Several weeks ago I gave an interview to a journalist, about what it’s like to cut ties with your mother.
This morning, the story went live on news.com.au – to read it, click on the image below.
I’ve already received so many messages of love and support, from people all over Australia, NZ and even the USA.
It is incredibly humbling, but also very sad to realise just how many of us are dealing with a toxic family member, to the point where sometimes going no contact is the only solution.
So I’ve put together this post especially for you, if you have arrived here after reading my story …
Mother Issues? You’re Not Alone!
Over the last few years I’ve blogged about my relationship with mum, and how it has affected me, several times. You may be interested in reading some of them:
- 5 Things I Learned from my Shrink
- About Those Emotional Scars …
- Don’t Blame Your Childhood
- Ghosts of Christmas Past
- I Didn’t Talk to my Mum for over 10 years
- I Must Confess – I am a Forgotten Australian
- I was Homeless as a Teenager
- Is There a RIGHT Way to Smack?
- Me as a Mum: an Interview with My Kidults
- Mother Issues? You’re Not Alone
- My Time in Sandgate Children’s Home
- When Mothers Day Hurts Like Hell
- Women Can Be Violent Too
Other Helpful Resources
I have also listed some of the books that helped me in my journey to find healing from the abuse and trauma I suffered as a child; and some of the quotes that have been exceptionally meaningful to me.
I’m not sure if these books are all still in print but these days with Ebay and other sites hopefully you’ll be able to find at least some of them. Some are Christian; some are not. Some are Australian; some are not. But all were instrumental in my journey to healing and making sense of all that I have been through.
“Finding a way to express yourself creatively is really important to healing.”
“After my mother’s death, I struggled to deal with my strange grief – grief for her in her wasted painful life, for a mother I had not had, for something I sensed but did not know, for a normal life with a normal mother that I would never have.”
“Forgiveness is a choice. It is not a feeling – don’t try and feel like forgiving. It is an act of the will . . . We acknowledge that it hurt, that it mattered, and we choose to extend forgiveness to our fathers, our mothers, those who hurt us . . . It might help to remember that those who hurt you were also deeply wounded themselves.”
- Mason, Paul T & Kreger, Randi. Stop Walking on Eggshells
I always said that if I ever wrote a book about my childhood it would be called “Treading on Eggshells” – because that is what it felt like, being raised by my mother. As I read the back cover of this book, the tears began to pour down my cheeks. At last, I had a name for what was wrong with my mother. And even better – it wasn’t my fault!
“Stop Walking on Eggshells” is subtitled “taking your life back when someone you care about has borderline personality disorder (BPD)”. The publisher describes it as “a self-help guide that helps the family members and friends of individuals with BPD understand this self-destructive disorder and learn what they can do to cope with it and take care of themselves. It is designed to help them understand how the disorder affects their loved ones and recognize what they can do to get off the emotional roller coasters and take care of themselves.” I learnt that there is just no pleasing somebody with BPD, that they blame anybody but themselves for what is wrong with their lives, and that the boundaries are constantly being changed. No wonder my childhood was so confusing. Reading this book was tremendously liberating for me, and finally helped me to make sense of my childhood trauma.
God told Joyce Meyer, “Abuse may be the reason you act this way, but don’t let it become an excuse to stay this way!”
“I was a controller, so filled with fear that the only way I could face life was to feel that I was in control, and then no one could hurt me.”
“I don’t remember ever being fully relaxed and truly happy as a child. I don’t believe that anyone can enjoy life while living in constant fear.”
“As a result of having been abused for so long, I developed a very independent personality … Early in life I came to the conclusion that if I took care of myself and never asked anyone for anything, then I would get hurt less.”
- Morris, Deborah with Lewis, Gregg. Forgiving the Dead Man Walking.
Debbie’s counsellor, Dr Terry Hargrave divides the work of forgiveness into two areas or goals: salvage and restoration. Sometimes the only reasonable goal can be “salvaged forgiveness”. The victim needs to find a way to get over the incident, to minimize the damage, to get on with the healing, to learn from the experience, and to move on. Salvaged forgiveness is the practical alternative if the abuser does not repent, or perhaps they are deceased.
“I believe in the definition of forgiveness that involves you renouncing anger or resentment against that person, but does not excuse or pardon them for their harmful actions, nor does it require you to stay involved with them in any concrete way … Your forgiveness is not for their sake, it is for yours.”
