Mother's Day is Not Always Hearts and Flowers

Image Courtesy of Deborah Lee Luskin

I really struggled with writing this post today since for most people, it is a very happy day.

It's like @krnel mentioned in their post this morning:

https://steemit.com/philosophy/@krnel/seeing-the-falsity-to-know-the-truth

"We are often walking on eggshells around people, being fake with smiles, positivity masks, rosy colored glasses, avoiding conflict, controversy, friction, and tension. It takes us away from our "feel-good" infatuation and trap. Our social success depends on others liking us, and this affects of survival in society at large. Speaking hard truths does not tend to make you popular, not in a positive way at least."

This rationale of thinking also stems to steemit posts. You have to sometimes balance your personal needs to blog in order to get your feelings out aka "hard truths" with what things are the best for your brand to post.

After a long hard night and waking up with a migraine this morning, I'm going pick my personal need to blog today. I can't be alone in my feelings about Mother's Day. Hopefully this post will resonate with a few of you.

My mother loved me when I was a very small. I am positive of this, mostly due to hazy memories of old photos that have long since been destroyed by her throwing them in the fire and the things other family members tell me. My own recollections are blank -- almost all of my childhood is gone, self-protection smearing it until there is only the most vague impression, only screen captures of individual traumas.

I started realizing that something was wrong with her after my brother was born. The doctors first attributed it to post-partum depression.

The first signs were that she would stay up for days and then sleep for days. She would also make pictures of ancient symbols and animals on the walls with bleach and then say that ghosts and evil spirits had made them.

She would also run around at night in her bday suit and started reading strange books and burning things like pages of books and herbs. She was obsessed with fire.

Just before I turned seven, she took both me and my four month old brother away from home. I didn't know it at the time, but she took us away in order to to commit a double murder suicide. The plan was to throw us in front of an oncoming train and then jump in front afterwards. Her plan was foiled when I figured it out at the last minute and started screaming for help on top of the railway tressel.

Fortunately, someone heard me and called the police. Those events resulted in her first stint in the psychiatric hospital.

The rest of my childhood was pretty much the same. Mental, psychological and physical abuse with her committing suicide on multiple occasions followed by times in the hospital.

WASH, RINSE, REPEAT

The last time that I was physically abused was the night before my wedding. I had to have makeup applied to my arms to cover the bruises so that they would not show when taking photos.

I think that the hardest thing for me was seeing the burn marks on her head after electroshock therapy. I only saw her in the mental hospital once during my childhood as going there frightened me.

I thought that I was doomed to be responsible for her the rest of my life. That I would never be able to have a life of my own.

My grandma (my mother's mother) seemed to sense this and told me that my mother was her responsibility. That I should leave to live my own life. "Don't look back", she said.

So I ran and didn't look back. I got married, got a decent job, became a mother and ended up a well adjusted individual. A great acomplishment considering especially since most people who become parents have their mother to help them. That was something that I didn't have.

I was in hiding until this January when my aunts told me that she was in the hospital brain-dead due to a heart attack. This is my first Mother's Day since she's been gone physically. I feel freer than I have in a long time but the memories continue. Today is harder than most other days to get through but the feelings will soon pass.

My approach to getting through today is to:

Ignore it until it goes away

No matter what anyone tells you, you don't have to celebrate Mother's Day. If you don't want to be reminded then stay off all media like the Internet; your phone, your TV, and even your radio. Don't go visit anyone; or don't even leave your house if you don't want to. It's only one day and tomorrow it won't be Mother's Day anymore.