My Foundations

The thing about The List is that it starts when I moved from SuperCity around 10 years old, but I learned this summer that the real cause of my mental ill-health was my mum's inability to bond with me from birth. Here is the evidence:

I wasn't planned.

My mum's birth control failed. My dad was still finishing community college. My mum had only just started her first real job post-university. They couldn't afford me.

After I got married, she had the 'sex talk' with me. It consisted of warning me that birth control isn't 100% and I should take other measures to avoid having children. In case you can't tell yet...


My mum doesn't even like children.

She told me and my brother many times, often in the context of making sure we didn't have sex because we could get pregnant. She was anxious about us getting pregnant, because she didn't want grandchildren. She told us this. She still tells us this.

She's not good around children, either. She doesn't know how to talk to them. In fact, just last week she was raving about how much she liked Cousin Y because she could have an adult conversation with her, whereas Cousin Z still acts like a baby. They are the same age. She always did prefer me and my brother to act like adults.


I have few memories of my mum.

Until I integrated EP-Happy with EP-Sad, all of the memories I had of my parents pre-Move were negative. Now that I have access to the positive memories, they still can be counted in my two hands. It's not a lack of memories. I remember way, way more than a normal adult should due to the OCD I developed post-Move. There are simply very few memories because I rarely spent time with my parents. My dad was away at school and then in his job.

I was taken care of by my gram because my mum had to work. And then when my brother was born 2.5 years later, we had a variety of local childminders and nursery placements.


I rarely cried or complained.

I was the "best baby." I kept myself occupied. Not like my brother, who always complained, who would often make faces and bawl. My mother reminded us of this often, so often the script describes me and my brother even as adults. If we were told to do something we didn't want to do, my brother would grudgingly do it, complaining all the while, while I would silently refuse to lift a finger. No tantrums and rarely any arguing. I became a slippy little fish, fleeing demands, or a marble sculpture, freezing on the spot.


My mum had an anxiety disorder.

She worried about us. Constantly. She had to know where we were, what we were doing, and we couldn't go out (even with permission) without her waiting up to make sure we returned safely. You'd think with that sort of vigilance she would have managed to protect us from abuse, but the worry wasn't meant to protect us so much as protect herself from loss.


My mum was abused by my dad.

He lost his temper a lot. More often with her than with me. As I grew older, he would redirect his anger from me to her. She just took it. And took it. And took it.

My brother and I sat silently in our respective rooms, hiding from him, shouting at her. Helpless. Unsure if this was right. Unsure if how we felt was right. Unsafe. Angry at him for being a monster. Angry at her for letting him. Angry at them both for staying in a relationship they were so unhappy with. That we were so unhappy with.

My mum had no confidence at all, because...


My mum was neglected by her mum.

Gram was the centre of our massive family until her recent death. My mum was the youngest of four girls. Her sisters were considerably older than her, and the gap was filled with several miscarriages. I can only speculate about Gram's own anxiety about having my mum after all of those losses, but the lineage of anxiety in those circumstances is fairly clear. All I know is that my mum was spoiled as a baby and then, when her dad left with another woman, my mum was spoiled as a teenager too. (As an aside, you might recognise this defensive pattern in me because she treated me the same way.)

My mum resented her sisters because they had a relationship with Gram that she didn't. What my mum doesn't realise that having a sisterly relationship with one's mum isn't normal either. Gram wasn't capable of being a mum to her daughters, and unlike her sisters my mum didn't even have the benefit of being her friend. Sad.


Essentially, my mum had no idea how to be a mum.

And because she had no idea, she didn't know I needed more from her than milk and nappy changes. I didn't attach, because my mum couldn't show me how. She's not capable of a healthy attachment.

As a result, neither was I.

If these foundations were different, The List would be a lot shorter. But the truth is I grew up on shifting sands, and it is a miracle I made it as far as I have, on my own steam.

For the sake of the pain I've inherited from my mum and my dad, I've made a lot of sacrifices. I bear the weight of a lot of heavy losses. I contained my dad's abuse. I contained my mother's anxiety. I contained the relentless bullying of my peers. I contained my growing insecurity. I contained my grief. I contained my depression. I contained rejection after rejection.

I did that.

I did all of that. As a child. And I've never known anything else, so how could I have possibly known my own strength? I've spent all my life containing this pain and never once stepping back and seeing that as an achievement. But that is exactly what it is.