2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
I betray my mom!
I realized this oppressive feeling of guilt when I met my future husband and moved to him in another country.
“Of course, now that you have a man, you don’t need your mom,” she shouted to me on Skype with poorly concealed mockery and condemnation.
"You won't succeed with him, he will treat you the same as your father did to me and you will come back to lick your wounds" - I read between the lines.
Left completely alone, after a divorce, without money, abandoned and unhappy, now she was losing me.
I constantly felt like a traitor and guilty when:
I chose my man and a new life with him
In those moments when she was happy, and my mother constantly suffered and cried about her unfair and unfulfilled fate
I traveled the world and staying in the most beautiful places was overshadowed by the thought - it's a pity that my mother had never seen this and could not afford it
She was successful in work and earning money, while my mother lived on retirement, worked a little and counted pennies, complaining that there was no normal job, money, opportunities
She was getting old, losing her beauty, but I was young, slender and, hypothetically, I still had everything in front of me
Mom was surprised that I have so many good friends and they are ready for a lot for me, but she has no one
My colleagues, employers, clients appreciated and praised me, and she felt undeservedly underestimated, unfulfilled
She had sex, and my mother had not had it for a very long time, because she did not let men come to her anymore
I bought myself beautiful and high-quality things, and my mother wore only boots for 10 years and continued to deprive herself in everything
Even when I ate or drank something expensive and tasty, the thought slipped through my head that my mother could not afford it
She was ill, suffered, did not want to go to doctors, and I was relatively healthy
Every cell of my body and mind was saturated with these destructive feelings and thoughts, and for many years I did not even notice this and constantly fell on this hook of guilt. I wanted so much to save her and make her happy so that my mother would not cry and start enjoying life!
But no matter how hard I tried to devote time to her in emotional communication, support, help with money, things, food, gifts, inspire, please, take out on trips, even tried to acquaint her with men on the Internet - it was all in vain. Nothing worked. Mom became happy for a few minutes, and then everything repeated according to a given scenario - "I was left alone, everyone left me, what should I do."
Can you imagine how hard it was for me to live in this state? It just poisoned my life, because I could not afford to live my life to the fullest and be happy while my mother was suffering. And what could I do about it?
At that time, I was already studying to be a psychologist and colleagues advised me to watch a seminar on healing maternal trauma. These two hours just sobered me. It was as if I looked at our relationship from the outside, saw the roles that we selflessly played. I learned that the image of my mother in my inner world is a sad, abandoned by everyone, lonely, helpless, poor woman, offended by her fate, who does not know how to solve her life questions and always waits for someone to do it for her. She is like a little childish girl who did not understand why everyone did this to her and what to do next.
It turned out that those states of abandonment, loneliness, unfulfillment, meaninglessness of life, disappointment, resentment, guilt and betrayal that I so often experienced next to her were not mine, but my mother's. I was merging with her, felt her pain and wanted her to stop suffering. Out of love for her, I decided to share her burden, because I didn't want to lose touch with her and be a traitor. For many years I remained faithful to her and all her conditions, which is why it was so difficult for me to establish my own life.
On an unconscious level, I perceived my possible success and happiness as something that would hurt my mother, as it would distance me from her. I'd rather not be successful in my career and happy in my personal life, so that she does not feel her pain, defeat and also subconsciously envies me. In this situation, my success, realization, happiness and freedom were impossible.
After such an avalanche of realizations, I had a burning desire to understand myself, to get out of merging with my mother, to separate from her states, to heal the image of my mother inside me and start living my real life. She clearly decided to get rid of the feelings of guilt and betrayal in relation to her. I no longer wanted my life to turn out as in a sad anecdote - "Mom lived her life - she will live yours too."
I wanted to change all this, but did not understand how to do it. It's one thing to listen to a seminar and realize something, and another thing is deep psychological changes, real life and relationships. I began to do various exercises to change the internal image of my mother. At some point, I was already sure that everything worked out and I left the merger with her, until I once again went to visit her in another city.
Mom met me limping with an inflamed joint, sick, she quit her job and continued to complain that everything was bad, she did not know how to live on, that there was not enough money, everything was getting more expensive, and so on. My heart sank again and I felt guilty that my mother felt bad, but everything is relatively good for me and my husband and I have just bought tickets to Sri Lanka and are planning to fly away for the New Year holidays.
I was driving back on the train in a terrible state, and in my head there were only sad thoughts about how to help my mother. Upon arrival, she had a fight with her husband - how so, he does not understand that my mother is suffering and she is feeling bad. At some point, an observer turned on in me and I realized that I had merged with my mother and her condition again. It turned out that these techniques did not help me, the usual reactions and roles turned out to be much stronger than my intention. Mom behaved in the same way, and out of habit I tried to save her, change and make her life easier.
Perhaps you will understand me, at that moment I felt powerless, and I was also terribly angry that my mother could not arrange her life, take care of herself and continues to complain, again provoking me to the usual reactions. And the inner image of my mother did not want to change, on the contrary, due to a serious illness, it became even more depressing. Probably, I will never cope with this, I thought, and went into my worries. I was disappointed and confused. I can't get out of this.
When I came to my senses a little, I decided to just continue studying psychology, without high expectations. Over the course of several years of study, work with different techniques, rotation in the environment of psychotherapists and, of course, personal and group therapy, which I really like, I gradually began to notice that I have new resources and different behaviors are being developed:
I learned to separate myself from the states of my mother
I clearly decided that my mother lives her life, and I choose my own
Gone are the feelings of guilt and betrayal
There is no longer a need to remain faithful to her in the same way - sharing her states, feelings and repeating her fate
I created a new connection with my mother - I accepted her as she is, that we are different, at the same time, we love and respect each other
I learned how to conflict, get angry with my mother and express any feelings to her openly
I can withstand her unconscious attempts to pin the blame and not fall for it
I created a new inner image of my mother, which you can rely on
The most important achievement is that I focused on my life, saw my own dissatisfaction with myself, implementation, and began to take real steps towards my development
I clearly understood that I used to spend a lot of energy on changing the real (external) mother and being in a sense of guilt and feeling like a traitor. Now my energy returned to me and I directed it towards changes in my own life
It is thanks to psychotherapy that one can put an end to attempts to change the real (external) mother. Imagine, it is quite possible to make your inner mother happy, to change her image inside - to grow to an adult woman. Such a mother is alive and real. She can be strong and weak, she can be sad, cry, rejoice and be happy, she can solve her life questions by herself, rely on herself and others. She feels confident in the material world and can take care of herself and others.
Our reliance on a strong mother gives incredible potential for creativity and realization in your own life! Such a mother blesses because she loves. She can internally let go of her child, not get stuck on him and not hold him by her needy love. And a child, no matter how old he is, will not be able to stick to such a complete mother.
I cannot say that the work on this issue has been finally completed, since life constantly throws up new plots for thought and the process of internal transformations is still going on. But I know for sure, from my experience and the stories of my clients, that it is absolutely real to part with feelings of guilt and betrayal, change the inner image of my mother and start choosing myself and my life.
Working on yourself is not an endless punishment, not a waste of time and money, but an exciting journey in which you can deeply know your inner world, heal yourself, identify and change your leading mental states that 100% affect the events of your life, relationships with people and the world.
Everything can be changed, even if it seems that it is already hopeless, late, impossible, and you cannot correct your mother, because the point is only in ourselves and in what we really want from our life.
Psychologist Irina Stetsenko
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