Toxic "caring" Mother

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

There are such mothers or figures replacing them who "love their child very much." They actively declare this, constantly emphasize, and from the outside it looks like a sugar Christmas card, where the mother spends all her days in tireless care of the child. And everything seems to be good and correct, because a mother who gives all of herself to her child is a good mother, and society supports this idea and praises such mothers, only the child in such a relationship does not look happy and contented

A deeply dependent person grows up, painfully feeling his powerlessness. He does not know himself, does not distinguish between his desires and needs, does not know how to take care of himself. No, he can still do something for himself, but usually this is limited to the simplest self-service skills. Where it is necessary to strain and overcome himself, he gives in and retreats, because he has no experience of overcoming himself. It was tacitly forbidden to him, otherwise why is mom trying? Such a mother with all her behavior informs the child - I live for you, I will do everything for you and for you, you do not need to do anything yourself, I will foresee everything and take care of everything, you just have to rejoice. It is impossible to rejoice, because in fact the mother lives her life FOR the child, leaving him no chance to use his right to dispose of himself, to learn something, to go through his mistakes, to acquire his baggage of successes and failures, to learn from this experience.

In such a family system, the child is not allowed to be a separate person. He is given birth in order to fill the gaping voids in his mother's inner space, and he is doomed to serve her complexes all his life. Of course, none of the participants in the drama realizes this, but from this it does not cease to be a drama, sometimes turning into a tragedy.

The mother fills the entire space of the child, not allowing him to either define his desires or feel his needs, she anticipates them, gives them ahead of time and with a reserve and are very proud of her sensitivity. And the child grows up with a huge sense of guilt, which floods his entire being, because instead of love and gratitude for such care, he feels only anger, anger and despair. They don't hear him, they don't pay attention to him, they don't take him seriously. He feels himself constantly owed for what is imposed on him.

Paradoxical as it may seem, all the actions of such a mother are directed not towards the child, as it seems from the outside, but towards herself.

Often she does not know how to live her own life, does not distinguish between her needs and feelings, she is torn apart by contradictions, and therefore she finds an external object to compensate for her inner dissatisfaction and disorder. Who, like a child, is best suited for the role of such an object. And since her own strength is spent on suppressing her internal conflicts, the mother begins to use the child's energy and resources. This is such a concern, on the contrary - it gives him, taking away from him. The unspoken message that she broadcasts to her child - do not show yourself, be weak, I am here to serve you, I will TAKE your energy, your initiative, you do not need it, I will take care of everything myself, because I live for this. What a terrible sense - if you do not give it to me, I will die. What can a child choose in this situation?

The child cannot refuse this to the mother, although he feels that everything here is turned upside down. But he loves his mother, and since his mother wants it so, then so be it. The mother takes the child's vital energy, disposing of it at her own discretion and, growing up, he feels empty, exhausted, unable to cope with life's tasks. The strongest internal conflict between "my mother raised me, she wishes me well, and in general, this is a mother!" and the desire to be free, to throw off this stone of relentless care, which lies on the chest and does not allow breathing. The struggle between love and the instinct for self-preservation. The child cannot win in this struggle and free himself from the mother's oppression, since the initially set conditions are in themselves absurd and, to some extent, terrible for him. It feels like a rebellion against the one who gave birth to you, against the roots that nourish you, which in itself is unnatural. In this symbiotic connection, everything is confused, merged together, the child as an extension of the mother or the mother, as the continuation of the child, it is not clear where is one's own, and where is someone else's, and against what to protest. There are no clear and clear boundaries, it is not clear where it ends, and where I begin, and therefore there is a fear of rupture, separation, although according to inner sensations this break is necessary, for the sake of saving oneself.

An adult who has grown out of such a child can spend his whole life in these rushes, never daring to break this painful connection with his mother, who has become entrenched in him as some kind of internal figure. He will find partners for himself, and take out the accumulated anger and anger on them, he will try to replace dependence on his mother with dependence on alcohol, he will feel apathy, lack of energy and interest in life. Such adults say - I don’t know what I want, I don’t feel anything, I don’t want anything. In fact, they are only able to maintain their minimum functioning, without expanding their life horizons, without striving for more, without developing and not receiving satisfaction from any of their achievements. They do not dare to part with the figure of the mother, which is firmly entrenched in their inner world and continues to take all the vitality. The saddest thing is that they have no desire to part, because it is like the strongest drug that both makes life easier and takes away.