Good Mother/daughter Hunting: A Process of Self-Healing

Numerous life circumstances and relationships have made me the person I am today. While throughout the years I have dealt with many problems as they have come along, there is one issue that has remained unresolved in my life. This issue concerns my relationship with my mother, Sharon. Presently our relationship is distant. I live in New York and she lives in Wyoming. The distance is more than physical, though. While researching and working on this paper, I have come to realize that my relationship with Sharon is reflective of that part of myself that identifies me as her daughter. In examining our relationship on this level, I have come to an understanding, not only of Sharon and our relationship, but also of myself. It is through understanding and acceptance that I have been able to start healing this part of myself. This process of self-healing is a necessary change that must occur within myself before I can change my relationship with Sharon. People divide their experiences into distinct categories or "islands of meaning" by classifying their life experiences (Zerubavel 10). My exploration of myself and my relationship with Sharon can be divided into an indefinite number of "islands of meaning." For purposes of this paper three main areas will be examined pertaining to my past, present, and future relationships with myself and with Sharon--bearing in mind each of these "islands" are intertwined and consist of many meanings. In examining myself, my focus will not be on my physical self, but rather on the social self that, in Mead's words, must be distinguished from the body (Mead 21). This self is not a thing. It is a process, "a continuous interchange between subject and object," between "I" and "me" (Mead 21). People interact with themselves as much as they interact with one another through inner conversations (Blumer 216). The structure of one's self consists of many selves within, reflecting the structure of the various groups the individual person is a member of. In this regard, I will be focusing on the part of myself that reflects my relationship of being a daughter to Sharon. We humans are "incomplete or unfinished animals who complete or finish ourselves through culture" (Geertz 8). A person's culture is learned in the early childhood experiences of being raised by one's parents. Sharon was not close to her parents during childhood and to this day is still not close to them. Her parents were strict and controlling. She worked on her parents' farm, was involved in few activities, and did not date a lot. She was raised to listen to her parents and obey them. Arguing a different opinion was not permitted. Yet, it is culture that "provides the link between what men are intrinsically capable of becoming and what they actually, one by one, become" (Geertz 10) and a parent's unresolved issues from childhood trigger further turmoil in family life (Grosskope 7). Sharon's adulthood is reflective of her childhood. First, her marriage to my father, Jack, was a controlling relationship in which she was dominated by him, just as she had previously been dominated by her parents. Further, Jack was an abusive, possessive person. In my early childhood years Sharon was not allowed to have a job and there was constant fighting, with Jack continually telling Sharon how worthless and incompetent she was. Second, as Sharon was not close to her parents, she is also not close to her children. She has nothing to do with her two sons and contact between her and me has been periodic with superficial meaning. Third, Sharon's marriage to her second husband is dominating. They only do activities which he finds interesting, such as hunting. They moved to Wyoming a year ago because that was something he had always wanted to do to further his career. Sharon has stated that she is not happy with her job out there and advancement opportunities for her are scarce. Cooley states (16) that "the individual not only appropriates people and material objects by claiming them as 'mine,' but he or she also appropriates images of himself or herself reflected in others' treatment of him or her. …