Like mother, like daughter
Last night was nasty, the migraine led to vomiting and a very late bedtime. I invested my day in recovery and an art project to get back on my feet. I’m continuing to process my emotions and I noticed the correlation between my sickness and my psychological state. My mother has the same reaction to stress and I can see a core feeling driving this unfortunate reaction. An intense sorrow from not being loved is at the source of those excruciating headaches and indigestions.
My mom opened up to me last year about one of her deep regrets: she never got to wear a white wedding dress and be the first woman in a man’s life. She was my dad’s second wife and he came back to her after having chosen his first wife over her. It was a civil wedding and she was wearing a normal dress. Even if she was devastated and he left her for another 10 years prior, when he returned, she saw her last chance at having a family being in her mid-thirties. Unfortunately, their marriage was unhappy and after their divorce, she got into a long-term relationship with a widower, again, being the second partner.
Like my mother, I was too ambitious and strong-headed to find a stable partner in my twenties, but unlike her, I haven’t found anyone in my thirties and still am single in my forties. I’m happy not to have children as I strongly believe in adoption and I’d rather be on my own than in a miserable relationship. Nevertheless, I can now see better how this subconscious influence of my mom’s life on me. It’s hard to notice those ingrained patterns since parents don’t talk about those things when we are children and still, we inherit their story.
I’m now more present to the gut-wrenching despair of feeling unlovable. My mother had a very hard childhood and she fought her way to higher education and a career. From her childhood trauma to the collapse of her wedding dreams, she had to stomach unbelievable disappointments. In comparison, my life is a breeze. Strangely though, I’ve been carrying her sadness and even if I haven’t had the life experiences that would crystalize such intense emotions. Somehow, my body is reproducing her ailment under the same type of stress though I’m slowly realizing that I don’t have to and can defeat this intergenerational pattern.
In my many questionable choices of partners that were never fully committed or were simply unsuitable, an undercurrent of my mother’s tragedy was shaping my outcomes. Yesterday, I was brutally present to the desperate sorrow in my stomach, something that I had carried deep inside me for a very long time but wasn’t totally aware of. I was fully consumed by its power in that moment of vulnerability, I finally saw what I was up against and now, I can better distinguish the work I will need to do to heal this inherited dynamic.
With more clarity, I continue my relationship griefing with only the help of my beet ships and raw courage. I chose not to numb with CBD or anything else so I can keep digging into my psyche for more answers. I’ve allowed myself to cry tears for what has happened in the past month but also what my mother has been through. Reflecting at a much deeper level than just the surface events, I will untangle the web of patterns that have been poisoning my love-life. From a mother that was breaking the conventions of her time with her strength and independence, to a daughter that will acquire freedom from toxic masculinity in relationships and establish equality in all aspects of her life.
