories from the distant past, though she forgets what happened an hour ago. Still, she knows me. She knows Nugget. And for that, I am grateful.

    I still wish I could do more. But I show up—quietly, imperfectly, with love. I walk her home the best I can.

    And in that walking, in that surrender, I’m beginning to understand what it really means to be alive.

  • How to Make the Most of Our Time with the People We Love

    How to Make the Most of Our Time with the People We Love

    “Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” ~Robert Brault

    With only a few more months until my son leaves for college, I am a mindfulness teacher wrestling with my own heart and mind.

    While avoiding the frequent mom conversations about “empty nesting,” I’m struggling to admit that my last child leaving home may be harder than I thought. Ironic, since working skillfully with difficult emotions is exactly what I teach.

    Every school event I attend feels like a heavy, steady march toward graduation day. Yesterday in the high school gym, I was sandwiched between two other senior moms bawling their eyes out. Their minds and emotions were far in the future, already experiencing that final goodbye hug on college move-in day.

    While I was feeling some of the same emotions, that experience gave me a clear insight: I don’t want to miss the time I have left with my high school senior because I’m living my life as if he’s already gone. Then, a poem by Bashō flashed in my mind:

    Even in Kyoto
    hearing the cuckoo’s cry
    I long for Kyoto

    You know when a poem perfectly crystallizes an emotion you’re feeling? This one nails it. The feeling of being in the presence of something tremendously special and beautiful while holding it so tightly that you’re missing it before it’s gone. The more I explore it, the stronger it gets; an eerie feeling of longing for something while still enjoying it.

    My less poetic version might be:

    Only four months left
    Laughter coming from his room
    My heart aches already

    I considered asking for a weekly “mother/son date” for the rest of the school year, but I know better. His senior year should be focused on his own priorities, not my emotional needs as a parent.

    So, while he’s out enjoying his senior year, what can I do to get the most out of MY remaining time with him so I don’t have regrets of my own?

    Then it came to me. Savoring.

    It dawns on me that I already have the perfect tool for this situation. The mindfulness practice of savoring. We normally think of savoring as it relates to food, like consciously enjoying a bite of high-quality chocolate. With mindfulness, you can savor anything. A sunset, the scent of a flower—even a person.

    Remembering this gives me an idea of how to get the most out of my time with him, rather than missing it thanks to an anxious mind living full-time in the future.

    Previously, I’ve used the practice of savoring to increase the intensity and appreciation of positive experiences and emotions, and it worked. So, why not now? It also feels right because it’s a “stealth” mindfulness practice, something I can do without him even knowing I’m doing it.

    Now, I’m eager to begin applying what I teach, and being more present for this important relationship in my life. I start off using a popular mindfulness practice known by the acronym “S.T.O.P.”

    When savoring a person’s presence: I Stop, Take an intentional deeper breath, Observe the moment using my five senses, and Proceed with awareness.

    The “secret sauce” is the Observe stage, which involves leaning into my five senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling/sensing.

    Now, instead of multi-tasking while we’re in the kitchen together, I pay close attention to information coming in through my five senses. I also try to practice high-quality listening. This kind of listening differs from normal conversation where we are half-listening and half-thinking about what we’re about to say back. Here, I’m simply trying to listen with my whole heart.

    The interaction wraps up with the last stage: Proceed with awareness. I bask in the warm feeling I get from being with him and let it imprint on my heart. The mindfulness soon wears off, and that’s okay. I know I’m not always aiming for this kind of heightened state of awareness.

    I let out a big exhale now that I’m less anxious about the next four months. Auto-pilot interactions are replaced with a sense of calm and connection. Each day, I pick at least one interaction where I make a focused effort to savor his presence and appreciate the richness of our simple everyday moments together.

    This afternoon, the smell of steak on a cast iron skillet draws me into the kitchen. I give full attention to the new baritone voice as he speaks, closely admire the way he peels the garlic like a trained chef, and smile at a ray of sun hitting the strands of gold in his hair.

  • Sometimes Not Forgiving Is a Powerful Step Toward Healing

    Sometimes Not Forgiving Is a Powerful Step Toward Healing

    “You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. It doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure. So use that anger. You write it. You paint it. You dance it. You march it. You vote it. You do everything about it. You talk it. Never stop talking it.” ~Maya Angelou

    My mother left when I was five. Dad told me that for a little while I stopped talking, which is hard to imagine because now I never shut up.

    Apparently, I disappeared into myself. The doctors called it selective mutism. Two years later, my father’s second wife, Trish, would try to hug me, but I froze, arms pinned to my side, rigid against her affection.

    When I was older and I asked Dad what happened, he said he and Mom had been having problems, so she went on a bird-watching cruise to the Seychelles. During a stopover, she met a rugged, bearded, successful world wildlife photographer in the lobby of an African hotel. Frank and Patricia fell in love and immediately left their spouses and kids.

    In time, my mother became a talented photographer in her own right. She and Frank traveled continents to capture award-winning photos of animals for National Geographic and the like. Together, they published beautiful coffee table books.

    In 2004, both Patricia and Frank died within a month of each other. Frank from cancer, Patricia in a fiery car crash. My sister told me state troopers found a blood-stained snapshot of all five kids inside Patricia’s wallet. The picture was of my three brothers she’d had with my father and my sister and me, who she adopted as babies from two different moms, years after she got her tubes tied.

    “Girls,” she told my father. “I need two girls.”

    Years ago, I looked up Patricia’s obituary online. I found one attached to a blog written by a fan. At the end of a glowing description of her renowned career was a mention of Frank and that she was “mother to three boys.”

    No mention of me or my sister. Whoever wrote the obituary decided we didn’t exist, or maybe they never knew we existed. My sister, who’d stayed in touch with Patricia, seemed okay with the omission. She insisted the picture in Patricia’s wallet proved she thought about us.

    “And your comment on the blog was mean,” she told me.

    “With all due respect,” I wrote in the blog comments, “Patricia left her five kids” (I’m her youngest daughter) “to go sow her wildlife photographer oats. So yes, she was a talented photographer, but she wasn’t a mother.”

    In one picture I found of Patricia and Frank online after they died, Frank had his arm around her in front of a small white tent in Africa.

    She was leaning her head against his shoulder, smiling and content. Her face was plump and ruddy and naturally beautiful. Her short, dark, curly hair was windblown, and she was wearing a tan photo vest, khaki shorts, and chunky hiking boots.

    In her former life, Patricia was a full-fledged Audrey Hepburn type. An upper-middle-class, small-town New Jersey suburbanite with cinch-waisted elegant dresses, black heels, and pearls. In one Polaroid, my mother smiled for the camera as she carried a paper-footed crown roast to the perfect holiday table set for her husband and five kids.

    I was two months old when my parents adopted me. I never once resented my birth mom for giving me up (I found her in 2016, and we’re close).

    When I was old enough to understand how hard it must be for a woman to give up a child, I felt sorry for my birth mother. I knew women who gave up their baby did it out of love and desperation. And that it probably ripped their heart out forever. I knew long before I knew anything about my birth mom that giving me away wasn’t personal.

    It was selfless.

    But mothers who roam the globe with a lover, who give birth to three boys, get their tubes tied, and then adopt two girls to complete the set don’t leave their children for selfless reasons.

    They leave because motherhood was a mistake. Because domesticity felt like prison.

    “The ugly ducklings” Patricia once told my father about me and my middle brother. Mike stuttered and, like me, wore thick glasses.

    When I was older, I’d drag information out of my dad about Patricia.  He never wanted us to know Mike and I were her least favorites. That we weren’t perfect enough.

    During my sophomore year in college, I sent my mother a short letter. “I never understood why you left the family. Please help me understand.” Then I told her what was going on in my life.

    “It was your father’s lifestyle,” she wrote back. “The drinking and fancy parties and spending too much money. It wasn’t you. We were fighting all the time. It wasn’t about you kids.”

    Except that when you leave your kids, it is about the kids.

    That was our only contact until my late twenties during my youngest brother Chris’s wedding. Patricia smiled awkwardly as we walked toward each other in the hotel reception hall.

    We stood in front of each other but didn’t hug. She smiled, looked nervous, and told me, “Look how beautiful you are!” For the next few hours, we chatted about the wedding, my job, and my husband, who sat next to me.

    Frank sat between us at our table. Polite but protective. Privately, I was furious at how nonchalant my once-mother seemed. Of course there was too much to unpack, and a wedding wasn’t the place. But Patricia acted like we’d simply lost touch.

    A few years ago, when my husband and I were talking about that day, he told me that at some point I whispered to Frank, “Tell Patricia I want nothing to do with her.” I couldn’t stand the façade for one more second. So I went silent.

    I don’t remember saying that. But I’m sure I did. Because if my mother had wanted to be in my life, when she got my letter during college, she would have said so.

    In 1998, when I became a mom, the resentment for Patricia I’d managed to mostly bury resurfaced with a vengeance.

    I was horrified that a mother would leave her children. I felt a maternal protectiveness with my own daughter so visceral and overwhelming that rage bubbled up for my own mother.

    I pictured my five-year-old daughter coming home from kindergarten. Getting off the bus and running to hug her dad. I pictured her giggling and holding her vinyl Blue’s Clues lunch box. My husband handing her gummy snacks and a juice box in the kitchen. I pictured him scooping her up and sitting her on the couch next to him. My daughter’s happy feet swinging.

    “Where’s Mommy?” she asks as she sips her juice box and her blueberry eyes sparkle.

    “Honey, Daddy needs to tell you something. Mommy is um, gone, and she’s not coming back. It’s not your fault, honey, really, it isn’t. You didn’t do anything wrong. But Mommy is, well, Mommy is confused even though she really, really loves you.”

    Years ago, I decided that I can’t do with my mother what therapists and clergy suggest when someone hurts us.

    “Work to forgive. It’s not about saying what they did was okay. It’s about letting go of anger and resentment. When you do, you’ll feel better. Stop giving over your power to bitterness.”

    But the abandoned five-year-old child in me refuses to forgive my mother. I could, but I won’t. Not because I’m consumed with anger. I’m not. Because forgiving, however that looks (journaling, prayers, letters to Patricia I never send), feels disingenuous.

    “I forgive you” feels like a lie.

    Over the years my hurt and anger toward my mother have shifted. Not to forgiveness exactly, but to a new understanding that only ambitious woman-turned-mothers understand.

    Because I was that mother.

    After I had my daughter, I left the workforce as a career professional, ambitious but constantly told daily during my pregnancy, “Once you see that baby, nothing, I mean nothing else will matter.”

    Three months after maternity leave, I went back to work part time. Six months later, I left for good.

    I’d been diagnosed with fibromyalgia and was racked with chronic body aches and brain fog. My babysitter and I were at odds, but mostly I left because I “should” be at home. My husband never pressured me. I pressured me. Judgmental parents didn’t help.

    During my mother’s era (the 1950s), after women graduated college, they got married and had kids. They never talked about their own needs. There were no mom group confessionals. Ambition and having an identity crisis weren’t things. Taboo.

    Women sucked up their angst and exhaustion with coffee and uppers, with martinis and Valium (“Mommy’s little helper”). Smile. Nod. Suffer.

