Your Mother as... (The Emotionally Absent Mother)

I thought I'd post some of the exercises and my answers in hopes that it might help someone else or for feedback.

Your Mother as Source:
When you think of your mother’s womb, does it feel like an inviting place? If you can’t imagine this, ask how it would feel to be enveloped in your mother’s energy. Is that something you would like?
I cannot imagine Mom’s womb as an inviting place. Asking me to imagine being enveloped in her energy makes me want to run as far and as fast as I can. I tend to take on her nervous energy and I don’t like it.
Did you want to be like your mother or did you want to be as different as possible (or anything in between). If someone said, “You are so like your mother!” how would you feel?
I did not and do not want to be like Mom. I would actually feel insulted to be compared to her.
Can you imagine feeling pride about being your mother’s child, in being her offspring? Do you identify yourself in relation to your mother?
I don’t feel much pride in being my mother’s child. I don’t identify with her. One of my most recent frightening moments was at a training in Burlington late last year. I went to the restroom and washed my hands. As I was turning away from the mirror to dry my hands, I didn’t see me, but Mom in the mirror. I was horrified the rest of the day.

Your Mother as Place of Attachment:
On a scale of 1-10, how connected would you say you feel to your mother? How has this changed throughout your life?
I'd say a “3”. That number has really never changed.
What are your early memories around physical contact with your mother? Was she a jungle gym or was there more a sense of “Keep Out”?
There was definitely a sense of “keep out” around my mother. She was never very demonstrative and I never really had touch needs met. I now vacillate between being standoffish with those I don’t know well and clingy to those I do.
As a child did you clearly feel part of your family? Did you feel bonded or adrift?
I felt a part of my family as a child, but not understood. The older I got, the more I drifted.
Have you had feelings of being an orphan or motherless child?
No, but I believe I was not mothered like I should have been.

Your Mother as First Responder:
It may be hard to remember how your mother responded to you as an infant and small child, but often a telltale clue is how you feel about your needs now. Are you respectful and attentive to your needs, or so ashamed of needing that you try to hide them? Or perhaps you are demanding. How you respond to your own needs most often parallels how your mother responded to your needs, unless there have been a number of significant imprinting experiences that gave you a different reference point.
I oscillate between being attentive to my needs, hiding them, and being demanding. It is difficult for me to understand the difference between wants and needs sometimes.
What information do you have about how your mother responded to your needs? What stories have you heard? What do photographs show?
Photographs show Mom interacting with me a lot, but not very demonstratively. The stories I hear are from my mom, so I don’t know if they are accurate.
Beyond your early childhood, what do you know about how your mother tended to respond to other people’s needs? Was she Johnny-on-the-spot? Resentful? Not so competent? Gracious? Did people need to ask multiple times? Did she meet what she assumed to be others’ needs rather than finding out what the real needs were?
Mom never really tried to meet anyone’s needs that I can remember. She was physically present when her mother had a heart attack (she claimed the ghost of her grandmother visited her and gave her strength to endure the “trial”). She was also physically present with her father through his battle with cancer and subsequent death. I did witness her actively listening to him when he wanted to talk, mostly about the past. When her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Mom ended up hiring someone to take care of her. She made sure her basic needs (food, electricity, housing, medical, etc.) were met, but not her emotional needs in the last years of her life. In the last few years of my dad’s mother’s life, Mom described her as a mother figure; receiving more help than giving. Overall, I don’t think Mom could handle the emotional needs of others. That includes me.

Your Mother as Modulator:
What do you know about how your mother responded to your needs in infancy? How available was she? How many other children was she also caring for? How attentive was she? Was she depressed or absorbed elsewhere?
I really don’t know how Mom met my needs as an infant. She has told me I “liked to spend a lot of time in my playpen”. If my care in infancy paralleled my childhood and adolescence, probably not very well. I was the only child she was taking care of.
What philosophies shaped her parenting? Was she influenced by the school of thought that told parents to let their babies “cry it out”?
I really don’t know what philosophy shaped her parenting. I don’t know if I was left to “cry it out” or not. In my childhood, she vacillated between under and overreacting.
Do you remember times when your mother provided reassurance or comfort when you were in distress? Did she help you through the hard times?
I don’t remember a time when Mom reassured me. My maternal grandparents did more of this when I was a small child and a favored teacher did as a teenager.
Is your mother (or was she) good at regulating her own physiological needs-attending to hunger, thirst, need for sleep, or contact, for instance? Can she regulate her own emotions, keeping them in a moderate range while still truly feeling them?
She was too good at regulating herself at times. She would gain a little weight, then go on strict diets (<900 calories/day) and she was proud that she didn’t eat much. She is very proud of the fact that she stopped smoking at age 42 by going cold turkey. She valued self-control; probably because she lacked it in other areas most of the time. She did not regulate her emotions well. She was either sad and crying, angry and yelling, or happy and laughing.
Was your mother good at tuning in to your emotional states? Did she seem to care about them? Did she teach you how to constructively manage emotions without simply suppressing them? Did she model healthy expression of emotion?
No to all of the above. She seemed too overwhelmed by her own emotional states to attend to mine. Until I learned DBT, I was very similar.

