As Mother’s day approaches this weekend, we recognize the vital and formative role mothers have on individual lives. I’ll throw out the question, where would we be without our mothers? Now if your mother was warm, welcoming, nurturing, loving, caring, emotionally healthy, and present, this is a no brainer. If however, your mother was not “present” either physically, emotionally, or otherwise, then it’s a more difficult question to reconcile.
Many clients (especially men) seeking help for depression, anger, or personality disorders, often describe their mother as cold, depressed, unavailable, ambivalent, distant, burdened, intimidated, lonely, and often a victim of abuse themselves. The abuse can be emotional, physical, or sexual in nature. One must tell “self” the truth about our mothers in terms of their personal history, their struggles, and their emotional health in order for us to have peace and healthy emotional feelings. Sometimes clients place the same expectations on their mother which may have severe emotional baggage and limitations, as those dream girls we see on TV, June Cleaver, Margaret Anderson, (Father Knows Best) Clair Huxtable, Harriet Nelson, and you get the picture. But the truth often includes the fact that our mothers may have been a victim of abuse, and suffered severe mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, or a personality disorder. The truth is, if our mother suffered from a mental disorder, abuse, or depression, they weren’t ABLE, they weren’t capable of giving us what we needed in order for us to feel loved, nurtured, and significant. We can’t truthfully hold our mother (or our father but we’ll save that for later) responsible for fulfilling their cultural and God given role as “nurturer” if they are ill equipped, or emotionally damaged. Problem is, when we’re 7 years old, we can’t process all this psycho babble, we just know we need love and nurturing. As adults one has to accept the “fact” that “mother” may not be able to give us what we need to survive. If this is the situation, we must realize that God will provide. God knows that we need “mothering” and He will provide, whether through another surrogate “mother” ie. grandmother, aunt, friend, “sister,” or other relative. One also has to recognize that we are “worthy” and valuable in the eyes of God REGARDLESS of the quality or amount of nurturing one received from “mother.” Sometimes, “mother” may not have given us what we needed, but we are still worthy and valuable in the eyes of God. We are sons and daughters of the Father, regardless of our connection with our natural “mother.” If your mother is living, send her flowers……show that you love her, regardless of what she has given you……
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