At sixteen, there was nothing that I wanted more than a loving mother.
After a day at school, I wanted to tell someone about the person I had a crush on, and how that person sat next to me in algebra two. When I was going through the awkward teenage growing phases and had low self-esteem, I wanted someone to reassure me that I was beautiful. Sure, I had a lot of serious issues to deal with on a daily basis, but I wanted comfort in mundane teenage woos. Although I was handling substantial family conflicts and attempting to cope with my strong emotional responses, I was still a teenager.
I desperately longed to have a mother figure in my life. However, I knew finding and building that relationship with my biological mother was not an option. I had a lot of built up resentment toward my biological mother, because of the abuse I was forced to undergo by her hands and words.
Additionally, I had built so many barriers to protect myself from harm that it was hard to let anyone new into my life. These barriers that I had made it impossible for me to find a person to fill the mother role that I wanted to fill in my life. However, my need for a mother figure became apparent to my father when I was placed back with him after I had been released from foster care the first time. Unaware of how to handle the situation, my father pressured me to pursue a relationship with my biological mother.
Daily, I was confronted with contacting her. I remember how resistant I was about developing a relationship with her. Speaking to her on the phone was a challenge for me. Every time I talked to her, I felt like I was swallowing negative feelings. Eventually, my biological mother asked if I could come to Indiana with her to visit family and my father told her that I would go. Of course, I was shocked and angered, but I didn’t have any other choice, so I went. At the time, I was not excited about going, but I had no idea about the adventure that I had in front of me. I was 15, with no license. My mother made me drive from New Jersey to Indiana.
We stopped for a short period, so that I could rest, and I began the final haul to my family’s home. I was so exhausted, and I guess I was too close to the car in front of me for my mother’s liking, and she began to throw all of my stuff out of the car window. Surprised and shocked, I did not know what to do. When she took my phone and threw it out the window, I got scared because I had no way to reach anyone, so I pulled over on the highway. After I pulled over, she made me get out of the car and left me on the side of the highway. I looked back at the road, at all of my things strewn across the median and the road, and I started to salvage whatever I could. Of course, a 15 year-old girl, crying on the side of a highway with a bunch of stuff in her hands is not an average sight, so a kind stranger soon stopped to ask if I was okay.
They let me use their phone to call my father to get my aunt’s number so she could pick me up. She did, but a few hours later my mother showed up and began screaming about how awful I was. For two days, I sat in my cousin’s room while my mother was going ballistic downstairs. My father bought me a plane ticket home, but my mother did not want my aunt to drive me to the airport or for her to give me luggage to put my things in, so I put all of my things in pillow cases and my mother drove me to the airport, screaming and reaching back to hit me intermittently. I felt so betrayed by my family for letting my mother act in this way, and I felt so alone dragging my things through the airport trying to ask where I was going and figuring out what airline I was flying. My father picked me up at the airport and told me that it was my fault; I should have been stronger.
Following this adventure of sorts, I decided that it was time to let go of the relationship with my biological mother. Letting go of her also meant that I let go of dreaming that I would someday have a mother to replace her. I was 15, there was no way I could go back and have someone supplement all of the lessons and support that mothers provide for their daughters. Our dynamic was so unhealthy and I did not want more hurt in any relationships. I needed something positive, and although I did not have a person that took on the role that she should have played in my life, I greatly benefited from letting go. The decision hurt and made me feel empty for a long period of time, but I soon began to heal.
From this healing process, I was able to remove some of the emotional barriers that I had in my life and let positive role models play larger parts in my life. In order to let in, I had to let go.