emotionally absent mother

My weekend dad took me once to get my hair cut, there was a very pretty lady in this fancy mall. I was in 7th grade and had always got home hair cuts. After the shampoo , she called a few other ladies over and they began whispering and then she told my dad i was infested with lice. No one would cut my hair, they quickly led me out they were very upset. My dad was embarrassed and angry at me, I was ashamed, he took me home to the mother she was mad at me too .... I still hate getting my hair cut for fear I'll have lice.

Edited because I feel like a liar again. I am so f ucking sick of this. I cannot stand myself tonight. I am absolutely insane.

Too late Pbutton, I saw it .... It's ok. Honest.

After realizing I've had a negative reaction to this thread, I had to come back and hug almost everyone. Many of us had childhoods and mothers and fathers that just plain sucked. I feel somewhat fortunate after reading some of your stories, but the distance from my parents, perceived responsibility for Mom's issues, and the fact that I had to be perfect at home and school scarred my heart, twisted my emotions, and distorted my thinking.

However, I am determined to break free and break the cycle before I have my own children.

my goodness the strength i see in all of you is beyond belief and inspiring.i know all the shame and anger i feel in speaking the words of my past is horrible so i can imagine how unbelievably hard it must be for each and everyone of you here.the sadness that fills my heart is also mixed with enormous pride when hearing all these stories,if i can not feel this for myself i can truly feel it for all here and maybe this is enough right now.thank you all so much for sharing here.for today i feel we will all be OK.

I have never read that book before but I know what it is like to feel like your mother is emotionally absent. My mother was a hot and cold mother, at least that is how I explain it to myself. Sometimes she was great about being their emotionally and mentally but other times she was somewhere else. She would use mind manipulation on my sister and I. She was never physically abusive (I am sorry that you did have to experience that) but she was definitely mentally and emotionally abusive. She would blame any problems on us and when she was mad at us she would threaten and sometimes even try to kill herself. By the time I was in middle school I had called emergency services 3 or 4 times because she would try to od. I am sorry that I am going on about my problems with my own mother, but I feel as though I can relate in some ways to you. I am here to talk, maybe we can help each other.

my sessions with T changed after I read this book. I didn't do all the exercises in the book, which could take another lifetime, but yesterday we talked about my consult with my prev t/pdoc last year. Prev T wouldn't fulfill my needs as current T did, he told me to go find a boyfriend. but all my r/s were huge disasters. I told current T he didn't "fill my needs", he healed a wound, that's different. NOW I can go and try to get my needs filled, but before, it was like I had a broken leg and the prev T suggested I take a hike! T asked how did he heal the wound, I said by the hugs? I said my mother just ignored me. He said he filled the need for attention by paying attention. I was like, a normal person, a normal r/s, couldn't DO all that. it really feels like we turned a corner. like I did. but yeah, I have been in there telling yucky neglect stories from day one, yet they are STILL coming up, ie the same stories, but sometimes new stories that I didn't "realize" the impact or meaning of until just recently, and THAT is weird!

Having an emotional absent mother is like being raised by a stranger. It leaves one constantly longing for that connection. I have found I was addicted to toxic substances trying to find the "good" in them but of course there is no good, but it mimics my early experiences.

I find it to overbearing now when people try and sweet talk or hug my problems away, I like peoPle who approach me sidewards almost, offer a chat over a cup of hot chocolate perhaps, that approach gives me room.

I still haven't fully mourned that loss of the emotionally absent mother, I too have to approach this sidewards.

I need to thank you Granite for this thread. It is healing to hear that I am not the only one who went thru this. Lola, I am so sorry about the hair cut. When I hit 7th grade I had a friend crop my hair short. I haven't had it long since then. Just the thought of growing my hair freaks me out.

God, I think of my daughter and my love for her and I wonder how the hell a mother could be so cut off.

same here wiki i think about how i am with my son and it just angers me so much i don't understand why it was so easy for the mother to do the things she did.i makes no sence to me at all

MKAC, I can't say I know or can guess why this is upsetting to you, but this entire thread is upsetting to me (in a... I guess good way? I'm saying it's a very good thread but also extremely sad) because of what just seems to be missing. Like Wiki said, when she thinks of her love for her daughter, it's impossible to comprehend how her mom could have behaved. Similarly, the behavior of mothers mentioned in this thread is unfathomable to me. My own issues with my mom also have to do with emotional absence, but they're quite different from what's going on here so I'm not sure they add anything.

Anyway that last paragraph got really derailed -- what I am thinking about, in response to your request, is this:

Yes, my parents taught me how to get dressed. In fact I was thinking about it somewhat recently, as I was dressing myself during an unseasonably cold early June and putting on some tights, I thought about how my dad used to help me put on my tights when I was little (god I hated wearing tights), in the gray early morning before day care or school or church. Because of my parents' morning schedules, it was often my dad helping me get dressed.

I think of the way he used to bunch them up all the way to the toe, then put them onto my feet and help me pull them up. Just something about the way he did that, instead of just pulling them on me as-is, stuck in my brain as a kid. Not sure why. But when I think back on it it's a sweet memory and when I read what you said about keeping yourself safe from your mom, it's heartbreaking. Looking back on it now, picturing some little girl in the extremely vulnerable position of having a man put her tights on her, I can see all the things that could go wrong if my dad were not the man he was and is. But he was, and I never ever questioned my safety with him. The thought never crossed my mind that I should not be in that position with him. That complete and total trust in the safety of my body with my parents is something that every child should have, and so so so many of you all did not. The burden of mistrust that you had was more than you should have had to bear.