    It wasn’t until the nineties that books came out about motherhood and ambivalence. About loving your kid but hating x, y, z. Suddenly the floodgates opened, and mothers got raw and honest. (Remember the book The Three Martini Playdate?)

    I struggled with being grateful but bored at home. With craving an identity outside of motherhood. Of course I loved my daughter. I went through surgery and months of infertility procedures to get her.

    My child was everything to me, but not everything for me. When I became a parent, gradually, a tiny part of me understood why my mother left.

    And in that, accepting my mixed bag of emotions softened my pain and rage.

    Unlike my mother, I’d had a thriving career and my own identity for over twenty years. But Patricia went from college to marriage to motherhood. She’d skipped over herself and who, it turned out, she wanted to be. Unburdened by domesticity, free to roam the world.

    I realized that if my mother had stayed, she would have resented her kids and the life she felt called to embrace. Her resentment might have been more damaging than the abandonment.  

    Still, forgiveness isn’t always the answer. Saying “I forgive you” has to feel sincere. It has to come from a place of genuine release. A willingness to see the harm and accept its wrongness, then fully let it go. Into the ethers, washed from our heart and psyche.

    My vision of my mother is less villain now and more a woman who should never have given in to society’s pressure to have kids. As soon as she got married, she pushed my dad to start a family, even after he told her over and over they weren’t ready financially.

    It’s ironic that after she died, she left a chunk of money to Planned Parenthood. She knew. Motherhood isn’t for everyone.

    Forgiveness is nuanced, yet it’s been taught throughout the ages as magical in its transformative powers. “Forgive, let go, and you’ll be free.” And more often than not, that’s true.

    But for me, I owe it to my five-year-old self not to completely forgive my mother. Gentle non-forgiveness is what I call it.

    Most of my destructive bitterness is gone. But if I’m honest, some anger still sits in me. Because I want it there. Protective. Righteous. But no longer seething. Anger wrapped in necessary truth. That my mother was selfish. That my mother did real damage.

    I guess holding on to some anger feels like I’m choosing to be an advocate for my five-year-old self. But mostly I think it’s to avoid the harder emotions of pain and rejection. And because letting go of all my anger feels fake.

    For me, being authentic sometimes means accepting that not all anger fades. And that it’s okay. (In fact, allowing anger instead of repressing it can actually be beneficial for our health, according to psychologist Jade Wu, so long as we don’t act aggressively.)

    In the wake of my mother abandoning our family, she left behind five broken kids, all of whom bear emotional scars. Scars that showed up in devastating ways. Addiction, cruelty, despair, loneliness, low self-esteem, hoarding, attachment issues.

    I know ultimately my mother needed to be free. That staying would have done more harm than good. But children aren’t puppies to surrender when caregiving gets too hard.

    There were dire consequences to my mother leaving to find happiness. Irreparable damage. I saw it. I felt it. Trust destroyed. And because of that, I can never fully forgive.

    “I pray you heal from things no one ever apologized for.” ~Nakeia Homer

  • To the Parent Who’s Stressing About Being Imperfect

    To the Parent Who’s Stressing About Being Imperfect

    “Your greatest contribution to the universe may not be something you do, but someone you raise.” ~Unknown

    Have you ever heard the saying, “Mama knows best” or “If mama ain’t happy, nobody’s happy”? Honestly, who decided that moms should know everything and that the entire emotional balance of the home rests solely on their shoulders? Isn’t Mom a human too? A beautiful soul navigating this life, trying to figure things out just like everyone else? How is it fair that we pile all the pressure onto this one person—the keeper of the schedules, the task doer, the tender space for everyone to fall?

    It’s no wonder the pressure on moms today is sky-high. We carry expectations that are impossible to meet—being nurturing yet productive, selfless yet balanced. And let’s not forget about dads, who often get a bad rap for not doing things “as well as mom.”

    We need to take a step back. Both parents are human. They come into parenting with their own limiting beliefs, inner critics, and childhood wounds. Being a parent doesn’t mean you automatically know what you’re doing.

    I’ll never forget the drive home from the hospital with my first son. I was in the backseat, staring at this tiny human, thinking, “They’re really letting us take him home?”

    It hit me, sitting in that glider in his nursery a few weeks later, that I had no idea what I was doing. I tried reading all the books, hoping the answers were tucked in there somewhere. But even after reading the same chapter of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child at least thirty times, I still felt lost.

    So, I did what felt natural—I called my mom. Surely, she had the answers. But all she said was, “This too shall pass.” At the time, her words made me angry. I didn’t have time for things to pass; I needed solutions. Yet, over the years, I’ve come to realize that she didn’t have all the answers either. None of us do.

    This journey of figuring it out—of reading books, blogs, and consulting my mom—lasted for many years. I wanted so badly to be a good mom. I was a good mom. I loved my kids deeply, left little notes in their lunch boxes, tucked them in at night, and kept them safe with helmets and seatbelts. But as he grew, so did the struggles, and often, so did my fear.

    When my son was in elementary school, he began struggling terribly. At first, I thought maybe he just needed a little extra encouragement. But when he would cry at homework or tear up on our way to school, I knew it was deeper. He would rush through his work just so he could turn in his tests at the same time as the other “smarter” kids. School was overwhelming for him, and it was crushing me to watch.

    Eventually, he was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, and a wave of conflicting emotions washed over me. I was relieved to know he had support now, but the meetings, the individualized education programs, the tutoring—all of it weighed on me.

    Sitting in those meetings with teachers and specialists, I’d feel a tightness in my chest and tears spilling over. I wanted him to have an easier path, but I was realizing that I couldn’t just “fix” it. I was the mother, the one who was supposed to protect him, but I was helpless in the face of these challenges he would have to navigate on his own. My heart ached for him, and I often felt ashamed of my own emotional unraveling.

    Reflecting back, I see how much of those tears were for him—and for me. I was spread too thin. Work was overwhelming, my marriage was strained, and I had little left to give. My life felt like a juggling act, and each new challenge threatened to tip the balance. The layers of fear, responsibility, and love were always there, piling up, and I felt the weight of every single one.

    And then came the teenage years. Those years where the stakes felt higher, where choices carried more weight, and where my fear around his decisions—who he spent time with, the roads he might choose—grew even stronger.

    I remember one day, standing in the garage in an argument with him. The tension was thick, and we were both yelling—my fear bursting out as anger. I don’t even remember what we were arguing about; it’s a blur. But the shame and guilt afterward were so clear.

    The truth is, every stage of my son’s life brought forward a new version of myself—a woman, a mother, learning as she went, trying her best to balance it all. My own fear of failure, of not being enough, would surface in unexpected ways. But somewhere along the journey, I realized that my fears and my need for control were driving a wedge between us. And the more I tried to grip tightly, the more I lost sight of the tender love and wonder I wanted to bring into our relationship.

    So, I started working on myself. I went to therapy and hired a coach—not because I was broken, but because I knew I wasn’t showing up as the parent, or the person, I wanted to be.

    Through my healing journey, I learned that my desire to control was rooted in fear—a fear that if I didn’t do everything perfectly, he would somehow slip through the cracks. I feared for his future, that he’d face pain or hardship. But as I began to peel back those layers, I started to see that my fear wasn’t protecting him; it was keeping me from fully loving and trusting him.

    As I did this inner work, something shifted. My approach softened. I wasn’t as reactive or rigid. I found that I could set boundaries from a place of love instead of fear, listen without rushing to fix, and let him make his own choices.

    I became less focused on making sure everything was perfect and more focused on simply being there. I was less afraid, more open—and, truth be told, I began to enjoy life more. I found joy in the little things again, the mundane moments I used to take for granted. And he noticed.

    My children began to see me differently. They told me I was more patient, kinder, and even more fun. This loop of healing—me working on myself, allowing my own growth to ripple into how I showed up for them—created a connection that only grew stronger. The more I invested in myself, the more balanced I felt, and the deeper my love for them became.

    So, what about that old saying, “If mama ain’t happy, nobody’s happy”? Perhaps instead we should say, “No one is happy all the time, but if mom is struggling, she needs time and space to address her own issues, and everyone in the house will benefit.” The same goes for Dad. If he’s checked out, he needs to come back to this one life we’re given. Both parents need to heal, grow, and show up for themselves so they can be there fully for their kids.

    Just like the thermostat in your home, if things are too hot or too cold, you adjust it to find comfort. The same goes for parenting. When we take the time to work on ourselves, we create the right environment—not perfect, but balanced and loving—for our children to thrive.

    It’s never too late to start. Let’s embark on this healing journey together so we can show up as the best parents we can be—not because we have all the answers, but because we’re willing to do the work, grow, and love along the way.

  • What I Know About Healing Now That I’ve Ended Contact with My Mom

    What I Know About Healing Now That I’ve Ended Contact with My Mom

    “Not all toxic people are cruel and uncaring. Some of them love us dearly. Many of them have good intentions. Most are toxic to our being simply because their needs and way of existing in the world force us to compromise ourselves and our happiness. They aren’t inherently bad people, but they aren’t the right people for us.” ~Daniell Koepke 

    If someone had asked me a year ago if I would ever cut contact with my mom, my answer would have been a definite no.

    After reconnecting with my dad in 2020 (we didn’t speak for over eleven years), I decided to handle this parent business differently.

    Part of me strongly believed that if I was healing and doing this inner work right, I would be able to find a way to coexist in a relationship with my parents, and that I had to do that at all costs.

    My mom and I were always very close. Although our relationship was toxic, we had a bond that I believed was unbreakable.

    She used to say that I was a rainbow baby since she lost my sister to a shooting accident before I was born. After my sister died, they told her she would never have more children. One year later, she got pregnant, and I was born. Everyone was saying that she was beside herself, and I believed it.

    Although there was a lot of abuse and violence happening in our household, I saw her as someone who was fighting for her life to move beyond the trauma of her past while losing it to a bottle of vodka to numb and escape.

    I believe this is why I always had this unsettling drive not to give up and be defined by the past while never shying away from addressing it. I saw the consequences we face when our souls are unhealed and how unaddressed trauma drives everything.

    The first time I clearly saw how toxic the relationship with my mom was and how it affected me was when I read the book Silently Seduced: When Parents Make Their Children Partners by Kenneth M. Adams, in 2020.

    It was the most difficult but revolutionary book that I had ever gotten my hands on. I remember times when I had to put the book down and take deep breaths to stomach the deeply confronting truth I saw myself in. Reading this book marked a breaking point for me when the dynamic between my mom and I started to change.

    As the years went on, her alcohol abuse became uncontrollable. I think she lost any desire to fight her addiction, which she always had before. Although we live on two different continents, I began to wake up to Facebook messages from her attacking me and calling me names while demanding I send her more money.

    Therefore, in December 2023, after pleading with her repeatedly to seek help and threatening her that I would stop talking to her if things continued the way they were, I decided to act on my word. I ended my contact with her for the first time. Since then, we haven’t been in touch. Here are four things this decision and reflecting on it periodically taught me about healing.

    1. Pain doesn’t always subside.

    Someone once told me that the pain that I feel regarding my mom will eventually subside. Although I am doing a much better job at dealing with this situation internally, I understand that pain of this sort doesn’t always subside. I must learn to carry it with grace.