Some children unfortunately just have “evil” parents …parents who “derive benefit or pleasure from the suffering of their child, and has virtually no guilt, shame, or compassion for the suffering.” Schlessinger believes these parents have long since torn up their parent card. “When a parent is dangerous or destructive, their presence should be minimized or eliminated altogether. People have a right to self-defense.”
“The ‘cure’ comes in being able to become a loving mother to oneself – and to one’s children – in spite of having a poor role model upon which to pattern our maternity. The victory is in choosing not to be victims of the past but, instead, in breaking the cycle . . . We cannot rewrite history, but we can redirect the future.”
“The first step toward recovery, then is recollection . . . the second step is to allow the feelings of loss to surface rather than . . . bubble up in other relationships. When we can recognise that we are . . . entitled to feel anger (but not to act on it – awareness is not a license to kill), then we are able to let go of that anger and not be controlled by it.”
“Reconnection with such a mother is like walking into a propellor. There are some mothers who are so destructive that a relationship with them is an exercise in masochism.” However, Secunda believes that if you do “divorce” your parent, it should be with the understanding that the door is not nailed shut on any possibility of reconciliation.
“Good physical health is likely to encourage good mental health, and both are likely to affect the spiritual aspects of our life.”
“It is crucial to recognise that depressed patients, even those with less severe depression, have more disability than persons with chronic physical diseases like heart disease, diabetes and arthritis.”
“Ignorance about depression is a major obstacle..for nothing could be more misguided than the belief that a depressed person can be helped out of their depression by distraction, or the injunction to try harder. Criticism…can make things much worse and even cause a relapse.”
And a great big hug if you too are a survivor of a toxic parent. Please feel free to leave your comment below.
Hi Janet,
I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I was to read your story. I too cut ties with my mother about 6 years ago after a lifetime of narcissistic behaviour from her toward me & regardless of what I did or how hard I tried to have a ‘normal’ relationship with her, it become too draining & too exhausting for me to continue. I treated people so badly throughout my life as that is all I knew how to behave, it wasn’t until I experienced a nervous breakdown that I finally had enough. I was extremely lucky to have a supportive husband & a supportive network of friends, luckily there were only a few people who did not support my decision but I have no trouble standing by what I did & I have become the happiest person I have ever been! I am a compassionate, caring person who enjoys being nice to people, I don’t feel insecure or awkward & I love my life!
Thank you for your story, your words were honest & I can relate to everything you were saying. I am so happy that you managed to escape that toxic world & have become such a strong & wonderful woman! Thank you!!!
Hi Alexandra, so glad you took the time to comment. Like you, I also treated people (my poor husband) badly as that was all I knew, particularly in the early days of our marriage (now married over 28 years). Thankfully I learned new ways of relating to people, that weren’t modelled on my mother’s poor behaviour.
To many people that I’ve met, it seems unthinkable to have nothing to do with your mother, but sadly it is the only real option in cases like ours. There may still be a lingering sadness, but you and I are proof it *is* possible to go on and build a happy and healthy home of our own!
Love Janet xxx
Read your story in the paper today and sat in the car and cried after doing school drop off this morning. Swap “mum” for “dad” and you just told my story. Thank you for sharing and letting others know we aren’t alone and that no contact with a parent can often be the ONLY way for one to live life.
Oh Mel, you have brought tears to my eyes. I’m so sorry that you’ve had to go through this pain too. Having had our own kids, it brings home more than ever that there was something seriously wrong with our parents to have treated us this way. I really hope that your story, like mine, has a much happier ending?
Love Janet xxx
Hi Janet. I read your story today via our local paper. I can’t tell you how much it means to me to have found it. Your story in the paper is identical to mine with only one exception – it took me until I was 40 to cut ties and get free. Other then that, it could have been me writing the story! I have also struggled with those around me not understanding – especially as most of them are Christians (like me). Thank you SO much for being brave enough to share your story. I feel like I’ve been living with a secret but you’ve helped me feel like it’s ok.
Hi Shaz, thanks for taking the time to comment. I’m so sorry that you’ve had to go through this too, but glad you were finally able to break free. The Christian angle makes it even harder – I tried so hard for so long to be a “good Christian girl” with my mum. I just hope that now mum is gone she has found the peace and happiness which eluded her here on earth. Maybe one day we will meet in heaven and we can have the relationship we never had here.
