Mother, About Whom It Is Forbidden To Talk

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

The phenomenon of the "dead mother" was isolated, named and studied by the famous French psychoanalyst Andre Green. Andre Green's article was originally presented as a lecture at the Paris Psychoanalytic Society on May 20, 1980.

I want to note that the complex of a dead mother does not arise due to the real loss of a mother, a dead mother is a mother who remains alive, but she is mentally dead, because for one reason or another she fell into depression (death of a child, relative, close friend or any other object greatly loved by the mother). Or is it the so-called depression of disappointment: these can be events that occur in their own family or in the family of their parents (betrayal of a husband, experiencing a divorce, humiliation, etc.).

In his report, A. Green examines the concept of the "dead mother" complex, its role and influence in the formation and development of the child's personality. A. Green also says that such clients are not characterized by depressive symptoms, "there is a feeling of powerlessness: powerlessness to get out of a conflict situation, powerlessness to love, use your talents, multiply your achievements or, if any, deep dissatisfaction with their results.. " [one]

My first awareness of a dead mother first came to me in therapy long before I read Andre Green. I still remember this storm of grief, bitterness, heart-rending pain, and soul-filled with suffering, as well as the feeling of Universal injustice. Then I went further and found out that it is more painful and destructive than a dead mother, maybe dead killing mother (I called her that). And about the dead killing mother, I would like to tell.

In my opinion, a dead killing mother does more damage to the child than just a dead mother.

Dead killing mothers are not only mothers who showed cruelty towards their child, emotional rejection, neglect, humiliated their children in all known ways. But, these are also mothers, according to their external manifestations, the impression of care and love for their child is created, but this so-called care and love is manifested in conniving and dominant hyperprotection, increased moral responsibility. Such mothers I call sirens, they are very alluring, just the same attract to themselves, beckon, call, and then "devour". In fact, a harsh, cruel, and rejecting mother can do less harm than an overly nurturing, protective, and chronically anxious mother. Because the cruel mother does not disguise her aggressive and killing tendencies as caring and loving.

In addition, dead mothers who kill are also mothers who are very concerned about the health of their child. Such mothers are interested in the child's illnesses, his failures (they are very sympathetic if something bad happens to the child, there is a lot of care and energy in this), and they always make gloomy predictions about their child's future. They all the time, as it were, worry about their child, so that something does not happen to him. So that God forbid you get sick, you don't fall down a hill, you don't get hit by a car. "My daughter is growing, as I am afraid she will be raped." "Oh, how I am afraid for my child, I am scared all the time, I am afraid that something bad will happen to him."

Such a mother remains indifferent to favorable changes and does not respond to the joy of the child, or even experiences some kind of dissatisfaction. Children of such mothers in adulthood say that genuine interest and care from the mother, they feel if something happened to them, and when everything is fine, then there is a feeling as if the mother is not very happy, and even as if upset that nothing no bad things happened. In the dreams of such mothers there are many diseases, death, blood, corpses. In behavior, she does not cause visible damage to the child, but gradually and methodically suppresses in him the joy of life and faith in himself, in development, in life and eventually infects him with her lethality, the child begins to fear life and longs for death.

Thus, the essence of a dead killing mother is not so much in her behavior, but in her subconscious attitude towards the child, which can manifest itself in both destructive behavior and in the form of care.

For me, there is no doubt that there is an exchange of information between mother and baby. I assume that the exchange takes place through fusion, interiorization and identification by the child of the mother.

Spiegel says that "the infant is able to empathically perceive the mother's feelings long before his development allows him to understand their meaning, and this experience has a serious impact on him. Any communication breakdown causes anxiety and even panic." [3] He says that by the age of five months, the baby shows symptoms of fear directed at the mother.

From my maternal experience, I can say that this happens much earlier, as early as a month the child can demonstrate these symptoms. In addition, already at the age of one week, the child senses his mother's anxiety and reacts to her with strong crying, for example, when the mother picks up a calm child in her arms or simply leans over and looks at him.

Further, he suggests that "perhaps the child receives from his mother impulses of unconscious hostility, nervous tension, thanks to empathic perception, is overwhelmed by her emotions of depression, anxiety and anger." [3]

Here I can add that it is not possible to receive, but definitely receives. In addition, the mother's depression, her anxiety and anger can be realized by the mother herself, but the child still receives them. The mother's awareness of her destructiveness does not save the child from an empathic perception of her lethality. But thanks to this awareness, the child may not be exposed to the unconscious aggressive impulses of the mother, in the form of "accidental" misunderstandings, such as: fell off the bed or changing table, accidentally hit or banged on something (did not want to) or”oh, like that twisted and fell out of his hands”.

So, the baby fully accepts, absorbs the image of the mother, including her hostility and destructiveness. This deadly impulse is integrated into the structure of the child's personality, his growing Ego. The child copes with these impulses through suppression.

Suppression, as a response to the destructiveness of the mother and protection from her. In the behavior of children who have had a killing mother, one can see masochistic behavior that persists throughout their lives.

