My Relationship with My Mother: A Battle of the Elements

We fought, we loved, we struggled

In my earliest memory, I was 11 or maybe 13 months old and standing in my crib, scream-crying so hard, I could barely breath. I was staring at my mother who stood in the doorway, glaring at me. I don’t remember why I was crying, why I was so angry at her, but I do remember the intense feelings that had me tied up in knots.

“You need to calm down or you’re not going to be able to breathe,” she said, her arms crossed over her chest.

I imagine that was the first time she said that to me, but it surely wouldn’t be the last. I could see a flicker of weakness in her eyes — she wanted to come pick me up. I knew she did.

But she wouldn’t. She never gave in that easily.

And neither did I. I kept scream-crying.

My mother was born in late August. She’s a Fire sign, and a feisty one, at that, ruled by the all-powerful sun. I was born in early July, a Water sign, ruled by the moon.

I was too young to realize it at the time, but that moment defined my relationship with my mother. Fire and water. A battle of the elements.

And even though water can be powerful, I somehow knew, confined there in my crib, that her fire would always win.

Our dynamic shifted when I was 3. My grandmother had just died and one afternoon, while my dad was still at work, my mother came into the bedroom after drawing a bath for me and my little sister. A song came on the radio — my grandmother’s favorite song — and my mother suddenly fell against the wall, slid down it, and crumpled on the floor, wailing hysterically.

I had never seen anyone do that before — certainly not my mother. My sister and I threw ourselves into her arms, trying to comfort her. I remember her grabbing so hard at me, wailing.

I thought she was dying and I was terrified. I knew my dad wouldn’t be home for a few hours, but in my child’s mind, those few hours would determine our survival. I was convinced that if my mother died there on the floor, my sister and I would die, too. I had to keep her alive until he got home.

I kissed her face and stroked her arms and kept saying, “It’s okay, Mommy. I’ll take care of you.”

And from that time forward, I did, indeed, become her caretaker, which only complicated our already complicated power dynamics.

My mother inherited her personality from her father. They were both flinty, loud, and demanding. They had explosive tempers that would flare up at the slightest provocation. They took up all the space in a room.

They were both also very generous, kind, and loved their family members with a violent fierceness. They would respond with all their fury if anyone dared to threaten a loved one.

My mother, though, the only girl in her very patriarchal family, had little confidence in herself and as such, she wavered wildly from strong dominance to apologetic indecision. I also believe that she suffered from depression and anxiety, though it took her decades to admit to the anxiety and she refuses to acknowledge her depression to this day.

She often fell into emotional chasms when I was younger and needed to retreat from us, retiring to her bedroom to take a nap and leaving us in the living room to watch a Disney movie.

I always looked for ways to help her, to make her happier. One day, when she had been crying and retreated for her nap, I cleaned the entire house. I still had the window cleaner in my hand when she woke up and I proudly announced what I’d done, thinking she’d smile and hug me and everything would finally be okay.

But no. She was furious. I had used ammonia on the wood furniture. Dammit, she said. I was so independent. I never asked her before I did things. Why couldn’t I ask her, first?

I was heartbroken that I had disappointed her.

I could never figure out how to make her happy. Of course, I didn’t realize at the time that that wasn’t my only objective. I was trying to control her, I later understood. To manage her. Her emotional outbursts and unpredictable tempers caused me so much anxiety. I was always afraid of what might set her off.

In 1987, the ground beneath us began shifting — at one point, quite literally. My baby brother, Jack, was born — an unplanned but welcome addition to the family. My parents began considering leaving California.

In autumn, the Whittier earthquake hit. It was my first earthquake experience and my anxiety rocketed off the charts. I couldn’t even go pee without making one of my siblings stand outside the bathroom door just in case another quake hit. I couldn’t bear to be alone and leaving the house became difficult, even just to go to school.

The next year, we moved to New Mexico.

Looking back, I think this is where my parents’ marriage became broken beyond repair. The stress of a new baby, a move out of the state, and the disconnection with our extended family that soon followed seemed to be a heavy burden on my parents.

Everything came to a head in New Mexico. My mother’s anxiety and depression festered.

She began compulsively shopping. There was stuff everywhere — the house was always a mess. Not unsanitary, but cluttered.

She almost never let us have our friends over because she was so embarrassed about the house and when someone knocked at the door, she’d panic — she was so terrified someone would see the mess inside and think she was a terrible mother.

My role as the family caretaker was cemented in my freshman year of high school when my mother almost died after having a cardiac event while driving. She was in the hospital for a week afterwards, and though my grandfather came to drive us to school and to the hospital for visits, I took care of everything at the house. I did the laundry, I made dinner, I packed my siblings’ lunches, I made sure Jack took a bath each night and helped him get into bed, I made sure everyone had a good breakfast, and I reminded my grandfather of our school schedules each day so he would be sure to pick everyone up on time.