Dear Janet
I would love to say more I resonate with what your saying…Joan Fisher
Thanks for your comment Joan, have sent you a private message x
Hi Janet,
I also could have written your story word for word. Our experiences are that similar it’s eerie. The differences I could identify were that my mother was never diagnosed, my dad died they didn’t separate, I cut her off 2 years after the birth of my first child at age 33, and I knew about her death 6 months ago. Even the Christmas incident – something similar happened to me.
After a breakdown a couple months ago, I have started therapy and its bringing up a lot of trauma. I am very broken at the moment, but I am a survivor and I am strong. I know I will get better and reading your story has confirmed that I will be OK. Thank you. M x
Wow, I am so sorry for what you experienced, but am so proud of you for starting therapy. It’s not easy, but it’s the only way if you don’t want to let your past ruin your future. Onwards and upwards I say!!! Big hugs to you x
I had wonderful parents. Both so different – a mother who could do every sport and crafts and was very beautiful and loved the arts. My dad was a genius and read everything and shared and we would spend 3 hours talking on Saturdays when jobs done.
BUT – they had a son who had Body Dysmorphic Disorder and was likely a Sociopath.
I was the eldest, another sister then the brother and another sister.
When I was about five and he was about 14months old, I knew there was something wrong with him. Even as a baby he didn’t like to have dirty nappies or get dirty.
I had to stick up for him as my father was a very loving and affectionate man and couldn’t understand that his son did not like to have any affection. He would run into his room screaming to get away from any form of natural fatherly affection. My brother picked on his youngest sister mercilessly and stood over her to make her do her homework and so I had to intervene to stop that. I was never afraid of him and he knew that.
I left home and moved to another state on my marriage. I was expecting my fourth child when my dad died. My brother had beaten him up – my dad had had a heart attack a few years ago and given up smoking but for what reason I don’t know but my brother had his dad on the floor and hitting him in the heart. My dad went to work the next day and then stayed the night with his widowed mum as he did once a fortnight and then on way home rushed to hospital where mum rushed to and he spoke to her for a short while and then died. He was 56.
My brother then turned on our mum and would make her stay in her room and mend his socks. My mum had to get my youngest sister to live with me for her protection, the other sister went to England. He had done the same to my mum and was hitting her in the heart and she was on the floor and bleeding and my sister got close friends come and get her to hospital. I tried to get the police etc but they couldn’t do anything unless she gave a complaint.
My parents had put him into hospital before dad died but he only stayed a short while and no one could diagnose him.
Thankfully my parents were in a bowls club and one of their friend’s wife died about the same time my dad did and my mum and he got married and he was wonderful.
To get my son away he put him in a car and drove to a boarding house and dropped him there.
He did visit them and when he did he would speak for hours on the one subject and my lovely step father patiently listened.
Thankfully they moved to the country 4 hours away. When my step father died my mum was safe away from her son. By this time I was living in Brisbane.
When my mum had a heart turn at age 92 and in hospital in Sydney I let my brother know after I and my youngest sister had visited her and gone home. When he visited her, he complained about the other patients and saying what a good son he had been and condemned my wonderful step-sister who had cared for her so much and scared my niece who was there. We got our mum back to the country the next day as that was all she wanted and she died in the early hours.
My younger sister lived in the same country town too and was not well as she had Graves disease and she said if our brother came to the funeral she wouldn’t come as he had threatened to shoot us.
In all the 18 years mum lived in the country thankfully he never visited. So we didn’t put any death notices in any papers and after the funeral the solicitor rang my brother to tell him the funeral had taken place. My brother rang me a few times and was very abusive and I just said ‘well if you don’t know why you were not told about the funeral, I am not going to tell you.’
About 2 years ago out of the blue her rang me and wanted to know where his sisters were. Both of them had moved and I wasn’t going to tell him anything. He hardly ever had a job and bought lots of lottery tickets.
When I visited my mum in Sydney I would meet him at the railway station to catch up with him.
It must have been a trait handed down from my dad’s mum’s dad as he was not warm at all. My dad was like his grandma and so kind but his brother was horrible and he got his mum in a nursing home and stole all her money, much of which was to go to my mum and didn’t come to his brother’s funeral, thankfully he and his wife never wanted children.
All my children and grandchildren are lovely and have the warm affection my dad had and the talents of my mum.
I was protected in a way as I had moved with my marriages and so did not suffer as my parents and sisters had.
oops ‘To get HER son away’ And she went straight to the country hospital from Sydney.