Bromberg says that masochism is encouraged by mothers in whose soul the child identifies with the parent to whom it was hostile. These mothers are characterized by a high level of narcissism, a strong discrepancy between their ideal of ego and behavior, and poorly developed feelings of guilt. They present themselves as sacrificers. themselves, caring and kind, but under their pretensions lies a hostile attitude. They promote and impose suppression of sexual impulses, but behave sexually defiant towards the child.

Even if they find themselves in some kind of vice, they do not have a real sense of guilt, but a fear of what others might think. The child experiences their desire to control him. Since rejecting and hostile attitudes are obvious, the child begins to feel that he is living in a hostile world. The striving of his instincts is intensely stimulated, but their expression is prohibited. He is forced to exercise control over his impulses long before he acquires the ability to do so. Inevitable failure leads to punishment and loss of self-esteem. The development of the ego becomes difficult, the ego tends to remain weak, fearful and submissive. The child becomes convinced that the most acceptable behavior for him will be the one that ends in failure and suffering. So suffering thanks to his mother is associated with the concept of love, the child eventually begins to perceive it as love. "[2]

But even this mother is less traumatic than the next one.

There is a type of killing mother that includes not only the characteristics described above, i.e. self-sacrificing, kind and caring, "taking care of chastity", but at the same time destructive killing impulses erupt in the form of unpredictable outbursts of anger and rage, and cruelty towards their child. These outbursts and abuse are then “served up” as deep care and love. "I did this to you because I love you very much and care about you, I was very scared or worried about you." In my practice, there were children of such mothers. These are deeply suffering people, they practically do not get pleasure from life. Their inner world is filled with the strongest suffering, they feel their worthlessness, they feel despised, the worst of all. It is very difficult for them to find something good in themselves. Kill themselves with toxic shame. Inside themselves, they often describe some kind of devouring, killing hole, emptiness. They are terribly ashamed to do something all the time. There may be an aversion to one's body, especially to the chest (if it is a woman). One client of mine says that she would love to cut off her breast, a completely useless organ, and breastfeeding is generally disgusting.

Clients with Dead Killing Mother Syndrome may have a history of depression or depression, panic attacks, and stalking paranoia. They say that the whole world is hostile against them, everyone wants to harm them. This harm is often associated with fantasies of violent physical or sexual abuse, or they are said to be killed just because of the phone, tablet, or just because they are surrounded by some assholes. At the same time, they project their inner reality outward, then the people who surround them are “cattle, who only thinks how to get drunk and fuck, or rob, beat or rape someone,” and of course they will definitely fall into this someone. Everyone envies them and only thinks about how to harm them.

For example, my client told me that I always meet her with hatred, in therapy I just put up with her, if I did not hear her call on the phone, then I did it on purpose, because she is disgusting to me, and I know how she feels and gets angry and anxious when I do not immediately answer the call, and I do it on purpose, only to harm her, to make fun of her. And when I was really angry with her, the client's face became softer and there was a feeling as if she was eating and enjoying the anger. After I paid attention to this, the client said that this is really so, my anger is like a manifestation of love, caring for her, only then she feels that I am not indifferent to her and feel warm feelings. it is “lustful bitches” (for the most part), and men or “alpha males” (speaks with contempt and disgust), or just despicable creatures lying on the couch and worthless, but both of them in life the only leading organ is the penis. Its aggression is directed mostly inward, it does not scandal at work and in the family, it methodically destroys itself. The only place in her life where she shows her displeasure without hiding hatred, contempt, disgust for herself and others is psychotherapy. And immediately she again kills herself for this with a toxic drug, that she is abnormal, insignificant, "I'm some kind of freak."

My own awareness of maternal destructiveness developed in psychotherapy even before my pregnancy and blossomed during it. And a completely new round began immediately after the birth of the child. It was the most difficult turn of all the previous ones. From my experience and the experience of my clients, I can say that the primary in the murderous hostility of a mother against her child is the conflict between the mother and her mother. This is an intergenerational conflict, and in each subsequent generation it becomes stronger and more pathogenic. Those. if the grandmother was just a dead mother, then her daughter is not just dead, but a killing dead mother, but a granddaughter with a more pronounced murderous impulse, and the next generation can already physically kill the child. This is when they throw newborns into trash cans, give birth in a toilet (country), kill themselves and a child or one child, because they did not know where to put him, she was afraid that her mother would kick it out and the like. I suppose that such an increase in lethality in the next generation is due to the fact that the child's fear of cruel destruction by his mother requires an even stronger cruel destruction for its release. In addition, such an increase between generations is present only when the child has absolutely no place to “warm up.” Often the desire to kill his child is not realized. Dead mothers who kill are very difficult to come to the realization of their destructiveness, they are very afraid that they are going crazy, ashamed and supplant their lethality. And only with the establishment of strong trusting relationships can one slowly approach their fear as a desire to harm, kill. I was lucky when I got pregnant, I was already in psychotherapy, but still I was scared if I had gone crazy, and it was very scary to talk in therapy about what terrible thoughts I have in relation to my child, and the awareness of my deathly murderousness caused barely bearable pain.

