Once when I was in my early twenties, I confronted my mother. I matter-of-factly said, “You know, Mom, you beat me. You beat me a lot.”
She replied, “I don’t remember that.”
“Well, you did,” I pressed.
“Maybe I slapped you once or twice.” So, that was her concession.
A letter came 20 years later. My mother wrote, “I am sorry if I did anything to hurt you,” and something to the effect that she would like to reestablish a connection.
I considered it to be a non-apology apology. I tossed the letter in the trash.
As a child, I was physically and emotionally abused by my mother who was mentally ill. Research conducted by the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child shows there can be a connection between parental mental illness and child abuse. The beatings I endured were tolerable; the psychological abuse left enduring scars.
I recently found out that my brother, Alec, received a thick letter from my mother just before she died. “The envelope felt acidic,” he said. “It may have contained something nice, or it may have been nasty. I figured the odds were fifty-fifty. I didn’t read it. I opened it and shredded the contents.”
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As my mother was drifting in and out of consciousness on her death bed some five years ago, I was not uncompassionate. I stuck to pleasant memories of dance classes (she sewed my costumes) and birthday cakes. I did not dredge up the bad events of the past. I did not bring up her maltreatment.
I did not deal with issues of blame or forgiveness.
But, at some point, many of us who experienced childhood trauma do. We wrestle with the decision to forgive or not to forgive the person who inflicted abuse or subjected us to an environment that created toxic stress when the perpetrator is a parent, caregiver, or someone close who was supposed to protect us and nurture us when we were most vulnerable.
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In her article, “The Debt,” which appeared in Slate, Emily Yoffe writes that “accepting what happened and moving on is a good general principle. But it can be comforting for those being browbeaten to absolve their parents to recognize that forgiveness works best as a mutual endeavor. After all, many adult children of abusers have never heard a word of regret from their parent or parents. People who have the capacity to ruthlessly maltreat their children tend toward self-justification, not shame.”
Up until her death, I never could make up my mind whether to forgive or not forgive my mother. I thought I was alone with my indecisiveness. I’ve since learned that it’s not uncommon for children of abusers to find themselves vacillating between contact and noncontact in adulthood.
(My book, Crazy Was All I Ever Knew: The Impact of Maternal Mental Illness on Kids is available on Amazon, if you’d like to check it out. You can reach me at www.Alicekenny.com)
#MentalHealth #aces #CPTSD #TraumaSurvivors
#Early Childhood Trauma
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