One Year On From The Breakup

So, what do I know about myself a year after breaking up with my mother?

It’s officially been a year since I broke up with my mother. I have been asked many times during this period about how I feel about the whole thing. Better. Safer. Grieving.

From the moment I made the decision, I’ve felt relief and peace. It helps that I’m not fighting what happened.

Like any breakup, certainly with someone who means something to you, it’s done an emotional number on me. As I’ve explained to thousands of people over the years of exploring relationships and loss, you will cry, mourn and miss a person even when it’s absolutely the right thing you’ve parted ways. I’ve cried, mourned, but haven’t missed her because I also don’t miss the anxiety and stealth self-abandonment that comes part and parcel with our having a relationship.

Try spending a day tiptoeing around the place while near-constantly scanning your surroundings for danger while giving an outward appearance that everything’s okay. Yeah, that’s a heavy emotional, mental, physical and spiritual toll. Now, multiply that by an entire childhood and much of adulthood.

When dad died in March 2017, it felt like I’d already mourned him a million times. Of course, my mother hasn’t died, but the nature of our relationship also prepped me for our eventual breakup. The more honest a relationship I’ve had with myself, the better my boundaries, and the more truthful and accepting I’ve been about her.

There comes a point when, even if it’s just a sliver you’re clinging to, you stop fighting the truth. You stop rationalising what’s happening. You realise no ‘being the bigger person’ or boundaries or ‘pleasing’ will remedy this and that no one is coming to save you. All your good deeds won’t suddenly cluster together and make this person or situation any different. Loving my parents and wanting their love has often come at the expense of loving myself.

Whenever we let go of something, or someone, even if it feels like we kick, scream and cling along the way in an attempt to ‘go back’ or to avoid our feelings, we will know ourselves in deeper ways than before.

Beyond the hotchpotch of feelings we see-saw through, there is knowing, relief and peace, if we want it. Because, you know, sometimes we don’t. It’s why I’ve heard from so many people over the years who broke No Contact right as they were approaching a big milestone in their healing. The calm felt too ‘normal’, ‘boring’ even, plus it all suddenly felt so real. Going back allows us to return to the familiar uncomfortable because the unknown feels too daunting and asks us to take responsibility and care of ourselves.

Here are a few things I’ve learned (and relearned) about myself in this first year post-breakup:

Pay attention to any aspect of your life that leads to your being dishonest with yourself. Often that doesn’t look like straight-up lies. Instead, it looks like people pleasing, including avoiding nos and ‘hurting feelings’.

I can’t do it all alone, and I have needed mothering, but I cannot get this from my mother. I’m loathe to keep putting my bucket down an empty well and wondering why it’s dry or behaving like the emperor isn’t naked.

Crumbs, folks, are still crumbs. Don’t accept these in any area of your life, including from yourself, because it will tip the balance and cause you pain and disconnect from yourself.

I did something I fundamentally don’t believe in, which is that I settled for crumbs. Ugh! I settled, not because it’s what I felt worthy of but because, on some level, I believed I could because I have myself, my husband, children, friends, other family, work. Like my bounty would buffer me. I pretended I needed less from my relationship with my mother, as if it was okay to ‘make do’ because, you know, she’s my mother. That way, I didn’t have to be disappointed, and I also didn’t have to look like someone who ‘obviously’ doesn’t get on with her mother. It’s like when we settle for a so-so or straight-up shady relationship because it’s better than being single. Um, no it’s not!

Know where your emotional baggage tends to show itself. We all have it, so there’s no shame in recognising it, but there is freedom and better experiences.

I don’t like being misjudged (hell, who does?), and it’s triggering. When people I love and care about say or do something that I, on some level, interpret as them not ‘getting’ me, I feel it viscerally. I feel the need to explain myself, and then I also feel the urge to either get gangsta on them and/or withdraw. My wound comes from a lifetime of someone characterising me as something I wasn’t and my constantly defending myself through people pleasing, which led to my feeling unseen and unheard. But people, even loved ones, get things wrong sometimes, and it doesn’t make it the same as my relationship with my mother.

I’ve also acknowledged, again, that I need way less recognition and validation than I’ve inadvertently sought. I’ve felt like an outsider my entire life, and that started at home. I’ve used work and recognition to fill a void because I’ve had a gnawing, niggling anxiety that I’m not accepted; that there’s something wrong with me; that I don’t belong.

Asking ‘What’s the baggage behind this?’ remains my favourite way of connecting with myself and moving beyond people pleasing and old pain, fear and guilt.

We need to let people in so that we also experience our full selves. We also need to notice which qualities, characteristics and habits we assume are who we are when they’re actually adaptions to painful and traumatic circumstances.

I am an introvert in many ways, but I’m also the way I am because I experienced neglect. It’s easy to pat yourself on the back because grown-ups tell you how ‘responsible’, ‘mature’, ‘clever’ and what-not you are, but, actually, these sentiments give parents and caregivers an out from having to actually take care of you. Then, when you become a grown-up, you let people off the hook without even realising you’re doing so. We owe ourselves and our intimate relationships more than that.

Don’t feel bad for taking care of yourself.

I’ve often felt like it’s a failing if you can’t be and do all the things. No, it’s not. And people, possibly you, will try to convince you that it is; that maybe you haven’t tried enough or that you’ll regret your decision to prioritise yourself. Guilt has often felt like the air I breathe - just there. But feeling bad about taking care of yourself about something isn’t virtuous; it’s a sure sign that, in that particular instance, it’s unfamiliar, overdue, and necessary.

Over and out, onwards and upwards.