ErikaMoen
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Estranged Mother's Day (AND BEAN PHOTOS)
🕑 Added 2023-05-14 06:50:24 +0000 UTCThe older I get and the more years I've had without contact, the more I appreciate how hard my mom was trying to be a good mother, to keep her family together, to share love with us, with me.
I went no-contact in 2010 and my life got substantially better but my heart still hurts.
She wasn’t a bad person, though she did bad things.
She was mentally ill and traumatized and had zero resources to deal with it, let alone even name those things in the first place. She was absolutely doing her best while living in an upside down hell world that made no sense. When she behaved erratically, frighteningly, and combatively, it's because she perceived the world as erratic and frightening and threatening her own sense of safety and security.
She deserved so much better and she could have been so much better if she'd just had access to trained, professional care. The care that understands your hurt, the care that teaches you coping skills, the care that prescribes you medication for your brain's chemical imbalances. She did the best she could with the tools she had. But when all you have is a hammer...
My heart hurts for her. My heart hurts for hurting her, and my heart hurts because I carry her same demons inside me.
I can’t help her, but I can tend to our shared inner monsters and make for me the stable life she deserved to have. A life with friends and chosen family. A life with tools for navigating the hard shit. A life with stability.
I'm sorry I abandoned her. I'm sorry I hurt her. I'm sorry, in that I feel sorrow, but I do not feel regret. I tell myself that I’m honoring and loving my mother every time I take my meds and practice the mental health care I’ve learned as an adult.
I wish she had had the resources and community and support to get the help she needed. The help to heal, to thrive, to have the family connection she so desperately wanted.
I hope she finds all of that, I hope she finds community and love.
I hope she finds peace and I hope I've learned enough from her to veer away from the path our shared demons predetermined for us. I hope I'm building a different road. I hope we meet again in heaven, but I don't believe in heaven, so I hope somehow some piece of each of us winds up in the same garden bed and we grow something beautiful and green and healthy together and that's how our story will actually end.
I hope.
(Green Beans straight from Danielle Corsetto's yard)
Comments
Jen Brady
I wish I could heart this 100 times. It is the perfect message and one filled with hurt and hope. I feel this.
Ericka
(((HUGS)))
The medicine I needed today 💚💚💚 thanks you.
Kim A
Erika, this is beautiful and I am glad to have read it today, for lots of complicated reasons. Thank you.
Penny Gotch
I'm sorry you had to make such a hard decision for your own health and safety. Sending you love and flourishing plant vibes.
Tamara
Thank you for helping me grow my compassion toward my bio mom and my stepmother on this fraught day.
BT
So beautiful 🥲
Sky
Thank you. Today I was committed to staying offline and away from mainstream sentiments, and of course I forgot and so...to see this. And feel not alone. Means so much. Thank you. 🫂
Hannah K
Your compassion towards the intergenerational trauma is something I'm going to try to reflect with myself today. I have a lot of anger towards my grandmother for how she has treated my mom and her siblings their entire lives... Here's to some inner and outer gardening for everyone, including the beans. May we water with compassion ❤️ (thank you as always)
The Ferret
Thank you sharing this with us, I hope you both grow in a garden together too someday. And I applaud you for making the right choice for you, it's so so hard. I'm gonna go water my plants now and think of my own family.
Crit
My mom died of alcoholism and addiction-related stuff fifteen years ago and I'm doing garden gremlin-ing as part of my own recovery, so this hits really close to home. My heart hurts and hopes with you.
Mandy Wright
Learning our parents are also human, and making peace with that by whatever means you need, is one of the hardest things about growing up (IMHO). Wishing you love, light and Lady Lovely Locks this day and everyday, Erica. ❤️ And yay! GO BEANS!
