There are things that are best to leave in the past, or so I thought.
For the past few weeks, memories of my upbringing have come back to the surface. Memories that I have only shared with my wife, and maybe a friend or two.
Now I think it’s time to talk about them in the open, hoping that it will help me heal, and maybe it will help others with similar stories. My mother believed that to raise good kids, you had to be strict, and punish them physically. This translated into hitting me almost every day, for anything that she could think of. It got to the point where if I was in the same room as my younger sister, and she would fall, it was automatically my fault, and there came my mother with her belt, flip flop or whatever she could use to hit me.
I clearly didn’t want to be hit, so every day I would try to anticipate the consequences of my actions. I also avoided being closed to where my sister was, to eliminate the risk of being blamed for something I didn’t do.
I remember being really happy when I made it two days without being hit, it was a huge success! Of course, my internal party wouldn’t last long, and then I was back trying to learn what went wrong, how I could avoid it in the future and hope for the best.
It was such a toxic environment! She would come over, start hitting me, and tell me that it hurt her more than me. I was pretty sure the one crying was me. But in her mind, she was doing the right thing, she was making sure I didn’t turn out an alcoholic, or drug addict.
Repeat this for about 15 years, and she had brainwashed me into being thankful that she hit me all those years.
I also ended up with 3 different personalities, all based on where I was at any given time. At home, it was mostly about avoiding any human interaction and try not to make any mistakes. At school it was all about releasing anger, and finally with friends, I would be the one who everyone could go to, when they needed to talk about anything. But of course, I wouldn’t tell anyone about the hell that was living with my parents.
Escape.
I moved to the US when I was 18, a few years later I met an amazing woman, who is now my wife. She helped me realized that hitting your kids wasn’t the right thing to do. But I was convinced that I wasn’t an alcoholic, drug addict or thief, thanks to my mother’s physical abuse during my whole life.
We now have two kids, 9 and 4 years old. And I’m happy to say we didn’t hit them once in their life.
Because of my abusive mother, it has been a personal challenge to raise our kids without falling into physical abuse. Many times I have had to step away from the room where my kids were and just cry on the corner, until I was calm enough to get my thoughts together, and come up with a good way to handle the current situation. My wife has been key here, always there to help me find a better solution or take over if I was too overwhelmed.
At this point, you most likely get the reason why I hate my mother.
I cut off all communications with my mother, father and two sisters about 8 years ago. It was very hard, specially because my therapist kept insisting that I should continue to talk to them and just know that I wasn’t going to have a high quality conversation with them. No way! I refused to be involved with such toxic people in my life. I couldn’t go from having very deep and honest conversations with my wife, to talking with my parents.
But all the hard work paid off, my life has been getting a lot better, year after year.
For the longest time, I wished I could share my achievements with my parents, but after many years, I discovered that they were never going to react the way I was hoping. I needed to connect with my inner mother and inner father. That was another big step in my healing journey.
Last July was the first time that my mother’s birthday came and went, and I only noticed it a few days later. That was a huge event, even though I end up not calling anyone on their birthday, I do remember a large number of them, even from people who I haven’t spoken with in years.
But not being reminded of the mother I wished I had, on her birthday, was a sign that I was making progress. I was finally moving on, getting closer to not being so angry at her. But that ended up not being the case, it was better not to have her so present in my day to day thoughts, but if I thought of her, anger, frustration and sadness filled my mind and heart. So I tried to focus on what I had, my own family, wife, two kids and many cats.
That all worked well until about 3 weeks ago, when my younger sister found me on Instagram and decided to send me a message. That message brought up all those feelings I tucked away for so long, and really messed with me.
I thought, no wait, I hoped, that they had all evolved, and that they were going to finally be the people I wanted them to be, but that wasn’t the case. This event took place to help me work on my feelings towards my mother, to see if I could make more progress in this area of my life. Could I … forgive my mother?
I journaled, I talked about it with my wife, I even tried to connect with my mother’s Higher Self but no, I was still too angry, I wasn’t ready.
The turning point.
After exploring my feelings once again, after talking about it with my wife, after emailing my mentor, it finally clicked! I didn’t go through many break ups during my life, but my heart was broken by one woman, my mother. Every time she decided to hit me, every time she called me “inútil” (useless), my heart suffered, my self esteem diminished.
I’m not sure how, but I never lost the ability to love others, and I’m grateful for that. But what I need to find again is self love, my goal now is to see myself the way my wife sees me (have I mentioned how lucky I am to be married to her?).
In order to continue with my Soul’s plan, I need to heal my own heart, I need to have compassion for myself. It seems like a really hard thing to do right now, but I trust that the time is right, that I have what I need to revisit this part of my life, and that I am going to get to a point where I look back, read this post or my journal and think: “wow, my relationship with my mother used to be a big problem.”
I have experienced this in other areas of my life, so I know it is possible.
Do I love my mother now?
Three nights ago I sat on my meditation chair, and started writing on my journal, not knowing what was coming out. I wrote without thinking too much, no judgments, just move the pen over the page. When I was done, I read it and it was just what I needed.
The way to stop the hate is by acknowledging that my mother also has a Soul, and her Soul and my Soul made an agreement. She agreed not to awake in this lifetime, so I could experience a high level of oppression. That life experience has helped me better connect with others, because I know suffering, but I also know Love.
I wrote about the idea of Soul’s plans last month, that concept keeps surprising me, keeps helping me.
I still don’t talk to my earth mother, but I started having a better conversation with her Soul. It’s ok if my earth mother never reads this, our Souls will continue to interact for many more lives.
I can feel my heart slowly healing. There is a lot of work left to do, but I see the path clearly now. I’m grateful for the support I have, my wife, our kids and our cats.
Until next time.
Thank you for reading, and don’t hesitate to leave a comment/question.
Diego