Your Mother as Nurturer:
As a child, did you feel loved by your mother? What memories support this?
I felt loved by Mom on some levels. My parents and grandparents showered me with material things. This taught me that love meant the exchange of material goods. I am still like this somewhat; trying to earn love by buying or making things for others. Only my maternal grandparents and occasionally my dad really spent “quality time” with me.
What do you as an adult know about this? Perhaps you recognize that she did love you but was severely limited in being able to express it, or that she was unable to love. Or perhaps you see that you were unable to let it in.
As an adult, I understand that she loved me but her depression inhibited her capability to show it.
On a scale of 1-10, where would you place your mother in terms of being nurturing? How has she nurtured others?
I would say a “3” because she could nurture people in the way of taking care of their practical physical needs.

Your Mother as Mirror:
Do you feel that your mother saw the real you? What gives you this impression?
I do not. I was always “acting” to make people like me.
What nonverbal expressions, if any, stand out in your memory of your mother’s response to you? What did these communicate?
Her non-verbal expressions were standoffish and stern.
Was she good at verbally reflecting back your states? If not, any ideas about why not?
No; she had a hard enough time dealing with her own to reflect mine.
What are some aspects that she was best at mirroring, and what aspects, did she miss?
She acknowledged my intelligence and talents, but not my feelings.
Did your mother know you well enough to serve as a compass, recognizing when you were not being true to your own nature?
No because she didn’t want me to have my own nature, she wanted me to be what she wanted me to be.

Your Mother as Cheerleader:
Do you think your mother was available and able to support your early discovery of the world?
No. She probably couldn’t emotionally handle it.
How was your mother at showing enthusiasm for your accomplishments? If she didn’t do this well, what do you think may have gotten in her way?
She showed plenty of enthusiasm for the accomplishments she wanted me to make. If it was in an area she wasn’t interested in, her enthusiasm was half-hearted. What got in her way was her vision of a better and ideal life for me.
Do you believe that your mother had confidence in you?
Yes, she did in those areas in which she was invested.
Can you think of a time when you needed more encouragement for something? What would you have liked to hear?
I would have liked more encouragement in the areas that were important to me (volleyball, church, friends, etc.). There are 3 phrases I would like to have heard: “I’m proud of you.” “I love you no matter what you choose.” “It would make me happy for your dreams to come true.”

Your Mother as Mentor:
In what areas was your mother most engaged in mentoring you?
Getting along with peers
Learning to talk and articulate your experience
Understanding and managing feelings
Grooming and physical appearance**
Learning to deal with gadgets, tools, technology
Showing respect for others (manners)
Learning various social skills
Religious or spiritual education
Developing academic skills**
Learning to take responsibility
Athletics or fitness
Good health habits
Arts and crafts
Homemaking skills
Critical thinking
Teaching you to be assertive and stand up for yourself
Handling frustration and disappointment
Where did you need more mentoring than you got?
All the areas not starred.
Was her help calibrated to your needs? Did she help too much or too little?
Just enough in the two areas she helped me in.
What attitudes were communicated through her help?
That failure was not an option.

Your Mother as Protector:
What is your feeling reaction to imagining your mother as safe enclosure?
RUN!! NOT SAFE!!
What frustrations and dangers did she not adequately protect you from?
Bullying by peers, unsafe others, dangerous emotional situations, irrational fears.
Can you identify ways she did protect you?
She overprotected me by sheltering me from the world.
Did your mother teach you about protecting yourself? In what kinds of situations?
If a man attacks you, knee him in the balls and run.
What do you wish she taught you about self-protection that she did not?
How to have healthy boundaries.
Did her way of protecting you feel more comforting to you or suffocating? Did it feel caring?
It was comforting in early childhood, suffocating in late childhood, extremely suffocating in adolescence.