The complex, the syndrome of the dead killing mother, begins to flourish during pregnancy in the form of a threat of miscarriage, severe toxicosis, there may be an entanglement of the umbilical cord of the fetus and all sorts of different difficulties that arise during pregnancy and the birth itself. Further, after the birth of a child, the mother begins to revive her trauma even more and faster, a dead mother or a dead killing mother revives. This can manifest itself in the form of postpartum depression, severe anxiety, the inability to care for the child (I do not know what to do with him, no strength), murderous fantasies in relation to his child, feelings of hatred towards him, the desire for the child to get sick, or fears that the child will suddenly die. More often than not, this entire beautiful set is not realized. I just slept all day long, and when my daughter woke up, she stupidly held her in her arms, looked after her on automatism, knew what to do and performed actions like a robot, while simultaneously realizing all the horror of my fantasies and desires. So I lasted a month, then ran to therapy. In addition, the murderousness of the mother erupts in dreams. These are dreams filled with anxiety, horror and pain. Dreams about how the child is taken away, or the mother leaves him herself, or dreams about the murder of her child, some mothers dream about how they tear their child apart, gnaw his throat or cut him with an ax, strangle or hang their child, or the child dies in the hospital from what - then illness. Aggressive impulses of the mother can be directed to murder and mutilation at the same time. For example, from practice, a woman very vividly described how she would kill her child, or how she wants to hit his head on the doorframe, or something heavy on the head, or chop him up with an ax, or press down with a pillow, or drown him while swimming. Baby is a baby. The destructive, murderous tendencies of the mother are manifested throughout her life, if suddenly she does not come to therapy. When a woman is in therapy, her syndrome is alleviated a little. But even regardless of whether the mother is aware of these tendencies or not, whether she copes with them or not, whether they manifest themselves in care or not, all the same, these tendencies are transmitted to the child. I suppose it will take three generations to get rid of it completely, taking into account that each generation will be in therapy, and the sooner the better. Being in therapy and realizing its deadness and murderousness, realizing how it manifests itself in a relationship with mine as a child, only thanks to this my daughter never fell out of bed, did not hit her head, was ill very rarely, never put anything in her nose, did not burn herself, did not fall off the slide, etc. But I still see my death and destructiveness in the manifestations of my daughter (of course, this is not expressed as strongly as mine, but it is still there). She contracted the infection despite all my awareness even before she was born. In this place my soul hurts, but I still do not lose hope that I will be able to compensate in her my and now her dead mother. A few words, I would also like to say about my father. I am not of the opinion that the father plays no role in the formation of the dead mother killing syndrome. I believe that unconsciously men and women choose each other with approximately the same degree of psychological well-being and distress. That is, if one of the partners has deadness, then the other also has it. But its manifestations can be different. From my own experience and the experience of my clients, I have developed this idea of the role of a father. He participates in the syndrome of the dead killing mother or his inaction, i.e. does nothing, does not protect his child from maternal aggression, severity, does not question her methods of caring for the child and thus supports the mother's destructive impulses, or then they change roles: the father plays the role of a reproaching ego, this manifests itself in the abuse of children, and the mother seems to be doing nothing wrong. But in fact, she already supports him in this by not protecting her children from abuse. Partners may not necessarily change roles. An even more pathogenic variant is when the mother masks the aggressive and cruel attitude of the father under the care and love. He comes to the child and says that dad loves them very much, "he did not beat you out of malice, he is very worried, cares about you" and at the end he delivers a control shot - "go take pity on dad, he is so upset." The syndrome of the dead mother, the dead killing mother is most strongly present in chemical dependence, codependency, depression. In all chronic fatal diseases such as cancer, tuberculosis, HIV, bronchial asthma, diabetes mellitus, etc. In borderline disorders, in highly pronounced narcissistic disorder. Working with clients who have dead mother syndrome, dead mother killing is very long and painstaking, includes specifics, for example, if they are chemically dependent people, then you need to know the specifics of addiction. But what unites is the motherly friendliness on the part of the therapist. And the client resists this in all known ways. And if you are a therapist who himself has dead mother syndrome or dead mother killing syndrome, your observing ego should always be on the alert. Your own transference can easily be woven into your countertransference. In countertransference with clients with dead mother syndrome, one may feel cold, frozen, indifferent, detached. And in the syndrome of the dead killing mother, the countertransference is stronger, in addition to the above, you also want to kill, humiliate, hit, there may be disgust, contempt. When working with such clients, I reinsure myself and every time I ask myself “why am I going to say this now, from what feeling am I saying this, why, what am I doing with the client now?” So far, this is all I wanted to tell about the dead killing mother And once again I want to note that a dead killing mother is a living mother in reality. The lethality and murderousness of the mother is manifested not so much in her behavior, but in her unconscious attitude towards the child, this killing energy of the mother, which is directed at the child, and can manifest itself in both destructive behavior and in the form of care.