WUNRN
By Rosjke Hasseldine - Mother-Daughter Therapist, Author +
http://www.motherdaughtercoach.com/index.htm
I
have not written a newsletter for a few months because about six weeks ago my
mother died. I needed to step back for a while, so that I could process the
ending of her life and what that means for me.
Those of you who have read my book The Silent Female Scream
will understand the conflicting emotions my mother's death brings. My mother
and I had a difficult relationship. She struggled with my growing independence
when I was young, and she never forgave me for leaving New Zealand over thirty
years ago. To her, leaving New Zealand felt like I had abandoned her.
It was my relationship with my mother that sparked my passion for understanding
what harms the mother-daughter relationship. I could not believe that my mother
and I were alone with our relationship problems, and I wanted to find out why
so many mothers and daughters struggle with miscommunication and emotional
disconnection.
I have learned that my struggles with my mother were inevitable. It wasn't just
the two years in a Japanese concentration camp that harmed my mother beyond
repair and led to her need to have an extreme degree of control over her life
and children. It was also the severe emotional neglect she suffered from in her
relationship with her mother, father, and husband.
In my family, like many families, the women suffer from emotional neglect. No
one asked my mother and grandmother what they felt or needed emotionally. This
meant that they each turned to their daughter for the emotional care they
missed from their husband, mother, and other family members. My grandmother
turned to my mother to fill the emotional void in her life, and my mother
turned to me. And I knew at a young age that if I spent my life filling my
mother's emotional void, I would be repeating the emotional starvation my mother
and grandmother suffered from, and I would be asking my daughter to make up for
what I never received and was not able to give to myself.
Understanding what motivated my mother has helped me deal with her hurtful
rejection. My mother could not relate to me as a mother relates to her daughter
or as an older woman relates to a younger woman. I was supposed to make her
feel better and I failed in this duty by not stepping into the role she taught
me to fill, and by leaving New Zealand. Yet like all daughters, I am wired to
need my mother's love. I will always need to feel that my mother loved me for
who I am and not for what I could provide for her. But sadly, I have had to
come to terms with not ever feeling this. And now that she is gone any slim hope
I had for any kind of kindness or interest is also gone.
With my mother's passing I want to remember the strength she gave me to survive
whatever life throws at you. She and my grandmother knew how to survive, having
lived through two years in a Japanese concentration camp. And she also taught
me that women's needs are their human right. That no woman should ever tolerate
a relationship where her voice is not heard, and her needs are not inquired
after or honored.
I hope that by writing about my struggle to come to come to terms with my
mother who for reasons beyond her control was not able to mother, other mothers
and daughters will understand each other more deeply.
With love
Rosjke