Hi Julie, thanks for sharing your story. Although it’s hard having a parent that is severely troubled, it would be just as hard to have a child like that, what your poor parents went through and the feelings of helplessness. No doubt they loved him and wanted to help him but it would have been pretty much impossible. Yes I do think these sorts of things can run in families – my grandmother (mum’s mum) for example had 2 breakdowns in the 50’s and was hospitalised, although she seemed to bounce back and be pretty much okay after that. You were so fortunate to have been out of harm’s way mostly with your brother and sounds like you knew how to handle him (ie keep him away!). PS it was lovely to meet you today! xxx
Likewise it was a great experience meeting you Janet. You seem to fit so much into your life. I see I have a lot of ‘undone’ things to turn around and ‘get done’.
Hello Janet,
I found you and your story via your interview. I too am living without contact of my mother (5 years this September), and your story resonated with me, as it is so similar. I was 26 when it occurred, after many years of emotional and sometimes physical abuse. She had none many terrible things during my upbringing, the worst being cutting herself (and me) off from her entire family when I was 11, and lying to me about why.
We no longer had contact after I called to confirm plans to take her out for her birthday that September, plans we had made weeks in advance. That morning on the phone she accused me of only making plans with her because my boyfriend (my now husband) had his own plans that day. I hung up the phone on her as she screamed at me. I too could take it no more. I did not hear from her after (even during the holidays). I wrote her a letter at the start of the new year and have never heard from her. She has missed my acceptance to grad school, my engagement, wedding, birth of my child, graduation from grad school, etc.)
I have been criticized by people for not sending my mother a mother’s day card. “No matter what she has done, she is still your mother, (my Husband’s Aunt).” At the time of my engagement, my family members ( I had re-established contact with my mother’s family as an adult) placed heavy pressure on me to invite my mother (despite them also still being estranged from her) – we avoided this by having a small wedding out of state at a bed and breakfast, in front of only 9 people ( 7 friends and 2 members of my husband’s family.)
I too developed severe postpartum depression after the birth of my daughter. Feeling the love I had for my daughter, and knowing I would never to do her what my mother had done to me only made me realize how dysfunctional the relationship was between my mother and me. We had several friends who also had their first child that year. Hearing about the support they had from their mother also caused me to feel cheated in having a “real mother” myself, I too felt alone in a way I had never felt before.
I don’t think people can understand what children of our kinds of mothers go through, both in the years of abuse, or even after cutting contact in terms of the emotional impact we will live with forever. Thank you for sharing your story.
Kim, my heart just aches for you … so many similarities like you say. When you mentioned your mum lying to you – OMG the lies. To this day I am still not sure what is truth and what is lies. It’s hard when you can’t trust anything your mother has ever said to you!!! My hubby answered the phone that last time and told mum I couldn’t talk for long as we were going to visit my father. Well, that was just like waving a red rag at a bull! She went OFF!!! So I told her that he was still my father, like it or not, and I was sick of being forced to choose between them. She hung up on me and the rest is history … like you, since having my own kids, I just shake my head and cannot get my head around any mother treating her offspring in this way … there is definitely something wrong in their heads hey.
Hi Janet, I read your interview today and it was like reading about my own mother. I cut ties with her numerous times in my life but my grandmother and my mom’s siblings would talk me into being the “bigger person” and let her back in my life. It wasn’t until I had my own children and she started mentally and verbally abusing them that I finally stood up to her. She died of Pancreatic cancer 8 years ago this July, on my Birthday of all days. I doesn’t the last week of her life in Hospice with her. While she was sick they put her on anti-anxiety/depression medication and she was like a different person for 5 years. But about two nights before she past, the devil showed it’s face again to get me one more time. I was thankful when it was over. I also had an alcoholic father, who sexually and verbally abused me. He’s gone now too and left when I was 18, I never had a relationship with him after that. I’ve been thru so much therapy but still have deep pain and anger over what they did to me.
Thank you for putting yourself out there and being so vulnerable, I don’t feel so unique anymore.
Oh my it sounds so weird that she died on your birthday … this’ll make you laugh … my first child was born on my dad’s birthday!!! I don’t think mum ever forgave me for that 😉 . My mum had medication but would never stay on it and that’s when all hell would let loose. I have many times when the grief and hurt has nearly overwhelmed me – after my kids were born, and on my 40th birthday I felt very bitter that she had ruined half of my life. Thankfully now it’s mostly a distant memory and doesn’t hurt like it used to, time and counselling and my own loving family have really helped me recover, plus my determination that I was NOT going to turn out like my own mum!!!