    When we look at the person we love destroying themselves while not being able to do anything, how can we let go of the pain we feel? This pain comes from love, not from others doing us wrong. And those, to me, are two different types of pain. Although learning how to deal with our emotions is up to us, when we love, we also hurt.

    The two most empowering practices that have been helping me are accepting things I can’t change and allowing myself to release what I feel without stuffing it up. I don’t try to hold my emotions in or lie to myself that I don’t care when, in fact, I do. I choose not to shy away from the emotional discomfort and to take time to reflect on how I am progressing with this no-contact situation as I move through it.

    I also see my pain as a sign of the deep love I am capable of. Understanding that my capacity to feel pain reflects the capacity to feel love helps me ground myself and, in a way, befriend the pain instead of rejecting it.

    2. It’s important that we honor our healing.

    There is no right or wrong way to heal. It is one of the most complex and imperfect paths we will ever walk, and honoring every step of it is the only thing we “should” do.

    For all those years, I felt immense guilt that I couldn’t help my mom. I felt like a failure, working with women from all over the world to heal themselves while being powerless to help a woman who gave birth to me.

    Only those who have ever dealt with an addict close to them can understand the pain this brings. After some time, we realize that the only thing left to do is to sit back and watch the tragedy unfold, as if we are watching some heart-aching movie, while understanding that only an addict can help themselves.

    It took me many years to start accepting that I couldn’t fix this situation while paying attention to the pain I felt.

    Often, when a person struggles with alcohol or drug abuse, the focus is, understandably, on them. However, people around them are affected as well. For as long as I can remember, I battled with the desire to turn my back on my mom while shaming myself for wanting that.

    Eventually, I started to pay attention to the effect this had on me and stayed away from people who said things like, “But it’s your mom.” I was and am fully aware that this is my mom, whom I love deeply. I am also mindful that these remarks come from people who’ve probably never stood in my shoes.

    As Brené Brown said, “You share with people who’ve earned the right to hear your story.” This is especially true when it comes to our stories of shame. There were times when I thought about how easier my life would have been if my mom died and I didn’t have to deal with her alcohol. A few moments later, I felt paralyzed by shame, judging myself for having had these thoughts.

    Today, I choose to own my story of shame and work on forgiving myself. I understand that these thoughts come from desperation and a desire to escape her addiction, which, in a way, I did when I moved to the U.S.

    Recognizing the source of it while offering myself compassion and forgiveness helped me work through my unmet expectations of her recovery while becoming more resilient to face our dysfunctional relationship.

    3. Sometimes we have to love people from a distance. 

    One of the hardest lessons I learned on my healing journey was this: love doesn’t equal presence. Requiring presence to love is attachment.

    Eventually, I understood that I could love my mom while choosing not to be around her because it isn’t healthy for me. This, of course, came after a series of inner battles, and it certainly stretched me beyond my comfort.

    The biggest battle for a person who is in contact with an addict is to choose when to leave or when to keep fighting for them. This often comes with doubts because we don’t want to give up on them, and we constantly question whether we did everything we could to help.

    But when we choose to distance ourselves while keeping love in our hearts, we are honoring our mental health while still loving those who struggle. We understand that their paths are not ours and that our mental health, healing, and life matter as much as theirs.

    4. We heal better when we choose to understand. 

    One thing that helped me while healing my relationship with my mom was looking at her life from a place of curiosity and understanding.

    At first, I used this understanding to excuse her behavior while holding lots of anger and resentment toward her. Although I would call her every day and send her money every month, I resented her for the mother she was. As I progressed in my healing, I realized that I could only understand her actions and heal the pain from my past if I honored what was true for me. And that was to distance myself and go no contact.

    It helped me to look at her with more compassion while considering everything she had been through as a child and the fact that she had done no healing work (coming from the era where mental health was taboo). It also helped to recognize that she really tried. I know she did. And I think knowing that hurts the most.

    Reflecting on my mom’s life and understanding her while healing myself helps me to detach from her actions while knowing that whatever she did, it wasn’t about me. It wasn’t because she didn’t love me but because she didn’t know how to handle her own demons.

    It also shows me the importance of making healthy choices for myself. In a way, I am learning to hold her in my heart while, at the same time, holding my well-being there as well. It teaches me that there isn’t a right way to heal while navigating through our recovery.

    At the time of this writing, my mom and I haven’t spoken in seven months. As I am preparing to come home for Christmas, I am planning to reach out to her to meet and talk face-to-face.

    Although I have no idea how the conversation will go, I know that whatever will be true for me at that moment, whether to reconnect or keep things as they are, I will obey what my soul tells me.

    Because listening to what we truly feel and then honoring it, regardless of what it looks like on the outside, is the only thing that heals us and sets us free.

  • 5 Things to Know When an Abusive Parent Dies

    5 Things to Know When an Abusive Parent Dies

    “Family is supposed to be our safe haven. Very often, it’s the place where we find the deepest heartache.” ~Iyanla Vanzant

    My brother called me at work on a random Tuesday to say that my mother had suddenly died. Powerful emotions of shock and relief ran through my body, like someone rang a gong right next to me. The war was over.

    Like most people with an abusive parent, I had previously wondered how I would feel when my mother died. I was not surprised at the relief, nor that I wasn’t sad.

    I did not think about what would happen next.

    The Funeral

    One brother and I flew to Houston to meet my second brother. As happens with death in the South, the neighbors loaded us up with food—bless them. While we were tasked with making plans for the funeral, my mother’s extended family converged upon us.

    I should have won an Academy Award for keeping my cool and not exploding on them. I learned to act from the best: My mother was one person in public, another person at home. My mother’s extended family thought she was amazing. I stared stony-faced at the relatives telling hilarious stories and talking about her excellent character.

    The hardest part was when the extended family compared me to my mother. Given what I know about her meanness, tantrums, and childishness, it felt like being compared to the schoolyard bully. I just tried to not roll my eyes out loud.

    After all the hoopla of the memorial service, everyone went home, and my brothers and I had our own memorial in the living room. We laughed at some of her greatest hits. “Remember when she screamed at the cashier who wouldn’t take her coupon?” “Remember when she said my house was too small and she hadn’t even seen it?”

    The Aftermath

    When I got back home, people who cared about me kept saying, “I’m sorry for your loss.” I just looked at the ground and mumbled, “Um, thanks.” Now, when I hear about a death, I say, “Oh, wow” and give that person space for their truth.

    My father died six years earlier. I knew from personal and professional experience that after a death, reality hits at about the two-month mark, when the numbness wears off. I braced myself to dig into the hard emotions.

    The anger and sadness about my mother were like a bomb—everyone in the area felt it. I previously worked through the feelings of unworthiness, knowing the abuse was not my fault (thanks, therapy!). I gained thirty pounds of grief weight. Now I was also furious that grief issues were invading my body.

    Family Stuff Goes On (Of Course)

    I was still in touch with my extended family, of course. When they wanted to regale me with stories of my mother’s fabulousness, I tried to set the story straight. We would just gridlock.

    On my mother’s birthday, the family posted memories about her on Facebook. I then posted a photo of the two of us when I was about seven years old. We were at my dance recital, and my mother had her arms open wide, smiling for the camera, while I clung to her. A friend privately messaged me, “She’s not even touching you.” I messaged back, “Exactly.”

    One aunt finally admitted, “Yes, your mother was hard on you.” I was shocked that people knew about the abuse but did nothing about it. The fact that my family left me to rescue myself as a child caused an emotional setback for several months.

    To this day, I avoid the topic of my mother with these people.

    And Then, Healing

    I purged the grief in my journal, with my therapist, through art and sports. As I sifted through the rubble of my emotions, I became grateful for the many women who were mothers to me over the course of my life.

    I changed my nutrition. I learned to nurture myself in ways I never got as a child. I became my own mother.

    As the smoke cleared from grieving, I unpacked my automatic behaviors from childhood. I started hearing my true Self and made better choices. For example, I found that I have a gentle nature at my core. I couldn’t hear my Self because I was locked in battle with my mother.

    Through even more journaling, more therapy, and more time (seven years at this point), I was finally able to release the situation. People use the word “forgiveness.” More accurately, I can see the wholeness of the debacle of my childhood. I found real peace.

    Tools To Use

    I have seen other people in my practice who’ve feel relief when an abusive parent dies. Like me, they often don’t think about emotions or situations past that point.

    Some things to think about:

    1. You might get compared, favorably or not, to your abusive parent. People outside of the immediate family rarely say bad things about the deceased.

    2. Even though you feel relief, there is still grief, even if it’s “What I should have had…” Boxing up your feelings will make them come out sideways. Grieving is a hard and time-consuming process, but worth it for your healing.

    3. Even though your abusive parent has died, they are alive in your head. Every mean thing they said, crazy thing they did—it’s all still there. Do trauma work to reclaim your life.

    4. You are more than what you’ve survived. Listen for your true Self. Who are you underneath the abuse from your abusive parent?

    5. Family members often push the abused person to forgive WAY too early. This is like sticking a band-aid on a wound. Forgiveness sets you free, but only when you are ready.

    From a Distance

    I am not sad that my mother has died, and I don’t miss her. She was mentally ill, and I am glad that she is not suffering any longer. I’m also glad that she is not hurting me or my siblings any longer.

    Seeing the situation from a distance, I can see my mother for her incredible flaws (I haven’t forgotten), but her strengths as well. She was artistic. She loved animals and senior citizens and tried to help them. She was a feminist before it was cool.

    As expected, her death brought a ceasefire, but it also brought much more. It gave me the chance to unshackle myself from this long-running war so that I could walk away, towards my true Self.

  • Sending Love

    Sending Love

  • The Beautiful Life I Didn’t Plan For: On Raising a Special Needs Child

    The Beautiful Life I Didn’t Plan For: On Raising a Special Needs Child

    “I’ve learned that you can keep going long after you think you can’t.” ~Unknown

    As far back as I can remember, I have always wanted to be a mom. I held onto the belief that my life wouldn’t feel truly “complete” until I had children.

    This dream finally came true in 2010 when I was twenty-seven years old, when my son, Logan Patrick Arnold, entered the world. The moment I laid eyes on him, I sensed something was different about him. And though it might not sound flattering, he looked more like a middle-aged man than a Gerber baby.

    Upon closer examination, the doctors discovered several abnormalities. Logan had upturned earlobes, and while some suggested it was due to his fetal positioning in my petite belly (I’m just 5’1″), deep down, I knew it wasn’t the case. Logan also exhibited an unusually pointed chin, a wide nose bridge, and eyes set farther apart than usual.

    People often speak of a mother’s intuition or maternal instinct, and mine kicked in at that moment. Something was wrong, and I knew it was serious. Although others may have shared similar thoughts, we all kept our concerns to ourselves, perhaps out of fear of the unknown.

    As the months passed, Logan failed to reach the typical infant milestones. His body remained rigid, and his tiny hands were perpetually clenched into fists. He couldn’t grasp toys or sit up on his own. Even as first-time parents, we understood that this wasn’t normal.

    Fast forward about nine months, and my husband was typing phrases like “upturned earlobes, wide nose-bridge, pointy chin” into a Google search. He exclaimed, “Jackie, you need to see this!”

    I had no idea what to expect on that screen, but I could never have imagined staring at a child who bore such a striking resemblance to Logan that they could have been siblings. It was an uncanny resemblance. I whispered, “That’s Logan.”

