Grace for Her Victims
By: Jennifer Litke
Tags: Abuse Survivors, Mental Health, Parental Abuse, Grief And Loss, Mothers Day

When Mother’s Day is Painful

She shrieked and shrieked for her mother, but her mother was already there. Her mother was the monster.-Holly Black, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

When I was a young teen girl I had a pastel green comforter with a floral motif pattern. It also had a massive bloodstain on the corner.

My bedroom in my parent’s house was always the coldest in the winter and the warmest in the summer despite the house having adequate heating and cooling systems. When the weather would turn warmer I enjoyed laying out my blankets and pillows across the carpeted floor to create a sort of bohemian sleeping area. It was cooler on the floor. I had so many nights where I would fall asleep listening to my headphones immersed in a pop-rock soundtrack. It wasn’t a conventional arrangement but it was comfortable.

It was an evening like any other. I was fifteen years old. I was dressed in an old t-shirt and a pair of shorts. I was ready for bed, sitting on the floor with my blankets and my diary. I was listening to music with my headphones on. But that was all I remembered. The rest is a blur. I don’t remember how the conversation started — it wasn’t a conversation but rather an angry command. I don’t remember seeing her wind up and strike me across the face. But she did. I felt it. I felt flesh connect against the metal of my braces and I could taste the iron in my mouth as my cheek filled with blood. And I can remember being hoisted up off the floor by a freakishly strong woman. And she shook my body with angry and violent force. With hatred and fury in her voice she threw me against my mattress. The entire weight of her body fell over me as she continually smacked me with open palms. And then she screamed at me to get into bed. It happened so quickly it barely registered it had happened. But the blood pouring out of my mouth was a solid indicator I had imagined nothing. The open wound on my breast and the accompanying bruise was evidence something incredibly wrong had just transpired.

I heaved violent and uncontrollable sobs that night as I knelt over the pastel green comforter. Never before had I felt such unfathomable rejection and hatred. The violence against me was more than just physical, it raped my very existence. Any semblance of love I thought I had from the woman who gave birth to me was evaporated. In a fleeting moment of violence and anger I had lost everything. Worse still, I never had it to begin with.

The woman who had given birth to me had just assaulted me over something as benign as where I chose to fall asleep.

This wasn’t an isolated incident. I have innumerable stories I could articulate that describe horrific details of violence and manipulation. The amount of trauma I could convey would not fit in a single essay. When I attempted to relay my past and present trauma to my therapist, he had to ask me to stop because he couldn’t handle the sheer amount of what I was describing. He told me in my first session no one person could handle the amount of physical and emotional trauma I have endured and be expected to exist with any sort of functional reliability in day-to-day life. I thought I had been coping quite well, I had developed several defense mechanisms over the years to deal with my dysfunction. He assured me I was not coping well and then went into detail as to why.

His assessment proves to be correct when Mother’s Day rolls around. Unlike those who have lost their mother due to death, I do not miss my mother. Unlike those separated by distance and time, I do not long to be closer to my mother. Unlike those who express poetic tributes to their mother, I am not thankful for mine. Unlike those who talk about their mother as their best friend, I do not understand because that concept is so completely foreign. But seeing these things expressed on social media causes untold anxiety within me. It reminds me that I didn’t have a mother who cared for me or protected me. It reminds me that I was unworthy of her love and affection. It reminds me that I was so utterly contemptible that she was willing to cast me out and reject me. It reminds me that I will never have the mother that I need or desire because she does not exist for me and never will. Mother’s Day forces me to confront the strong emotions I have surging beneath the thin surface of my well-constructed defense mechanisms. Feelings of hatred. Feelings of pain. Feelings of sorrow. Feelings of a broken and bruised child. Feelings that remind me of just how worthless I am [to her].

Mother’s Day for children raised in abuse is particularly hard. The obligation of a cultural expectation to heap adoration and praise upon a woman simply for the act of giving birth is oftentimes traumatic. The abuse endured by a child doesn’t end when the child leaves home, the tactics employed are only adapted for the new reality. And the attempts to control, shame, or psychologically wound don’t stop. The abuser can often be relentless. And sentiments of “Love your mother, she is the only one you have,” add to the trauma experiences of a person who has been a victim of abuse. No one would expect a person to stay married to their abuser, or for a person to display affection for their rapist, yet that expectation is placed on children of abuse. The notion of forgive-and-forget simply because she carried a child and went through labour is not an excuse or justification for violence, control, manipulation, and shame.

