Before I continue with my journey as my mom’s caregiver, I thought I would give you a bit of insight to my relationship with her. Many campaigns, images, and writings about caring for your mom shows happy relationships, but not all of us have had a great relationship with our parent(s). A little about my mom, she was the youngest child and my grandparents, especially my grandfather, doted on her. She would instigate her siblings and as the youngest would never get in trouble. She was treated as a princess who could never do any wrong. When she came to Canada and later met my dad, the princess treatment continued. My dad would spoil my mom, took care of her and never shared how to financially run a household or how to repair or garden, just the basics. I don’t have an issue with one of the partners to take over responsibility of something within the household, but what I believe is that you should include your partner in the conversation of what’s going on. You don’t know what the can happen in the future and when someone dies, the other person is left to take over. If they were never included or showed any interest, life will be challenging. That was the case in my situation.
A little about me. I am an only child, my father passed away when I was 21 and I have been taking care of my mom since. Unfortunately, after my dad died, my mom was unable to function on her own. He handled the financial, repairs of our house, maintenance of our house, gardening, and he was the sole breadwinner. My mom cooked and cleaned, but she had stopped working a few years before my dad died. When my dad died, I was still in school and working part time. After he passed away, my mom did not step up and take over the role my dad had, she completely depended on me to fill in his role. I had no clue where to start. My dad did everything and I never took the time to ask any questions which I quickly regretted after he died. To support our household, I had to switch my schedule, working more days and going to school part time, as well as learn all the things he took care of. I love my dad, but I wish that he included us more in the day to day and I also wish I had been more inquisitive. My mom was receiving disability, and it was not enough to cover everything. I know that it is my fault that I allowed myself to be pushed into the role of breadwinner and caregiver, picking up where my dad left off. At that time, I was trying to deal with my dad’s death. The fear of being alone if something happened to my mom was too big for me to handle at that time and I realize now that I suppressed all my feelings and struggles with my mom.
At a young age, I always remember my mom being upset with me. Nothing I did was right or good enough. I learned from an early age that I needed to act a certain way for her to be happy with me and to love me. I began to conform to her expectations and began losing who I was or who I could potentially be. She had to control all aspects of my life, down to having to say hello to her first if she was in the room that I just entered. One of my first memories of fearing her was around food. Besides being a very slow eater, as most kids are, she would always give me adult sized portions. One morning, I was taking too long to eat my Cheerios and when I told her I didn’t want anymore (adult portion), she angrily threw them in the trash. I was told because I let them get soggy and that’s why I didn’t finish them, not because I wasn’t hungry. As punishment for not finishing my breakfast, I would not be allowed to eat anything else for the rest of the day. Anytime I would tell her I was hungry or try to go into the cupboards, she would stop me from eating. I finally was allowed to eat when my dad got home from work at 5:00pm. By that point, I remember feeling famished since breakfast was usually at 8:00am. I don’t remember if they argued, but I can tell you, after years of therapy, I learned that this is where my bad relationship with food started.
Besides controlling situations, she always found a way to insult or make fun of me. She would make fun of my weight and tell me no one would ever want me because of my weight. While I was not skinny, I wasn’t obese. Even when I finally picked my wedding dress, one of her first comments to me was that the dress was beautiful and it would look better on me if I lost weight. I went from a happy high at finding my dress to leaving the store in tears and never feeling comfortable in my dress, even on my wedding day. There have been many situations where if I didn’t do as she wanted, there was punishment or cruel commentary even if my behaviour did not warrant it. Even when my dad died, she had the nerve on many occasions to blame me for his death (he died of a heart attack). Throughout my life, she reminds me she regretted having me since I wasn’t the child she envisioned. She went as far to say that I should have died instead of him. When my dad was alive, he did his best to protect me, but after he died, I was alone with her and her cruelty. I now know I should have fought back and put a stop to it as I got older, but I never did. I didn’t really fight back or truly stand up for myself until I became a mom and couldn’t understand how a mom can treat her daughter like this. Years of therapy helped me, but I’m not sure I will ever fully heal.
I’ve spent my whole life wondering why she doesn’t love me. What have I done to cause her to hate me, resent me and treat me like her punching bag. How can a woman carry a child for 9 months, give birth to her and somehow never fully love her? How can a woman pretend to be someone she is not to the world and then be so cruel behind closed doors? Is it so she holds the power and control? If everyone sees her as kind, sweet and loving, they will never believe the abusive, cruel treatment her child must endure. This is just what happened. This is my life. Everyone sees my mom as the best mom ever. As a child, I would always hear my friends tell me how lucky I was to have her as my mom and they wished their mom was like mine, but they didn’t know how bad it was for me, nor could I ever tell them. Even if I would make a comment about her, everyone would brush it off because she wasn’t anything like I described. So, I learned how to hide what was happening, what I was feeling, how she really was and began to live a lie of what is known as ‘my life’, a life that was never mine or I didn’t have the courage to make it mine.
I didn’t write this for pity; I wanted to give a brief highlight about my difficult past with my mom. I am both angry with my mom for our past and I love her enough to want take care of her. I also know part of the reason I take care of her is guilt. I was raised with the cultural belief that it is a child’s responsivity to take care of their parents. I am trying to work on this guilt, but that’s another story/journey. I didn’t go into many details, but I wrote this in hopes that my caregiving journey helps both those with great relationships with their moms and those who didn’t have the greatest relationship with them.
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading. I will continue the journey in the next entry.
Heartfelt Journey 
Leave a comment