I spent ages writing up a post only for the page to refresh and it all disappeared!
Anyway the long and short of it is my mum was clearly suffering from undiagnosed mental health issues throughout my childhood and it definitely had a knock on effect. Apart from the time she threw a pile of clothes at me in my teens she was never physically abusive to me, although I still felt shock when that happened. Emotionally though she just wasn’t there. She worked a lot and when she wasn’t at work she seemed pissed off about something most of the time. It got to a point where I figured it best to stay out of her way because she’d pop off on anyone who crossed her path it felt like. You’d never know what mood she would be in when she came home from work and I hated that, the whole walking on eggshells thing. I don’t remember anything specifically nasty that she said to me, it was more about her demeanour and attitude, her short temper and things like that. If she was upset, the room felt tense. It meant I felt quite isolated at times, and like I couldn’t tell her something if she was in a bad mood. There were times where she was a good mum to me, but we’ve never had an especially close bond. We don’t hug goodbye, there’s a lot of things I don’t feel comfortable sharing with her like my ongoing struggles with my mental health. As an adult she has popped off at me a couple of times and was unreasonable and made me feel awful. I feel when she goes off like this it is because of pain she is feeling inside, so I let her rant and let her cool off and usually it’s all fine. That said, she is actively in my life and consistently makes the effort to see us and the children. I believe she knows she wasn’t the best mum growing up but the fact that she’s out here still trying despite the fact that she has struggled so much over the years means a lot.
Onto my dad.... My parents split when I was about 3 so I saw my dad most weekends. Loved going there because the atmosphere was more relaxed, but he was a minimal effort dad - paid my mum maintenance and that was the extent of his parenting. One thing that always stuck out to me was how he never took me on holiday, but went away with his girlfriend and her kids a few times. I felt a bit excluded. As I got older visits became less frequent, and when I did visit it got more awkward. Like my dad didn’t know what to do with me or something. Fortunately his girlfriend was amazing so if she was there it was like an ice breaker, but if she was working or something it would just be quiet and awkward between us. During my teens I was more preoccupied with my social life, but still felt some kind of way about my dad not contacting me for periods of a time (for at least a year at one point). Things haven’t really got any better since then. I see my dad a handful of times a year, usually when it’s mine or my kids birthday or Christmas. To be honest I don’t mind because it’s still awkward and I just can’t seem to get a conversation going with him, at this point I’m just happy to hear he’s not dropped off the face of the earth. Weirdly we do hug when we say goodbye. Guess it’s something we’ve always done.
I’ve gone through so many emotions when processing my childhood and I still do. I do love my parents, but don’t feel especially ‘bonded’ to them, if that makes sense? My partner has a very different relationship with his parents, there’s a much warmer vibe and he is able to be more open with them, they hug and kiss on the cheek to say goodbye every time without fail which all these years later I still feel weird about, and it’s just highlighted how awkward my own relationship with my parents is.
With my own kids, I’m trying very hard not to emulate my mums behaviour.. it’s actually harder than I care to admit since I’m pretty sure we suffer very similarly with our mental health. I guess I have the benefit of awareness, so I can catch myself, ask my partner for help etc (he is incredibly understanding). I’m far from perfect I’ve definitely had my moments and felt like an awful person afterwards but I do feel I am giving my girls a better childhood than I had. One thing my mum never did was apologise to me when she was in the wrong whereas I will always apologise to my kids and make it right if I know I acted unreasonably, it doesn’t make that behaviour ok but it does let my kids know that it wasn’t their fault. I’m also about a million times more affectionate with them than my parents were with me, i hug them every single day multiple times so I hope there’s never any doubt in their mind that they are loved. One of my biggest fears is messing my kids up honestly I have sleepless nights over it sometimes.
Apologies for the essay!
definitely a me problem