Your Mother as Home Base:
Is Mother where you turn for comfort and refueling?
Good God no.
If not, do you think she would be there if you did? Do you remember her being there for you?
She might try, but she’d manage to turn it back on herself. She was only there for me when it came to academics or the piano.
What attitudes come up in response to this item? Listen to the inner voices. What do they say?
Not going to happen. Don’t even really want it to happen.

I was going, HA! HA! HA! HA! so much and so loud when I hit this chapter I almost deafened myself. I was like, really? seriously? she barely tolerated having me around. sour old hag. yeah, an now i'm just like her

Yikes! How unpleasant.

I didn't get through all of what you wrote as a lot of what you wrote I could relate to with how my mom is/was and I was getting a little stressed out reading it.

I've just done this exercise, ouch it's hard! Brings up a lot of emotions, mostly bitterness for me lol

thanks for this chopin.......it took me coming back to it 3 times before i could read all of it. it all sounds/feels so familiar. i might have to steal this and "attempt" to fill out my own answers.

Wow. That is a lot to take in! I am probably going to have to print it out and read it...thank you for sharing the exercise! And for being willing to share your thoughts and answers with us.
*hugs!*

It takes a high degree of imagination? emotional awareness? to answer those questions. I can't imagine my mother's womb at all. What does that mean?

I was hoping this would help some people and apparently it has. It is not easy stuff to deal with. I thought about doing some of the exercises with my T, but I think what I am going to do is do them beforehand, since I seem to do them with no emotion whatsoever. Then I could process it in session. I've got 1 session this week, 2 next week, and 1 the week after that, so I think that will help me. I'm going to ask T to sit next to me when I process. Her presence next to me (without touching me) is healing and containing in and of itself so I hope it will allow me to mourn or bring me to a place that I can do so shortly after session.

I can't imagine it either. I had to do the "enveloped in mother's energy" instead, which I can imagine because her nervous energy is apparent. Being in the presence of nervous people makes me nervous; I take that on easily (and apparently presented that way until fairly recently).

Hey Chopin-thank you for this-I'm sitting here trying to answer some of these myself but for my dad instead-I wonder if it's the same?

Lol besides the womb question ; )

It took me a minute to figure out what you meant by this, then saw your previous post. Yeah...I'd go with the "enveloped in energy" rather than the womb hehe...

Thank you. This was really interesting. I have a hard time remembering a lot of this stuff. I mean, I guess my mom was there but I don't really remember enough of my childhood to make definite statements. Weird.

Didn't you say once that you don't remember much about your childhood until a certain age?

Thank you Chopin...I started reading it and felt sick and didn't finish it

But I will definitely keep giving it a go. Hopefully at some point, I will be able to get through the entire thing.

I do think it would be very beneficial for me when I am feeling stronger.

Many thanks
R

Yeah, I only feel confident talking about my teen years onward. It amazes me when I read about people who can recall childhood things and state them with confidence. I always feel like a liar when I try to do it.

Anyhow, sorry for the hijack.

Yes, i read and reread several times before i could stomach actually doing the exercise. It's tough going actually... physically thinking about it and writing down my thoughts.

I am buying this book next payday, so would be interesting to see how others do with the exercises.

As for the womb question Chopin.... omg i vomited at the thought. lol

pbutton, I am like you. My emotional memory is not good enough to be able to answer these questions. I saw my mother a couple of months ago, and I can't even describe her "energy"--though that may be more of a alexithymia/empathy thing than memory thing.

My therapist thinks I was a neglected as a child. Not necessarily abused, but left to my own devices way too much. I can't argue with her, but it has nothing to do with me agreeing with her assessment. I just don't have enough information to persuade her otherwise. And maybe the sparse memory IS evidence of neglect? After all, I can remember the dates when songs on the radio came out, and I can remember a number of other trivial things. But I don't have very many "people" memories. So my memory is selective, it seems.

I have toyed with a similar theory myself. But, like you said, I can't really prove or disprove the idea.

To reply to all those who is saying it is difficult to even read this stuff:

YES, it is!!! It was very difficult for me to do the exercise. That's why I know I'm not processing the information really. When I was working in the Boundaries workbook I could answer the questions and process the information at the same time. There was no need to talk about it in session. This stuff is a whole 'nother ball game. I'm like an automaton when it doesn't make me feel very anxious or nauseous. I need to process the anger and sadness. It's there, but while I'm doing it, it doesn't come out.

Slimy and cramped. Yuck!

i think you it is awsome you were able to get to the point of being able to answer those questions.are you going to share with your T I hope.i had to put the book down for now i cant read it

You bad boy*! but your answer was not half as bad as mine was!

*omg I hear my mother's voice! and my aunts'!