    My husband had stumbled upon a website displaying pictures of children with Mowat-Wilson Syndrome, a condition discovered by Dr. Mowat and Dr. Wilson in 1997, with only about 500 diagnosed cases worldwide.

    I clicked frantically to see more pictures. Every child could have been Logan’s sibling, sharing the same facial features and bone structures. We had found our answer.

    We searched for more information, which would change our lives forever. I distinctly recall reading the words “moderate to severe intellectual disability” and “non-verbal.”

    My heart sank. Did this mean my child would never speak, not even a simple “hello” or “I love you, Mama”? I was devastated.

    It’s often said that “life throws you curveballs,” but this was one I hadn’t expected and certainly wasn’t prepared for. The beautiful life I had envisioned for Logan was going to be nothing like the one I had planned.

    The years following Logan’s diagnosis were filled with doctor’s appointments, therapy sessions, school meetings, and anything else we could do to aid his progress and growth.

    Back then, we were merely trying to survive: eat, sleep (very little), work, and do everything we could for Logan, repeating the cycle endlessly. Looking back, I’m not sure how we made it through, but we did.

    And you know what? Our life is still beautiful.

    Logan is a thriving non-verbal thirteen-year-old who adores school and his sister Lucy and would cherish nothing more than cuddling on the couch while we read him books and watch The Wiggles on TV. Life is pretty good for Logan.

    And it’s pretty good for us too. No, this isn’t the life we had planned, but it’s our life, and now we couldn’t imagine it any other way. Logan’s disability opened us up to a whole new world of people and experiences we never would have known otherwise.

    He’s taught us about unconditional love and finding patience when you think you’ve exhausted it all. Logan does everything in his own time; he sat at fifteen months, crawled at two-and-a-half years, and walked at five. Those milestones, achieved through hard work and countless hours of therapy, were all the sweeter because of the effort.

    When our daughter Lucy was born and effortlessly reached those milestones, we were in awe of what a tiny human could do without being “taught.” It made us appreciate the little things in life even more.

    Reflecting on the past thirteen years evokes a whirlwind of emotions. The journey was messy, ugly, amazing, and joyful all at once. But it has shaped us into who we are today—better people and better parents.

    If I could travel back in time and offer some advice to that sleep-deprived twenty-seven-year-old mom, it would be this.

    1. It’s okay to grieve and be sad. Receiving a diagnosis like ours can feel like a death in many ways. Embrace your emotions; you don’t always have to be strong.

    2. Understand that this child will change your life and make you a better person. Seek out supportive friends who understand your journey.

    3. Let others help you. When someone offers assistance, accept it. You don’t have to carry the burden alone.

    4. Communicate with your partner. You will process your emotions differently, so be open and honest with each other.

    5. This isn’t a race or a competition. Take it one day at a time; you are doing enough, and you are enough.

    6. You will get through this. You are stronger and more resilient than you ever thought possible.

    Receiving a diagnosis of any kind is life changing. If you know someone going through this experience, reach out to them. Ask if they are okay, like really okay.

    And when they turn down your offer to help, step in and do it anyway…let them shower while you watch their child, bring them dinner, mow the grass. Just be there and show your support. These simple gestures will mean the world to them.

  • How I Healed My Strained Relationship with My Addict Mother

    How I Healed My Strained Relationship with My Addict Mother

    “We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.” ~Sam Keen

    Like so many of us, my relationship with my mother throughout my life is best described as complicated.

    We’ve had our fair share of turbulent times in our journey, and her alcoholism and drug abuse while I was growing up fueled great dysfunction on every level: literal physical fighting when I was a teenager (yep, Jerry Springer-style), seemingly continual acts of rebellion, a total lack of understanding, deep mistrust, unwillingness (or likely even an inability at the time) to change, and ultimately a total separation when I was thirteen years old that would take decades to shift.

    Today, I’m forty-eight years old, and my mother and I have been rebuilding our relationship for over twenty years.

    I deeply acknowledge how her decision to get sober and stay sober in 2001 laid the foundation for me to develop the willingness to try and have a relationship. To get to where we are today has required a lot of deeply personal internal work for me, and it is my hope that by sharing my story, you may feel hope and even inspiration on your journey.

    My mother was just twenty years old when I was born, and by the time my sister was born two years later, my parents were already divorced. My mother grew up in fourteen foster homes and became the first cycle breaker in our family by deciding to walk away from the system at eighteen and not seek contact with her family. (It’s so clear to me now how truly ill-equipped she was to be a parent.)

    My sister and I lived with my mother, and we saw our father some weekends but there was never a consistent schedule, as consistency wasn’t a word that could describe any part of our childhood. I lived briefly with my father when I was five for one year, and my sister stayed with my mom.

    Because of the inconsistent contact with my father, over the years I idealized him and his life, which was often a bone of contention with my mother.

    By the age of thirteen, I had grown extremely tired of life with my mother and fantasized daily about creating a new one. After a particularly awful experience where she came to my school drunk and dragged me out of the school dance by my hair, I decided to take action and to seek refuge for me and my little sister by living with my father an eight-hour drive away (my paternal grandmother helped to facilitate this).

    When we left my mother’s house, we didn’t have any contact with her for a few years. She moved away from California, and I turned my focus to my new and exciting life with my father. Boy, was I in for a surprise and more excitement than I could have ever wanted!

    My father worked in the blossoming tech industry when we moved in with him in Southern California in 1989. He had a house built for us in a swanky new development, and at first, it really felt like life was taking a turn for the better.

    Until it wasn’t. It really, really wasn’t.

    One fateful day, my father went out for a haircut and didn’t return for three days, leaving us with our stepmother, who never wanted kids or for us to come and live with them. When he returned, he was disheveled—no haircut—and extremely quiet.

    Through the angrily clenched teeth of my stepmother’s whisper in my ear, I found out that my father was a barely functioning drug addict who enjoyed cocaine, heroin, and eventually to his demise, crack cocaine (crack is definitely whack).

    As my grandmother would say, we jumped from the frying pan into the fire, and after living with him for not quite two years, he committed suicide when I was just fifteen. Since we had no relationship with my mother and didn’t want one, my paternal grandmother graciously took us in, and I again turned my focus to starting a new life.

    At the tender age of sixteen, I decided that both of my parents were losers and I only wanted to move forward with my new life with my grandmother. I turned my focus toward school but made plenty of room for recreational drinking, experimenting with LSD and mushrooms, and going to metal concerts in the Bay Area.

    I went off to college at eighteen (with a decent GPA, considering), the first in my immediate family to do so, determined that I would be the next cycle breaker by being and doing better than where I came from.

    Until it appeared that I wouldn’t be or do any better.

    I got unexpectedly pregnant with my son when I was twenty (just like my mom) while in college, and this news was not well received by my grandmother, who “thought I was going to be different.” I was still determined to break the cycle, and my grandmother’s comment would fuel years of overachieving in an effort to prove myself (my story of incredible burnout is one for another day!).

    I extended a tentative and boundaried-up olive branch to my mother, allowing her to come to the hospital when my son was born as long as she was sober (amongst other rules). It would take another four years, a second child for me, and a fateful DUI for her to choose sobriety. This was the fragile beginning of deep healing and transformation for me that would take many, many years.

    “As traumatized children we always dreamed that someone would come and save us. We never dreamed that it would, in fact, be ourselves, as adults.” ~Alice Little

    I can share four things that I did (and do) that helped me to come to the place where I am able to have a positive relationship with my mother after all of the dysfunction that defined our relationship for most of my life.

    1. I looked at pictures of my mother as a child and committed them to memory.

    Seeing my mother as a child helped me to view her as more than just my mother. I looked at photos of my mother when she was younger and imagined the trauma she experienced as a child and how much pain and suffering that little girl endured that affected how she evolved into an adult and a parent.

    This practice gave me insight and helped me to develop compassion for her and her journey.

    I learned that I had the ability to consciously choose another perspective, another way of looking at her. Picturing her as a young child and thinking of the experiences she has slowly shared with me over the years gave me a new light and new eyes with which to see her.

    I still use this practice when I need to cultivate compassion for her, as we are not in the same place when it comes to our healing journeys, and sometimes I need this reminder when I interact with her.

    2. I made a conscious decision to let go of my story about the mother I wished she was and my victim mentality around my childhood.

    First, I had to become deeply aware of the story I told myself about my mother and my childhood. Writing in my journal about it helped me the most, knowing that this was my private and sacred place that I didn’t have to share with anyone if I didn’t want to.

    I asked and responded to questions like “Who is my mother to me? How do I feel about my mother? Who did I wish my mother to be? How do I wish things were different when I was growing up? What were the best parts of my childhood? What were the worst parts?”

    Once I developed deep awareness of my thoughts, feelings, and perspectives on my experiences, I made the conscious decision to let go of the story of the mother that I wished I had and how I felt like I was dealt a terrible hand in the parent department. I consciously decided that I was not a victim of my childhood, nor a victim of my mother. I embraced and eventually accepted that all of my experiences helped me to be who I am today.

    On my spiritual and healing journey, I discovered that some people believe we actually choose our parents before our souls incarnate into this life, and that we choose the parents that can teach us the most in our lifetime.

    This idea helped me to look at my mother and my childhood in a different way. I now deeply know that she is the perfect parent for me because I have never liked being told what to do, and she was absolutely the best at teaching me what I didn’t want so I could forge my own path (she always did say when we were kids that “I’m a warning not an example!”).

    3. I let go of the expectations that I had created for her as a mother.

    Society, family, the media, and movies all paint pictures for us about what parents and families should and shouldn’t be. We are both subtly and overtly programmed with certain expectations for how we and others should be and should behave, especially in specific roles, like that of a parent.

    I realized by looking deeply that I had a lot of expectations for how my parents should be that were not realistic and not even fair given who they actually were. Recognizing my expectations and making a conscious decision to let them go allowed me to create space for my mother to just be who she is without me getting disappointed when she couldn’t be or do what I wanted her to.

    4. I created boundaries for myself for our relationship from a place of love and compassion for both of us.

    I looked deeply at what I needed as a conscious adult to have a positive relationship with my mother, and I created boundaries to support myself. It was important to me that these boundaries came from a place of love and compassion for the both of us, with the intention to keep our relationship positive.

    One boundary that has really helped me with our relationship is to be mindful of what we talk about and how I choose to respond.

    We don’t often share the same views on politics, for example, so I’ve set the boundary that we just don’t talk about this. If she happens to say something political that I don’t agree with, I usually just don’t say anything, as it’s really not that important to me to die on that hill (and I try to find a kind way to shift the topic of conversation without engaging).

    My mother feels differently, but I believe that she still has deep healing to do around the trauma she experienced as a child. This topic has become a boundary for me because we are not yet in the place to have deep conversations about this, and that’s okay. I’ve accepted that we can’t go there right now (and maybe never will), so I choose to let it go.

    It also helps me greatly to remember that we are all doing the best we can with our current level of consciousness, and that no matter where we are in the journey, there is always more to be learned. This reminder helps me to cultivate patience and grace with and around my mother (and others).

    While I wouldn’t classify our relationship as perfect by any stretch, I’ve come to learn that there is no such thing as a perfect relationship, but there are times when making an effort to have an imperfect relationship is the perfect medicine for healing.

