I think my mother doesn’t like me and Mother’s Day guilt
Last month was Mother’s Day. I really struggled with the guilt of cutting off my family that month. It’s not like we’re completely no contact but the limited contact we do have really is only the result of me trying to contact *them*. Since my mother barely contacts me. I used to go visit them once a month but because of health issues I’ve stopped going to see them.
My old room is cold and empty. The mattress is laid on the floor, and the room used for storage. The fridge is always empty, and in a very foreign and selfish way, my parents don’t bother to even eat at the dinner table together anymore. The house is cluttered and cold, my mother doesn’t even bother to share her hygiene products with anyone, with the only thing in the bathroom being some permanently half empty bottle of shampoo, a bar of soap and toothpaste you have to fold again and again to get product out of.
This year for Mother’s Day, I tried getting a call in and was ignored until 9pm. I didn’t gift anything, I didn’t prepare or visit. I just felt so empty and sad all day.
This house I spent years living in, feels so foreign. Well, I’ve never felt really at home in it. My immigrant parents always made a point to remind me that it was their house. Not mine. Their food. Their money. Not mine.
When my mother broke my bed by breaking the bed foot, she just let it rot on the floor. I came home to my space being invaded, my stuff being broken. No apologies. If I wasn’t happy, I’d be invited to leave. And when I left home the remaining stuff in there became hers. My room became a guest room, my furnitures is hers.
It’s not just the room, the house, the furniture, It’s my family. I feel out of place in it. There’s no memory of me ever living in that place.
Everything my mother does, even the most insignificant thing, reminds me that my mother, simply never really thinks of me. I am never on her mind.
When I think about my family, I don’t feel devotion, or love, or loyalty towards them. I only feel guilt. The guilt that my immigrant and religious parents pushed on my shoulders. I always think about how *I* could have done more. *I* am being selfish. *I* am ungrateful.
But do my parents ever think of me when they get subscriptions for things they don’t pay for on my name ? I currently owe 110€ to a streaming service because of them. Do they think of me when they comment on my weight ? Compare me to my more beautiful sisters? When they said I’d be alone all of my life because of my body ? Does my mother think of me when she leaves town to see her family 400km away but has not once visited her sick daughter on her own accord ? And when she’s not accompanied me to a single hospital visit ?
If I had been more beautiful, would my mother, no, my family have loved me more ?
Everything about family hurts. Family holidays, Mother’s and Father’s Day, seeing my friends and boyfriend’s family dynamics. I am already dreading Christmas. Normal couples celebrate with their families together while each taking turns. But my last Christmas dinner was a catastrophe. I cried all night and felt so humiliated. Every “family holiday” is something I dread, I actively avoid.
Ironically, I’ve been watching a lot of family content from a plus size creator that I really love. They’re a young couple in their mid 20s with a 6 months old, and they too have limited contact with their parents. The mother gave birth alone with only her cousin visiting. She tackled post partum alone with her husband. They only have themselves. Seeing them be visibly happy while becoming new first time parents alone, with no safety net is crazy. I think about how hard that must be, but how amazing they are. How behind the scene it must not be easy.
And yet, they make loving your children through hardships seem so easy.
It makes me think of how easy that should have been to my mother. But it wasn’t. It still isn’t. I used to think my parents didn’t like me because they had no money. That the financial stress was debilitating and taking away their hapiness and ability to love us.
But time has proven me wrong, they have money now, they still don’t help, see or love me.
Maybe I will have a child one day, and if I do, I will love that child with all my heart. I am capable of it. Maybe not being loved by my parents will have taught me to love even more. Even stronger. I refuse to be the mother that I have.
Loving others isn’t a fear or weakness of mine.
But, if I am honest, this has left me deeply scarred and when I think of my mother I am reminded that I will forever be incomplete. And that I blame her for it.
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