I was determined to keep the household going in my mother’s absence. I thought if I could take care of everything, she’d be able to come home and our lives would finally be better, more stable, happier.

By the time we moved to the Pacific Northwest after five years in New Mexico, our family had become severely dysfunctional. We were so isolated from the outside world. My mother didn’t want people getting too close to us. She was so ashamed of all the stuff she had collected over the years, all the messes in the house.

In truth, I was ashamed, too, but for different reasons. I was embarrassed by my mother’s outbursts, by my father’s silence, by all the things that seemed to be wrong, though I couldn’t quite figure out what the problem was.

I’d spent time in therapy in Albuquerque to address my depression and anxiety. When I was 16, my parents finally realized that my struggle to get out of bed in the morning was not just a phase.

I told the therapist about the bullies at school, about my low self-esteem, about how much I missed my cousin, about my loneliness. But I couldn’t talk about my family. Something about it seemed too scary — like if I said too much, I’d find out something I didn’t want to know. So I never spoke of it, even though I desperately wanted to talk about my struggles with my mother.

In our new home, my mental health deteriorated faster and faster. My mother and I were the best of friends in one moment, and sparring like lions in the next. Except I wasn’t a lion. I didn’t have the ability to fight back with the same level of ferocity that she possessed.

My parents kept bouncing me from one therapist to another. I believe they were trying to help — my anxiety and depression were out of control by then. However…I was never allowed to talk about the family dysfunction. I knew I was supposed to stick to the script — that nothing was wrong except for my own disorders.

When I finally dared to tell a therapist about the turbulence in my family that sometimes veered into emotional abuse she, a quiet woman like myself, leaned forward and said, “You are like a shell on the beach. Your mother is the ocean. You’re trying so hard to hear yourself and let others hear you, but every time you stop to listen or speak, she rolls her waves over you and you lose yourself.”

Instantly, before she was even done speaking, I began bawling. No one had ever dared to say that before. I had never dared to say it. I knew she was right and I felt like someone had lifted an elephant off my shoulders.

I went home and told my mother, jubilantly, what the therapist had said. She turned to me, a dark look in her eyes, and said, “You’re going to go back there for your next appointment and tell her that she was wrong. And then you’re going to get my money back for the rest of the sessions I pre-paid, and you’re going to tell her you’re not coming back. Do you understand?”

All that hope and fresh air that had come sweeping into my life suddenly dropped like a dead bird on the floor.

In my mid-twenties, my new therapist (number 15, I’d guess) had such a casual demeanor about him that it took all the fear out of me. It seemed like anything I told him would be met with a nonchalant response like, “No worries. We can fix this.”

So I told him everything. My codependent relationship with my mother. Her emotional instability and abusive behavior. Our family’s isolation. My father’s silence. My tendency to manage my mother and act as the caretaker of the family.

He gave a little laugh and said, “Do you know what Black Sheep Syndrome is?”

I shook my head.

“It’s a dynamic that often happens in dysfunctional families. People who are unable or unwilling to deal with their own demons will pick one of the kids and decide that there’s something wrong with them. The whole family starts to revolve around this ‘black sheep’ while everyone tries to fix them.”

He leaned forward, knowing he had my rapt attention. “But the truth is, the black sheep is a diversion from the real problems that no one wants to face. That’s what you are. You’re the way your parents are avoiding their issues. They made you believe that you’re the only one who has problems and that everyone has to rally around you to fix you. But the truth is, the black sheep is usually the strongest, most sane person in the family.”

I’ll never forget that. It was as freeing to hear as the comment about my mother being the ocean. It helped set me on a new path.

Almost 2,000 words in and I still have barely scratched the surface of this subject.

How can I ever fully describe the dysfunction I experienced in my family and how it hurt me? How can I ever express the goodness that came alongside that — the joy I felt from being a part of this group of beautifully flawed humans? How can I share how hard it is for me to even write this after a lifetime of silence and trying to protect the people I love? And how can I even begin to share where we are now — so imperfect, still, but in a much better place?

Maybe I need to write fifty stories about it to start feeling like I did it justice. Maybe this is better suited to a memoir.

I don’t know.

All I know is this: I’m learning to be my own ocean, now. I’m learning how to keep people from sweeping me out to sea, from roaring over my voice. I’m learning how to create a space for myself and to protect it with all my strength.

I love my mother endlessly. But I’m also learning how to love myself, too.

© Yael Wolfe 2020