DYSFUNCTIONAL PARENTS

My Damaged Parents Don’t Know How to Love Me

When you grieve toxic, abusive parents, you don’t just grieve the abuse, you grieve everything you didn’t have — Lily Hope Lucario

I didn’t get to experience a solid loving relationship with my mother or my father. They never married each other and eventually separated from their toxic relationship when I was a young girl. My father removed me from his life a long time ago, and I had to initiate no contact with my mother.

When I finally unpacked my deeply troubled mind with my therapist last year, I honestly knew no words to describe what my emotions were. I just felt as if there was a big void in my heart or better still, a numbness that resided in my stomach whenever I thought about them. I can see now it was emotional scar tissue — the final formation — after decades of grief and abandonment.

Back then, when I reflected on my circumstances, I would distinctly remind myself that there are so many people in the world who have it far worse in life. Their parents have sold them or starved them — and far more harrowing stories that are inflicted on countless dear children. My motto was and is, ‘It could always be worse.’ How Yiddish of me; the heroism of my ancestry in staying strong and determined — perhaps? My daughter despises that idiom. She wants me to value the cause that is penetrating our conversations, whether hers or mine.

For many years, I was unable to talk with any understanding about the dysfunction of my family. My shame revealed itself as worthlessness. When I felt safe to share a little with some people, it was commented that my story was abnormal — all those children my mother had, the adoptions, and half brothers and sisters. Work colleagues used to think I was strange when I failed to contribute to their conversations about their upcoming family events, or mother-daughter shopping days. I stayed silent.

A few close friends couldn’t fully appreciate how much it affected me, being that I wore a bravado. From being a wild child to the intoxicated party girl, a woman who was gregarious, charismatic, sweet, and spiritual. I tried to make relationships work but so often used people for survival purposes, and ghosted many others who got too close — or too difficult.

I suffered great embarrassment for my mother, an outrageously eccentric personality. She pushes everyone away with her mad ways and unprecedented rudeness — for what I can only describe as a personality disorder, or two. Once, in my twenties, she happened to cycle past me as I was waiting to cross the road with some colleagues. The girls jested about my mother’s cycling facial contortions. I felt my default, set to the shame of my mother being my mother and not wanting to have anything to do with that. I hid behind them so that mom wouldn’t see me. I carried my sadness for a long time after that day — for having denied her as my mother and for my embarrassment of her.

I recall my father telling me as a very young teenager that I was on my own when I reached sixteen. He couldn’t wait for his responsibilities to stop. Looking back, I wonder if it was his staunch catholic upbringing that caused him guilt to stick around for my twin and me. There were funny moments where he would perform somersaults and juggle cups and sauces, as we children laughed excitedly and adored him— to then the most toxic and rejecting behavior to endure. He was and is an alcoholic and womanizer. He felt his worth would come from becoming rich, and we were dirt poor. I can still sense at times that coat of shame he gifted us.

When I used to witness fathers giving their daughters away in marriage ceremonies, whether fictional or someone I knew, my heart would weep quietly. In my twenties, I tried hard to create a relationship by proving my worth, only to end up crying — sensing his inability to love or see me.I felt so horribly rejected. On my recent milestone birthday, I learned that my father gave his daughter away at her wedding. It was ironic. My father’s wife contributed to my father denying my twin and me. And yet, now I am happy they all have each other. I know nothing is perfect, and it can’t be when it involves him.

The decades that passed, each year celebrating Mother’s Day and Father’s Day would press on my heart reminding me how much I missed and yearned for support and love from parents, no matter their capacity. It was the intention that mattered to me. My mother was much better at wanting to give support at times. Nevertheless, always in the end, she would manipulate me with the fear of the wrath of God, and all sorts of curses on my head if I didn’t adhere to her prophesies. My mother always blamed my father, and I recall my father always blaming my mother — her eccentricity and religiosity.

I believe it was worse for me than my twin, as he had a large group of friends around him from a young age. They were and are his family. I believe they helped him, and I am so happy for that. A man not having his father must feel even worse. I just carried my pain differently — too scared to let people in because of a lot of abuse that happened and also not learning how relationships work.

Finishing up — after my committed year long talking therapy, I am able to accept and let go so much more. I understand that nothing in life is ever certain. There is love through our children, our partners, and our friends. We can find love and support through our fellow creatives and writers. Crafting and publishing my memoirs have helped settle and bury the energy that needed a place to go. In this two-way creative relationship, I feel so much more peace and only wish that it will provide peace for others in similar circumstances — who happen to fall upon my words.

I appreciate you always.

© Chantal Weiss 2023. All Rights Reserved.