So when I think of adorable, sweet little MKACs and granites and Wikis and Lolas and hanksters all the rest of you and insert them into that memory, and have to erase the part about my dad being gentle and caring and safe and instead put someone who might strike me, touch me, verbally abuse me, or neglect me completely, it is incredibly upsetting indeed. Hugs all around. You're all amazing for working so hard to move forward, when it would be so easy to collapse under it, and to become good, emotionally present mothers yourselves. Such strong people here.

OK, must not cry at my desk.

Now that I think about it I never have had long hair since then...hmm , weird but that may be why

is that what our haircuts were saying? like army recruits who are cut off from home life with their buzz cuts. wow. certainly applies in my case. like granite says, actions are easier than words. I know my messy room (from childhood to now) has some kind of similar message.

yeah, sally, a toddler who trips on the sidewalk and starts crying, used to raise a sense of terror in me. T's office is downtown and it seems I see this all the time! just writing about it scares me. but over the years with T, my attitude has become more gentle, a feeling of endearment, instead of the fear and anger my parents must have felt whenever I cried. They really should not have been parents. They both would have been much happier.

yea hanksta...but guess what? My daughter has long shiny thick hair, so somewhere the curse was broken.

About the bedroom, my H and kids are very aware of "noise traps" I set up on my side of the bed. I always arrange empty perfume bottles and Christmas bells on the floor so that if someone comes near I will hear them. Freaky weird.

[quote=pbutton;2456016Seriously. It's like I burst into existence at age 12 or so. So annoying. Even if I think I pull up a memory, it will suddenly seem like I something I have fabricated.
[/quote]

Pbutton, this is exactly how I feel... except I can remember everything about school from Kindergarten to 5th grade but not anything to do with home. I told T story about everyday I had to comb this girl's hair who sat in fron of me in 3rd grade. I think her name was Florence and she must of had an emotionally absent mother too. My T said did you go to school with your hair combed and I said I could remember having barrettes in so I must have and he asked who combed your hair in the morning.... no memory...who picked out your clothes...no memory...

I asked my sister who is my "irish twin" and she says my sister who is 6 years older than me did all of that because my mom was to "depressed" to get out of bed to help us get ready for school.

Well, that's interesting. I remember my dad making breakfast for us before school. Where was my mom?? She didn't work. That's pretty weird. Where WAS she????

I don't remember anyone helping me get ready either. I had a real weird thing where I wouldn't wear pants because I couldn't stand anything to touch me around or below the waist. I still get like that sometimes.

Well I just downloaded and read the intro and chapter 1. It's looking like I need to read it...which scares the mud out of me.

Mom was physically present. All the time I was at home. She didn't work. But at the same time, she wasn't quite there. She encouraged me to play outside, but there weren't many other kids to play with. I played with our neighbors' grandson and another girl in the neighborhood maybe once a week. I was alone a lot.

Mom was paranoid. She always thought the neighbors were after our land or doing things to us. This got worse when she hit menopause. That when we both went crazy.

It drives me crazy when my mom pretends she knows why my room was such a mess. It was (literally) the size of a closet and she would always say, "Oh, I know you just hated having a small room." No. What I hated was being under so much pressure to read her mind and be the perfect student. I figure part of it was feeling like this was one thing in my life that I could allow to go to s*** without impacting other things, like my future career... in the same way my emotions were what ended up going to s*** because something had to give under all that pressure. And part of it was, as you said, sending a message: inside, I'm a mess.

Wow, I had a super-messy room. I hadn't thought about it that way before.

This "little princess" had a bedroom and a playroom. My bedroom was always immaculate...the playroom consistently looked like a tornado hit it. Mom kept the door shut to the playroom.

Hmmm....

my bedroom was always clean i didn't have much just a bed and dresser and closet.most times my cloths were in the basement because the mother hated laundry and all toys were in the basement also so room was always clean.i did have crayons and paper and stuff in one drawer.a god send when the mother would make me stay in there for so so long

Every once in a while we would be given some black coffee before school. The only way we would eat anything is if I stole one of my mother's little debbie snack cakes and split it with my brother. She would usually figure it out, and I would get whipped.

She didn't really beat me, I was lucky. She had a leather strap that she would whip me with, but she would mostly get my arms and legs. She only got my face a few times. The physical and sexual crap mostly came from dad and his friends.

hommmm...i don't remember school either. my first memory is 4th grade, a few fuzzy memories of getting in trouble once for talking too much, a girl who had some rare skin disease, clairnet lessons that lasted two weeks. 5th grade is when my memory is more regular. K-3rd? NOTHING.
Hmmm. I think my room was/is messy is because i'm lazy and don't care that much

Every time I see the title of this thread my heart feels as though it jumps into my throat.

On my way home from the office, there was an MBZ in front of me that I could have sworn was being driven by my M with my (evil) sister sitting next to her in the passenger seat.

She changed lanes, and then was next to me for a bit.

I was scared to death it was her...I actually started to have a P attack simply THINKING she was in the car next to mine.
****sigh****
so much for "far, far away and she can never hurt me again".

She is like the monster in the Benz (forget under the bed)

I was 8 years old when a neighbor boy older then me by 7 years told me I was pretty and we messed around, a lot. I was 8 but I felt 15. Was I at fault? A willing participant? I'm not sure. Another sex moment in my life ... I always knew what I was to do..to make others like me. The mother played porn movies in front of us, she wanted to watch us squirm. My brother acted on me. I hate me because of it.