  • My Second Mother: When Someone Steps Up Like Family Never Did

    My Second Mother: When Someone Steps Up Like Family Never Did

    We are all blessed with two birth parents, and if we are lucky one or two of those are positive role models and on board for at least some portion of our lives. If we are really lucky, we may have the good fortune to score another mom or dad figure, someone who appears virtually out of nowhere, as fate or serendipity might have it, and takes us under their propitious wing.

    Such a thing happened to me in the form of a bright, spunky, and emotionally generous woman named Joanie Arnesty, who helped me through the veil of darkness that infiltrated every corner of my being.

    As a child of a German-Jewish Holocaust survivor, my mother’s past of suffering and trauma filled my own life with perpetual sadness, which I found difficult to eviscerate.

    There was scant laughter in our house and constant retellings of what my maternal family had gone through in World War II and how many of them had perished in the Shoah. I yearned for the happy childhood I intuitively felt was my birthright but which evaded me because the spectre of war filled up our entire home.

    Although grateful for my parents, I felt the emotional burden of my mother’s scarred and tattered life to ultimately be too much, and I fled at age nineteen to a coastal California town to begin a college life. I was excited by the prospect of sand and sea at my doorstep and new stories and events that had nothing to do with the Holocaust, which had stolen so much from us.

    Throughout my adulthood I wondered why I had not been given a happy family and a childhood that was punctuated with cheery memories.

    In every photo that was taken of me by my Polish father—who had hoped to become a photographer but instead found himself bitterly working in low-paying factory jobs, never with anyone who appreciated his creative intelligence—I look depressed and off-kilter, as if the vagaries of life have already turned me to the dark side.

    My mother has piled my auburn-colored ringlets high atop my head, in some vague European-influenced do, and I am wearing clothes that are old beyond my years, somber and unflattering, out of step with the fashion of the day.

    In those pictures it looks as if I am always on the brink of tears, under the impress of her reminders that I should not be pouting, or acting “beleidig” (the German word for angry), and should be grateful for my very life when so many had died during World War II. 

    When I was finally able to leave the house of despair that was my family, I felt I had been given a second chance at life, although throwing off the yoke of depression would be a battle I’d fight my entire existence. It still pulls at me with its relentless and intractable force, not stayed or mitigated by a battery of allegedly efficacious anti-anxiety/anti-depressant meds in conjunction with weekly psychotherapy.

    When I look back the years often blur, although I seem to remember with some affection those when I lived in the world of academia.

    I made my way through undergraduate school, a year of graduate school, and finally three years of law school. Not in any of those venues did I ever meet anyone whose parents were Holocaust survivors or who seemed to live daily with the scourge of the remembrances attached to that horrific event.

    I had long ago learned to blend in, to shed the apparent manifestations of an inherited life where pain, not pleasure, always predominated. I chose as my companions those who laughed easily and often, who absorbed the impostor that I always felt I was without any real resistance.

    In my thirties, then settled in Berkeley, California, and working in the legal field, I met someone who would change the architectonics of my life and the notions of family, from the fragmented moorings of a biological one to a new definition of what benefits an intentional family might confer.  

    Joanie Arnesty entered my life, encountered at some now forgotten community event, and became the mother I had always hoped for, full of effusion and contagious laughter and shining hopes.

    The first time we met I recall her saying “Such a beautiful girl you are! That hair! People would die to have that glorious mane of hair. And a law degree? Beautiful and smart! Well, that’s the icing on the cake!”

    Compliments were not the tender my parents traded in, and I yearned inveterately to hear a good word thrown in my direction. With my own son, I have emphasized the importance of being around what I call “encouragers”—those who not only give you emotional support but do it with a fiery and unrelenting vengeance. These are the folks who throw fairy dust on any situation, and you emerge wiser and better.

    Joanie, who was my mom’s age, was the physical embodiment of the epiphany I needed and became the female parent who helped me navigate the sudden storms and vicissitudes of life and celebrate the good times. 

    The turbulences of her own life seemed to have borne no apparent adverse impacts upon her. The product of an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, she lost her own mother, a Jewish woman who worked as a nurse and got involved with a married Irish Catholic man named John Brown, around five years old.

    Raised by her mother’s sister, she inherited her father’s red hair and storied charm and wit but never met or even saw a photo of him.

    After high school, she married a man who, in quick succession, gave her three brilliant daughters, but there were black eyes and beatings, which finally caused her to run with just the clothes on her back and the three children in tow.

    When I think of Joanie, I remember the name of a film, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, which turned out to be a perfect descriptor of her. A single parent, she raised three girls, with never a male in the picture, all embodying her own unshakeable confidence and optimism.

    She watched them eventually attain professional identities, as an optometrist, pediatrician, and university professor. During their childhood she held numerous jobs and worked as a seamstress, baker, cook, and babysitter and lived a lean but happy life, never dwelling on her own misfortunes, which were incontrovertibly substantial.

    As our friendship grew from a chance meeting, I grew comfortable in sharing insecurities and what it meant to have never felt comfortable in the family I was born into.

    When I told my own mother one day that I wanted to be a writer, she yelled at me in German that this was “a stupid idea” and added “you have a lot of those.” I never forgave her for that outburst, and I still feel the sting of what it means to be deeply and disinterestedly misunderstood. 

    I shared my mother’s words one time with Joanie, and this woman, who admittedly was not book-smart and tutored, said energetically to me, “The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away. Pablo Picasso said that. I saw it in a magazine and I cut the words out and put them on the refrigerator.”

    And there they were on her old General Electric fridge, with magnets on each end, their wisdom illuminated in the midst of Safeway coupons and doctors’ business cards.

    “You need to have faith in yourself and to follow your dream. You are a great writer, but you need to first and foremost believe that yourself.”

    I have many failings but do not number among them the inability to listen closely.

    The reality is that we may not have parents that are a good or appropriate match for us, but it is within our power to seek out those who can fulfill these roles. I consciously chose Joanie as a second mother, who encouraged me to feel that I was good and able enough and deserved the fruits of a celebratory life.

    In time she introduced me to my husband, saw me through a difficult pregnancy, and threw a large and amazing baby shower, replete with a ton of baked dishes and desserts, scratch-made by her.

    She seemed able to put her unique and affectionate brand on everything. She loved and worried over my son, who was born with congestive heart failure and an array of other medical conditions.

    She once said to me “you’re my fourth daughter,” and my eyes filled with tears. She was always at my side, bouncy and ebullient, helping to lift me emotionally when I so often foundered.

    My own mother, 800 miles away in Los Angeles, issued regular rebukes and continued her criticism, saying that I had ruined my life, remaining emotionally distant and mired in depression after my father’s passing.

    She could never see my life because hers was always in the way. It was as if she had no happiness to give anyone, including herself, and the role of a biological parent disappeared into the background.

    What I have taken from my own story is this: We don’t all have parents who can offer us the love and encouragement we need, but we can all search for a parent or a mentor to fill in the spaces where support is lacking. It’s not always easy to find a person who can fill that role, but there are lots of good people out there with love to give. We just need to open our eyes and hearts to find them.

    In my case, I required encouragement and someone who was willing to listen closely. I needed laughter because there seemed so little of it in my own familial background.

    I remember seeing another quote on Joanie’s refrigerator that stood out, remarkable because it really captured the essence of who she was. I wrote it down on a yellow post-it and have it to this day:

    “Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is a strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light.”

    The author was Frida Kahlo, a Mexican artist who I was not familiar with at that time. Joanie taught me the importance of rising above what could be the oppressive weight of life, of laughing often and out loud, and embracing a path of positivity.

    The photo of my son and I on her desk shows us both smiling, seemingly recovered from our battles— mine of a life filled with emotional turbulence and his of a successful fight with a life-endangering condition.

    Years later, when I moved to central California, I wrote her a letter and told her that I was writing again, that I had returned to what I characterized as being a “wordsmith.” A week later I received a beautiful card and opened it to see the words imprinted in a careful and deliberate hand: “Always be yourself.  And be grateful for your gift and the ability to share it.”

    I do not know that I am a good writer or that any critical commentary will make such a determination.  But I do know that having a second mother, who stepped in time with me like some ineffable Mary Poppins character, made a difference. Her enthusiasm and encouragement restored to me the idea of what a family who embraces you really feels like.

    In the end it is not the biological bonds that necessarily provide succor and strength and understanding—there are other mothers and fathers to be found, intentionally or not, that can provide those qualities as well.   

    Here is to all the Joanie Arnestys in the world that have rescued the people whose families were emotionally missing in action and gave us the hope to soldier on and create new networks of families to lean into.

    Anf if you haven’t found your own Joanie yet, here’s to you for moving through this sometimes challenging life without the love and support you’ve always deserved.

  • Don’t Wait to Open Your Heart: There Is Only Time For Love

    Don’t Wait to Open Your Heart: There Is Only Time For Love

    “Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness.” ~Iain Thomas

    Looking back, my most cherished childhood memories can be traced back to my rosy mother.

    Intricate forts in the backyard with Spice Girls playing in the background. Sleepovers using Limited Too’s finest sparkly lotion, eyeshadow, and lip gloss. Rainy afternoons filled with friendship bracelets and Lisa Frank activity sheets. Children and teachers showing off their wild side at my mothers’ signature talent shows at the local theatre. Arts and crafts in a room surrounded by floral couches and mauve wallpaper. Flea market field trips to select the perfect charm bracelet. And, loads of buttery birthday cakes with the words Be With Your Dreams written all over them.

    Sadly, we grew apart during middle school when she abruptly uprooted our sunlit lives in exchange for a nomadic lifestyle. After traveling with her to two states, I grew tired of the “new kid” title and moved in with my father.

    With each of her subsequent moves, my resentment morphed into a towering boulder that blocked her love to seep through. Our tug-of-war relationship continued for six years into early adulthood.

    I still remember the day that everything changed.

    I was at a work conference when I received an unexpected call from her. I grudgingly called her back in a crowded hallway.

    “What?!” I said in a pompous tone.

    She whispered, “I’m so sorry to hound you but I need to tell you something. I have cancer. ”

    “What do you mean?” I said as my throat sealed.

    “I’ve been diagnosed with ovarian cancer—I am so sorry.”

    A few days later, I visited her home in Key West, Florida. I can still picture her galloping towards me as I exited the puddle-jumper. She had a mop of loose curls, a wide smile, torn army green cargo pants, and a swollen belly that resembled pregnancy.

    For the first time in years, we bonded without the heaviness of the future.

    We became giggly movie critics. We strolled the shoreline in search of magical conch shells. We frequented our favorite Cuban restaurant and oohed and aahed over zesty soup. We bought vintage aqua blue tea sets for future tea parties. We swapped stories that were once forgotten.

    Instead of cowering in embarrassment, I encouraged her roaring laugh in public. I embraced her hippy lifestyle as we basked in the sun, with Key Lime Pie sticks in hand. I co-directed one of her renowned talent shows featuring local YMCA kids. Her trailer became a treasure trove filled with wispy white pillows, the aroma of velvety hazelnut coffee, and new beginnings.

    With each day that passed, the towering boulder of resentment I once had dissipated into raw love.

