My mother is also abusive. I cut contact with her almost four years ago. Haven’t spoken with her or communicated in any way since.
I don’t miss her per se, any my life is much calmer without the alcoholism and generally sociopathic behavior she tends to exhibit. I am immeasurably glad that she has never met her grandchildren.
Nonetheless, I can’t say it gets easy, exactly. Especially since I’ve become a mother, I often feel as though I have a huge hole in my heart, one that time can scar over a bit but not fully heal. I want my mom–well, not my mom, but a mom who I could call when DD is being very two, or who could be happy with me when I have my babies, or who even cared if I lived or died. I don’t have that, I’ll never have that, and that’s something that I’ve accepted, but it still hurts.
What helps?
–Continuing to be no-contact. Mothers should love their children and wish the best for them, but mine doesn’t and isn’t capable of that. Asking her to be a normal mother is like going to the grocery store and throwing a grade-A tantrum at a clerk because they don’t carry designer shoes: it’s not realistic, and it’s asking someone to do something she can’t. Getting involved in the dysfunction and drama won’t make the hole in my heart heal; it will just make it bigger and more raw.
–Allowing myself to grieve that I essentially don’t have a mother, but also distracting myself after acknowledging those feelings by doing something productive–cooking, crafts, working out, etc.
–Focusing on being the mother I wish she was to my own kids. Bad memory of mom screaming at me or belittling me? Make sure I give my kids extra cuddles and praise. Memory of mom never spending any sort of quality time with me and always being too busy to do so? Build blocks or make brownies or read stories or have a dance party with DD. I can’t do anything about what sort of mom she is, but I can work hard at being a better mom myself.
Oh, and a heads-up about holidays: those are…mixed, still. My birthday’s pretty good, usually, but Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter are all hard for me. I don’t like them. Too many sad memories, too much loneliness–DH’s family is wonderful, but it’s not the same as having your own.
Not unlike dealing with memories, I find that the two things that work best for holidays for me are to a) be gentle with myself, and do lots of self-care around them (good food, working out, finding fun things to do and doing them), and b) to focus on making other people’s Christmasses happy rather than expecting mine to be, and finding some joy in that. Look for the “forgotten” people and plan little surprises for them–cookies, or a Christmas care package, cards, that sort of thing. Keeping busy is much better, I discovered, than spending too much time thinking. DH and I are also working on starting a few traditions of our own; over time, I hope to love Christmas again, but won’t give myself a hard time if that doesn’t happen.
