Unease. I felt this as soon as I started to truly understand what parents want of their children. I had to confront my worst fear: that I would never be good enough the way I was.
My mother was a Norwegian woman raised as a Lutheran, and because I was abducted I had become an American Jewish girl. I had become a foreigner to my own mother. So much of me was going to be a painful reminder to my mother that she did not have the influence she had surely wanted to have on her own child.
Because I was abducted, I had formed an identity that was very different than it would have been had I grown up with my mother. I struggled throughout my childhood, teen years and adulthood to figure out what I believed in, what I felt about various spiritual and social issues, and to find a comfortable place to park myself into. I struggled more than most to figure out who I was. What did it mean to be an American Jewish girl with a dash of Norwegian heritage thrown in? What did it mean to my identity to be abducted? Could I choose to be whomever I wanted, or did I have to undo the past?
I had no idea for a very long time, and it was so painful.
I hoped that one day my mother would embrace me and accept me as I was. I needed her in my life to feel whole, and I wanted to share myself fully with her. Half of my DNA came from her, and I am actually a whole lot like her in temperament despite our 14 years time apart. I hoped that I would never have to feel that I was not what she wanted and hoped for.
But the fact was that the pain and loss, the unease, remained for a long time. I would be the American Jewish abducted daughter my mother felt alienated from. There were reminders that represented my mothers losses and pain, and those reminders are within me. They are in my language, my name, my way of being. And they inform who I am.
And any issues that remotely touched upon the parts of me that were tied to the abduction, would be reminders that I was abducted, that I was different, that we as mother and daughter are integrally different from the fantasy that all parents have when they have a child.
I longed to cry out, "I am first and foremost a human being, just like you, mother. I am not so terribly different, and I am not less your child, because I have an identity that is somewhat different from yours. Get over yourself and see what it is like from my point of view. It is deeply painful to feel that your sense of loss revolves around who I am not!"
It is highly convenient to have an excuse for anything that goes even slightly wrong: oh, that argument, that misunderstanding, that difference of opinion, it´s all because I was abducted. Oh yeah?! Nope, sorry! Some of my friends who were not abducted have great hardships in their relationships with their parents. And they have nothing outside of themselves to blame it on.
My mother needs me to validate her, to help her feel like a good enough parent, a lovable person and important enough in my life. Her need to express her pain, to feel her losses in life (so many of which have nothing directly to do with the abduction), and to mourn it, has taken alot of space in our relationship. I would have preferred to really get to know each other, to accept each other, and to embrace one another in our differences, despite the losses, rather than focusing on them as an unending source of pain and separation.
My mother was the youngest daughter of a family of five girls and one boy. Her brother, my uncle, is younger than her. The whole family has struggled with various issues, including depression and anxiety, dating back to a difficult and uneasy childhood. Their parents, hard working farmers, did their very best to provide for their family. They were good people who died young and struggled with many issues, especially a dysfunctional marriage and much anger and frustration in relating to one another. My paternal grandparents lived on the farm with them, and they were difficult to deal with. The two women did not get along, and there was much spoken and unspoken criticism and anger in the air. This was stifling and stressful for the children, and communication of any sort of difficult feelings is deeply distressing to most of my aunts and my uncle. There is a sense of defensiveness and criticism in the air even today when they gather together, and although nothing is spoken about and they care for one another deeply, there is an elephant in the room - lots of feelings and pain not worked on. My mother dealt with depression early in her life, and sought help for it. I´m proud of her for that. She was a smart, insightful young woman who was keenly aware of the problems in the family and she sought to forge onward and build her own life, understanding that her development would not be optimal if she stayed on the farm or in the small town the farm is situated on. She got an education, moved away, and exposed herself to other ways of life. I´m so proud of her for that.
She was deeply affected by her childhood, and had several episodes of depression while in her young twenties. That is healthy and normal, in my view, given what she had gone through. My grandmother even left my grandfather for a time, taking the two youngest kids with her. My mother was one of those kids, and I´m sure it was dramatic to leaver the farm and her older siblings with a mother who was surely in deep pain and turmoil. This and other events must have been deeply painful. I see my mother as a seeker of truth, and she hurt for that, but it is also a gift to really feel life as it is. However, the abduction was then too much for her. It was crushing for someone already deeply affected by a childhood poor in security, love and positive communication. Mom didn´t feel good about herself because of it. How could she? Children internalize their parents misery, and easily feel bad about themselves if they are not helped to accept themselves and love themselves at an early age.
My mother often says that she was very happy before I was abducted, and had a song in her heart. I don´t really buy that, although I have no doubt that she was happier then. I feel that she was struggling with low self-esteem and episodes of depression, and also with trust issues in relating to other people in her life. Totally understandable, and I struggled with much of the same. I´m not in any way judging her for this, as it is completely normal given the circumstances.
But then, the abduction was such a huge event that it overshadowed everything else. My mom lives in it, and her whole life revolves around it as the reason for everything that is wrong in her life. She feels judged by others, cast out, terminally blemished with shame and pain, because of it. And honestly, I see many other parents who have dealt with abduction who have fared much better. They seem to have had more to go on from other sources in their lives. But mom did not have that backup positive energy to help her through, as she was already struggling before I was abducted.
I wish that my mom could see that so much of her suffering now is, in a way, self-inflicted. It is what she tells herself about herself, about reality, about her options in life, that are a big source of suffering. She attributes everything that is painful, whether in relating to others or problems at work, to the abduction, and I don´t see it as such. Sure, it is defining and important. But there is so much else, and people in our lives have tried to put it in perspective for her. They don´t define her solely as the woman whose child was abducted. But she does. One of her friends told me once that she wishes my mom didn´t constantly talk about it, as it got boring after a time to focus so much on it. She wanted to know about other parts of my mom, and did not see it as the only defining issue for my mom. Another woman, a social worker, talked about what other people she knows have gone through, things much worse than abduction, to try and put it in perspective. She saw that my mom was so sure that everyone only sees her as a victim. No! That is how my mom feels about herself, but it is not the only thing people see.
I have felt oppressed by how mom sees everything as relating to the abduction, and her desperate need for me to validate and see that. Music, pictures, various choices, small comments by people in her life that to her indicated their disapproval or lack of acceptance, and much more seem to cause constant pain today. I once wrote a postcard to an aunt, Martha, my mother´s sister. I left out her last name, and simply addressed it to "Aunt Martha" as a way to be more familial and endearing. It turned out that the postman did not know which Martha it was for, and had to inquire with several Marthas in the village to find out whom it was addressed to. I thought nothing of it on my end, simply hoping to let Martha know I felt familiar and warm towards her. When I spoke with my mother shortly after I sent the postcard, my mom informed me of what had happened in an upset tone. She did not see any humor in it at all, and did not spare my feelings in telling me how Martha is traumatized by my abduction and can´t talk to anyone about it, especially not outsiders. The fact that the postman called Martha about me, the abducted child living in the USA, was bringing the abduction out in the open somehow, and was deeply upsetting. I started to understand then just how little the family had accepted and integrated into some kind of normal, my abduction and return to the family.
1 comment:
I could have written this almost word for word.... My heart goes out to you.
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