I was always expected to care for her needs. Love her. Validate her. Be there for her. I was expected to be for her what she had lacked as a child herself. Yet repeatedly I was subject to humiliation and shame and accusations and comparisons that I would never measure up. I spent years trying to forgive and redeem the woman who would reject me time and again. And then somehow, in her eyes, it would always be my fault. For years I felt like I couldn’t say anything because it would hurt her. I felt powerless. Voiceless. I had learned never to stand up to her because it always resulted in violence or rejection. Even amid my pain and trauma, there was an implicit expectation to care for her needs, or I would regret it. It is a vicious cycle.

Daughters of narcissistic mothers absorb the message “I am valued for what I do, rather than for who I am. — Karyl McBride, Will I Ever Be Good Enough? Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers

This year is particularly hard for me. My paternal grandmother passed away shortly before Christmas. I hadn’t processed how much she meant to me until she was gone. In recent years she had slowly been slipping away due to dementia stealing her memories and her cognition, but knowing she was still breathing meant I could still sit with her and hear her voice and touch her skin. This was the woman to whom I owed much. She had loved me in ways I can’t begin to describe and made sacrifices on my behalf so that I would always have her in my life. She protected me. She provided guidance. She took me in when my mother had kicked me out and I had nowhere to go. And she showed me what it was to be a wife, a mother, a woman. For many years I was able to pick up a phone or show up at her door, and she never failed me. She supported me no matter what was happening in my life. But now she is gone. If ever I had someone who showed me that my existence mattered it was her. And she saw the abuse. She witnessed it. She expressed on more than one occasion how much she wished she could have saved us from it.

This is my first Mother’s Day since she passed away. The same triggers I experience year after year are still there, but this year they accompany a more grim reminder. The last person to love and care for me from my formative years as a child is now gone. The last woman to nurture me, encourage me, and soothe me is now returned to the earth. And it means I am now an orphan.

It was her death that prompted me to seek therapy. It has been a healthy but painful process for me. It has allowed me to face my past trauma head-on while acknowledging my internal family of protection and learning what their role has been in protecting me. It has allowed me to begin the healing process, to nurture the internal child within that has desperately needed attention all these years. It has given me my voice when I have previously felt powerless. For years I have formulated essays similar to this when Mother’s Day drew near, but my fear and my ill-conceived notion of respect for her prevented me from putting pen to paper or further still, publishing it publicly.

She has never apologized for any of it. She has never apologized for hitting me or hurting me or rejecting me. She used her childhood trauma or her mental health as justification for her actions. She told me time and again that if I only understood what she went through I would have more compassion for her. I understood, I always understood. Her childhood was used as bedtime stories for me when I was a child. I’ve always known. Yet as I raise my children I have been acutely aware that my past trauma is never an excuse for treating my children badly. I have been worried to the point of paranoia that I would hurt my children in the same manner, and I have required reassurance from the people around me. Only time, and my children, will account for whether I was a good mother to them. But this I know to be true, my actions are my own and only I can be responsible for how I treat them.

The pastel green comforter was destroyed a few years ago when we brought home a new puppy. I had held onto that blanket for over twenty years. Perhaps I needed a reminder of the first night I truly felt her rejection and contempt. Perhaps I felt I deserved it. Perhaps I kept it as a part of my identity. When it was destroyed I felt a strange sense of relief and regret.

I am not yet free from the emotional trauma and abuse I suffered, but I know I am healing little by little. As difficult as Mother’s Day is for me, I know I am not alone. I have a wonderful husband and three lovely sons, I have wonderfully supportive friends all of whom I adore, and an extended family I am becoming reacquainted with. Above all I am learning to see my worth. As I discover my worth, I am finding my voice. I grieve for the loss of my grandmother. Her name was Grace. As I reflect on her name I realize she was the grace in my life. I will forever be grateful for her. I will always miss her. I will cling to her example as I move forward in this life without her. It is her strength and tenacity I draw upon. It is her life I want to emulate.

I will allow grace for my pain this year on Mother’s Day. I give myself permission to instead celebrate the life I have built with my family and friends. It’s okay that Mother’s Day is painful. I won’t run from it any longer. One day I will be healed and it is okay that I’m not healed today. And as a mother myself, that is the gift I give myself this year.