    She didn’t have standard health insurance, but she saved black pilot whales in her free time. She didn’t have a steady job, but she made others smile as she sold handmade bottlecap jewelry at Mallory Square. You see—if you’re fixated on expectations of who someone should be according to your standards, you can’t love them for who they really are.

    My mother once wrote me:

    “Those stressful days are gone, and I don’t think I’ll ever see them again. I don’t have the meetings and high-powered days like I used to. I drift to work somehow gazing at the blazing sun, aqua blue ocean, hibiscus blossoms, and the marshmallow clouds. I wear island dresses in the endless cool breezes with my hair in a wet bun. Most of the time, I hide my bathing suit underneath it all so I can hit the beach right after.  I’m dreaming of my toes in the sand, laughing, giggling, and snoozing while listening to music and chirping birds. Remember, life is beautiful. You need to find your happy – promise?!

    My mother appreciated every moment, even if the highlight of her day was glancing through a window in a sterile hallway. She described the hospital’s cuisine as divine. Although she could barely walk, she somehow dragged her flimsy wheelchair through sand, just to inhale a whiff of the salty ocean air. And at every opportunity, she looked up at the clouds in awe of being alive.

    As her soft body turned into brittle bones, I learned the importance of her famous motto, Be With Your Dreams. She taught me how to live an idyllic life filled with nature, wonderment, and positivity. She proved that having a raw, openhearted approach to life was superior than any cookie-cutter mold I once envisioned for her.

    In my mother’s last days, she shared tenderly, “Britt, I think of how I left you behind sometimes. I know I wasn’t a perfect mother, but I’ve always loved you so much, baby girl.”

    I waited for that moment for fifteen years. And in that moment, I felt nothing. Zilch. Nada.

    Time was the only thing I longed for. As tears streamed down my face, I wondered how many more memories we would’ve had, had I learned to appreciate her for who she was years ago.

    Most of us wait to resolve our conflicts “later.” The unfortunate part is that minutes and days turn into months and years. There’s a good chance we’re missing out on a relationship right now that could change our entire lives. So…

    Open the door to your heart and choose love. Be kind instead of right. Remember the good times. Let go of pain disguised as indifference. Take responsibility for your part. Stop the judgment. Be the bigger person. Forgive the small things.

    For goodness sakes, say or do something! Pick up the phone. Write an apology letter. Drive to their house. Plan a trip. Text a nostalgic memory.

    Don’t you see… there’s only time for love. And, who knows—if you’re lucky enough, they might just show you how to Be With Your Dreams.

  • To the Expectant Mom with a Million Questions and Worries

    To the Expectant Mom with a Million Questions and Worries

    “Have a little faith in your ability to handle whatever’s coming down the road. Believe that you have the strength and resourcefulness required to tackle whatever challenges come your way. And know that you always have the capacity to make the best of anything. Even if you didn’t want it or ask for it, even if seems scary or hard or unfair, you can make something good of any loss or hardship. You can learn from it, grow from it, help others through it, and maybe even thrive because of it. The future is unknown, but you can know this for sure: Whatever’s coming, you got this.” ~Lori Deschene

    As an obstetrician in Manhattan, I see the following scene often…

    A woman who is newly pregnant walks into my office, her eyes wide, her fingers clutched around her phone or a notebook and pen.

    She has just come from her first ultrasound and is now looking at me in total fear and anxiety. Not because she was told she has had a miscarriage—there is a beautiful heartbeat noted. Not because she has been told something looks abnormal with the baby—the baby looks healthy, like a little jumping peanut, as they all do early in pregnancy. Not because she has medical complications that make her pregnancy extremely high risk.

    Instead of taking a deep breath and feeling relief that the ultrasound showed a healthy pregnancy, her mind immediately goes to the million things she needs to get right and understand and process to ensure that she does everything right. To ensure that she receives an A+ in pregnancy and growing a healthy baby.

    Her look is a reflection of her inner emotions related to the unpredictable nature of pregnancy. She is scared to death because she realizes that she is no longer in control. She can do everything perfectly and still something bad may happen.

    This may be the first time in her life she has ever felt this way. So she desperately wants to control every bit of the process and soak in every detail she can in regards to statistics, testing, the effects of her diet, exercise, stress, work environment, and household and dietary toxins.

    She is clinging to any bit of power she has, to make everything turn out alright. To make sure she has a good pregnancy, an uneventful birth, and goes home with a healthy baby that will flourish and go to the top schools and become a happy and successful person.

    She also wants to maintain control of herself, the self she has cultivated for years and involves her career that she has worked hard for, her body that she has meticulously cared for, and her ability to work hard and be successful in everything she does.

    Now that all medical records and patient notes are available for the patients to see, a colleague of mine has coined a code word to add to such patient’s notes so that everyone who sees them understands they will need double the standard time for these appointments to answer the long list of questions that will inevitably arise.

    They should be prepared for questions on everything from birth plans to whether or not they should do invasive testing for Down’s syndrome even if the very sensitive screening tests return normal to what their chances are of getting gestational diabetes to whether it is safe to paint their nails and color their hair.

    They often bring a bag full of the supplements they have been taking and the makeup and skin products they have been using and ask the doctor to review and comment on each and every one and the safety and risks and benefits of each in pregnancy. If we do not have a good enough answer based on the available data, they want to know what we personally would do, as uncertainty and lack of direction is not an option.

    These moms require a little extra gentleness and support from their doctors; however, it can be difficult, as often no matter how many questions I answer and how well I try to ease their fears, I know that they may never be fully satisfied with my responses.

    The information I give them involves many responses that reflect a lack of a complete knowledge of all of the answers to their questions.

    I cannot definitively tell them how the face cream they used before knowing they were pregnant may affect their growing baby. I may not know how likely their fibroid is to cause preterm contraction or pain compared to women who have fibroids in other locations or of different sizes

    I can try to reassure them that even if they can only tolerate bread due to extreme nausea, their baby will get the nutrients they need; however, they may never fully believe me and feel that they have already done something wrong that is causing irrevocable harm.

    What I want to tell them, but often don’t due to my concern for their response and thinking that I do not take them seriously or provide the level of support and intensity they need, is this:

    Pregnancy is scary because most things that happen are beyond our control. Life, and everything about life, is also beyond our control; however, pregnancy is often the first time we come face to face with the fact that we really just have to let it be and accept what comes. 

    This is terrifying. We want to feel that we can influence the outcomes—the harder we work, the healthier we are, the better we follow all of the rules, the better our outcome will be. But just as someone can eat healthy, exercise every day, and get hit by a car crossing the street, a mom can follow every rule and recommendation and end up with a baby with a heart defect or have cervical insufficiency and lose the pregnancy. 

    The more we can accept the unpredictable nature of life and death, the more we can just be during the pregnancy and not live in perpetual fear of possible negative outcomes. 

    The truth is, worrying about it does not lessen the pain if a bad outcome occurs. So spending our time worrying about what may be is not helping us in any way and is actively preventing us from fully living in the present.

    This is the first lesson of being a parent, and an important lesson for everyone in life, no matter if you desire to be a parent or not: You cannot control your children; you can only do your best to be present and conscious and support them so they can flourish and grow into their own authentic selves. 

    Do the same for yourself during pregnancy and in life in general. Try to be present in the moment instead of focused on all of the ways that things could go wrong. Be conscious of how you treat your body. Provide yourself with nourishment, rest, exercise, and self-care so you can thrive during the pregnancy and beyond.

    Oftentimes pregnancy provides a window of time when women will actually focus on themselves more instead of on taking care of everyone else, as they understand that their well-being inextricably affects the well-being of the baby growing inside of them.

    If you notice yourself becoming very anxious or stressed, take some quiet time to sit with these emotions. You may intuitively discover what is causing them, and often it will be your lack of control and the uncertainty that is inevitable during pregnancy.

    Try meditation, yoga, or other mindfulness activities to re-center and get into the present moment. Be grateful for how your body is supporting you and your growing baby. Journaling and talking to a therapist, alone or with your partner if you have one in this pregnancy, may also help uncover the underlying programming and conditioning that lead to your current emotional state.

    Oftentimes there are roots going back to our own childhood and feelings of inadequacy, low self-worth, or invalidation that make us feel we will somehow mess up or not be a good enough parent. We become very anxious or worried that we will either make the same mistakes our own parents did, or that we cannot live up to the standards we have set for ourselves if we have placed our own parent(s) on a pedestal.

    We may have become a perfectionist at a young age to emotionally cope with the dynamics in our own families. We may even have avoided risks or failure during our adult life so that we never had to deal with the sense of not being good enough.

    Pregnancy brings all of these emotions and more into focus. It can become a time where we are either forced to turn inward and address our personality traits that developed in our own childhood or risk becoming very anxious, stressed, and depressed.

    During my own pregnancy I went to an extreme. I detached from my pregnancy, as the thoughts of all of the negative outcomes I have seen in my professional experience were too much to bear.

    I did not have the proper tools or self-awareness to explore it and heal myself. Rather than face the crippling anxiety and work through it, I dissociated from the pregnancy and did not allow myself to connect or bond with my daughter until she was born.

    I always was very relaxed and nonchalant at my own obstetric visits and sonogram appointments because I had forced the emotions so deep inside that no one could even see them. I eventually developed severe postpartum anxiety and depression that stemmed from this lack of confronting my true feelings and understanding where they came from so that I could heal them.

    I was completely unaware that I was even suffering from severe anxiety and depression for almost two years after the birth of my daughter. This was how deep the schism was between my emotional response to pregnancy and having a baby was and my ability to process and understand these emotions.

    Not everyone who is anxious or depressed during pregnancy or postpartum has similar feelings to my own. However, I have noticed that women who come into the pregnancy already very anxious and worried are more likely to develop worsening of these symptoms during pregnancy and postpartum.

    It may be related to the fact that initially the concern is over having a normal healthy pregnancy, but as birth looms closer they realize that the birth is also out of their control, and then as going home with the baby looms closer they realize that breastfeeding, soothing the baby, and the temperament and health of their baby is also out of their control.

    We go from facing a finite period—we just have to get through this pregnancy—to an infinite period,  parenthood, in which the older our child gets the less control we have. This is terrifying to someone who is naturally a perfectionist, type A, someone who has learned through life that the more they do and the harder they work, the better the outcome will be.

    Instead of struggling and succumbing to the toxic, negative emotions and fears, we have to learn to acknowledge them and then let them go. We must learn to just be. To sit with the uncomfortable nature of the unknown. 

    This does not mean you should not ask questions. This does not mean that you will never worry or feel anxious. But it means that you can also let in moments of calm and relaxation. Moments where you trust your body to do what it innately knows how to do without our conscious interference.

    Your doctor or midwife cannot and will not be able to fully reassure you and hold your hand and tell you everything will be okay. We will do our best to answer all of your questions and support you in a nonjudgmental and compassionate way; however, no matter how many notes you take we cannot release you from the anxiety that comes from a feeling of lack of control. Only you can do that.

    I recommend trying to avoid the triggers that will make it worse, avoiding pregnancy apps where other women write comments that are often not based in science, and limiting the amount of books and classes you digest during your pregnancy and parenthood.

    There are whole industries created that exist and profit off of our desires and needs to feel perfect and in control. The truth is that perfection does not exist, and the future is never predictable.

