- When I was 2 years old, my mother abandoned me.
- I thought I had processed my trauma, but then I had two kids of my own.
When I was 2, the mother who carried me in her belly, who felt my turns and kicks, picked up her suitcase, got in her car, and left without so much as a backward glance.
Logically, I know it wasn't my fault. She had an abusive childhood and struggled with addiction. But how do you process the idea that your mother doesn't love you?
The trauma came back when I had a baby of my own
Over the years, I tucked the rage and abandonment in a box and pushed that box to the back of a closet. Therapy helped some; alcohol definitely didn't. I told myself I couldn't understand what she'd been through — I wasn't a parent. I'd never dealt with the sleepless nights, the projectile vomit, and all the other burdens of motherhood.
Then, those two lines on the pregnancy test turned blue.
I had expected the stretch marks, the lack of sleep, and the blowouts coming out both the top and bottom of the diaper simultaneously. What I didn't expect was my carefully sealed box of childhood trauma to unpack itself right into my newborn daughter's nursery.
As I sat rocking my 2-week-old daughter, her perfectly dimpled hand clutching my shirt, her lips trying to nurse in her sleep, I realized my mother must have sat with me just like this. She rocked me. She fed me. She might have tried to memorize the perfect curl of my eyelashes.
I thought I'd processed the grief, the rage. Now I was faced with new questions: How do you walk away after kissing your baby's face for the first time? How do you walk away after your heart explodes into motherhood? Is that same darkness in me, somewhere, waiting to turn me into a terrible mother, the type of mother who can just close the door and walk away?
Stacey Sherrell, a licensed marriage and family therapist trained in maternal mental health, said the resurgence of childhood trauma wasn't unusual for new parents.
"Becoming a parent can be a complicated process for those who have experienced trauma in their childhood," Sherrell said. "It can be jarring and surprisingly retriggering to be in the role that your caregiver was in."
I processed my trauma as a child but not as a parent. As I watched my daughter, and later my son, grow, I mentally scanned myself. Was I capable of the same thing? Could any of us be capable of walking away from their own heart? Or did her pain and trauma belong to her alone?
I finally understood and forgave my mom
The night I finally understood my mother, I was crouching on the floor of my daughter's bedroom, my arm twisted through the crib slats to keep the weight of my hand on her back. I played the music of her glowworm until the tune rang in my ears long after the song had ended.
I slowly lifted my palm from her back, keeping my fingertips in place, then lifted each finger, one at a time, in case she stirred. When it seemed safe, I slowly slid my arm through the slats and army-crawled across the floor, avoiding the creaking boards.
I pulled the door closed and let out a sigh of relief — sleep was so close. Then she cried — again.
In one sleep-deprived moment, I finally understood how mothers can walk away. A lot of things seem reasonable when you haven't slept more than an hour at a time in three days. The frustration, the sleep deprivation, the repetitive tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" — it is enough to drive you mad.
Maybe even enough to make you walk away from it all? Especially when, like my mother, you're young and not mentally ready to be a mother in the first place. I realized I was not my mother. I was not the mother who walked away.
Instead, I retook my seat on my daughter's bedroom floor and turned on the infernal glowworm. I dozed with my arm through her crib slats, my hand resting gently on her warm back. Eventually, she did sleep, as they all do. And I stayed, as most mothers do.