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A Daughter’s Midlife Vantage Point
by SMR
My mother’s mental health issues have spanned my entire life – from age 7 (my first real awareness, when my parents divorced), until today at age 50.
In my childhood years, I watched my mother go through major depressive episodes with suicide ideation, and one full suicide attempt. In my teen and young adult years, I watched my mother develop additional problems: obsessive-compulsive behaviors, active delusions, extreme anxiety, and early signs of hoarding — a common feature of anxiety and OCD. In my 30s and 40s, my mother’s extreme hoarding behaviors (aggravated by chain smoking) were so problematic that I was unable to go into her place of residence for about 20 years.
When I was a child, I knew my mother was not like other mothers, but I lacked the understanding about what, exactly, made her behave the way she did. The simplest way I coped in my formative years was to distance myself from my mother.
From aged 7-14 I actually lived with my father, but we began to visit my mother every weekend when I was a pre-teen. During these years, she got stronger and seemed mentally healthy. Until we moved in with her again (I was 14), and then signs of her mental illness resurfaced.
It’s difficult to access how I felt about this in my childhood; although the memory of what happened is there, the “feeling” memory has faded. I was the ONLY kid in my class with divorced parents, and an absent mother. I became a curiosity to the other kids, and was bullied and ostracized. Eventually, I learned how to assimilate and not “advertise” my dysfunctional home life.
Ultimately, by my late teens and formative adult years, I felt like my mother was a dirty little secret I kept hidden in my closet. She was an embarrassment, and had always been a barrier to my happiness. It didn’t help that my relationship with my father at this time had become estranged, and he had become a “deadbeat Dad”.
But if you were to meet me on the street today, and knew what I have accomplished, you’d never know I had a family like this.
When challenged with the question: “How did you turn out so well?” there are many answers to consider in the patchwork quilt of coping strategies.
Here are some of things that I believe were instrumental in helping me get through these experiences:
A good sister: I had one older sister who took good care of me. She was two years older, and therefore had more understanding and appreciation of what was going on. She was both my guide and my “cell mate” during a very difficult childhood; she also continued to share the burden of my mother’s behaviors. Siblings that share the “madness” of your circumstances (rather than become mentally ill themselves in response) are the individuals who can help get you through.
Surrogate mothers: I had many types of surrogate mothers who nurtured me from the “village” at large. When I was 8, and my parents were divorced, my father started dating a wonderful woman who became a lifelong mother to my sister and me. Even though she and my father were together for only two years, she cared enough about my sister and me to independently reach out and continue the relationship with us. Other surrogate mothers came from friends’ parents. The mothers in these families modeled positive, maternal behaviors in warm and supportive environments. It was crucial for me to be exposed to healthy environments to know that they existed.
In looking back, I was probably raised by a “village” of surrogate mothers and that helped me immensely. I was able to “pay it forward” when I later became a stepmother to two little children, whose biological mother was mentally ill. Similarly, my older sister “paid it forward” when she took in her daughter’s friend, whose father had severe mental illness and committed suicide. Paying it forward is important.
Independence through Education: After I finished high school, I completed an undergraduate degree, so that I would have further options later. And that helped a lot when I decided to go for my doctorate in my early 30s. The literature on women and mental illness overwhelmingly points to mood disorders, in particular, as being a “natural” consequence of having no options. The cycle of misery and poverty only ends when women have an education and independent livelihoods (or at least, the ability to have an independent income.)
Not having children: Biology is not destiny, and for me, having children would have been a disastrous choice, given how long it took for me to get my “shit together”.
In my 20s and 30s, having children would have only trapped me further and burdened me financially. Children require selflessness and sacrifice, as well as considerable financial resources. People who lived through chaotic childhoods may find they do not have it within them to parent because they still feel they are parenting themselves or in “recovery” from their childhood.
Childfree living for adults still fragile from their own childhoods can be very freeing and allow you to take advantage of opportunities for happiness. We live in a society of “pronatalism” — the false advertising that a woman is “incomplete” without children. This is just not true; many women find they are happier without children. In my case, I was able to have a “taste” of motherhood as a stepmother (in my 2nd marriage), but I was close to 40 when I took on this role, and it was “part-time” (every Wednesday and every other weekend). Of course, if having children is a dream, then go for it. In my sister’s case, she had two children, and found that making her own secure family was what she always needed and wanted.
I do what I love: I worked in a series of jobs I despised for several years until I was able to freelance and control my own time and destiny. Eventually, I went into academia, which is very entrepreneurial, and allows me to do what I love every day. I get paid to do what I love, in fact. This didn’t happen overnight, but I was invested in getting myself an advanced degree so I could have a better life, and greater security.
Remove the barriers to happiness: I had many barriers to happiness in my adulthood in the form of unhelpful relationships. Don’t keep around friends who drain you and/or make you feel bad about yourself. Don’t stay in a bad relationship. Don’t be afraid to risk once in a while. When you risk, you can lose (which happened to me many times), but if you don’t risk, you can never win (which also happened to me many times).
Live a passionate life: I try to feel my life – feeling sad is not the same as feeling flat and feeling numb; I feel the bad and the good – that is what being human is about. Feeling your life is also living your life. By not choosing numbness and repression, you can let go of negative feelings and experience, and get back to finding happiness and health.
Above all else, pay it forward: There were many helpful adults when I was a child who reached out. I didn’t always thank them, or have a chance to tell them how much I appreciated them. So I thank them by trying to pay it forward. One day, you will be the surrogate mother to a troubled child. Or, the helpful teacher, or the person who calls Child Protective Services. Or the person that invites those with no families over for Thanksgiving or (in my case) the Jewish holidays. One day, you’ll be the one to make a contribution to society, your community, etc. It will repay the kindness and support you were given in moments when you needed it, and hopefully, that chain will continue.
Finally, a word about access to therapy.
When I was a child and teenager, I actually did have access to therapists. We were in family therapy at the psychiatric hospital for a period of time when I was as young as 7 (early 1970s); in my teens, my sister and mother and I would go to family therapy (late 1970s/early 1980s).
At that time, I didn’t find these therapists helped very much during this period of time. In fact, when I was about 15-16, I was even sent to a highly qualified therapist who specialized in adolescent mental health, because I was feeling “depressed” – which was merely a normal response to a chaotic family life.
These encounters were so unhelpful, I just stopped going. I got more out of a chat with one of my Surrogate Mothers than any of these so-called “therapists”.
This is because therapy methods are not all the same, and this was in a “dark ages” period of therapy where family context was not properly addressed. It would be like diagnosing someone with a “respiratory disorder” – after they were pulled from a burning building, and failing to acknowledge they were just in a fire.
By the 1990s, therapy had grown as a field, and I did find some very helpful therapists. In fact, I specifically looked for those who practiced “feminist therapy” which is a model of therapy that helps women in the context of unfair social arrangements. Daughters of women who grew up in sexist frameworks still suffer from their mothers’ intellectual, social and economic frustrations. Gloria Steinem once said that women in my generation are really just living the “unlived lives” of their mothers. And that is certainly true for me.
Looking back now, I think of my mother as a “timepiece” for many women in her generation who literally went “mad” in a “Madmen” era. I accept her for who she is, but I need to place limitations on the time I spend with her. I also have a newer appreciation of some of the consequences of my upbringing.
To this day, when bad things happen, I need to be alone when others feel they need a hug or physical comfort. It was very hard for me to relate to what I call the “I love you” families – family members who say “I love you” all the time, and hug one another.
As I have matured, I can articulate why I am this way to those I love, and they understand…
But it took me many years to understand these reactions and connect them back to my childhood and family life.
SMR
January 2014