    Instead of allowing fear and anxiety to control me and close me off from all of the wonderful, deep emotions that come from embracing vulnerability and the unknown, I now choose every day to consciously work to uncover my anxieties when they appear.

    I thank my inner self for showing me I still have work to do, and then bring myself back into the present moment and back to the gratitude for what I have right now, no matter how messy or imperfect it may be.

  • Ending My Toxic Relationship with My Mother Was an Act of Self-Love

    Ending My Toxic Relationship with My Mother Was an Act of Self-Love

    “It’s okay to let go of those who couldn’t love you. Those who didn’t know how to. Those who failed to even try. It’s okay to outgrow them, because that means you filled the empty space in you with self-love instead. You’re outgrowing them because you’re growing into you. And that’s more than okay, that’s something to celebrate.” ~Angelica Moone

    I was taught to love my family and to just accept the love they give. With the passage of time and the dawning of maturity, I began to doubt this kind of unquestioning love. The chronic emotional and mental stress of the relationship with my mother came into a new light after the birth of my youngest daughter.

    I could no longer avoid and just accept a toxic relationship that was void of emotion and affection. I began to look at the dysfunctional familial relationship with her through the eyes of a new parent and started to see things differently.

    I started asking myself questions like “Would I ever purposely treat my child with such indifference and disregard them so callously?” So many more questions I asked myself were met with “no.” So, why would I just accept this behavior? Why was I allowing this constant stress to take up so much energy in my life?

    I can look back and see now that I was holding out hope for a grand gesture while craving to receive maternal feelings of love and security.  My inner child was holding out for love from the person that gave birth to her, but the adult in me sees that the love I was truly needing was love for myself. 

    The walls to unquestioning family loyalty came tumbling down around me about five years ago. My husband and I had been living in the Bay Area and felt strongly that it would be nice to raise a family near family. So, before the birth of our youngest, we decided after fifteen years of living in California to move across the country to Connecticut.

    During our plans to move, I held on to the delusion that if I lived closer, my mother would want to be part of our lives. She even called me while packing up our last few moving boxes to tell me how thrilled she was that we were moving back and that she could not wait to visit us all the time. She never came to visit; I had built up the illusion that she wanted to be part of our lives.

    The coup de grace was when she called me out of the blue on her drive up from Florida, where she vacations in the winter, tell me she was planning on stopping for a quick visit on her way home to Massachusetts. Giving me a time frame as to when she would be arriving.

    As the week passed, she did not call or visit. However, I did receive an out of the blue message three months later to say hi, which never acknowledged the previous plan to visit.

    It was after this final act of indifference that I made the decision, I could no longer allow the hurt and manipulation to continue. What was I teaching my children about boundaries if I was not creating healthy boundaries?

    My therapist once asked me “Would you go shopping at a clothing store for groceries”? When I answered, no, it dawned on me that I wouldn’t, so why was I expecting something different from my mother?

    I once read that people can change, but toxic people rarely do. Toxic individuals, according to this adage, seldom change. Because if someone isn’t accepting responsibility for their acts and lacks self-awareness, how can you expect them to alter their ways? The change I was waiting for was not her to change but my willingness to change.

    At first, I questioned my decision to end this relationship. Was it cruel of me to not allow my children to know their grandmother? However, at the same time the realization came that she was not really a part of our lives.

    Unraveling this toxic tie has been an act of self-love. For myself, for my inner child who is still healing, and for my children, so they can witness their mother loving herself enough to quit letting someone else harm her.

    Since this decision, I have had family try and talk to me about my decision. Telling me stories of how their friends severed their relationship with a family member and regretted it after their passing. When that time happens, I will grieve, I will grieve for what never was.

    Instead of clinging to this toxic relationship, I am teaching my children so much more by ending the cycle of neglect and creating healthy boundaries. I am showing my children how to love themselves.

  • Lessons and Gifts from Grief: What I Learned After Losing My Baby

    Lessons and Gifts from Grief: What I Learned After Losing My Baby

    Today marks the twenty-year anniversary of when I lost my first baby.

    I was, at the time, happily married and we were excited to start our family. My pregnancy was planned, wanted, and blissful. I was six months along. I was showing, and the baby was kicking vigorously. We had just moved into a wonderful house only a few blocks from my parents. Everything was absolutely golden.

    It took me a little while to find an OB-GYN in the area, so I was about a month late for my baseline ultrasound. We were very excited to get a clear view of our baby and find out the sex.

    The tech performed the ultrasound and was very quiet while my husband and I chatted excitedly. She told us it was a boy and then rushed out of the room to get the doctor.

    At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. We discussed painting the nursery blue and confirmed our choice of name. But then I turned to my husband and said, “Did she seem weird to you?” It suddenly struck me that she was kind of abrupt.

    The next thing I knew, the radiologist was there delivering news that sucked all the air out of the room. Our baby was not viable. He had severe brain defects: Dandy-Walker malformation, an absent cerebellum, and extreme hydrocephalus. 

    I wailed. My husband stared blankly in shock. And then came the next news. We had to do something.  We had to end our baby’s life…and do it that day.

    Because of the laws governing “late term abortion,” I was right at the deadline for a procedure called a Dilation and Extraction. If I was past the deadline, I would have to be induced, labor, and deliver a dead baby. The doctor fudged my gestation by a week, just to be on the safe side.

    I called my mom to tell her. I will never forget the sound of her scream. I went straight to her house and my parents, my husband and I all piled into the car.

    I remember being shocked by what a lovely sunny day it was. How could the sky be so blue when this was happening?

    I went to a clinic to begin the dilation process. And they euthanized my child in my womb.  I won’t get into details, but it was so painful, I threw up from the pain and couldn’t get out of bed for hours afterwards. At the hospital a day later, I was put under and they took my baby.

    Sometimes, you have to make a decision without a choice. It didn’t seem right to me to continue with the pregnancy knowing my baby could die at any time. The doctors were shocked he had made it so far. I didn’t feel right about bringing a baby into this world to suffer and die. I was also mindful that I needed to preserve my own physical and mental health because I wanted to be a mother. In fact, eight weeks later, I was pregnant with my older son. He will be nineteen on December 19th.

    The grief was horrible. The shock amplified it. The happiest time of my life was turned into the saddest. 

    My family and friends rallied around me. My next-door neighbor, who is a yoga teacher, told me to “just come” to class. I did. Every day.

    I covered all the mirrors in my house because I couldn’t stand the sight of my body. I looked postpartum. My breasts were ready to nurse. But no baby.

    I made recovering from grief my full-time job.

    I painted an oil painting every day. I spent time in my rose garden. I prayed. I cried. I worked my way through the grief as expediently as I could so I could continue on my journey to motherhood. And I did.

    On the one-year anniversary of losing my first baby, I was just about full term with my older son. I was terrified I would lose him too. My pregnancy was fraught with anxiety, and it culminated at the end. But of course, the joy of delivering my son insulated me from the grief. It wasn’t until the second anniversary that I was finally able to process what had happened.

    Grief finds a way. There is no around, only through. Fighting it only makes it hurt more.

    I can remember feeling like shards of glass would come flying at me, and I needed to just let them pass through. There were times when I felt absolutely fine, and then the grief would overcome me. I called them cloudbursts. These were lessons I took into other experiences. I always say grief brings strange and beautiful gifts.

    I was with my grandfather as he died. I was one of my grandmother’s caregivers as she moved toward death. I was at my father’s bedside the moment he passed. Grief is different, but also the same every time you go through it. It will not be denied.

    I remember telling a family friend that as I healed from losing my baby, I could feel it becoming a part of me. I knew it would always be there, like a vein running through me.

    On this day, two children and two decades later, I honor my experience. I bless it for the lessons it taught me—not only about grief but about life in general.

    I had very black-and-white thoughts about abortion. I was raised Catholic. I was pro-choice for other people while “knowing” there were no circumstances under which I would have one. I was certain.

    And then something literally unimaginable happened. I learned that a huge portion of life is grey. 

    I learned that ambivalence is common.

    I learned that you don’t really know what you will do until you are faced with a situation. It’s not a question of knowing your own mind or having faith or holding certain values. It’s a question of the circumstance. It’s a matter of not having all the information until you are faced with it directly, in the moment. This has served me well.

    I have come to understand I will feel discomfiture, and it’s alright. I realize I will not always know what to do. I now know that sometimes I will do what I believe is “right” and I may never, ever be okay with it. Ever.

    And I also realize that judging someone else’s circumstances is nonsense. We all have struggles, and we all do the best we can. None of us can ever understand someone else’s challenge because it’s for them. The best we can do is be kind, supportive, and respectful.

    These are the lessons my lost baby taught me.

  • The Unexpected Impact of Growing Up with a Difficult Mother

    The Unexpected Impact of Growing Up with a Difficult Mother

    “Difficulties in your life do not come to destroy you, but to help you realise your hidden potential and power, let difficulties know that you too are difficult.” ~Abdul Kalam

    Do you sometimes daydream that your mom is gone, and all your troubles disappear along with her?

    I used to imagine that, too.

    When Mom was in intensive care, swaying between life and death, I sat outside, shell-shocked, trembling all over my body, trying to comprehend the doctor’s words: “Her condition is critical, and only time will show if she will make it. I’m sorry.”

    For a moment, I imagined that Mom was going to die right there, in that old hospital building with rotundas, pylons, and stucco ceilings.

    And the thought of her not returning into my life felt like a relief. It felt terrific: finally, I could relax and live my own life… Then, the moment passed, and the muscles tightened around my chest, suffocating me with the energy of a rested beast.

    My mom was a fighter, and she survived against the odds. We had thirteen more years together, drifting between bad and awful. Then, close to the end, it all changed unexpectedly. It was nothing less than a miracle… or was it?

    Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bath Water

    The thing is, you can run away or go incommunicado, and it might bring you temporary relief. But sooner or later, history will catch up with you unless you stop running and heal yourself.

    Don’t misunderstand me—in extreme cases, the only way to save yourself is to get away from your tormentor. But in the majority of cases of family tension, it’s about a cavalcade of unhappy, struggling women who never felt loved by their mothers and don’t know how to love us as a result. Generations of unhappiness and needless suffering.

    It’s like being a part of the machinery, a gear in a wound-up clock that keeps running till either someone forgets to wind the clock, or one gear gets out of synchronicity and sabotages the entire mechanism.

    You can be that irreverent, rebellious gear and break out of a generational pattern of mistreatment as long as you have the will to heal. But don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

    What on earth do you mean? 

    Let me explain.

    You Are YOU Because of Your Mom

    I’m guessing your mother never really listens, or if she does, she turns it against you. She is critical, hurtful in her remarks, and she controls your life with a hard hand. And she loves to complain about her life all the time, how hard it is, how lonely and unappreciated she feels, and how tired she is, being left without help.

    These complaints drive you crazy—you have enough worries of your own. You may be still too angry and resentful to find understanding and empathy for your difficult mother. I get it.

    At your core, I know that you are kind and sensitive, a good listener, and an empathetic person. You understand the pain of others because you have been there, too. Even if you do not always know what to say, you know how to be there for another person.

    But you are also a fighter. You have to be because your mom tries to run your life according to her plan, but you won’t let her. This life is yours, you are a separate person, and only you know what’s right for you, so you have to prove to her and yourself that you can be happy on your own.

