Mothering While Missing My Own

There are many unfortunate situations where a mother isn’t present in her adult child’s life; she may have never been around or she may not have been know to her child, or she may have passed away.

My situation is different because my mom is alive, but she’s not always present. 

I know that there is nothing more she would want than to be present in my life consistently. Her granddaughter just turned 3 and is so much fun and she will soon welcome a new grandson in January. She has longed to be a grandmother for longer than she ever let on to me and these should be the best years of her life. 

My mother suffers from mental illness. She battles depression, anxiety, and psychotic episodes. 

Since 2000, she’s been in and out of hospitals and mental health facilities fighting this illness. She usually goes stretches of years without incident or symptoms and then, usually, out of the blue, we’ll notice that she’s not so talkative, she’s increasingly nervous, and her demeanor is much sadder, less joyful. Sometimes she’s been able to recover from that state but more often than not, those symptoms intensify and she has to be hospitalized.

It was so hard to understand, when these episodes first begin, why she couldn’t just snap out of it. Why we couldn’t make her happy. Why the happy things going on in my life and my brother’s life weren’t bringing her joy.  It took a while for us to understand the mental illness is exactly what it says it is: an illness. Just like the flu or cancer, it needs to be treated. You can’t just will yourself into being well.

Knowing and having a conscious understanding that she indeed has an illness doesn’t lessen the pain of missing her presence. I’m so grateful that her illness didn’t begin until I was in college and my brother was in high school. We were blessed to have her present during our childhood and most of our teenage years. But for me, as a young adult, there are many aspects of her motherhood that I’ve missed out on: 

-Consistency in receiving advice and tips about dating, marriage, motherhood, and life
-Dependability in showing up when I needed her or to care for her grandchild
-Sharing normal life joys (meeting my now husband, getting engaged, time with newborn granddaughter, celebrating granddaughter’s developmental milestones, news of new grandson.)

I’m far from the only one that feels the pain of her illness. My dad and brother undoubtedly have their own lists of ways they’ve missed out on my mom when she’s ill, as do her sisters, friends, and other family members. But it’s not just us who have an awareness of what we’ve missed. I can’t imagine what pain and guilt my mom must feel. 

Mom never pressured me to get married or to have children, but once I did marry, I heard through the grapevine how much she wanted to be a grandmother. She never burdened me with her desire but I knew. My mom was the kind of woman who was meant to be a mom and a grandmother and I was so excited to share my first pregnancy with her. Unfortunately she was just recovering from her illness so she wasn’t able to show her full joy as was a similar case during my current pregnancy. Many of the other aspects I’ve missed from her, I have to imagine, are the things she feels bad about missing out on. I hope she can hold on to the same truth that I do: it is her illness that has caused her to be absent, not her choice. I know if she had the choice, she would have been there, excited and joyful.

So along with holding on to this truth, there are other ways in which I deal with living and mothering without my mom:

-I choose not be resentful of her and the times she’s missed because I know it’s not her fault
-I appreciate the times and moments when she is present. 
-I actively feel and deal with the times she’s not present. I feel the sadness and disappointment. I share it with my husband and friends so that I can process it and move on instead of stuffing it.
-In the moments her illness is present, I try to be empathetic to the anxiety or the paranoid feelings she’s experiencing.  I try not to take it personal, express my own anger, or my own disappointment because I know she can’t help it
-I try to be realistic as far as my expectations of her depending on how she’s feeling. If I know she’s feeling depressed or anxious, I’m not going to expect a certain reaction or response from her even if I’m sharing something exciting or happy. 
-Lastly as my children get older, I’m going to be real with them about their mommom’s illness and give them ways to deal with it.

For more information on mental illness and mental health for yourself or a family member, please take a look at one of the following websites:



https://makeitok.org 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The One Thing Every Mom of an Infant/Toddler Needs

If you’re a mom, I’m sure you remember preparing for the birth of your child. You may have written out a list or made mental notes of the necessities you’d need: clothes, a crib, bottles, bibs, toys, teethers; this list goes on. Even as I sit here as a mom of a toddler, I have things I need for myself and my daughter, like coffee, naptime at 1pm (of course I’m talking about her naptime...maybe lol, toilet training strategies, and behavior management and conflict resolution tips to handle tantrums and meltdowns.  When I was pregnant with my first child, most of things or ideas I mentioned above were on my mind as thought about what it would be like when my daughter arrived and what the first few years of her life would look like. But there was one thing I never considered and I didn’t know how crucial it would be until I experienced it. At this point in my parenting journey, with a toddler girl and a baby boy on the way, I have no ideas how I could function without ...
Read more

Things I Could Have Never Expected- A Blog

Image
Things I Could Have Never Expected- Written when my daughter was 9 months old. Before my daughter was born, I was aware that, like anything else in life that you’ve never experienced for yourself before, there would be some surprises in my new mommy journey. I had friends who would try to describe the many new wonders and frustrations I may discover. But as with everything, we all go on our own journeys and experience things uniquely. With that being said, I do want to share the surprises I faced in case another new mom faces some similar occurrences. I want you to know that, with whatever you're feeling and experiencing, YOU'RE NOT ALONE. I guarantee you there is another new mom that has felt or experienced something very similar. Ok here we go... 1. 2 1/2 days of labor .. yup, 2 1/2 DAYS. Of contractions. 1 day of manageable pain. I day consistent pain. One long night and morning of intense, can't talk, crazy pain. All at home. I thought I had considered all ...
Read more

How I’m Surviving With An Infant and A Preschooler

After 4 days in the hospital, I walked through my front door as my husband carried our newborn son in his car seat. We greeted our 3 year old daughter (who had just spent 4 days wearing out my wonderful parents) and began our new lives as a family of four.  After a week and a couple of days with my husband home and help and support from family, it was time for me to go it alone. Yup. Take care of both kids by myself.  Taking care of a three year old is a full time job by itself. Adding an infant seemed almost overwhelming. How was I going to deal with the demands of a preschooler and the needs of an infant? My infant son is two months now and I’m surviving one day at a time. Here’s how: I’ve had to learn to ask for help. THIS is super hard for me. I’ve always had trouble asking for help. And when it comes to my children, I tend to feel like it’s my responsibility to figure out how to care for them. But caring for two young children is exhausting and at tim...
Read more