My Mother Wasn't Going to Take Away From My Future Choices
Sunday, March 10th
During morning meditation, I asked my Spirit Guide Somoya what I needed to know for today. I then heard an internal voice say, "My mother wasn't going to take away from my future choices."
Being two years after my mom's death, I still strongly get messages referring to my relationship with my mom in the past. In previous blog entries, I have mentioned my unhealthy connection to my mother. She wasn't present, due to full-time work while I was an infant, toddler, and young child. Also, she and I became super enmeshed when she became a stay home mom due to glaucoma. My mom lost her vision and her career as a nurse when she was 48 years old. I was 8. My mom was passionate about being a professional health care provider and excellent at caring for her patients.
My mom and I quickly became co-dependent. I was struggling with my learning challenges of living with ADD and preforming well in school. My mom was struggling with slowly going blind and being stuck at home the majority of the time. (This process of going completely blind would end up taking 30 years.) My mom became very dependent on me. She would often process her sad feelings, having me be her pseudo counselor, and asked me to assist her with makeup and some of her other activities of daily living. I did enjoy being helpful, but quickly felt my childhood slip away.
With my mom being home all the time, I gravitated towards being very dependent on her for emotional support around my academic struggles, living with ADD. She did her best to support me around my studies, without having the ability to read the materials. My daily homework was a painful process for the both of us. It was the literal blind leading the figurative blind! We both were in the dark.
Being in each others lives to this extent, lead to me being very transparent about my feelings and thoughts and ideas for the future. My mom was excellent at listening, but clever at not disclosing much about her childhood and young adult life. This was NOT supportive. Due to my frustrations and insecurities with living with learning challenges, my mom would let me off the hook by saying, "I don't care what you become. I just want you to be happy." This reduced tremendous stress in the moment, but what she said was so vague. Later on in my adolescence, it added to additional insecurities about what to do with my future, since there were no expectations put on me regarding my future academic endeavors. Later on in my life, I found myself leaning on my mom for advice about future schools, jobs, and which women to date. I always wanted her support and approval, just like I wanted my father's support and approval, but in different ways.
Several years before my mother died, our unhealthy and co-dependent relationship diseased first. This was my choice. It was an extremely difficult one to make. My mom tried many times to reel me back into engaging with her, but with no success. I was newly divorced and co-parenting at the time. I also was beginning to date again and pursuing a copyright on a cognitive method to manage stress for those who live with mental illness. I wanted to move forward as a "man" making his own decisions, rather than as a "boy" trying to please his mommy. I needed to create a healthy distance to think, process, and make decisions on my own. I needed to relish in my own personal successes...and learn from my failures. As a result, this has lead to tremendous growth and lots of excellent decisions made on my part.
I don't regret my decision to care for myself. I now feel like a man at age 47. My reward for doing self-care, led to the opportunity to make amends with my mom on the day she died. I am so grateful for my independence, growth, and for my mom doing the best she knew how.
During morning meditation, I asked my Spirit Guide Somoya what I needed to know for today. I then heard an internal voice say, "My mother wasn't going to take away from my future choices."
Being two years after my mom's death, I still strongly get messages referring to my relationship with my mom in the past. In previous blog entries, I have mentioned my unhealthy connection to my mother. She wasn't present, due to full-time work while I was an infant, toddler, and young child. Also, she and I became super enmeshed when she became a stay home mom due to glaucoma. My mom lost her vision and her career as a nurse when she was 48 years old. I was 8. My mom was passionate about being a professional health care provider and excellent at caring for her patients.
My mom and I quickly became co-dependent. I was struggling with my learning challenges of living with ADD and preforming well in school. My mom was struggling with slowly going blind and being stuck at home the majority of the time. (This process of going completely blind would end up taking 30 years.) My mom became very dependent on me. She would often process her sad feelings, having me be her pseudo counselor, and asked me to assist her with makeup and some of her other activities of daily living. I did enjoy being helpful, but quickly felt my childhood slip away.
With my mom being home all the time, I gravitated towards being very dependent on her for emotional support around my academic struggles, living with ADD. She did her best to support me around my studies, without having the ability to read the materials. My daily homework was a painful process for the both of us. It was the literal blind leading the figurative blind! We both were in the dark.
Being in each others lives to this extent, lead to me being very transparent about my feelings and thoughts and ideas for the future. My mom was excellent at listening, but clever at not disclosing much about her childhood and young adult life. This was NOT supportive. Due to my frustrations and insecurities with living with learning challenges, my mom would let me off the hook by saying, "I don't care what you become. I just want you to be happy." This reduced tremendous stress in the moment, but what she said was so vague. Later on in my adolescence, it added to additional insecurities about what to do with my future, since there were no expectations put on me regarding my future academic endeavors. Later on in my life, I found myself leaning on my mom for advice about future schools, jobs, and which women to date. I always wanted her support and approval, just like I wanted my father's support and approval, but in different ways.
Several years before my mother died, our unhealthy and co-dependent relationship diseased first. This was my choice. It was an extremely difficult one to make. My mom tried many times to reel me back into engaging with her, but with no success. I was newly divorced and co-parenting at the time. I also was beginning to date again and pursuing a copyright on a cognitive method to manage stress for those who live with mental illness. I wanted to move forward as a "man" making his own decisions, rather than as a "boy" trying to please his mommy. I needed to create a healthy distance to think, process, and make decisions on my own. I needed to relish in my own personal successes...and learn from my failures. As a result, this has lead to tremendous growth and lots of excellent decisions made on my part.
I don't regret my decision to care for myself. I now feel like a man at age 47. My reward for doing self-care, led to the opportunity to make amends with my mom on the day she died. I am so grateful for my independence, growth, and for my mom doing the best she knew how.
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