    You fight for your dreams and make them come true, one by one. You don’t wait for a fairy to come and give you everything you need to be happy served on a plate. Instead, you try to change your life for the better, bit by bit.

    You are strong and resilient, more than you give yourself credit for.

    You see, the “side effect” of being criticized and chastened, of having another’s will imposed on you, is your ability to think for yourself. You see that your mother’s behavior is irrational and confusing, and you question her judgment and decisions. You can sense people who potentially can hurt you, and you avoid getting involved with them when you listen to your inner voice.

    Always remember that that resilient and robust part of you is in there, and you can connect with it at any time. It may feel like being angry for a good reason—that anger gives you the energy to stand up for yourself. Use it to protect yourself and grow.

    You may not see it right now, but your trials are gifts to help you become a better person. Just zoom out, and you will see it—the bigger picture of your existence.

    As the Steel Was Tempered

    Each experience we live through is valuable because it teaches us a lesson we need to learn.

    Your mother was responsible for you when you were a kid. Well, you’re not a kid anymore. How you feel about yourself is your responsibility now. Take it, and you will be able to change your life.

    And what has to be done?

    Healing.

    It takes time, but that doesn’t mean you should be on a treadmill working hard all the time. You should live and enjoy your life here and now; doing so will help speed up the healing itself.

    Thinking back, the most important milestones of my healing were:

    #1 Undergoing therapy.

    Before therapy, I didn’t remember much of my childhood, and those memories that I still had were the memories I would rather forget. But the truth is, I didn’t want to remember any good stuff because it wouldn’t support the image of a terrible mother I had back then. My pain and fear so absorbed me that I couldn’t see any good in Mom at all.

    Therapy helped me to clear the anger from my heart, and doing so unfroze the good memories of my childhood: Mom reading goodnight stories for me every night; Mom making pretty dresses for me or buying me an outfit she hardly could afford; Mom spending her vacation at home so that I could take a friend to the Black Sea.

    In time, I realized that pure good and evil don’t exist—we are all mixed up, cocktails of light and darkness. Owning our shadows helps us get off a high horse of righteousness and stop pointing the finger at others. We are all humans, and that means being faulty.

    #2 Studying trauma.

    Educating myself about childhood abuse and other trauma-related topics helped me understand the cause of the problem. It also showed me that I wasn’t crazy, and none of it was my fault. That healing was possible and necessary if I wanted to live a happy life of my own. But probably the biggest takeaway was learning that I wasn’t alone in this situation.

    #3 Getting curious about my family’s history.

    Exploring my mom’s background and understanding her wounds helped me forgive her later and move on with my life.

    #4 Building boundaries and keeping my distance.

    Distancing myself emotionally from Mom helped me rebuild myself as an independent person and not an extension of her, and set up healthy boundaries.

    #5 Becoming a better daughter.

    Learning better communication skills allowed me to connect with Mom at another level, minimizing new hurt. Better communication means choosing your fights and avoiding some of the unnecessary ones.

    For example, if your mother complains about being lonely, you can validate her experience—just like that! After all, she may live alone, and if she feels lonely despite all your help, she has the right to her feelings. So by saying, “I understand, Mom, it must be tough for you,” you can prevent an attack and help her hold on to her feelings.

    P.S. You have to sound empathetic and authentic to get the response you want.

    #6 Continuing with the effort.

    Keeping up your efforts to keep contact alive to the very end, always trying to reach her, can pay off later when you least expect a change.

    Not at all costs, however. Use your judgment. In cases where there is a very malignant relationship, it’s up to you to keep your distance or avoid contact altogether.

    #7 Cultivating positive relationships.

    Making friends with emotionally healthy people can allow you to enjoy sane, healthy relationships and learn better ways of interacting.

    Is it easy? Not in the beginning, but you can learn. It can be scary, I know, but it will be rewarding, too. So, give it a chance.

    Do the Work Only You Can Do

    Losing my mom back in 2005 would probably have made my life easier in some ways, but would it have contributed to my healing and growth? Maybe not.

    And I would’ve missed the opportunity to meet a different Mom that last year of her life—that one who beamed with a smile of delight on her face when she saw me, bottomless love and appreciation in her eyes. Our mutual forgiveness and hugs—she had never hugged me before!

    All the pain and anger toward my mom are gone, and I finally feel at peace. Believe it or not, I miss her. I have pictures of her and Dad that I took from her apartment after she died; they are now in my office. I say “Good morning” to them every day when I step in.

    There’s work that only you can do. Do it not just for you, but for the next generations of your family, and also for the world, which needs kindness and acceptance more than ever. Stop trying to change your mother and use the energy to build yourself up.

    Be angry, sad, and hurt—feel it all. Then, let go and move on. If anyone can do it, it’s you, because thanks to your difficult mother, you are strong, resilient, and have a strong will to change your life for the better.

    Do it!

  • What You Need to Know About Motherhood If You Feel Lost

    What You Need to Know About Motherhood If You Feel Lost

    “Being a mother is learning about strengths you didn’t know you had and dealing with fears you never knew existed.” ~Linda Wooten

    It was October of 2016 and there I was staring at the wall after yet another sleepless night, nursing my one-year-old, and feeling like a total failure because this motherhood thing still didn’t feel at all natural to me. Why couldn’t I tap easily into my motherly instinct? Why did I feel that, instead of completing me, becoming a mom was actually making me fall apart?

    I always knew I wanted to be a mother. It was a given in my case. And, like many little girls, I grew up romanticizing the idea. I couldn’t wait to be one.

    Even when I began to understand that things could get hard (because babies don’t sleep right?), I was still confident that with my love, strength, and sheer drive I could surmount it all. Like many of us, I believed being a mom comes naturally to women, that we’re born to be mothers, so even when we struggle, our instinct eventually kicks in and we’re able to figure it out.

    Fast forward to a year later and I can honestly tell you that my love, strength, and drive were simply not enough. The truth was that becoming a mom ripped my identity apart. It made me question everything. I didn’t recognize myself anymore and my self-confidence was in the dump. I felt I had broken into a million pieces and I didn’t know how to put them back together.

    It took eighteen months of total overwhelm and endless questions without answers for me to finally understand that the old me was never coming back. Everything had shifted.

    For the longest time it felt like I was drowning, desperately looking for a lifeline. What I was really looking for was my own permission to want more than being a mother and the courage and self-love to go for it. I realized my identity had been lost to mothering and it was time to take it back.

    I reached out for help, went to therapy, and hired a coach. I gave myself the space to mourn the loss of my old self and began to slowly redefine myself as a mom and a woman. Throughout my journey I’ve worked endlessly to boost my strength, courage, and self-confidence and to build my self-worth and step into the world as a new me.

    Here are five things I learned about motherhood in that journey that I wish someone had told me back then when I was feeling so lost:

    1. It’s not you. You’re not the problem. It’s not in your head.

    As I struggled to understand what was happening to me when I became a mom, I sincerely thought that I was the only one feeling this way. That I would never be able to measure up and be both the old and the new me. That it was only me who was always feeling less than regardless of what I did. But as I dug deeper into how other mothers felt, I realized that there are actual terms for what we mothers experience. I never felt so relieved and validated than when I first learned about them.

    The academic study of the transformation of woman to mother is referred to as matrescence, a term first coined back in 1973 by medical anthropologist Dana Raphael. Matrescence is the complete transformation (physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual) a woman experiences when she becomes a mother.

    Think of it like adolescence. Remember being a teenager when hormones were all over the place, you were questioning everything, and you didn’t feel like yourself anymore? Pretty much the same thing is happening when you become a mom, only this time around you’re expected to be cool and happy about it, not awkward and lost.

    And the inner split in matrescence refers to the feeling of being divided between the person we used to be and the mother we are becoming. It’s not just us or in our heads. It’s a REAL identity shift and the reason why we constantly feel pulled in every direction except the one we want to go in.

    2. The expectations the world places on mothers and women are at odds.

    On top of our individual struggles in becoming a mom, we also have an added layer of the expectations and beliefs society as a whole has placed on us as women and mothers that don’t support us in this journey.

    There’s a huge pressure for us to strive to have it all: to lean into a successful career and at the same time be a great and dedicated mother and partner at home—not to mention an endless array of other shoulds. But if you look at them closely, the expectations we all have of what a good mother should be versus what a successful woman must do are at complete odds.

    For me, this was my biggest source of guilt. Always trying to be loving, dedicated, and almost martyr-like for my kids, while simultaneously trying to have a successful career that I needed to be equally dedicated to. Needless to say, I felt like I was falling short on all fronts.

    It wasn’t until I understood that I was using external definitions of success to measure myself that I began to look at what being a good mother and successful woman really meant to me. And when I started giving myself the permission to only do what felt right for me, I started feeling more at peace with my daily decisions.

    3. Motherhood is hard. You’re not alone. It’s a shared experience yet few speak of it that way.

    Motherhood is full of contradictions. There’s no right or wrong. Joy, love, guilt, sadness, and anger coexist side by side. The daily shuffle can feel like a grind or a blessing. Yet none of us feel safe expressing this. Nobody has told us that what we’re feeling is not only normal but also expected given the massive identity shift that we’re experiencing when becoming moms. And since nobody talks about this, we don’t realize it’s actually a shared experience by all mothers around the world.

    We need to allow women to express the full spectrum of emotions when it comes to motherhood. No mother should feel alone in this journey. I’ve learned that this is why sharing our stories is so important. And why reaching out, speaking up, and building a community of other mom friends that can help and lift each other up is vital to our journey.

    4. Feeling guilty for wanting more may be a good sign.

    Oh, mom guilt. All moms know that’s one ugly sucker to be stuck in. You feel guilty for not wanting to be a mom all the time. For not being present with your kids when you are with them. For not being the perfect partner. For needing to mentally check out of your daily life every once in a while. For craving space. For taking space! And the list goes on and on.

    My guilt used to eat me up. It would paralyze me and prevent me from taking action. My days were flying by without me enjoying anything for me, for my own sake, because I felt so guilty not doing what I thought I was supposed to do. As I began my healing journey, I realized that if I continued this way, my guilt would turn into resentment and to move out of resentment is much harder to do than from guilt.

    Nowadays, I view my guilt differently. I take it as a sign that I’m not in alignment with what I really want or need. It’s just one more way my soul is calling me out and telling me I’m ready to start moving forward with what I actually want in life.

    When I feel my guilt creeping up, I take a pause and remind myself that I’m more than just a mom, than a partner, than my job. That there’s nothing wrong with wanting more than what I’ve got. And after a deep breath I ask myself, “What do I really need?” and I go do it.

    5. This is your chance to completely redefine yourself.

    Probably the most important thing I’ve learned is that motherhood can be a catalyst for change. The loss of identity I felt when I became a mother embarked me on a journey of self-discovery.

    I’ve had to shatter old beliefs and expectations on what I should be and do. Step by step, I’ve rebuilt my self-confidence and redefined who I am now. I work daily on ensuring that I’m aligned with what I really need and want to feel vibrant, balanced, and free.

    Motherhood is a journey of unraveling, redefining, and rebuilding, and no mom should feel alone, unseen, and unheard in what probably is her greatest challenge to date: the discovery of who she’s really meant to be.